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“What?” Elle exchanged another look with Shaye as her stomach sank. They paid all that money for the radio ad for nothing? “She doesn’t even want to use us for free?” Shaye looked just as horrified as Elle felt.
“No, no. It’s not that.” Clive’s voice rose in a way that did not put Elle’s mind at ease. “Everyone who called in loves your business idea. This woman included. But she wants you to use the service yourself. For a date with Ahmed.”
Elle blinked at the phone, sure she wasn’t hearing Clive correctly. “You’re joking.”
“Nope!” He sounded far too happy with that one word. “I think it’s a brilliant idea that has the potential to work out even better for your business and for the station, of course.” When Elle didn’t say anything, Clive made a low sound of disappointment, obviously tempering his excitement for Elle’s benefit. “Listen, I can tell you’re reluctant, so why don’t I give you the rest of the day to think about it?” Elle glanced at her watch and saw that it was only a few minutes past noon. “Keep in mind how much free publicity this will be for your business,” Clive said. “And, to sweeten the deal, I’ll even give you back half of the fee you paid for the radio spot.”
Shaye started to make frantic motions at Elle from her perch on the corner of Elle’s desk. “Tell him you’ll do it,” she whispered, waving her hands to get Elle’s attention, as if Elle could ignore her. “Just say yes.” Shaye mouthed the words over and over, looking like a fish trying to breathe fresh air.
Elle swiveled in her chair, turning her back to her business partner. “Thank you for the opportunity, Clive. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
“I understand. Call me back before five to let me know.” He gave her his direct number before hanging up.
“Are you crazy?” Shaye practically shrieked once the call was disconnected. She jumped up from the desk, curls and breasts swaying, hands on her hips. “Call him back right now and tell him you’ll do it.”
“Are you serious right now?” Elle refused to make herself a target for Ahmed Clark’s bitterness and cynicism again. Once was enough.
“Oh, please!” Shaye paced in front of Elle’s desk, hands on her hips, high heels sinking into the plush carpeting with each step. “It’s just a date. And a date with a rich, hot guy at that. You won’t suffer by going out with Ahmed Clark, Elle. Not like how our business is suffering. You know we need this.”
Shaye was right. And Elle knew it, but...
“Did you hear how he talked to me on freakin’ live radio? He dismissed our business like it was some sleazy... I don’t know, like a hookup service or something.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” Shaye said, her voice pleading and soft. She stopped pacing and fixed a plaintive look on Elle. “Once we get Romance Perfected noticed by people who follow and maybe even socialize with Ahmed Clark, the date you went on to make this all possible will be nothing but a distant memory.”
“A bad memory,” Elle said, already feeling her resolve weakening.
She crossed her arms and dropped back into her chair, softly cursing. Romance Perfected was a dream she and Shaye had had together for years, a dream that finally materialized in the form of a small business still toddling along on trembling feet. Over a year ago, they’d had to file for Chapter 11. After a lot of hard work, she and Shaye had managed to save their four-year-old business from going under, but they still needed a boost to get fully in the black.
If this small thing was what it took to get Romance Perfected finally where it needed to be, then... Elle spat another string of curses and refused to look up at the triumphant smile she knew Shaye was already wearing.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter 3 (#ub3f5cc5a-8d47-5b83-a143-e9b22a1785bf)
“What’s got your boxers all twisted this morning?” Sam’s question, delivered in his driest tone, followed Ahmed into the back of the town car as he settled into the leather seat in preparation for the ride to the airport.
After a quick glance at his watch to make sure they were going to be on time for the rally, he shrugged at his cousin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bull.”
Sam had a point, though. At the radio station, Ahmed had been too much. He’d mercilessly teased Elle. But it hadn’t come off as teasing. Instead, his behavior had come dangerously close to bullying. Good thing Elle could take care of herself. When she’d growled back at him, refusing to back down in the face of all the crap he threw at her, Ahmed had nearly combusted from the heady cocktail of lust and admiration.
The only thing that had saved him from completely losing his mind was a firm mental reminder that this was his job. He was at work, and this was supposed to be all business.
However, that reminder hadn’t completely stopped his eyes from gluing themselves to her backside the moment she jumped up from the chair and started to walk away from him.
Satisfied his momently lapse was at an end, he put Elle Marshall firmly out of his mind and himself back on track with the conversation with Sam. “Anyway, it was just entertainment for the folks listening to the show.”
“Since when did you give a damn what entertains the people listening to your show?” Sam asked, sprawling on the opposite seat of the town car. “The whole point when you started this gig was to be yourself and give voice to the politics and social issues that matter to you. Not become another kind of mindless clone.”
A sound of irritation rumbled from Ahmed’s throat. He could never fool Sam, not since they were kids. He didn’t even know why he tried. “She got under my skin, and that’s all I’m going to say.” He leveled a warning glance across the small space. The conversation was over.
But that wasn’t the way it worked between them.
Three hours later, Ahmed and Sam stood near the front of a crowd of hundreds in Mississippi, both of them dressed in jeans and T-shirts, while a congressman from Georgia, a nationally respected education advocate, rolled his tremendous voice through the crowd, chiding the state for letting down some of the most vulnerable members of its population.
Ahmed was doing what he could for the kids in Georgia who’d lost their schools and been consistently denied equal educational opportunities. The kids in Mississippi and many underserved parts of the US needed help, too. And he planned on doing what he could to make sure that they got it.
Ahmed shifted and brushed shoulders with a pretty woman crowding him on one side and a taller man, his arm protectively curved around the shoulders of a girl who looked enough like him to be his daughter. The crowd surged with excitement, a mixture of anger and determination, while Congressman Oliver Wilson spoke, his voice loud and moving, from the podium set up in front of City Hall.
Incredibly, reporters had followed Ahmed from the radio station, although it was in an entirely different state. The manic clicks of their cameras, the bursts of flash and their shouted questions grated on his nerves, irritating him more than usual. As always, Ahmed wanted to use his celebrity to draw attention to the things he cared about, but sometimes he wondered if his celebrity status was overshadowing the real work. Still, with the business of making money out of the way, there was nothing else that deserved his energy more than helping his community.
Nearly a thousand people flowed around them, a security nightmare for Sam, but he bore the trials Ahmed put him through with his nearly superhuman patience.
Ahmed didn’t need any security. Not really. Ever since his retirement from professional basketball nearly a year ago, the media’s interest in his life had died down. Without the team and the games, and the spotlight that came with it, the groupies had disappeared as had any danger Sam imagined. But Sam had been the only male cousin close to Ahmed’s age when they were growing up, so they’d become tight and maintained a brotherly bond. Even when Sam had gone off to fight in Afghanistan in tour after tour, they’d kept in touch through email and occasional Skype calls.
After a close encounter with an IED that left Sam with a Purple Heart and honorable discharge, it only made sense to Ahmed that he invite his cousin to live on his sprawling compound, which already housed Ahmed’s mother and two sisters. This time, Sam had come back from overseas even quieter than before, his eyes haunted by things only he could see. Offering and then insisting his cousin take the job as his head of security, and eventually solo bodyguard, gave Ahmed the chance to take care of the cousin who’d been there with him nearly his whole life.
The crowd exploded into applause, its roar of approval at the congressman’s words dragging Ahmed back to the present, and he winced. He hadn’t been paying attention at all.
Sam nudged him. “Your mind still on that Marshall woman?”
“No, but yours obviously is,” Ahmed said. Although it only took a few words to bring “that Marshall woman” squarely back to center stage in his mind.
Ahmed squirmed at how right it felt for her to be there. “She may be sexy, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s got stars in her eyes and lives in a world that doesn’t exist outside of a storybook.” He gestured around them to the other protestors and activists. “This is what’s important, not setting people up to have unrealistic expectations of each other.”
“I doubt she’s as naive as you think.”
“If you like her so much, why don’t you ask her out?” Ahmed muttered.
While on the radio hours before, he’d taken the call from the winner of Elle’s contest and been blindsided when the woman insisted on giving up the prize of her “perfect date” to him and Elle. Once the surprise wore off, irritation settled in its place, but he’d held his tongue during the phone call, bantering with the woman until the commercial break when he’d politely asked her to reconsider the so-called donation. The woman insisted, saying her husband laughed at the thought of cynical Ahmed Clark on a date with a fairy-tale princess named Elle.
Of course, Clive loved the idea. Ever the publicity hound, he even brought up the idea of filming the date if Elle agreed to it. Ahmed kept his instinctive response—hell no!—to himself. He had the feeling Elle would cut that bad idea off at the knees all by herself. She didn’t seem the type to punish herself by hanging around somebody she didn’t like, not even for publicity, or whatever Clive promised her.
“Right,” Sam muttered in response to Ahmed’s earlier comment about asking Elle out. “If I went anywhere near that woman, you’d crush my face.” Then he snorted, the corners of his eyes crinkling briefly in amusement. “Or at least try to. Hell, Stevie Wonder could see how you were looking at her. You should’ve just asked her out instead of yanking her pigtails like a damn kid.”
Squirming where he stood, Ahmed didn’t bother to acknowledge his cousin’s truth with a response.
He looked away from Sam and focused deliberately on the reason he was away from Atlanta and his home with his comfortable bed and the kitchen where his mother and sisters were no doubt worrying about his safety. Not that there was anything to be concerned about.
Ahmed settled his hands in his pockets and planted himself more firmly in the moment. He opened his ears and paid attention.
At the end of the rally, nearly three hours later, he was emotionally exhausted and ready to drop. The walk had been longer than any of them had planned. The police showed up but, maybe because of media attention, everyone kept a peaceful presence. Ahmed and Sam made it back to Atlanta in time for a late dinner.
In the kitchen, he stood at the stove sliding an omelet out of the pan and onto a plate when his phone vibrated with a text notification.
“Sam?” He passed his cousin the omelet and pulled his phone from his pocket.
She agreed, the text said. Come into the office before the weekend to talk specifics.
“What’s up?” Sam’s voice pulled him from his frowning contemplation of the phone. “You look like someone just kicked you in the throat.”
An odd feeling swirled in Ahmed’s gut. It took him a moment to realize it was disappointment. “Elle Marshall. She just agreed to go on the publicity date.”
“Don’t pretend that’s not something you want to do.” Sam poured himself a glass of milk and sat down on the other side of the breakfast bar in the gleaming chrome and black marble kitchen, his voice a rumbling calm that somehow did the opposite of settling Ahmed down. “She’s nice enough,” Sam said. “The idea of seeing her again doesn’t exactly make you sad.”
Not sad exactly, but something. He moved restlessly around the kitchen, picking up a glass then putting it back to grab something else until what he had in his hands was the clear highball glass he’d started with in the first place. He turned the glass over and over in his hand, grateful that Sam remained quiet—as Sam was apt to do—while his thoughts swirled in too many directions at once.
It wasn’t until he was on the verge of putting the glass down again that he pinpointed the feeling. And the cause. Ahmed had been, surprisingly, working his way toward asking Elle out. On the surface of things, it was to apologize for being so aggressive with her on the radio, maybe invite her to lunch or dinner to give himself the chance to prove he wasn’t as much of a jerk as she thought. Once the apology had been issued, though, he planned for his intentions to take a more lustful turn.
But not now.
Although he didn’t know it and probably wouldn’t care if he did actually know, Clive had basically cockedblocked Ahmed.
The thought of Elle going out with him because she wanted more for her business, instead of just wanting him, turned Ahmed all the way off. And made him a little sick. No matter what he’d said about naïveté, maybe he’d had a little bit of that, too. Enough that he’d wanted her and was willing to go against his instincts in order to get her.
“None of that matters now.” Ahmed put down the phone. “I’m meeting her and Clive at the station to iron out details.”
“Maybe you can ask her out for real then. Before any of this starts.”
“Yeah, right.” Once a woman saw profit near the end of her goal, anything else was off the table.
He sat across from his cousin with his own omelet and glass of orange juice. “This is all business now,” he said. “Besides, you know she wasn’t my type anyway.”
“Yeah, you mean she’s not a random hookup you can take out for some full-contact action and never see again? You’re right about that.” Sam used his knife and fork on his omelet, his mild gaze meeting Ahmed’s.
“Have I told you how much of a pain in the ass you are?” Ahmed asked.
“Not lately.” Sam pointed his fork at Ahmed, laughter glinting in his eyes. “You’ve been slacking.”
“I need to fix that,” Ahmed said.
But his mind was already wandering back to Elle and the sway of her hips under that pink princess dress. Less than twelve hours after meeting her, the thought of her was like candy coating his tongue. Sweet and lingering.
Damn, he thought. I think I’m in trouble.
Chapter 4 (#ub3f5cc5a-8d47-5b83-a143-e9b22a1785bf)
Elle didn’t want to be anywhere near Ahmed Clark. But that didn’t matter since she was stuck with him in the already claustrophobic-feeling general manager’s office.
“Relax,” Shaye muttered under her breath from her seat next to Elle. “You look like you’d rather be getting a colonoscopy than sitting here with us.”
“Sounds accurate,” Elle said, shifting to relieve the slight ache in her feet from the lavender stilettos she’d bought weeks before but hadn’t had the chance to wear until now.
Getting dressed that morning, she’d reached into her closet for anything that could make her feel outstandingly pretty, needing something to build up her armor against the unsettled feelings Ahmed provoked. The vicious-looking high heels and cool white sheath dress did their job. She crossed her hands over the lavender purse in her lap and waited.
It didn’t take long for Ahmed and his ridiculous bodyguard to walk into the office, filling the small space with their bulk and maleness. Elle and Shaye had come early on purpose.
“Good afternoon.” Ahmed Clark settled into the leather chair across from the antique-looking wooden desk while his bodyguard took what seemed like his usual place with his back to the wall, his hands loose at his sides.
Clive walked in just behind the two men, smiling wider than Elle thought was humanly possible. Another man, wearing a three-piece suit and carrying an iPhone, trailed behind him and took a seat near Ahmed.
“Good, good! Everybody is here.” Clive would’ve probably clapped his hands if not for the massive coffee cup he carried.
Barely fifteen minutes before, he had welcomed Shaye and Elle into his office, offering them coffee and croissants that Shaye immediately accepted and Elle refused, before doing a disappearing act. Elle was too nervous to eat. Not to mention the last thing she wanted to do was eat in front of Ahmed Clark, get crumbs all over the front of her white dress and give him yet another reason to tease her. Elle straightened her back and showed the men her teeth. Clive sat behind his desk, still grinning.
“This is one of the station’s lawyers.” He waved at the suited man who only nodded once at the room in acknowledgment. “He’s here to make sure I don’t agree to anything we can get sued for. Now—” he set the coffee mug onto the desk with a solid thump “—I’m glad we could come to an agreement on this.” Then he clapped his hands in a show of barely restrained excitement. “This is going to be a big win for everybody!”
Elle was sure the actual opposite was true. This was going to be a disaster. Already, the trepidation hummed in her belly, twisting it into something like nausea. Shaye, on the other hand, looked almost as excited as Clive, her eager gaze flicking between Elle and Ahmed, dollar signs practically lighting up in her eyes.
“So, tell me, Clive.” Elle deliberately used his first name like he’d insisted on during that last phone call. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, Elle, I’m glad you asked,” Clive said.
He flicked his gaze around the room, perhaps to make sure everybody was paying attention, then he jumped in, outlining a plan that included Ahmed and Elle, a night of romance...and cameras.
Absolutely not. Elle opened her mouth to disagree.
“No, no cameras, Clive.” Ahmed’s deep voice rumbled with finality.
He sat with his thighs sprawled in the leather chair, his pose one of careless comfort, but his eyes were sharp on Clive with a serious look that made Elle think of a high-school principal or a daddy with a belt. Although she wasn’t intimidated by Ahmed, she’d never want that particular expression turned on her.
But Clive didn’t seem to get it. “But how is the audience gonna know you actually went on the date?” He sounded like a kid being denied his favorite toy.
“They can trust us.” Ahmed’s voice was firm. “Your guys can take some pictures of us before the date, and Elle can take a couple of selfies during, if she feels like it, but no one is going to follow us around like we’re on a damn reality show.”
“Well.” The lawyer spoke up for the first time. “If you insist on some media documentation, you can have a mini press conference at the beginning of the evening and tell the audience on camera what the plans are for the date. Then you can take a few photos throughout the night, as Mr. Clark recommended.”
“Oh, like prom!” Shaye chimed in. Elle almost kicked her.
“Exactly.” Clive flashed even more teeth.
The lawyer looked pained.
When he didn’t say anything else, Clive went on. “After the date, you come back to the station for a follow-up on-air appearance to talk about the date, how the service went—the goal for this, after all, is to advertise your business, Elle—and how you would change or tailor it to other clients.” Clive paused. “A potential AhmElle relationship attached to your business and this station would bring us all to the winner’s circle.”
“AhmElle?” Elle frowned at Clive.
“You know, like Brangelina or TomKat,” he said with another flash of teeth. “A lot of celebrity couples have names like that.”
Jesus...
“That’s a great idea,” Shaye said, her eagerness on full display. She practically wiggled in her chair, attracting the now wide-eyed attention of the lawyer.
Elle’s hand twitched with the urge to throw her purse at her best friend, to hell with the delicate lavender leather of the bag. This could all go wrong so easily. For some reason, Ahmed got off on tormenting her, and while she was never one to take any kind of abuse lying down, even when she’d been an orphan growing up in the system, she hated that she had to constantly be on her guard against him. Her skin prickled with uncomfortable heat, and her teeth were on their way to being ground down to a fine powder. He just set her completely on edge.
Damn Shaye for asking her to do this.
