Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (196 page)

She surveyed her clothes, running her eyes
across the comfortable sweaters and soft denim.
 
What did one wear when they were
pretending to be the girlfriend of a famous baseball player?
 
Something told her that her GAP and Old
Navy heavy wardrobe wasn’t going to cut it.

“And he’s paying you?”
 
Melissa asked.

“Yes.”

Melissa cocked her head and pulled one of her
long dark curls down and wound it around her finger.
 
“No offense, but why does he have to pay
for it?”

Kenley pulled out her suitcase and set it on
the bed.
  
She’d been in such a
rush to leave Connecticut for Florida that she hadn’t taken the time to really
pack much of her stuff.
 
The weather
in Connecticut was cold, and in Florida it wasn’t, so she’d just bought a bunch
of cheap bathing suits and stuff when she’d gotten down there.
 
Looking back, she had probably been in a
little bit of denial, spending a bunch of money on new summer clothes she
didn’t need when she’d just lost her job.
 
Oh, well.
 
Money wasn’t going
to be a problem soon, har har har.

“I told you, there are pictures of me and him
together,” Kenley said.
 
“So he had
to pretend that I was his girlfriend.”

“Why were there pictures of you guys
together?”
 
Melissa leaned back
against the pillows on Kenley’s bed and took a sip of the Starbucks pumpkin
spice latte in her hand.
 
“I’m
sorry, it’s early, and I’m having trouble processing this.”

“Because I was coming out of his hotel room,
and some little jerk asshole who worked there took a picture of us.”
 
She held up a black dress she’d gotten
for fifteen dollars at TJ Maxx, but was DKNY.
 
“Do you think I can wear this in New
York?”

Melissa raised her eyebrows incredulously, but
Kenley put the dress in her suitcase anyway.
 
She had no choice -- it was one of the
only things she had that was even close to being appropriate.

“So how much is he paying you?”

“I can’t really say.”
 
Kenley moved over to the dresser and
rummaged around in her underwear drawer, picking up a handful and stuffing it
into her suitcase.
 
Her underwear,
at least, didn’t matter, since no one would be seeing it.
 
And if Chad thought he was going to, he
had another thing coming.
 
This
wasn’t going to be like some kind of Indecent Proposal situation.
 
Yes, she was pretending to be his
girlfriend, but that definitely did not include sex.

“You can’t really say?” Melissa screeched.
 
She set her coffee down on Kenley’s
nightstand and crossed the room toward her.
 
“You call me up, demanding I come to
your apartment immediately, which I do, stopping to bring you coffee on the way
over I might add, and you won’t even tell me the details?”

“I shouldn’t have even told you as much as I
did,” Kenley said, moving past her and into the bathroom.
 
Most of her toiletries had already been
packed for her trip to Florida, but she wanted to make sure she hadn’t
forgotten anything.
 
She was going
to need all the help she could get if she was going to pull this off.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Melissa asked,
following Kenley into the bathroom.
 
“You think I have a big mouth?”

“I didn’t say that.”
 
The truth was, of course, that Melissa
did
kind of have a big mouth, and that
Chad had sworn Kenley to secrecy, had forbidden her from telling anyone.
 
But what was she supposed to do?
 
She had to tell
someone.
 
And although
it was true that Melissa was a gossip, when it came to the really important
things, Kenley knew her sister could keep her mouth shut.
 
At least, she was hoping she could.

“So then how much?”

“A lot.”

“Fifty grand?”
 
Kenley didn’t say anything, and
Melissa’s eyes widened.
 
“More?”

“Are you going to be able to drive me to the
airport in a little while?” Kenley asked.
 
“My flight leaves in an hour.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
 
Melissa never worried about things like
work schedules or whether or not her boss would just let her take off in the
middle of the day.
 
She just did,
and somehow, it worked.

“More than fifty thousand dollars,” Melissa
muttered as she headed back toward Kenley’s room.
 
“God, some people have all the luck.”

***

The flight to New York was short and smooth,
with no turbulence and a relatively enjoyable in-flight movie, but Kenley’s
stomach was flipping so much that she couldn’t relax.
 
She tried to read a book, but the words
kept dancing on the page.
 
She tried
to eat a bag of pretzels, but she didn’t have any appetite.
 
Finally, she just sat there, sipping her
water and taking deep breaths, checking her watch every minute to see if they
were there yet.

When they finally touched down, she was one of
the first off the plane.
 
She looked
around the airport, realizing she had no idea where she was supposed to meet
Chad.
 
Was it even Chad she was
supposed to meet?
 
Maybe he’d sent
some kind of driver or assistant to pick her up.
 
He probably figured that since she wasn’t
a real girlfriend, she didn’t warrant a trip to the airport.

She glanced around the baggage claim area, but
she didn’t see him, so she collected her bags.
 
She had just decided to text him when
she spotted him. He was walking through the terminal toward her.
 
Her breath caught in her chest.
 
She’d forgotten how sexy he was.

He had on a pair of expensive-looking jeans
that were just baggy enough to be cool but not baggy enough to be
ridiculous.
 
A soft-looking black
leather jacket was thrown over his white t-shirt.
 
He had his phone out, and he was texting
someone.
 
Her phone vibrated in her
purse, and she rummaged around, looking for it.
 
One next text.
 
From Chad.
 
Stop
staring at me.

She groaned, shoved her phone into her bag, and
looked up, meeting his eye. He grinned, but she glared at him.
 
God, he was so arrogant.
 
It was enough to ruin his looks.
 
Well.
 
Almost.

***

They took one of the team cars back to his
apartment, which, Kenley had to admit, was a really nice perk.
 
No waiting in line for cabs, no worrying
that the cabbie was going to rip you off, no gripping the door handles
wondering if you were going to get in an accident and die as you sped through
the streets of New York.

“So,” Kenley said.
 
“Are we going to the hotel first, or…?”

“What hotel?”

“The hotel I’m staying at.”
 
Her heart sank.
 
He didn’t expect her to pay for her own
hotel, did he?
 
Not that that would
have been unreasonable.
 
He was
paying her a hundred thousand dollars after all, so it would make sense that he
might want her to cover some of her own expenses.
 
But she wouldn’t be able to do that, at
least not upfront.
 
Hotels in New
York were expensive, and she hardly had any money.

Chad laughed.
 
“You’re not staying in a hotel.”

“I’m not?”
 
Could he… he didn’t mean he’d gotten her an apartment, had he?
 
She tried to remember if Julia Roberts
in Pretty Woman had gotten an apartment, but no, she’d had a suite at that
fancy hotel, The Beverly Wilshire.
 
But Richard Gere’s character in that movie had been a businessman.
 
Chad was a famous baseball player, so he
was probably more concerned with things like fame and status -- it would
probably look ridiculous if he made his girlfriend stay at a hotel, even a
fancy one.

“No,” Chad said. “You’re staying with me.”

She spit out the water she was drinking, and it
sprayed all over the back of the driver’s seat.

“The Brooklyn Heat will charge you for any
damage to the car,” Chad said seriously,
 
“since you’re not a member of the team.”

“Not funny,” she said.

“What isn’t?
 
You having to pay for the car, or the
fact that you’re staying in my apartment with me?”

“Both.”

“Good,” he said,
 
“Because I wasn’t joking.”

“I can’t stay in your apartment!”
  
The last thing she wanted to do
was be close to him.
 
Twenty-four
seven.
 
The two of them.
 
In one apartment.
 
It felt… wrong.
 
And yet, a rush of heat flew through her
body, and she wondered if rolling down the window would seem too obvious.
 
“Can we roll down the window?” she asked
Chad nonchalantly.

He leaned over her and pushed the button, and
the cool air flew into the back of the car.
 
It cooled her face, but did nothing to
calm her beating heart, which was beating even faster now that the weight of
Chad’s body was against hers.
 
“Thanks,” she managed, “for inviting me to stay with you.
 
But --”

“I didn’t invite you to stay with me,” he
said.
 
“It’s business.”
 
He was back on his side of the car now.

“Right.”
 
Her face flushed.
 
“Anyway,
um, I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t stay at your apartment.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s… I don’t….”

He grinned at her again.
 
“You don’t trust yourself?”
 
He reached over and ran his fingertip
along the inside of her wrist.
 
The
heat that had been coursing through her body exploded into a fireball.

“Don’t trust myself to do what?” she managed.

He leaned in and whispered in her ear
 
“To stay away from me.”
 
His finger was still rubbing the inside
of her wrist, making little circles on her skin.
 
The gesture was so small, yet painfully
erotic.

“Why would I want to stay away from you?” she
asked, looking him right in the eye.

“Because you know if you don’t, something’s
going to happen.”

She rolled her eyes, but it felt fake, even to
her.
 
“Nothing,” she said,
 
“is going to happen.”

“Yeah?”
 
He cocked his eyebrow at her, challenging.
 
Then he reached up and took her chin
gently in his hand, pulling her face toward his.
 
She could see the curve of his lip, and
smell his cologne and laundry soap and something else that she couldn’t put her
finger on, something that made her want him more than she’d ever wanted anything.
 
His lips were perfect, and they were
moving closer toward her, so close that she thought he was going to kiss
her.
 
She wanted to look away, but
she felt powerless.
 
And then at the
last second, Chad shrugged.
 
“We’ll
see.”
 

He turned around and looked out the
window.
 
Kenley spent the rest of
the ride to Brooklyn trying to calm her beating heart.

***

Chad could hardly take the ache between his
legs.
 
As soon as he’d seen Kenley
there, in the airport, looking around for him, all he’d wanted to do was run
up, gather her in his arms, and take her back to his bed.
 
And then, just now, in the limo, the way
her skin had felt, the way her eyes had looked -- he’d wanted to kiss her so
bad.
 
But he wouldn’t let himself
lose control.
 
Getting close to her like
that had been dangerous – if she’d kissed him, he didn’t know what would
have happened.
 
Luckily, he’d been
able to play it off like he was the one who’d backed down, like he’d been
teasing her the whole time.
 
But it
had taken every ounce of his self-control.