Page 25 of The Plus-One Deal

I nodded and mouthed the wordfocus. Focus. If Verity thought I was letting her win, she’d see me as dishonest. The wrong kind of player. I had to get with it and play my hardest, or I’d lose my match and my contract in one.

Our next set, I steamed in with all I had, my head full of nothing but thetokof the ball. I threw myself into it, spurred on by Conrad, his competitive fury stirring my own. This was what we were good at. Winning. Business. Doing what we had to do, the ruthless dream team. Conrad surged forward, glistening with sweat. He twisted. The ball flew. Ken lobbed it back. I went for it, skinned it, and it sailed off in two pieces, the felt dropping off as the rubber kept going. Verity hit it back and Conrad smashed it. The set went to us, and Verity bent over, panting.

“One more set to clinch it.” She straightened up, breathless. “I think you two hustled us. Don’t you think, Ken?”

Ken swabbed at his forehead. “Oh, doubtless, they think so. But we were going easy after their rough start.”

Conrad laughed. “Sure you were.”

“You better believe it.”

Our last set played more like some high-noon shootout, balls whizzing like bullets through the tropical air. Verity and Kendidup their game, and we upped ours to meet them, shoes scuffing, racquets whistling. We traded points back and forth up to a deuce, and Verity stood gasping.

“Next— next point wins it.”

Conrad moved next to me and growled under his breath. “That’s our point, got it?”

I shuddered. “All ours.”

The match point flew by in a burst of frenzied motion. I’d never been so aware of my body, every beat of my heart, every bunched muscle. Every breath, every movement — and then we had won. It all stopped and the ball bounced off and rolled into the court fence. I could hear Conrad breathing and the rush of my pulse, the singing of hot blood high in my ears. I opened my mouth to tell Verity ‘good game,’ but what came out was a shriek as Conrad swept me aloft. He took me in his arms and spun me like a dancer, and the world flashed by behind him, the hotel, the beach. His eyes were alive with the joy of the moment, the triumph of our win, the rush of exertion. His cheeks were all flushed, and I knew mine were too, then he lowered me down gently and set me on his feet. He leaned in?—

Has he kissed you yet?

—and my eyes fluttered shut. I felt the heat of his breath and his hand on my back, the scrape of his stubble, then Verity whistled.

I jerked back with a hiss.

Conrad’s eyes flew open.

Verity laughed. “Oh, don’t let us stop you!”

I stared, open-mouthed. We’d been right on the verge. If not for that whistle… How would it have felt? My lips tingled hotly, the thrum of denial. My whole body was trembling. I felt… incomplete.

“We forgot where we were,” Conrad was saying, and he had no idea how right he was. For a moment in his arms I hadsmelled almond blossoms, champagne on his breath, Manhattan exhaust. I’d flashed back twelve years to that last almost-kiss, and it had felt like no time passed at all, or only one breath. One heartbeat between us.

“I need a shower,” I said.

I scurried away.

CHAPTER 10

CONRAD

We dove headfirst into work after our tennis match, Claire on the balcony, me in the bedroom. We had no other choice. We had empires to run. We weren’t atallburying our heads in the sand, pretending what happened on the tennis court hadn’t just happened.

I hadn’t set out to do it, but she’d closed her eyes. She’d tilted her head back. Let her lips part just slightly. If she hadn’t done that…

I’d done it first.

I’dbeen the one who’d held her. Leaned in. Let my hand slide up the curve of her back. I’d wanted her, needed her, caught in that moment. Caught in the scent of her, the feel of her body. We fit together so well. She made my heart race. She made me think thoughts I had no business thinking, and she made me act on them without thinking at all.

I made atchsound. She hadn’tmademe. I’d wanted to, plain and simple, and I still did. I was dreaming of kissing her instead of getting my work done, and if I didn’t snap out of it?—

My phone beeped at my elbow. Claire’s went off too. We both checked them, both frowned, and Claire stood up and stretched. She shook out her hair, copper in the late sunlight, and came in from the balcony and perched on the bed.

“Did Ken text you?”

“Yeah.” I held up my phone. “Verity too?”

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