“Why don’t we…oh, Jesus.” Lilla claps her hands over her mouth and stares behind me.
“What?”
Before I can turn around to see what she’s looking at, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I swivel on my stool and swallow at Dylan standing in front of me holding out his hand.
“I have a favor to ask. Come with me for a minute?”
I try to ignore the butterflies in my stomach as I follow him, but I don’t take his hand. I have no idea where we’re going, but we leave the noisy, crowded bar and head through the lobby. Dylan holds the outside door open for me and then stops by the top of the stairs leading down to the parking lot.
A full moon and hundreds of stars light the sky. I admire the mountain backdrop as I relax into the welcome silence of the outdoors.
“So,” he says. “You say I’m not your type, correct?”
I force myself to look up and make eye contact with him. His gaze locks on mine.
“Right,” I say.
“What will it take for you to agree to go out with me?”
I stare at him. Is this guy for real? “I don’t think I know how to answer that question. Do you always get what you want?”
He sucks in his breath but doesn’t take his eyes off me. “What about if we make some sort of a deal?”
“Like what?”
He clears his throat. “You need something, and I need something.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“I have this charity,” he begins, completely throwing me off. I don’t know what I thought he was going to say, but that was definitely not it. “It’s called Wild 4 Kids, and one of the main focuses is using art to help kids. It means a lot to me because I’ve never been any good at art, but I’ve always loved it. I know how therapeutic it can be. My charity supports foster kids—”
My knees nearly buckle under me, and I widen my eyes at him.
He frowns in concern. “Did I say something to upset you?”
I shake my head too quickly for him to believe me. “No. Go on.”
He puts a hand on my arm to make sure I’m steady and then continues, “Kids who have no home to go to, who’ve been abandoned. I want to bring art to them.”
I feel like I’m going to swoon. He’s not just hot and successful. He also has a good heart. He cares. About the same things I care about. Kids, art—oh my God, I’m definitely swooning.
“I think that’s an admirable cause,” I say, trying to sound professional. “I applaud your efforts.”
“Thanks.” He shifts on his feet, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was nervous about something. “Okay, so here’s the thing: we’re in line to receive a huge donation from a sponsor, the biggest donation we’ve ever had. All I have to do is make a commercial for his company. But I recently was told that there’s a hitch.”
He watches me to make sure I’m still with him. I nod again politely.
“The hitch is that the guy at the helm of the company is a conservative guy; old-fashioned, I guess you could call him, and he’s concerned that I’m single.”
I shake my head. “What? Why would he care?”
“He thinks it will reflect badly on his company’s mission if a partying, womanizing athlete represents him. He wants stability, goodness, that kind of thing. But he loves our charity, and he wants to back it.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there.”
“But…only if I can convince him I’m a safe bet. So my agent thinks if I date someone while I’m in Arizona with all the photographs coming out of our team event in Tucson, it will get back to the guy, and he’ll sign on. Once we sign, the CEO can’t back out if my relationship doesn’t last.”
I raise an eyebrow at him and don’t say anything. Dylan shifts backward like I’ve knocked him off-balance somehow.
