As they approached the ninth hole, Ken gave herself a little pep talk that she could pull this off. She’d gone rogue on this deal. Her boss had no idea she was here. She was, in fact, a lowly assistant. When she’d heard of Bentley’s recent inheritance, she’d seized the opportunity to pull in a big client. Everyone at work was buzzing about the possibility of bringing Bentley’s business to the firm. Her boss had made no headway with snagging Bentley’s attention despite numerous calls, invitations to lunch, dinner, and drinks, and even sending a huge fruit basket. Ken had suggested an invitation to golf, which her boss ignored because his bum knee made it difficult to play. She’d tried to invite herself along for golf, suggesting her boss ride in a golf cart, but she’d ended up irritating him with her persistence and was shooed out of his office.
But she couldn’t let a client like Bentley slip away. Newly made billionaires didn’t come along every day. So she sent Bentley an invitation to play golf on her own. If she pulled in this business, not only would she get promoted to a job that actually met her qualifications as a college graduate with a degree in economics, she’d get the pay raise she needed for her father’s medical bills. Spinal surgery, rehab, and ongoing physical therapy weren’t cheap, even with insurance. Not to mention the serious debt her family had fallen into, her sister’s looming college tuition bill (she was in her first semester), and her three younger siblings still living at home in their crowded two-bedroom apartment. Her mom’s part-time bookkeeping work barely covered the rent. Then there were still utility bills and groceries to pay for. Her brothers, both teenagers, could eat, especially seventeen-year-old Alex. She felt the familiar tightening in her chest when she thought of Alex and forced a deep breath in and out.
She caught Luke’s irritated glare.
She never should’ve said they were engaged. Desperation made her blurt that out. And now she couldn’t take it back or she’d look like a lying fool. She was shocked that Luke hadn’t called her on it in front of Bentley, which would’ve immediately sent her home in defeat. Maybe he didn’t mind playing along because she’d assured him it was just for a week. Or maybe it was because of the way he looked at her like he wanted to devour her. She could never feel comfortable with him. Luke’s slickly handsome look with the designer label clothes, expensive haircut with blond highlights, and neatly trimmed beard didn’t fool her for one minute. It was a thin veneer over a natural aggression and raw sexuality that simmered just below the surface. She liked bookish men that didn’t try to take over. Before his accident, her dad had ruled their little household—a benign dictator. She loved the man dearly for all he’d done for her, but the truth was, he’d taken care of them so well that when he couldn’t anymore, due to his injury, everything fell apart. Never depend on a man was her mantra. Especially never get involved with a domineering man.
In any case, she was kicking Luke’s ass in golf and that was the important thing. She had to make sure Bentley still felt good about his game, though, so she held back a bit. Golf was her sport and a good thing too because it paid off big time in the boys’ club of high finance. Her dad, a gym teacher before the accident, had taught her and her four younger siblings every sport invented from the time they could walk, searching for the one sport they could excel at. Golf was hers.
She took her turn and watched as the ball soared and landed exactly where she wanted it on the green, merely inches from the hole.
“Amazing!” Bentley exclaimed. “Have you thought about going pro?”
Luke cast her a sideways glance beneath hooded eyes. His lashes were long and thick, framing dark blue eyes. Seemed like a waste for a man to have those kind of lashes. Hers were skimpy. Without mascara, you could barely see them.
She smiled at Bentley. “I’m much more interested in helping my clients make investments with a solid return.” Golf had never been her passion, definitely not enough to make her want to live and breathe it the way the pros did. It was just something she enjoyed for fun and was exceptionally good at. She’d set a record on the collegiate women’s golf circuit in her freshman year. And then broke that record her senior year.
Bentley nodded with enthusiasm. “We’ll definitely be playing more golf together. Hey, maybe you could give Luke a few pointers.”
She turned to a scowling Luke. “Maybe this weekend?” she asked politely. Engaged people presumably saw each other on the weekend. How much longer would they have to keep up the charade? Hopefully Bentley would choose her as soon as the game ended, Luke would vanish from the picture, and she’d be free from the sticky lie.
Luke squared his shoulders and sent her a look that clearly said it will be a cold day in hell before you give me golf pointers.
“Ooh, honey!” Candy exclaimed, bouncing in place. Her breasts didn’t move. “Let’s invite them to the cottage for the holiday weekend.”
Ken swallowed hard. This weekend was Labor Day—a three-day weekend.
Bentley and Candy turned to her. “Would you like that?” Bentley asked. “We were all set for a romantic weekend—”
“We definitely wouldn’t want to interrupt that,” Luke asserted.
Bentley grinned. “No interruption at all. We hired some staff to make it a spa weekend. We can all enjoy it. Do a little sailing. And I’m having a dinner party on Saturday night. Maybe some new clients for both of you. What do you say?”
“We’d love to!” Ken exclaimed. The more new clients, the better.
Candy clapped. “Wonderful! I’ll text you the address. Arrive on Saturday at seven a.m. sharp. Bennie likes to start the party early. You’ll love it! It’s in Greenport, right where the river meets the Sound! Gorgeous!” Greenport was a wealthy enclave along the Long Island Sound. His “cottage” was most likely a mansion with some cutesy cottage touches.
“Thank you,” Luke said with a forced smile. “We look forward to it.”
Candy started talking excitedly to Bentley. Ken immediately crossed to where Luke was standing, silently smoldering. His scent was intoxicating—crisp, fresh, with a hint of musk—probably some uber-expensive cologne. She grabbed Luke’s hand and squeezed. He returned the squeeze firmly, which for some reason relaxed her.
“Spa weekend?” he asked quietly.
“It’s what they do,” she whispered. “They” being the rich.
Luke wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She worked to control the blush she felt creeping up her neck. “There’s two ways this weekend could go,” he said in a low voice.
She lost the battle of the blush as her cheeks and neck burned. “I know.”
He met her eyes. “You know?”
She nodded. A disaster if they were found out. Or a disaster if they weren’t. And then they’d be stuck together for as long as it took Bentley to make a decision. Or they could pretend to break up, and then there’d be this awkward pretending to be friendly after being engaged while courting the client act that made her head hurt just thinking about it. She really needed Bentley to make a quick decision.
Luke dropped his arm from her shoulders and took his shot. It fell short of the green by several feet.
Bentley turned to Ken. “I hope you like massage. I hired an excellent masseuse. Two, actually, for couples massage.” He stroked Candy’s arm. “Though Candy is the best masseuse—”
“That’s how we met,” Candy put in.
“But I wanted her to have a break.” He kissed the tip of Candy’s nose. “It’s your turn to be massaged, lovey.”
“Sounds wonderful!” Ken chirped. The two of them were nauseatingly lovey-dovey. Ken had had her share of boyfriends, no one serious, but just shoot her now if she ever came off that disgustingly sweet. Seriously. Love didn’t have to be all kisses and sweet words. Her parents had never been that way.
Luke eyed her speculatively. She ignored him.
By the time they finished the game, she and Bentley were both under par. She slightly more. And Luke was five strokes over par.
Luke stopped abruptly in front of Bentley as the caddies put the clubs away. “Does this mean you’re going with Ken’s firm?”
Ken held her breath.
“Let’s not talk business,” Bentley said. “Let’s just have some fun together. Time enough for all that later.”
Candy bit Bentley’s earlobe. He smiled serenely.
Ken and Luke exchanged a look. She was beginning to suspect Bentley never wanted to talk business. She needed a signed letter of intent for her firm sooner rather than later. Before her family was forced to declare bankruptcy. Collectors were already calling and sending dire notices. Her sister Frank was going to have to leave her first semester of college if that tuition bill wasn’t paid in thirty days.
“When would be a good time?” Ken asked with a bright smile.
Bentley turned to Candy. “When do I like to talk business, Can?”
She giggled. “Never.”
“The Flaming Penguins are bleeding you dry,” Luke said. That was Bentley’s minor league hockey team. She had no idea why he’d bought it. They’d never had a winning season.
Ken jumped in with her own financial advice. “Dress the Kids has some red flags with their leadership.” Dress the Kids was a charity that donated used designer clothes to kids that could never afford them. Unfortunately, many of those clothes ended up on eBay by the people who worked at the nonprofit. They probably kept some of the clothes for themselves too. “A better alternative would be to start a foundation—”
“Who wants ice cream?” Bentley asked.
“I love ice cream,” Ken said with a smile. Sure, it’s barely eleven a.m., but the client is always right.
Luke’s arm dropped over her shoulders. “Me too.” A flash of heat went through her. For some strange reason, the more Luke touched her, the more difficult it became to act casual about it. She felt extremely overheated and uncomfortable.
“There’s a place about ten minutes from here,” Bentley said. “Follow me.”
He and Candy led the way back through the country club.
“I’ll drive,” Luke said to her as he held the door of the club open for her.
“I’ll drive, honey,” Ken said, smiling sweetly up at him. He gave her a dark look in return.
Bentley and Candy slipped into (what else?) a white Bentley convertible.
She and Luke stopped in the parking lot between their two cars in opposite rows and had a stare down. She refused to let his size and arrogant stance intimidate her. So what if she was a petite five feet two to his six-foot muscular frame? She was strong on the inside, where it really counted. She needed to be in control. In the driver’s seat, literally and figuratively.
“It’ll look bad if we drive separately,” she told him before getting into her car.
He heaved a sigh and slid into the passenger side. She bit back a smile and turned on the car, blasting the air-conditioning in the hopes of blocking out his delicious cologne that made her want to lean in and breathe deep.
“No need to gloat,” he said.
“I didn’t say anything!” She stared straight ahead, waiting for Bentley to pull out, and tried not to smile some more. Though it was very, very difficult. She felt a gloat coming on.
He pressed a warm thumb into her cheek. “Your dimple is showing.”
She frowned because his touch felt too good, firm and warm. He wouldn’t be like her fumbling, unsure boyfriends of the past. This was a man with confidence who’d take charge.
“I know a good place you can stick your thumb,” she said.
He dropped his hand. “How did you even get here?” he barked. “What boss in their right mind would send a rookie to bag Bentley?”
She met his eyes and said in as steady a voice as she could muster on the thin ice she knew she was skating, “Everyone else at the firm struck out. He wouldn’t meet with them.” That much was true. She left out the part about her initiative in extending the golf invitation.
“It still doesn’t make sense how you got here.” A beat passed, and she could practically hear his brain cranking, piecing it all together. She turned away. “Wait. It’s the golf, isn’t it?” He laughed. “Bentley just wanted a good golf partner.”
“No.” Bentley had asked what her handicap was, though. Maybe he’d heard about her college records too. A quick Google search would’ve pulled up that much.
“Yeah. Damn, Kennedy, you’re not going to win this thing. What experience do you have?”
She stared straight ahead. “Don’t call me Kennedy.”
“That’s your name.”
“Everyone calls me Ken.” What was taking Bentley so long? He appeared to be chatting with Candy while he played with her hair. Let’s move it, people!
“I’m not calling you a man’s name when you’re clearly the fairer sex.”
She heated just hearing the word sex roll out of that deep voice. “I’m not—shut up! I’ve been working my ass off the last couple of years learning everything I can from Simon.”
“Simon Barrett? You’re a direct report to Simon Barrett?”
“Yes and yes.”
“Bullshit. What are you, his secretary?”
She flushed because that was a little too close to the truth.
“Holy crap. The balls on you.”
“I’m not his secretary!”
He whistled under his breath. “Don’t tell me you’re the intern.”
She met his eyes. “I’m not.”
He pulled his cell out. “I’m calling him. He probably doesn’t even know you’re here representing the Barrett Group.”
“No!”
“Tell me exactly how you got here.”
She hesitated.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
Bentley finally backed out of his parking spot. “I invited Bentley to play golf and told him what I could do for him.”
He punched in a number on his cell. “I’m dialing.”
She broke out in a sweat and turned to him. “I’m Simon’s assistant, okay? Golf was the only ‘in’ I had and I need the promotion.”
Luke shook his head. “I’d laugh, but I’m afraid Bentley is just crazy enough to go with an unproven commodity because he likes the cut of your jib.”
“I need the promotion for a very important reason,” she said.
“Which is?” he drawled.
“My family needs the money.”
His eyes widened. “You have kids?”
“No—”
“Look—” he fixed her with a hard glare “—I’m only going along with this long enough to convince Bentley that I’m the better choice.”
“Whatever.”
Luke snorted. “I give you credit for initiative, but you are in way over your head. This client is mine.”
She kept an eye on Bentley slowly making his way toward the lot’s exit near where she was parked, and turned on the radio to her favorite station, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the rap. The edgy, aggressive lyrics and beat always amped her up. She needed to be aggressive at work. Rap helped.
Bentley pulled out of the lot, and she followed him.
Luke turned the volume down. “So my fiancée likes rap.”
She raised a brow. “Lemme guess. Easy listening?” She turned the volume back up a little so she could hear it and still hear him.
“How old do you think I am?” he asked in a seriously offended voice.
She waited at a red light behind Bentley and turned to take him in. Light brown hair with blond highlights, dark blue eyes with some laugh lines, light brown beard and mustache with no gray in it. “Thirty?”
He cocked his head. “And that’s old to you?”
“Guys my age can’t afford expensive cologne.”
His brows scrunched together. “What are you talking about?”
She waved a hand airily and checked on Bentley. Still stopped at the light, waiting on a left turn. “Your cologne. It must be expensive to smell that good.”
“You think I smell good?”
She glanced over to find him grinning. She sucked in a breath and faced front. That smile was killer. Could bring a woman to her knees with the full-on charm. Lucky for her, they were enemies, so there was no chance of succumbing.
She shrugged in response. He didn’t need any more flattery for that puffed-up ego. The light turned and she followed Bentley onto the main road.
“I’m thirty-two,” Luke said, “which, by the way, is not old.”
“Doesn’t matter to me how old you are,” Ken replied. “You’re the one hung up on age. You think just because I’m twenty-three—”
“You’re twenty-three!” he exclaimed.
She glanced over at his shocked expression. “Yes.”
“How are you two years out of college, then?”
“I turn twenty-four next week. Geez, get over the age thing. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I can’t do the job. I can, and I will.” She gripped the steering wheel tighter. She knew she didn’t have a lot of experience, but she’d studied hard, read everything she could get her hands on in finance, and kept up with everything her boss, Simon, worked on.
Luke was quiet. She took a deep breath in and out. Damn, he smelled good. She switched to breathing through her mouth. Several minutes passed to the sound of rap. Ken snapped the radio off when the song turned a little too sexy for present company. She stared at the tail of Bentley’s car as she drove and tried to figure out the fastest way to close this deal before she had to either go through with a spa weekend or come clean to Bentley and Candy.
Bentley waved out the window, gesturing to a roadside ice-cream stand with a giant wooden ice-cream cone sporting a smiling face.
Luke piped up. “What’ll you give me to spend a weekend playing your fake fiancé?”
She stiffened, not liking the sound of this. “What do you want?”
His voice became husky. “What do you have to offer?”
She flushed. He couldn’t be asking what she thought he was asking. That was low. And entirely demeaning. So why was she getting turned on? It was that damn expensive cologne. And the deep, husky voice. She followed Bentley into the parking lot.
“Golf lessons?” she asked in what she hoped sounded like a normal, casual voice.
“Try again.”
“I don’t do sexual favors!” she blurted.
He barked out a laugh. “You think I want you?”
She felt like falling into a hole. “Shut up,” she muttered.
That set him off, laughing like a damn hyena.
“Go to hell,” she said.
He kept right on laughing. Jerk. She felt like slapping him just to shut him up. She parked a few spaces away from Bentley. Candy and Bentley started kissing as soon as they parked, so she took the opportunity to give Luke a good glare.
He wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “Good one, Kennedy.”
“It’s Ken,” she said through her teeth. She got out of the car and slammed the door.
He appeared at her side a moment later and laced his fingers with hers. “You’re cute when you’re angry,” he said in a low voice.
Bentley and Candy kept right on kissing inside their car.
She pressed a foot on top of Luke’s, intending to bear down on it with her heel, but he grabbed her and lifted her so both her feet were on top of his, her back to his front. His arms wrapped around her waist from behind, the heat and strength of him shocking her long enough to give him a chance to move with her, walking in tandem toward the ice-cream stand. She was stuck, carried along like part of a cutesy couple, and that was how Bentley and Candy saw them when they finally emerged from their car. She’d never been so embarrassed in her life.
“There’s the happy couple!” Bentley exclaimed.
“Look how cute they walk together!” Candy exclaimed.
“Kennedy loves it,” Luke proclaimed. Grr.
Bentley and Candy walked alongside them now, holding hands. “Try the banana split,” Bentley said. “We love it.”
“Sounds good!” Ken said brightly, trying to act like she always did cutesy couple things.
“I’ll feed it to you, sweetheart,” Luke whispered in her ear.
She suppressed a shiver. What had she unleashed?