From Enemies to Expecting

If anyone had asked him how he’d like the concept of Trinity Forrester as a permanent lover, he’d have said there was no way it would work. But the last few days proved that was a lie.

What was he supposed to do about that? Unless she got pregnant, there was no call to have any sort of discussion about labels.

Maybe he didn’t have to do anything. Maybe he could just let it ride, see how things played out. No one had breathed a word about stopping what they were doing.

Before he could think of a reason not to, he reached out and brushed her jaw with a thumb. Intimately. She didn’t miss it and raised her brows at him.

“I wanted to touch you,” he murmured. “Sue me.”

She laughed. “You don’t have to apologize for touching me. I like it. So no lawyers needed.”

“Then you should know I plan to keep doing it once we’re home,” he advised her.

“Oh? I’ll be curious how that’s going to work when we both have jobs.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to adjust. Give some things up, maybe.” When she made a noise in her throat, he did a double take. “What, you can’t make our relationship a priority? We’re still trying to generate publicity. Right?”

“Lest you forget, I’m an executive running a multimillion-dollar cosmetics company.” She spiked her tone with enough irony to get her point across. “I told you I was working on a new product campaign. I have a strict deadline. Some of us don’t get to take trips to the Bay Area and stay in fancy hotels for our work. And when we accompany those of you who do, we have to burn the midnight oil to make up for it.”

“I want to spend time with you.”

That had not been what he’d meant to say. But now that it was out there...he couldn’t help but be curious what she’d do with it.

She scowled as the plane flew through a thick bunch of clouds, temporarily throwing the cabin into shadow. “My career is more important than breezing by your bed to pick up a couple of orgasms.”

That wasn’t all they had between them, and she knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. Her refusal to admit things had shifted between them rankled more than he’d like, but he couldn’t force her to be honest. He could only be smart enough to outwit her.

And she hadn’t pulled her hand from his, a telling point that he had no problem exploiting.

“Your career is definitely more important than orgasms,” he agreed smoothly. “But they shouldn’t be exclusive of one another. After all, you found a way to seamlessly integrate one with my job. Let me do the same for you.”

“I do like the way you think.” There was still a note of caution in her voice. “What do you have in mind?”

“You know the guys need you, right? You’re their Blarney stone.” He pulled her hand to his mouth for what should have been a quick kiss to her fingertips, but he liked the taste of them so much, he kept them there and talked around them. “Come to the home games with me. I’ll pick you up. It’s on the way.”

“That’s not putting my career first, Logan. What happens to your luck if I say no?” Her fingertips curled against his lips in a deliberate caress that immediately made him sorry they were on a plane with a hundred other people.

“You can’t. They need you.” He was pretty sure she heard the unspoken I need you in that as well, but he didn’t care. “I’ll make it worth your while. Look what I’ve already done for your career. Seven percent increase in sales isn’t anything to sneeze at. I’ll figure out a way to blend work and orgasms to your satisfaction. Trust me.”

“Okay.” She snuggled down in the seat. “It’s good for us to keep being seen together anyway.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed and didn’t bother to hide his smile. He’d definitely won that round, and if she wanted to pretend like they were still seeing each other for publicity reasons, he could live with that.

Ticket sales were at an all-time high after a three-game winning streak and the extra boost from the publicity surrounding the road trip he’d taken with Trinity. When he got back to his office at the ballpark, he dived headfirst into his job, which he’d sorely neglected lately. Trinity wasn’t the only one with deadlines. Some crucial trade agreements had finally landed on his desk—also thanks to the positive publicity his team had recently seen—and he worked through those without pausing to think about her laugh more than about a dozen times. A personal best.

Trinity came to the games and the Mustangs didn’t lose. Their winning streak stretched to five games. Then eight. They were on fire, a flame eclipsed only by the one between Logan and Trinity as they burned up the sheets after games. Sometimes she brought her laptop and worked while the team tore the competition to shreds. Sometimes she put it away and cheered alongside him, occasionally coming up with relevant comments about the action on the field, which showed that she was learning baseball whether she’d meant to or not.