Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (88 page)

Eighty minutes’ worth of busting a gut, even as you were keeping your head. Eighty minutes straight of keeping your composure, because that helped everyone else keep theirs, and a team couldn’t win without composure. And because a winning team was a team working as one.

Instead, there he would be, putting on enough padding to stop a tram and a helmet he could barely see out of, just to kick the ball from nearly dead center and run off again to wait a half-hour for the next time? At least ten times as much money, and that mattered, but all the same…how much challenge would there be in that? 

Well, today would be a challenge, anyway, he had a feeling. He came through the glass door of the studio to find Gretchen, Calvin, and an older woman he didn’t know sitting around the table accepting coffees from Faith.

It was good to see her, and all at once, he wasn’t second-guessing the decision to do this quite so much. He was living next door to her, but she was quiet as a mouse, and he’d only caught sight of her once since he’d moved in. He’d spotted her out the window the day before, beginning to haul out the rubbish bins, and had sprinted down to help her. Which might have earned him a few points in the “friends” department, but wasn’t exactly wine and candlelight territory.

“Good,” Calvin grunted when Will walked over to join the others. “You’re here.”

“Morning.” Will decided to take that as a greeting. He sat down and accepted the coffee Faith handed him. She’d asked him the last time what he liked, and she’d remembered, too. “Beautiful day out there.”

“It’s always a beautiful day,” Calvin said gloomily. “It’s Las Vegas.”

Faith laughed. “Never mind him. He’s always a little nervous before he starts a big job.”

“I beg your pardon,” Calvin said. “When I need you to apologize for me, I’ll tell you.”

“You constantly need me to apologize for you,” she said calmly. “That’s why I do it.”

“Why I put up with you…”

“Well, never mind,” she said. “You can fire me when this is over. I’ll hold my breath, shall I?”

“Cheeky,” Will said.

“Isn’t she, though?” Calvin said. “Thinks she’s cute.”

“Well, she is, a bit.” Will grinned at her, and she smiled back. Her hair was in that messy almost-bun again, and she was wearing a T-shirt and jeans again, and she still didn’t have much makeup on. And she still looked good.

“This is Charlotte, our stylist,” Faith said, and Will shook hands with the older woman.

“And while we’re doing introductions…” Faith did a drumroll on the glass tabletop with her hands. “Hope Sinclair, meet Hemi Te Mana, your new employer.”

“Oh,” Gretchen said. “Hope. I like that. Hi, Hemi!”

Will didn’t answer her, just stared at Faith, and her confident smile faded. “What?” she asked. “Is it a dirty word? I thought it sounded good, and mana is power or something like that, right? Perfect.”

“No.” If he sounded a little grim, it was because he felt that way. “It means prestige. Honor, the kind you earn for the person you are. That man, that woman who walks through the world upright—that’s what it means. It’s an important word.”

“Well, then, even more perfect,” Calvin said, impatient as always. “I agree, sounds good. Let’s go.”

Faith didn’t move. “If it’s offensive, though…”

“It’s an actual name, right?” Calvin demanded of Will. “Te…Te Mana?”

“Yeh. It is.” How could he say that he didn’t want his heritage treated like some Vegas show? He was the one who’d agreed to do this. They didn’t want him for his fine rugby brain, or for the content of his character. They wanted him for his color, his size, his muscles, and his tattoo. He couldn’t very well complain that they were objectifying him. He was doing it to himself. And he’d agreed to this. “Right,” he said in resignation. “Hemi Te Mana it is.”

“Well, then, Hemi,” Calvin said, “let’s get on with it. Charlotte’s got some wardrobe for you. Get yourself into it.”

Fact and Fiction

Faith moved lights and softboxes, set up cameras, checked angles. All the while watching Will being prepped by Charlotte, who handled him with the matter-of-fact briskness she brought to every shoot. The older woman rubbed oil into his chest and fussed with the waistband of his trousers with all the emotion she’d showed when she’d been braiding hair on a six-year-old for a book on Making Your Own Paper Fairies. Less, actually, because Charlotte liked kids. And if Will was uncomfortable, he didn’t show it either.

The first shots were of him alone. A white shirt unbuttoned over his broad chest, his sleeves rolled up to show bulky, sinewy forearms and the start of his tattoo. A thumb hooked into the waistband of dark dress pants, the woolen fabric stretching tight over muscular thighs, a black tie loosened around his neck. His gaze lowered, his stare dark and a little menacing.

He posed, and Calvin shot, and Faith’s mind responded in spite of herself, going off on its own volition even as she shifted equipment and crawled along the floor and tweaked.

She had the story. It was right there in front of her.

Hemi Te Mana kept his personal life in shadow, partly because mystique was good, but mostly because his personal life didn’t really bear scrutinizing. But his body was a different story. That was right out there. If his muscles were etched into shapes any sculptor would long to recreate in marble—well, it didn’t hurt that he’d built himself into a walking advertisement for his products, at the same time he’d been building his men’s underwear company. They were both powerhouses, because winning was the only option. Close didn’t count, and second place was for losers.

He didn’t get photographed in his underwear, of course, even though it had been suggested more than once. He left that to the models, which was why he was here today. He always came to the first day of the photo shoot for a new line. He knew some people called him controlling. Arrogant. Obsessive. As if any of that were a bad thing.

He stood in a corner of the spacious studio. They’d be shooting outdoors tomorrow, with Central Park in the background, but he wouldn’t be around for that. He didn’t have to be. He could see Central Park anytime from the wall-to-wall windows of his Manhattan penthouse.

His fingers flew, deft and sure, checking and responding to the messages on his phone as he waited for the crew to finish their endless fiddling. He set aside his annoyance at their not being ready for the ten o’clock shooting schedule he’d specified and concentrated instead on the task at hand. Annoyance wouldn’t help right now, and he never indulged in unnecessary or unhelpful emotion. He typed out a quick answer to his VP of Finance about the upcoming IPO, moved on to a question from Marketing about the Paris show.

His attention kept straying, though, and that was completely unlike him. It was the girl setting up the camera who was doing it to him. She appeared too small for the task of hauling those tripods around, and Hemi had to restrain himself from going over and helping her. She was fragile as a butterfly, in fact, her pale-blonde hair brushing her narrow shoulders, her little face a perfect heart dominated by enormous blue eyes, a rosebud of a mouth. And when she was on her hands and knees, crawling to plug in the cords…Hemi lost his train of thought entirely, his fingers and his mind stilling as they never did.

She hadn’t been introduced to him. She wasn’t important enough. But he’d heard the photographer snap at her, and he knew her name.

“Hope!” Vincent Galway, the gray-haired martinet behind the camera, was barking again now. Hemi had always appreciated his brusqueness, his cold insistence on perfection. He ought to. He’d been accused of possessing exactly those same qualities often enough. Now, it was making the hot rage rise, and he couldn’t afford that.

“Hurry up with those lights,” Vincent ordered. “Mr. Te Mana is waiting.”

She bit her lip, and it trembled a little as the delicate color rose in her porcelain cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “One moment.” Her fingers were fumbling, and Hemi somehow knew that she needed this job. That she couldn’t afford to fail.

Nobody should be treating her like that. Nobody should be doing anything to her. Nobody but him.

“Faith!”

She jerked herself back to awareness, stepped hastily forward again and pulled the memory card out of the camera, went to plug it into Calvin’s computer and load up the photos.

“Get his shirt and tie off,” Calvin told Charlotte. “We’ll get a few in just the pants. Or maybe keep the tie,” he said consideringly. “Faith? What do you think?”

“Oh, yes. Just the tie. Loose, like that.” She grinned at Will. “The better to lead you around by.”

“Really?” He gave her one of those slow, devilish smiles, more mischief than danger. “That wasn’t how I was planning on using it.”

“You’ll get your chance,” she said. “But not until Day Four. I’m sure Hope will be begging for it by then.”

“Right. Hope.” Another meaningful look, and he had her heart fluttering despite herself. “And you said it, I didn’t. A gentleman never tells.”

“Oh, and you’re a gentleman?”

“Always,” he said softly. “Except when I’m…not.”

“Ooh.” She opened her eyes wide at him. “I’m oddly intrigued. Please. Tell me more.”

“OK, enough chit-chat,” Calvin said. “Fifteen minutes,” he told Will. “Take a break.”

A break. Yeah. She needed a break. And all right, she might have interjected herself just a little into her story. Too bad. That was why they called it fiction. Because you could make up whatever you wanted, including being tiny, delicate, lovely, and fiercely, completely, utterly desired by Will. Uh, by Hemi.

Dinner Date

Will opened the door to his ridiculous granny flat, dropped his duffel, and headed for the shower. He was a greasy mess, and that was the truth. Posing for these kinds of photos, he was finding, took heaps more effort than training. Too much standing around. His least favorite thing. And all that pretending to be broody, deep, and dark—it was exhausting. He wasn’t deep, and that was that. He liked being shallow. So much easier.

Faith had seemed to notice every time he’d been flagging, had talked to him encouragingly, and when he’d scowled at her, she’d laughed, because she’d known that he’d known what she was doing. She hadn’t seemed the least bit bothered that he’d been holding Gretchen, either. Well, neither had Gretchen, so that made two of them. Three, if he counted Charlotte. He was clearly losing his touch.

He got out of the shower feeling a bit better, saw a text from Solomon, and rang the other man back.

“Lelei wondered if you wanted to come for dinner again tonight,” his mate said. “I think she’s worried that you’ll develop a cocaine habit, now that you’re a model.”

Will smiled. “Thanks, but I’ve got plans. And tell her no worries. I don’t think the model life’s for me. I’ll stick with footy.”

“Good idea. How’s the new place working out?”

“Well…I’d invite you round, but you’d expire from estrogen overload.”

“I’ve got a wife and one-and-a-half daughters,” Solomon reminded him. “Is it that bad?”

“Not if you like flowers.”

He heard the deep chuckle. “Sounds like a much safer spot for you. Well, not necessarily to me. But Lelei also thought you’d fall into bad company at the hotel. Lelei thinks about you too much, in fact, if you ask me. Hmm. Maybe it’s good that you can’t come to dinner.”

“Bad company’s my favorite kind, though.” Will cradled the phone between shoulder and ear as he pulled on black boxer briefs, then a clean pair of jeans. 

“Yeah. I just barely remember about that. Does that girl—the model—know who you are? She looked like she could work out to be some bad company of the very best kind, especially if you’re getting naked with her every day.”

“I’m not getting naked, remember? I haven’t even got down to my undies yet, although she has, because life’s unfair to women in the stripping-down department, I guess. I think she’s going to be able to resist me, too. And I may even be able to resist her, undies or no.” Which was quite the surprise, wasn’t it? Gretchen
was
pretty. She was very pretty. But she wasn’t the one his eyes had kept straying to today.

“She know who you are?”

“Nah. Nobody does, because I didn’t sign my real name to the release.”

“Makes it not legal, then.”

“Who cares? And, all right, one person knows. Faith knows. Because she’s a bloody stickler, isn’t she. I handed over the money to rent the apartment for three weeks up front, no fuss, no muss, and what does she do but ask for my passport all the same? Told me I could be running from the law, for all she knew. Me.”

“Imagine that.”

“And I wouldn’t put it past her to do her research,” Will said, “because she’s just that way.”

“She could be publicizing you, then, for that site. Her very own New Zealand rugby star. Step right up and see him up close and personal, girls!”

“Not exactly a star in the States, though, am I. I don’t think anybody here even knows what rugby is. They probably think it’s a type of carpet or something. Anyway, I won’t be a rugby star at all if this deal works out, and who’ll care what I do then? It’s a whole new, free world. Anyway, Faith’s pretty…pretty straight. But yeh, it’s all a gamble. When in Vegas, eh. Besides, I love to live dangerously.”

“So you’re working with her,
and
living in her place? That’s some fast moving, brother. How long did that take, a day?”

“Well, she
is
my dinner date tonight. Her and her mum, because her mum owns the building. So she can vet her new tenant. I’m not moving that fast at all, but I got dinner all the same, and I’ll be working on the rest of it, no worries.”

“You’re meeting the mom? Sorry to tell you this, but that doesn’t usually translate to, ‘Hey, baby. Let’s do it quick and dirty and move on.’”

“Don’t remind me,” Will said.

Chocolate Cheesecake

When Faith had come back over to Mrs. Ferguson’s apartment with the rental agreement and the keys that first day, it had been a real struggle not to betray the anxiety attack she’d had in her bathroom in the interim. What had she been thinking, suggesting that he live next door to her, after looking at him half-naked in the studio? Especially after that little scene in his own bathroom. He was looking for some easy companionship during his holiday, it was clear, and what could be more convenient than getting it from his next-door neighbor?