On-Air Passion

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Elle tightened her hands on top of her bag. “How long is this farce of a date supposed to last?”

“As long as you two can stand each other, is my recommendation,” the lawyer said the same time as Clive offered his own. “We don’t have to go as far as filming your walk of shame the next morning.” He flashed a smile as he spoke, but Elle didn’t get the impression he was joking.

“I told you we don’t want anything filmed,” she said and thought she caught a look of surprise on Ahmed’s face. “Let’s just do the bare minimum of what you need to get this thing off the ground.”

She prompted Shaye with a look, and her friend jumped in with her part of the plan, whipping out her iPhone and opening the app with one of her endless lists with the brisk tap of a finger.

“I’ll put together one of our best packages for you both—I won’t tell you what it is and spoil the surprise, Elle, and that way you can really talk about it on the radio from the perspective of someone being wined and dined and whisked away on a special romantic night.”

Across the room, Ahmed shifted his position in the dark leather chair in a way that immediately drew Elle’s eyes to the weight between his legs. She quickly looked away, feeling unbalanced.

“We can’t do it at night,” she said with a pulse of desperation beating in her throat.

“What was that?” Ahmed looked at her, amusement lighting up his dark eyes.

Shaye giggled then moved to Clive’s desk, her iPhone screen held out for him to see what else she had planned.

For God’s sake... “Not like that!” Elle gritted her teeth and fought in vain against the tide of heat rising in her face. “What I mean is I don’t want to do anything at night. The date. An afternoon outing should be fine.”

Ahmed had the nerve to actually laugh at her, white teeth flashing, the corners of his mouth tucked up. “Why? Do you think you won’t be able to resist me if we go out together at night?”

Elle rolled her eyes. “Resisting you won’t be a problem,” she lied. “But I’d rather not waste any of my weekend nights doing this. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

“I doubt you have any idea what I’m feeling, princess.” And something unnamed moved across his face, not annoyance exactly but something from the same family.

“I told you not to call me that.” The words flew from between her teeth, sharp and cutting, catching even her off guard. Immediately, she regretted her tone.

The hum of conversation in the room between Shaye and Clive stopped. Even the bodyguard’s attention flew toward Elle in a snap of his pale brown gaze. But she refused to backtrack.

Ahmed’s gaze was as inscrutable as his cousin’s. But where his cousin seemed only vaguely curious, Ahmed watched her with a laser-like focus that made her want to squirm in her chair. But she kept absolutely still and met him stare for stare.

He leaned forward in his chair, arms braced against his thighs, a frown between his expressive eyes. “Listen, can we talk privately for a few minutes?”

“No.” Elle didn’t want to talk with him at all. The thought of being closer to him and in a private space filled her with an anxiety she didn’t want to name. “I have nothing to say to you that you can’t address right here and now.”

If she thought the silence in the room had been disturbing before, it was just about deafening now. Shaye and everyone else in the room stared openly at them. At Elle.

A muscle worked in Ahmed’s jaw and he made an audible sound of frustration. “Do you have a problem with me?”

“No, I don’t. But you seem to have a problem with me.” Unease rippled across Elle’s shoulders, tightening her muscles painfully. Were any of the potential gains even worth this hassle? “We probably shouldn’t do this,” she said, fully expecting him to agree with her.

But he shook his head. “We already agreed, so we might as well do this. I don’t go back on my word.”

“But I do?”

His look loudly said what his mouth did not.

She jumped to her feet. “You don’t get to imply—”

But Clive stood up, too. “I think we should all calm down and keep things in perspective.” He turned to Elle, but she backed away from him, keeping her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes on Ahmed. “I’m sure Ahmed didn’t mean to insult you. He just doesn’t get to mingle with polite company very often. Right?” His pointed look in Ahmed’s direction only yielded a shrug and setting back of broad shoulders against the leather chair. “Let’s do this and get it over with. This promo is a win-win for everybody. We just have to see it through.”

“I agree.” Shaye tucked away her phone. “Everything will be great. Just smile a little for the camera, look like you don’t want to kill each other and we’ll all be better off at the end of this thing.”

It was like she and Clive had conspired to be the Ahmed and Elle—aka Team Train Wreck—cheerleaders. This wasn’t going to work the way either of them planned, Elle could feel it.

Shaye cleared her throat. “I think we’re done here. Great decisions, everyone.” She took a page from Clive’s book and clapped her hands with a sharp note of finality, of a decision made. “I’ll put the date together and we’ll go from there.” Shaye moved closer, lowering her voice. “Are you okay, Elle?” Everything about her body language pleaded with Elle to finish what they’d started with Ahmed and the radio spot.

“Fine.” She gave her friend a look that clearly said she wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. Then she pasted a neutral expression on her face. “So, by Friday we’ll have this all sorted out?”

“Um...yes.” Shaye made a few quick notations in her phone’s notes app then went quickly around the room collecting phone numbers from everyone but the bodyguard. “I’ll contact Ahmed with the details, and we can arrange the date for this Saturday afternoon?” She made the last bit a question, looking at Elle.

“That sounds good to me. Ahmed?” Elle turned a closed smile on him and waited for him to agree.

“Yes, this Saturday afternoon is fine for me.” He glanced briefly around the room, eyes touching each person before landing once more on Elle. “Can Elle and I have the room, please?”

She blinked in surprise. Who the hell did he think he was? She’d already made it clear that she didn’t want to talk to him alone. Elle drew herself up to her full height of five foot nine and prepared to refuse his order. But before she could say anything, everyone quickly left the room.

What the...?

The door clicked shut behind them all before she could say any of the things ready to fly from her tongue.

“Elle...” Ahmed’s tone was almost conciliatory.

But she wasn’t in the mood to hear anything he had to say. When he reached out to her, she shrugged off his touch before it could even make contact. Her spine felt tight, brittle enough to snap.

“Everything is fine. We’ll do this date then never have to be alone again. As long as we all get our money’s worth, right?”

“Wrong.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and frowned down at her from his much greater height. “Would you just let me apologize?” He barreled on before she could tell him to where to stick his too-late apology. “I know we—” he held up his hands when she opened her mouth to remind him exactly who had started this war “—I got off on the wrong foot with you, and I want to say I’m sorry for that. There’s no reason we can’t go on this so-called date being at least cordial with each other. I don’t want to suffer through a couple of hours of your company, and I’m sure you feel the same way about mine.”

Just exactly what was his game? Even in the office, he had been flippant to the point of being rude. And now he wanted to kiss and make up? It didn’t make any sense. But if he wanted to pretend, she could do it with the best of them.

“Fine,” she said. “Apology accepted. All’s right with the world. Are you happy now?” But she didn’t want for him to answer. She turned on the heel of her lavender stilettos and wrenched open the door. Clive, Shaye and the bodyguard were only a few feet away from the office door. She was surprised the bodyguard had left Ahmed alone with her.

Clive’s eyes crinkled with amusement when he saw her. He stepped away from Shaye and approached Elle. “Are you sure we can’t have a camera guy follow you and Ahmed that afternoon? He wouldn’t be in the way.”

Elle barely kept a smile on her face and the civility on her tongue. “No, Clive. Just no.”

Shaye appeared at Elle’s shoulder while brushing an invisible piece of lint from the clinging material of her blouse. “I think it’ll be much more interesting and more fun to have them talk about the date on the air,” her friend said, and Clive seemed unable to look away from the nearly caressing motion of her hand on her own chest. “That way, you won’t have all that dead air and boring meal chitchat on film. With them back on the radio, you can get to the meat of the story that much faster.” Shaye said the word meat with far too much pleasure.

But that was apparently what Clive needed to hear. He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to Shaye’s face. “All right. But we’ll have a guy get some pics of you two that afternoon. I’ll send them over to your place about an hour before you’re supposed to leave.”

“I’ll send you the address,” Shaye said.

Elle rolled her eyes. This was turning out to be a bigger farce than she’d ever expected. And it was all Shaye’s fault. She cut her eyes at her best friend, but Shaye only smiled placidly back.

It was all right, though. They both knew Shaye owed her big-time for this one.

Chapter 5 (#ub3f5cc5a-8d47-5b83-a143-e9b22a1785bf)

“He’s on TV.” Shaye popped around the corner from the living room, her cocktail in hand, just as Elle turned off the blender.

“What are you talking about?” She poured her margarita into the extra-large glass with a sugar rim and took a sip. Yum. A little too much tequila, but the current situation excused it.

“Ahmed Clark. He’s on the news talking about the Garvey High school closing.” Shaye dumped a fresh bag of tortilla chips into a bowl and, hugging the bowl to her chest and her drink in one hand, made her way back into the living room. Her plush behind, in cutoff shorts, wiggled away from Elle’s sight.

Elle licked a trace of the margarita mixed with sugar crystals from her bottom lip and hummed again with pleasure. Against her will, she thought of Ahmed Clark. The tart and heady flavor of the margarita, potent as hell, was like the effect he had on her senses. Despite his bad manners, despite the not wanting to deal with him one-on-one, she couldn’t deny how much faster her heart beat in his presence, how the way he poked and prodded at her like a kid outside a tiger’s cage made her feel more energized than she had in years. She frowned. Really? Was his teasing really working on her outside of grade school? Apparently so.

Elle took a healthy sip of her drink, groaning out loud at how good the margarita tasted, how perfect for the hot summer day, and made her slow way to the living room and TV where Ahmed Clark dominated the screen.

She dropped down onto the sofa next to Shaye, who had already started on the chips, dipping them into the bowl of guacamole with one hand while lifting her drink to her lips with the other. Her friend was already Friday-afternoon tipsy.

After the flood of new business that had come in from Elle’s appearance on Ahmed’s show, she and Shaye decided to take the afternoon off for a little impromptu celebration.

From this side of the screen, it was easier to like Ahmed Clark. His chiseled and handsome face easily belonged on the big screen. The distance and the cameras amplified the energy that crackled around him when he was in any room while making his otherworldly handsomeness almost expected or commonplace. But that wasn’t exactly the word she wanted to use. The right words always escaped her where he was concerned.

“It’s criminal how he’s actually better looking in person. And sexier, too.”

Elle rolled her eyes. “He’s talking about some serious issues, Shaye. And all you can comment on is his body? You’re a mess.” As if she hadn’t just been thinking about how handsome he looked.

“I can care about educating our youth and how juicy that man is. I have no problems multitasking.”

After their meeting in Clive’s office, Elle had been too furious at her friend to speak to her. It took over twenty-four hours and an invitation to her newly purchased East Point house for Elle to agree to see Shaye. After meeting Elle at the door with the first margarita, Shaye had just kept the drinks coming. So now, at nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, they were both well and truly relaxed, both because of the drinks and because they’d managed to dodge every important topic. Until now, apparently.

“I wish you wouldn’t see him as the enemy, though,” Shaye said, managing to frown, drink her cocktail and scoop more guacamole toward her mouth at the same time.

“I don’t see him as an enemy.” On the TV screen, Ahmed Clark walked away from the cameras, his ever-present bodyguard at his side. “I admire what he’s doing. I think it’s great that he’s using his fame for something other than getting more women and more money. A lot of kids look up to him and the other celebrities talking about social justice issues. I think it’s amazing what he’s doing, getting the discussions about the needs of our community off Facebook and into our living rooms and our kitchens.”

Too bad he was such as an ass. She was dreading her so-called date with him.

“Yeah, he’s doing some amazing work with the community,” Shaye said. “And I like how it’s not all talk. He’s out there meeting with politicians and donating money, even discussing the creation of a fully funded private school for the neighborhoods affected by this latest round of school closures.”

Elle looked at Shaye. “Are you sure you shouldn’t have been the one going out on the date with him?” But even as she said it, her stomach clenched in automatic rejection of the idea. Shaye and Ahmed? No way. She didn’t look too closely at why.

“I already told you why.”

For a second, Elle thought Shaye was reading her mind. Then she remembered what her friend had said a few days before. “Yeah, you said you would just fangirl all over him, but you sound like you would love to go out with him.” Again, her stomach cramped and Elle winced.

It really did make sense for the two of them to be together. Ahmed Clark was an activist. He used his fame for good things. Shaye was also an activist. She had a soft heart and was tireless in her work for the community. Although she wore revealing clothes and had a bubbly attitude that might make some people dismiss her, of anyone Elle knew she was the perfect one for a guy like Ahmed Clark.

She was beautiful, knew how to stun with fashion, loved to party and, from all the stories she loved to tell, she loved sex. And all the things that Elle had read about Ahmed in the tabloids pointed to the fact that he loved sex, too. He certainly loved partying. And if all the stories and pictures were telling a little bit of the truth, he loved the groupies, too.

Shaye was better than any groupie. Prettier and loyal. Ahmed Clark could do worse than be with her best friend.

“Don’t try to pretend you wouldn’t want to beat me up if I ever looked twice in that man’s direction.” Shaye grinned around a mouthful of her margarita. “Open your lying mouth and tell me that you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Liar!”

Shaye fell back into the couch, laughing, and somehow miraculously managed not to spill her drink. After a long time, long enough that it was obvious she was a little tipsy, her face became serious.

“I know you like him, Elle. And it’s okay, even if you’re not ready to admit it to yourself yet. I would never do that to you.”

They didn’t have any kind of girl code. Everyone who knew the two of them knew Shaye was the one who had fun and had men while Elle was the one who stayed home and worked hard and sometimes dated but mostly kept to herself.

Elle blushed, thinking of how desperate she must seem to Shaye, then got over herself. They were more than just friends; they were sisters against the world. Nothing was too intimate, and nothing was off-limits for them. Even when she was mad at Shaye, she loved the damn woman. All the parts of her were open to Shaye—the desperate, the loyal, the petty, plus the good things, too. And she was slowly coming to realize that it wasn’t desperate to lust after a hot guy, even if he was anything but nice. If women only fell for nice guys, 90 percent of the male population would’ve wandered off to die in the desert by now.

Elle shook her head. “You know that’s nothing. Ahmed is nice, but nothing’s happening between us.”