Page 15 of The Wedding Deal
Family. All that time together. No break to build up her walls or space in general. Not to mention a big ceremony and several days of having to be “on” nonstop.
Then again, they really did need every spare hour they could get…
…
Charlotte blinked at him for what seemed like an eternity, pausing the hasty exit he was sure she’d been about to make—he would’ve let her, too, and he’d even backed up a step so she didn’t feel trapped.
He realized what he’d proposed was a crazy idea. But he was also fully aware of how much he needed to accomplish these next few weeks. The wedding couldn’t come at a worse time—again, not that he wasn’t happy for his brother. He wanted Mitch to get started on his new life as much as he wanted to get started on his own new life. Ever since he’d been injured he’d felt stuck, and inheriting the team had lit a fire inside of him that he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
“Given who your family is, won’t it look bad for me to come along?” she asked. “Everyone will assume it’s a date even if it’s not.”
“I’ll set them straight. Strictly business.”
She bit her lip, and it gave him thoughts that were far from business minded. Was he jumping out of the frying pan right into the fire? Maybe. A trip where she’d be by his side, pushing up her glasses in that adorable way she did, always crossing her nice legs or biting her lip… Leaving every room smelling like that vanilla perfume he kept inhaling and holding in might also lead to temptations he knew better than to give in to.
Luckily, she was all about the rules. And because the team was his highest priority, he could smother his general attraction to her and focus on how much he needed her help. The past two and a half days had beyond proved that.
“Did my grandfather ever ask your advice on the team stuff?” he asked.
She shook her head. “While I did impress him with my stats knowledge during my initial interview, it was my passion for the team and my qualifications in the human resources field that won him over and eventually led to my promotions. He was very kind to me, but he was definitely in the old-school,leave the football to the men, darlin’club.”
Lance closed the distance between them again so that he could look her in the eye. Even with her tall heels on, he had a good foot on her and ended up tipping his chin down. “You were underutilized.”
“Giving me lines to get me to go to a wedding? I’m not sure that’s allowed in the handbook, either.”
“I notice you didn’t cite a section.”
“It’s a bit of a gray area,” she said, and he smiled.
“Those are my specialty.” He wanted to reach for her hand, but he was afraid that’d do the opposite of assure her that he understood her boundaries. “It’s not a line. If you hadn’t been in my office yesterday, I might’ve offered the coaching position to Mulroney, and after watching highlights from more of the games he’s coached, I just kept seeing how right you were.”
“I appreciate that. And I do think I can help—my fantasy football league kills every year. I can’t play an official one of course, conflict of interest and insider information and all. But even before I started working here, I knocked it out of the park, if I do say so myself.”
“You’ve convinced me.”
Her lips quirked up on one side. “I thought you were supposed to be convincing me.”
He took a step closer, and that vanilla perfume hit him again. “I’m pretty sure I already did.”
“Cocky much?”
“Confident. Like you said yesterday, high risk, high reward. Don’t tell me you’re going to play it safe.”
“I want a raise,” she said. “If I’m going to be consulting, too, it’s only fair.”
“Ballsy. I like it.” He extended his hand. “Deal.”
Instead of taking his hand like he’d expected, she only stared at it.
“We’re also going to need to fill out some forms before we go—not a joke this time, just to be clear.”
“For the love of God, woman, you love your forms.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s important to document everything and have the extra checks and balances. No surprises, we’ve followed the rules, and I don’t have to call myself into my office—that’d just be super awkward.”
He bit back a smile, thinking she was definitely better at the jokes than he was. “Fine. I’ll sign whatever forms you want. Now, do we have a deal already?”
A slight jolt went through him as she finally slid her much smaller hand into his. “Deal.”
