From Enemies to Expecting(28)

“I don’t want to, Trinity!” He apparently had no concept of volume, and several heads swiveled in their direction.

“Shh.” She jerked her head at the press, who had definitely clued in that something was afoot and started snapping away. Hopefully they’d get some good shots. “Act like you’re mad all you want, but we can’t afford any prying ears.”

“I’m not acting,” he growled. “I’ve already had phone calls about our impending engagement, despite your certainty that no one was going to ask about it. I don’t like being put in that position. Nor do I want to be in the position of defending my personal choices regarding sleeping arrangements.”

Gee whiz. His old-fashioned streak went a whole lot deeper than she’d credited. What a fun new challenge she’d stumbled onto here. Gaze narrowed, she swept him with a once-over designed to put a few thousand degrees of heat under his skin. “You must not be aware of what I have planned, then, if you think this is about sleeping.”

Instantly, wariness and a fair amount of caution snapped across his expression. Who was throwing up shields now, hmm?

“Separate rooms,” he said firmly.

“Fine.”

She threw up her hands, but only to make it look like she still hated the idea, when actually, she’d realized it worked in her favor. It was a much juicier story if they had separate rooms but, oh, look, someone just caught them macking down in the hall outside one of them. And then they could both duck inside to take the super-hot kiss to its natural conclusion.

It was also in her best interests to ensure it was his room...so she could accidentally on purpose let someone photograph her sneaking away from it at dawn.

“Separate rooms. But you have to take me to dinner,” she insisted. “Otherwise, we’ll miss a golden opportunity to get more lens time.”

He nodded with a smug smile. Probably because he thought he’d won. She let him think that. By the end of the night, he’d realize they’d both won.

* * *

One thing she could say for Logan, he did not cheap out when it came to putting up his fake girlfriend-slash-fiancée in a hotel.

Trinity took a long soak in the garden tub and used every ounce of the bubble bath the hotel had provided from their signature spa, strictly for market research purposes.

One hot-and-heavy sheet session with Logan could do the trick to get her muse back in the game full-time. But she was fully prepared to go all night with him if need be. Three or four orgasms fit into her schedule just fine, especially when Logan was the one delivering them. The man got her hotter than concrete in August.

In deference to her agenda, she selected a very simple white shift dress strewn with tiny colored flowers that covered her almost to the neck. It looked spectacular on her even though it didn’t advertise any skin. To make up for the conservative dress, she put a pink stripe down the side of her hair and wore lace-up heels that crisscrossed her ankles a bajillion times. It would take both an enterprising and patient man to get these shoes off, and she shivered in anticipation of the foreplay that could be involved.

Logan knocked on her door.

She answered. His gaze dropped to her dress and lingered, hot appreciation blooming on his face. Score one for Trinity.

How had she missed that he liked her that much better in conventional clothes? He’d been so turned on by the simple jeans and T-shirt, but she’d mistakenly believed that had been a result of him being the one to put them on her.

“I expected to have to redress you,” he threw out casually, but she did not miss the undercurrent of disappointment. He not only liked her in conservative clothes, he liked picking them out. Road trips made for interesting fonts of information, that was for sure.

“I was feeling generous.”

“Noted. I will return the favor by escorting you to a nice dinner.”

Where she would be charming and pretend that dinner was the only photo op of the night.

As predicted, a few photographers were still hanging around in the lobby, and she and Logan dutifully stopped before continuing on to the restaurant, allowing pictures. It didn’t matter that the photos were staged, because they would all pale in comparison to the ones later on tonight, anyway. These chaste pictures got them nowhere.

Dinner was surprisingly normal. And nice. Logan exhibited incredible patience as Trinity peppered him with baseball questions that he must have found tedious. But she liked listening to him talk about his passion, and baseball was clearly it. He talked with his hands, smiled, laughed. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were actually dating.

No. Slipping into a fantasy about this whole thing being real was the surest path to problems.