His chest hurt as he reminded himself that he and Trinity weren’t at all suited for anything that smacked of real, no matter how he defined it. He’d known from the beginning that they weren’t right for each other. Nothing had changed.
And yet everything had changed.
By unspoken agreement, they continued the rest of the trip as planned. Trinity came to the games, his guys played baseball and reporters took pictures afterward of the general manager and his girlfriend. Every time Logan felt like pulling her into his arms to lay a kiss on her that would communicate how much he still wanted her, she came willingly, and he liked her in his bed better than he should as well.
The heat between them sizzled for the camera and sizzled behind closed doors. It was like they couldn’t quit each other now that the boundaries had evaporated.
The Mustangs won both games. Naturally. Because of Trinity, he was convinced. His team was convinced, too, and treated her like royalty, sending her flowers and chocolate, cards with funny cartoons. The Mustangs’ shortstop, the one who was dating the supermodel against Logan’s wishes, convinced his girlfriend to call Trinity about doing ad work for Fyra Cosmetics as a token of goodwill.
When Logan asked her about it, Trinity grinned and told him she had a meeting with the model’s manager next week. All in all, it felt like a great match, she said. At night, she worked on a campaign for a new product that she chattered about endlessly during her midnight treks to his hotel room. He loved listening to her talk about the things that mattered to her.
On the plane ride home to Dallas, Trinity sat next to him and they held hands like they had on the way to the West Coast. Somehow it was different. As if the broken condom had created an unspoken agreement that they were testing out how things might go if they did slap a “real” label on their relationship.
If anyone had asked him how he’d like the concept of Trinity Forrester as a permanent lover, he’d have said there was no way it would work. But the last few days proved that was a lie.
What was he supposed to do about that? Unless she got pregnant, there was no call to have any sort of discussion about labels.
Maybe he didn’t have to do anything. Maybe he could just let it ride, see how things played out. No one had breathed a word about stopping what they were doing.
Before he could think of a reason not to, he reached out and brushed her jaw with a thumb. Intimately. She didn’t miss it and raised her brows at him.
“I wanted to touch you,” he murmured. “Sue me.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to apologize for touching me. I like it. So no lawyers needed.”
“Then you should know I plan to keep doing it once we’re home,” he advised her.
“Oh? I’ll be curious how that’s going to work when we both have jobs.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to adjust. Give some things up, maybe.” When she made a noise in her throat, he did a double take. “What, you can’t make our relationship a priority? We’re still trying to generate publicity. Right?”
“Lest you forget, I’m an executive running a multimillion-dollar cosmetics company.” She spiked her tone with enough irony to get her point across. “I told you I was working on a new product campaign. I have a strict deadline. Some of us don’t get to take trips to the Bay Area and stay in fancy hotels for our work. And when we accompany those of you who do, we have to burn the midnight oil to make up for it.”
“I want to spend time with you.”
That had not been what he’d meant to say. But now that it was out there...he couldn’t help but be curious what she’d do with it.
She scowled as the plane flew through a thick bunch of clouds, temporarily throwing the cabin into shadow. “My career is more important than breezing by your bed to pick up a couple of orgasms.”
That wasn’t all they had between them, and she knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. Her refusal to admit things had shifted between them rankled more than he’d like, but he couldn’t force her to be honest. He could only be smart enough to outwit her.
And she hadn’t pulled her hand from his, a telling point that he had no problem exploiting.
“Your career is definitely more important than orgasms,” he agreed smoothly. “But they shouldn’t be exclusive of one another. After all, you found a way to seamlessly integrate one with my job. Let me do the same for you.”
“I do like the way you think.” There was still a note of caution in her voice. “What do you have in mind?”
“You know the guys need you, right? You’re their Blarney stone.” He pulled her hand to his mouth for what should have been a quick kiss to her fingertips, but he liked the taste of them so much, he kept them there and talked around them. “Come to the home games with me. I’ll pick you up. It’s on the way.”