“No.” He sounded far away, even to himself. “I can’t.”
“You will.”
He let out a sound that was far too stark to be a laugh.
“I watched Friday Night Lights, too,” he said. “Everybody loves Coach Taylor, Zoe. But that doesn’t mean I want to become him.”
“No one’s in any danger of confusing you with Coach Taylor,” she retorted, and though that darkness was still in her gaze, her voice sounded the way it always did. Smooth. Cool. A challenge he felt like her hands against his skin, his dick. “Coach Taylor is a beloved figure no one wants to believe is fictional. Not to mention, a good man.”
“My point exactly,” he gritted out. “The last thing these kids need is me.”
He thought she pulled in a breath then, sharp and quick, and it hinted that maybe she wasn’t as cool as she appeared.
It was pathetic how much he wanted that to be true.
“This is called damage control,” she told him. “The real-life equivalent of a bad guy in a movie cuddling a fluffy little puppy. We need to humanize you. You’re too rich and too hated.”
“The paparazzi will find me.” He didn’t know why he was so angry, why he felt so raw. So attacked. So unequal to this, in every way. “They always do. I can already see the headlines. My cynical attempt to turn the tide of public favor. My calculated maneuver to win back my fans. And so on. There’s no way I’ll look like anything but a posturing asshole.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“I don’t want this,” he snapped at her. “I’m bored enough to let my dick lead me halfway up the Eastern Seaboard, but I’m not going to pretend to be some kind of positive influence on a pack of kids. The hypocrisy might actually kill me. You’re going to have to find someone else to play your little games, Zoe.”
“No.” Was that alarm he saw on her face? Did he merely want it to be? “I need you.”
“Too bad.”
“This is the first step,” she said quickly, and he had the sense that she wanted to reach out and put a hand on his arm—but didn’t. Because they both knew what happened when they touched.
And he was enough of an animal that he let that soothe him, that hint that she was as thrown by the fire between them as he was.
She was quiet for a long time, though he could feel her there beside him, that edginess of hers seeming to vibrate, to make the air shake around them. To sneak its way into him, too, as if she was burrowing beneath his skin, when that was the last thing he wanted.
Hunter had to fight to keep himself from reaching over and looping an arm around her slender body, pulling her close to him, as if she needed or wanted his warmth. He didn’t even know where that urge came from. He’d been tender with exactly one person in his entire life, and he was still dealing with the wreckage. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Do this,” she said finally, her voice low, when he’d started to think she wouldn’t speak at all. “Do it and watch what I can do when I leak it, how quickly opinion about you changes. I’m that good.”
“And this is your big plan? You’re wasting your time. Because I don’t care what they say about me, Zoe. I’m immune.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, so soft it was almost a whisper.
And he couldn’t respond to that. Not here. Not with Sarah’s ghost hanging over him, and Zoe’s secrets like inky shadows at their feet. Not with these kids who deserved better sneaking glances at him through the glass, already recognizing him.
He still wanted to be inside her more than was wise. More than was healthy. More than he was likely to be able to ignore. So he told himself that was why he was doing this. Because it was the only explanation that made any sense.
“How does this work?” he asked, and his voice was far hoarser that it should have been.
“Come here every day,” she told him sharply, as if she knew what he was thinking. He believed she might. “Do what you can. Meet with my team every Tuesday for a status update.” Her gray eyes met his, and he wished he was a different man. A better one. Some kind of good one, even. “Definitely do not mention hate fucking again. Just do as you’re told, Mr. Grant, and we’ll be fine.”
Chapter Five
She was playing with fire.
But in the weeks that followed, Zoe convinced herself she knew what she was doing. That it was a controlled blaze. That she had it under control. That those strange things that had wound so tightly between them, dark and bright at once even in a high school hallway, were a figment of her imagination and anyway, weren’t anything to worry about.