Page 34 of Token

She nodded. Of course, he remembered. Honestly, Stephen King had a lot to answer for.

“We hadn’t slept together yet.”

There was an implicitso you had a thing for me thenin his statement. The guy had an ego on him.

“Right, but I don’t have any of us in bed together, so...the one with your arm around me at Coney Island is going to have to do,” she said, the sarcasm dripping from her lips.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Funny, funny, lady.”

“Difficult, difficult, man,” she retorted with equal mockery. “Anyhoo, I will take care of getting the picture to the press, and then hopefully by tomorrow or the day after, there won’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind that what went on at the press conference wasn’t staged.”

“Isn’t what you’re proposing against agency rules?” he asked innocently.

“You won’t be a paying client, and as far as I’m concerned, this has nothing to do with the agency. This is personal. And it’s the least I can do after what I did back there,” she said, grimacing inwardly.

He glanced at her and then looked away, only to return his gaze to her a moment later. “Seriously, though, what do I owe you for this?”

“Your undying gratitude and your firstborn. However, I will settle for a Broadway season package and dinner at the best restaurant in the city. I’m a simple woman with simple needs,” she declared airily.

Only after the words emerged sounding more provocative than flippant did she ask herself that age-old question,What the fuck is wrong with you?

The man sitting beside you is fire. Don’t play with him.

His mouth quirked and he murmured, “Yes, I believe I have a vague recollection of some of those needs.”

Nate, on the other hand, didn’t hold back his punches. He just went in for the kill. No insinuation. No beating around the bush. Why should he when she’d all but lined up the pins for him so that all they required was a light tap to knock them down?

“Those aren’t the needs I was talking about.” Technically, that was the truth. The lie had been about her being a simple woman with simple needs. Simple she was not.

“Yes, it was. Don’t lie.”

Kennedy was smart enough to walk away from fights she couldn’t win, this being one of them. “Honestly, Nate, you don’t owe me anything.”

Pausing at another stoplight, he turned, his gaze flicking from her eyes to her mouth, and then back to her eyes again. “So we’re doing this.” He paused a beat. “How does dinner this weekend sound?”

She huffed a laugh. “I’m not going to even consider dinner until you feed me the lunch you promised and get me to my meeting on time.”

His smile didn’t do a thing to put her at ease.

“Don’t worry—I got you. Leave everything in my hands.”

Nor did his words. Those she found more terrifying.

9

“All righty, missy, what is going on?”

Kennedy’s head shot up as her best friend swept into her office.

“What the hell did I miss yesterday? It’s clear I can’t leave the two of you alone together,” Aurora said, walking to her desk and thrusting her iPad in Kennedy’s face.

Kennedy took it from her, her eyes immediately scouring the headlines.

OLD PHOTO SHOWS CONSTELLATION CEO ENJOYING THE BENEFITS OF HAVING THE RIGHT KIND OF FRIENDS.

Flicking a look at Aurora, Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Ha ha ha. Benefits with friends, get it? Honestly, these headline writers try to be too cute by half.”

“Tell me about it,” Aurora said, her tone equally wry.

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