‘Save it for the cameras.’ I click my nail against my watch. ‘Two minutes till kick-off. Quick peck on the cheek, then you’re off.’
‘Of course, darlin’.’ He shoots me that crooked smile.
‘Let’s not make this harder than your thighs,’ I say.
Finn smirks with the cheeky arrogance of a man who’s going to reply with something I’ll regret hearing. ‘My thighs are not the har?—’
‘I swear, if you finish that sentence, I?—’
The cameras swing our way. Perfect timing. I rise on tiptoes, aiming for his cheek as planned. Sweet, supportive girlfriend appropriate.
But Finn turns an inch at the last second. His lips brush the corner of my mouth. Not quite a kiss, but more than we agreed. Heat rushes through me, pooling right where I shouldn’t feel anything. My cheeks blaze so fast I half-expect steam to rise.
This isn’t part of the job. This isn’t part of the job. This isn’t part of the damn job.
He pulls back, eyes locked on mine. ‘For luck.’
My pulse jack-knifes and he fucking knows it. I speak through a shield of fingers, just in case anyone’s trying to read my lips. ‘We agreed it’d be the cheek.’
Finn reins in a wolfish smile and lifts his hand, too. ‘I changed tactics.’
‘Without consulting me.’
‘Would you have said yes?’ His question hangs between us.
‘Irrelevant.’ My voice splinters. ‘This isn’t real, Finn.’
‘Oh, I know.’ He wipes water off my cheek with his knuckle. ‘Now watch me get us a real win.’
Then he’s jogging backward, still facing me, that insufferable smirk stamped onto his face. The stadium lights catch raindrops on his cheeks. I’ve never seen anything more magnetic in my life.
And I hate that I smile back.
I file the moment under hazards of contact sports.
Next item on the list: feigning excitement for my boyfriend rolling around in the mud.
My feet find the steps to the VIP box on autopilot. The air inside is sterile, smelling of new flooring and old money. Knox Montgomery, the Canadian founder and owner of the Stirling Rebels, had the five thousand seater stadium finished just about a year ago. It’s the first home fixture of the new year, after last week’s away opener. I wish Charlie were here. She’s missing the match because she’s at a charity gala in the Highlands, schmoozing potential clients we’ve been chasing for months. Black tie, big cash. One more step to Elite Edge’s survival.
The whistle shrills, a sharp, clean sound that slices through my thoughts. The game explodes into motion.
I find my designated seat, a plastic throne of corporate hospitality, and sink into it. My coat drips onto the floor and my notebook’s already warping, ink bleeding through bullet points. Operational focus underlined twice. Client boundaries circled so hard the paper nearly tears. I have to concentrate.
Instead, I’m remembering his breath against mine at the party a week ago. The weight of his hand on my waist. How he looked at me when I ran, as if I’d pocketed something vital.
I pull up the restaurant photos from our dinner date that night on my phone for the gazillionth time. Even I can’t tell myself that I’m that obsessed with them only for professional reasons.
It’s just… The photographer captured a story we never told.
There’s one image of Finn watching me, my head thrown back in a laugh I don’t remember letting loose. His expression isn’t for the cameras; it’s quiet and focussed, trying to memorise my joy. My thumb hovers over the image of his gaze. Gil never saw me like that. After the initial charm offensive – or love-bombing – wore off, his eyes would skim over me, assessing and calculating. His touch was a transaction, his praise a down payment on my next brilliant idea he could claim as his. He took my light and used it to illuminate himself, leaving me in the shadows he’d created. Gil made me shrink, sucking the life out of me with one narcissistic move after the next.
Finn makes me feel visible. And after Gil, that’s its own kind of fear.
I press the heel of my palm to my brow, pulling myself out of it. This is good, I tell myself. The story is selling – the pink-haired rogue and the PR girl who tamed him. It’s a narrative people can digest and savour.
The near-kiss was a blip. The moment on the pitch was a calculated risk. Even though that cheeky kiss still burns.
Anyhoo, the cameras caught it, and by tomorrow morning, those images will be everywhere. I’ve handled worse assignments. I’ve certainly handled worse men. I’m perfectly capable of containing this.
