“On that subject, we need to address your social activities. No more boat trips to Catalina with random women,” she says, her finger underlining something written down in her notebook. I look closer and see that she’s written ‘be discreet with acquaintances,’ underlining it in green. “And we’ll need to vet anyone you’re, uhm . . . spending time with.”

  “You’re making it sound like I’m picking up prostitutes,” I growl. “That weekend on the boat was with Nora, a woman I’ve been friends with for years.”

  Why am I defending myself to her? Why is it important what she thinks of me? I try to tell myself that it’s because she’s a snapshot of what the general public is saying and thinking about me, but I’m not sure that’s true.

  Jayme hums before reciting from memory. “Mmm-hmm. Nora Wilson, college classmate whom you dated years ago. She had since married and was recently divorced. Thankfully, before the trip.” She rolls her eyes heavenward in appreciation for that small gift.

  “The trip was because she was upset about her divorce,” I grind out. “We weren’t intimate at all. I wasn’t taking advantage of her. I was being a good friend.”

  “I’m sure,” Jayme says cynically, clearly figuring we put some motion in the ocean during our trip. “But you can see how it looks from the outside. Your old sweetheart, with a freshly broken marriage, running off for a beautiful, scantily-clad weekend with you. It looks like you’re either the cause of the marriage break-up or the rebound fling.”

  “Or a good friend.”

  Jayme lets out a sigh of defeat. “Carson . . . look, I’m not trying to piss you off. I’m telling you how you’re perceived. It doesn’t mean that’s how you actually are. You could be an angel, you could be a demon. I don’t care. My job is to deal with how the public sees you. My job is to fix perceptions. Your family comes with baggage. Your grandfather had a questionable history of how he got the money together to start your precious Americana Land. Your father had a long-running affair with an Americana Land employee while still married to your mother, and then he left her to marry the mistress, making her your stepmother. Your older brother has been divorced twice and is a playboy. So when you go out with a woman while the ink is barely dry on her divorce decree, it looks . . . bad. Birds of a feather and all. The motorcycle riding and gambling add to your image as a bad boy with more money than sense, and that image is being dinged left and right by this whole Abby Burks situation. She’s basically America’s sweetheart on YouTube and you practically tackled her to the ground.”

  Her voice has gotten louder and higher, more and more strident as she reads me up and down. She’s uncomfortably spot on. I do come from a line of men with a deep bastard streak. I wake up every morning and look at myself in the mirror, reminding myself that I’m not the culmination of my genetics.

  But somewhere in the midst of her tirade, I began to notice the flush of pink on her cheeks, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes heavily, and the way her skirt inched up when she scooted to the edge of the couch to yell at me.

  Something about the way she’s holding her own, going toe to toe with me, lights me on fire. In both good and bad ways.

  I sit back, stunned. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and has obviously done her homework on me. It’s not often that I’m at this much of a disadvantage. I know almost nothing about her.

  “Fine. If you want me to listen to your suggestions,” I concede, giving the word extra weight to make sure she remembers that I haven’t agreed to her ridiculous rules yet, “I want to know who I’m working with too. Why should I listen to you?”

  She swallows thickly. “I’m not telling you my deepest, darkest secrets if that’s what you’re after. That’s not what I’m here for.”

  The very idea that she has secrets is exciting, a dangling carrot for me to chase. What tang to her sweetness, what spice is there to her beyond her intelligence and sass? She has to have some. You don’t get to this level of backbone without having at least a few scars inside. “Give me something, at least.”

  “I’ve been a PR representative with Compass for six years. I started there straight out of college after completing my internship and was officially offered a spot with them one week after they turned in my grade on the internship course. I started with smaller cases but found my niche in image consultations, specifically image repair. I’ve handled cases for high-profile clients and tend to be who’s sent in for crisis management.”

  “That’s very nonspecific of you. No details? Hobbies, crazy exes, family drama, sex tapes?” I throw her own question back at her. “Boat trips to Catalina?”

  “My image isn’t the one in need of help,” she reminds me dryly, completely unaffected by me. “Those things are irrelevant.”

  I nod but silently note that she doesn’t deny any of the things I questioned her with. Maybe she does have some kind of wild side.

  “Care to know what I see when I look at you? What Jayme Rice’s image is?” I ask. I’m trying to get my footing back, but she kicks it out from under me at every turn, leaving me off-kilter. It’s thrilling and equally disconcerting. It’s been a long time since I’ve been challenged this much. Part of me wants to see if I’ve still got the sauce.

  She leans back again, mirroring my position, and waves her hand in a ‘get on with it’ gesture.

  “I may not be a PR specialist, but I can read people. You create façades for others, but I suspect the reason you’re good at it is that you live behind a created front yourself. There’s a mask to you, and while I don’t know what you're hiding behind this mask, I know why you wear it. You’re afraid to let people see the real you, the grumpy mess eating chips in bed at two in the morning, the happy goofball dancing around when there’s no music, the sexy woman I’m sure you keep locked under professional knee-length skirts and buttoned-up blouses. I don’t know which, or if you’re all of them. But you want to be what everyone expects you to be, and you want me to take the same advice. Problem is, I’m a hell of a lot deeper than that. And I suspect you are too.”

  She flinches, giving me an instant of insight before her mask shuts down again over her expression. But her eyes hold the hurt my words caused. “Deeper? You could’ve fooled me,” she lashes out. “What you’re showing me is about as deep as a kiddie pool.”

  “Then open your damn eyes,” I growl, my frustration driving me forward again. I’m on the edge of my chair, leaning into her as I challenge. “Or are you too afraid to do that? To be real?”

  Jayme uncrosses her legs, scooting forward to meet my challenge on equal ground. “I’m not afraid of anything. But if you got to know the ‘real me’, as you call it, I’d scare the hell out of you. You’re in over your head, with me and with this situation. And this is the one and only time I’m going to throw you a life preserver. Take it or don’t, your call. Americana Land or your pride, what’s it going to be?”

  We’re both standing now, dangerously close to each other over the small table between us. Our panting breaths mingle, and the anger between us ignites.

  “You smug bitch.”

  “Arrogant asshole.”

  The door opens, startling us both, and I watch as Jayme realizes what she’s just said. Her cheeks flush, and her eyes and mouth widen in shock as she mentally backpedals. “Carson, I’m—”

  “Everything okay in here?” Xavier asks in concern. He’s one of the marketing analysts in my department, and if he’s poking his head in without knocking, we must’ve been getting louder than I thought.

  “Yeah, we’re fine,” I tell him, but he looks back and forth from Jayme to me, trying to read the situation. To Jayme, I say, “I’m sorry. That was unprofessional of me. I deserved that.”

  I’m giving her an out and taking the blame, one hundred percent. She’s here to help, and I acted exactly like the arrogant asshole she called me. Hell, like the devil everyone online is calling me, for that matter.

  She takes a breath and steps back. “Thank you, but I apologize too. It seems we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe we can reconvene after lunch and start over?”

  Decided, Jayme picks up her leather bag and marches out. I definitely watch her hair swing left and right above her ass, which is swishing the opposite way.

  After she’s for sure gone, Xavier whistles softly, giving me a look. “Damn, man. What’d you do to her? She looked ready to kill you or kiss you. Maybe both.”

  I purse my lips, wondering about that myself. “Probably the former.”

  “I don’t know,” Xavier muses, making my ears perk up. He’s a smart man, one of my best analysts precisely because he does have a way of reading people, so I can’t dismiss what he has to say. “Sometimes the best kisses are after wanting to kill each other. At least that’s the way it is with me and Alicia.”

  I chuckle, knowing that he’s been married to his high school sweetheart for twenty years. “Don’t you have like five kids? Alicia must want to kill you often.”

  “Shoot, if it wasn’t for my getting the snip-snip years ago, I’d probably have my own basketball team by now,” he jokes. “You could bet on me every time.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue with Jayme.” I look at the empty doorway, wondering what the hell just happened. “Hell, she may not even come back.”

  He shrugs doubtfully. “If you say so.”

  CHAPTER 4

  JAYME

  I take a sip of my warm tea, my traditional reward for a long and taxing day. It’s better than whiskey, although I feel like today, of all days, I could make an exception.

  After lunch, Carson was downright civil, blander than plain white toast, and I’m not sure if he was actually listening to me or letting me talk so as not to rock the boat further. He did answer my questions, robotically and concisely, without any of the emotional context that would let me know how he actually felt about his answers, which is almost as important as the facts themselves.

  But at least I got more information about Steen Amusements and Carson Steen, which was my goal, anyway.

  Reading over the email on my laptop, I double- and triple-check my response to the firm . . .

  Hi, Patrick. Today went as well as expected. There was the typical initial pushback, but I think Carson Steen is salvageable, and the repair of Steen Amusements is completely doable. I’ll be in touch with any concerns or significant progress. -Jayme

  Fortunately, my boss at Compass is pretty hands-off on the day to day, but he does like to be kept in the loop, especially when I first make contact on a new assignment. Even as I hit Send, I’m replaying the day. I sometimes have to be crude and rough with clients who aren’t ready to hear hard truths about the consequences of their actions, but today was different and I know it. I didn’t resort to name-calling with Carson for his own good but because I lost all sense of professionalism. He got to me.

  And that can’t happen again.

  I try to put myself in Carson Steen’s place. What would my reaction be to someone coming into my family’s business, calling me to task, and attempting to muzzle me? I probably would’ve reacted poorly too. His chest-beating, alpha-hole, territorial-style anger makes sense from that perspective.

  My thoughts continue as I let the stress leave me with each sip of my herbal tea. But with that come worried thoughts. What is Carson doing? Is he out riding his motorcycle too fast or sitting on the sidelines at a game he’s wagered on?

  Shit. I know what he’s doing. Hell, I know where he is.

  I set my laptop down and don’t bother with the last of my tea before stomping off to my bedroom. Grabbing a fresh skirt, I scan my blouses. This calls for something a bit different from my daily work wear, but I still want to be professional. I need to draw those boundaries with Carson . . . and myself.

  When I see it, I can’t help but talk out loud to myself. “Perfect!”

  First up? A black silk blouse with a hint of lace at the shoulder that gives it a cap sleeve effect. Sexy but modest and goes perfectly with my cocoa-colored skirt that matches my eyes. A pair of black strappy pumps that make my legs look a mile long, and I’m out the door, thankful I hadn’t gotten as far as washing my face or pulling my hair up for bed.

  A few minutes later, I walk into Verdux, Carson’s bar of choice. This is where he goes after a rough day. And I’m right, he’s clearly visible perched on a barstool as soon as I walk in.

  He doesn’t look toward the door when I enter, his gaze focused on the glass of bourbon in front of him, and I take the opportunity to sit at a booth where he can’t see me to do a little recon.

  The bar isn’t quite what I expected Carson’s favorite haunt to be. It’s not a sports bar, nor is it a dark-wooded, old money place. It’s more of a businessman's place, with a few suited professionals taking up space here and there, working last-minute deals over drinks rather than a boardroom table.

  The old-fashioned teak bar is long, with a considerable selection on the wall behind it, and the lighting is dim and warm, no sign of neon or disco flashes. The bartender is an older man in a black polo, and the lone waitress I see dashing about is wearing a matching polo with slim black pants. They’re dressed to disappear and be discreet, well paid to not see or hear anything.

  Verdux is a good choice for a person looking to be invisible. I can give Carson that much, at least.

  Turning my attention to him, I look him up and down. He looks lost, almost vulnerable compared to earlier. He’s removed his tie, the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his sleeves are rolled up to reveal muscular forearms that go along with those sexy hands. His eyes aren’t hazy as though he’s been drinking too much, but rather, it seems he’s thinking deeply about something.

  About me? Today?

  There’s a woman at the end of the bar giving Carson openly appreciative looks, and a sense of ugliness blooms in my belly when I consider that he might send her a drink, slip her hair behind her ear, and walk out of the bar with her on his arm.

  He has every right to do so, but it’s not the image he needs right now.

  Is that the only reason you don’t like that idea?

  I don’t get a chance to evaluate the question further when the woman makes a move of her own.

  She gets up, sliding down the bar to sit at Carson’s side. She knows what she’s doing, her hair shiny and gorgeous, her eyes smoky and sexy, and her outfit remarkably similar to mine, except her skirt is a few inches shorter. She’s looking for someone, for the night or forever, I’m not sure which.

  Carson Steen ain’t it, honey, I want to tell her. But part of me worries he might be.

  I watch as she smiles at Carson and his gaze flicks up to her. He says something I can’t hear, but he raises his empty glass toward the bartender who nods. The woman waves as well, ordering a drink of her own.

  I need to stop this. Not examining my reasons, I get up and cross the room, positioning myself at Carson’s other side.

  “Carson?” I let my voice drop, deep and deadly in warning.

  He glances over his shoulder, the surprise in his eyes quickly replaced by humor at whatever he thinks he sees when he looks at me.

  “Hey, babe,” he drawls, as if that’s a perfectly normal way to greet me.

  The woman on his other side leans forward, looking around Carson to consider her apparent rival. She’s gorgeous, a vixen who would haunt any man’s dreams, but when she looks at me, she sees competition.

  As if we’re in one.

  “You know her?” she purrs to Carson.

  Carson’s eyes don’t leave mine for a moment as he dryly answers, “Yeah, crazy ex. She’s stalking me, probably has a whiteboard with photos of me plastered all over it.”

  I narrow my eyes, playing along but upping the ante because two can play at this game. “Yep, except I sliced out all the eyes so he doesn’t see me following him and sneaking into his apartment at night. And lots of red yarn to connect the conspiracy.” I reach up to cup his face, letting the pad of my thumb skate over the tender skin beneath his eyes affectionately. “I’ll save you from those lizard people, baby. Before they replace you.”

  In my peripheral vision, I see the woman shift back in shock, but my attention stays focused on Carson to see what he’s going to do next. Privately, his eyes sparkle in good humor, and he turns to the other woman, shrugging. “You’d better go.”

  She looks uncertain, quietly asking, “Are you okay? Blink twice if you want help.” She stares at him unblinking, carefully looking for a sign of distress. She must not get one because she stands up, muttering, “People are crazy as fuck.”

  When Carson turns back to me, his lips are twitching as though he’s fighting a smile. “Couldn’t stay away from me?”

  I help myself to the seat beside him. “More like I wasn’t sure I trusted you to behave.”

  He turns back to his drink, picking up the tumbler and swirling the clinking ice cubes around. “I’ve been a good boy.”

  “Doubt it,” I reply as the bartender sets down a fresh bourbon in front of Carson. He holds the wine the other woman ordered for a moment, seeming confused about the abrupt change in Carson’s companion situation. “I’ll take it. She had to leave suddenly.”

  The bartender shrugs and sets it down for me. I take a sip and find it’s a rich and fruity merlot. “Not bad,” I tell Carson, who’s watching me closely. “I’m more of a margarita person myself. I like something with a little bite.”

  I clack my teeth together, letting my lip curl slightly, and he chuckles, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Is that one of those deep, dark, highly guarded secrets of yours?”

  The alcohol or the change in scenery seems to have relaxed him from this afternoon’s cold shoulder. Or maybe it’s my sudden appearance?

  “One of many,” I answer coyly, as though intrigue and mystery are my best friends when the truth is, my besties are lightly salted popcorn and The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On.