She peeled her gaze from those hands and forced herself to look into his beautiful teal eyes. “What I meant, Trent, is that talk is cheap. I dare you to enjoy a few rides while you’re in town.”
A cool predatory smile curved his lips as he eyed her speculatively. “I will on one condition.”
She knew she’d regret asking, but she couldn’t stop herself. “And that is…?”
“Ride with me. Unless you’re chicken.”
She had stepped right into that snare, hadn’t she? So much for clearing the air then saying goodbye to her second most mortifying memory. But she’d never been one to back down from a challenge. Middle kids learned to hold their ground early on or get lost in the shuffle.
On the positive side, going out with Trent would give her a chance to actually see some of the sights she’d told her sisters about.
On the negative side…
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. There would be no negative side. One date in a public place was no big deal. What did she have to lose? The worst had already happened. Trent had taken her to bed and been so turned off he couldn’t get an erection. She wasn’t dumb enough to repeat that experience.
“Talk is cheap,” he quoted back at her.
His jibe crushed her resistance. “I guess we have a date to ride a roller coaster.”
“Name the time and the place, and we’ll see who begs for mercy first.”
She hoped it wasn’t her.
Three
T rent’s new jeans were stiff and uncomfortable. His conscience wasn’t in any better shape as he waited outside Circus Circus’s indoor amusement park for Paige.He blamed his discomfort on the dishonesty. It couldn’t be anything else. What he was doing was no different than his brother’s childish pranks. It didn’t matter that he was trying to save Brent’s marriage and HAMC’s reputation rather than have a laugh at someone else’s expense. Good intentions or not, any way he tried to whitewash it, he was lying to Paige.
The verbal scrimmage they’d played over lunch had been a test of his skills. He’d had to tread carefully because he hadn’t known what information Paige and Brent had shared, and Trent didn’t want to contradict anything his brother might have said, but for his plan to succeed he needed to ferret out as many facts about their past as he could. Then he’d craft the perfect breakup scene—one that wouldn’t have negative repercussions for Brent or HAMC.
When Paige had mentioned roller coasters, despite his reservations, Trent had jumped on the idea for two reasons. First, getting her out of the hotel meant avoiding other industry professionals who might mention his absence at last year’s event. Second, he’d known he could relax his guard while fact-finding. She couldn’t have ridden coasters with Brent because Brent couldn’t stomach thrill rides of any kind.
Unfortunately, the rides weren’t without the substantial risk of kicking off an adrenaline craving—a risk Trent had avoided since taking the helm of HAMC by staying out of roller coasters and cockpits. He shut down that line of thought and focused on his goal of getting rid of Paige rather than the concerns gnawing at the edge of his subconscious.
He hated uncertainty and being unprepared. Tonight’s date perfectly illustrated the pitfalls of lying. Normally, he would have planned their date from beginning to end, but in this case, he’d had to follow Paige’s lead. He couldn’t offer to pick her up because he didn’t know if his brother knew where she lived, and he couldn’t ask because Brent, the numbskull, still wasn’t answering his phone or e-mails or returning messages Trent had left with his brother’s PA. Luckily, Paige had suggested meeting outside the hotel for their first outing.
Given the only reason Trent attended the annual aviation conference was to network, promote HAMC and view the vendors’ latest products, he couldn’t believe he’d blown off the opportunity. And yet here he stood, wasting valuable work hours doing damage control and playing mind games with a doe-eyed blonde.
Resenting his brother for putting him in this position, he shifted in his new shoes—yet another reminder of the cost of Brent’s lie. Trent had had to purchase casual apparel from the hotel boutique this afternoon because he never allowed himself downtime at a convention and therefore hadn’t packed anything except suits. In the past he’d always worked each day from the moment he left his hotel suite at dawn until he fell into bed around midnight. If there was a beneficial connection to be made for HAMC, he made it. But not this time.
He scanned the sidewalk again. At six in the evening the foot traffic had begun to pick up. Then like some clichéd movie scene, the pedestrians parted and he spotted Paige striding through the center of the crowd. A breeze lifted her long hair off her shoulders. She’d changed from the dress she’d worn earlier in the day into denim. Her jacket, zipped-up to her chin against the evening’s chill, embraced her br**sts. Faded jeans hugged her rounded h*ps and long, slender legs. His heart rate increased. It was easy to see why Brent had been tempted. But the idiot should have had more control.
Her steps faltered when she saw him, then tucking her chin, she charged in his direction with determination. She halted in front of him, tense and wary, hands in her jacket pockets.
His gaze dropped to her lips, and an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her hello the way a lover—former lover—would rose inside him. Would Brent have greeted her that way?
Eyes widening, Paige fell back a step, giving him his answer. He wasn’t disappointed.
Hell, yes, you are. Who are you trying to fool?
The insight stunned him. He wanted to kiss her. Where was the aversion to Paige he should be feeling? He’d always been repelled by his brother’s discards. But his prickling skin and sudden spike in temperature weren’t difficult to identify. Desire.
He crushed his response. As much as he would love to rectify Paige’s incorrect appraisal of his bedroom skills and prove his prowess between the sheets, he had no intention of sleeping with her. Sex would only complicate matters. Brent had left enough of a mess for Trent to clean up already.
She tilted her head back, her eyes glinting with pure challenge. “I half expected you to chicken out.”
He shook his head. “I’m not the one who’s lived here for over a year and found excuses not to ride. I expected you to be the no-show.”
She scoffed in disbelief. “We’ll see who screams first and loudest.”
He pulled the wristbands from his pocket. “It won’t be me, brown eyes. I’ve bought unlimited ride passes. I’m here until they shut the place down and throw us out. You can leave whenever you’ve had enough.”
What in the hell? He even sounded like Brent. Cocky. Childish. Selfish.
Her wicked grin hit him like a punch in the gut. “My money says you won’t last that long.”
“That’s a bet you’ll lose. Give me your arm.”
She extended her right forearm. He took her fist in one hand and shoved up her sleeve with the other, revealing pale skin and a fine-boned wrist. Her flesh warmed his palm. He had to fight the urge to trace his fingertips along the blue veins to test her softness. At thirty-four he was long past the juvenile stage of getting turned on by holding hands. But damned if a familiar tingle didn’t start behind his fly.
He shut it down, quickly fastened her wristband with hands that weren’t as steady as he’d like, and released her, then tried to apply his own, but wrapping the slippery, limp paper around his arm proved to be trickier than putting on a watch even though the principle was the same.
“Let me do that.” Lightning fast, she snatched the strip from his fingers before he could react and stretched it between her thumbs. He laid his wrist across the cool band. The tips of her fingers danced over the sensitive inside of his wrist as she removed the adhesive backing then snugly secured the flaps. “You’re good to go.”
The breathless quality of her voice drew his gaze to her flush-darkened cheeks then her wary, dilated eyes. Knowing she was as affected as he by the contact thickened his throat and increased the urge to erase her memories of his brother. The idea of threading his fingers into Paige’s thick, straight hair, pulling her close and covering her mouth with his assaulted him like a Technicolor film streaming through his head.
No. No unnecessary entanglements. No more complications.
He refocused on the appetites he could satisfy. “Dinner first or rides?”
She gave him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “Rides. We can eat afterward—if your stomach can handle it.”
Her taunt ripped a laugh from his gut. Damn, she was sassy. Had Brent had any clue what he’d bitten into? Or maybe Paige’s sweet girl-next-door manner had been the attraction. As far as he could tell she was as different from Brent’s bitchy, moody, manipulative wife as possible. Paige seemed too smart to have fallen for Brent’s dubious charms.
You wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.
Something he better not forget. “My stomach is not an issue. Do you want to start with the main attraction or something tamer?”
“I’m ready for the Canyon Blaster, but if you need to work up your courage, we’ll ride the gentler stuff first.”
Her baiting tone and the mischief in her eyes made his lips twitch. He didn’t want to like Paige McCauley. He wanted to do his job of convincing her she’d slept with him during the previous convention then find a way to make her wish she’d never met him. That way when Brent and Luanne arrived next week Paige would avoid all of them. Trent just hadn’t decided how to accomplish his goal yet.
He pivoted on his heel and headed toward the entrance of the hotel’s indoor amusement park. Inside the Adventure Dome, Paige scanned the circus-themed space with the enthusiasm of a child while he inhaled the aromas of popcorn, cotton candy and hot dogs. She paused to read a map then hustled toward the roller coaster, leaving Trent to follow. The quick swish of her tush in her snug jeans drew his gaze like a train wreck.
“Come on,” she called over her shoulder.
He lengthened his stride, then kept pace with her until they reached the short line for the double-loop, double corkscrew track. She bounced on the balls of her feet beside him. Her contagious excitement quickened his pulse.
If his family could see him now, goofing off and fighting a smile at Paige’s antics, they’d think he was the imposter. His siblings accused him of being all business all the time, but somebody had to be focused on the future of Hightower Aviation.
For the past thirteen years he’d been too busy busting his ass and trying to hoist the family business from the financial crater his father’s gambling addiction had created to have fun. He’d finally gotten the company on firm ground and ready to expand, then this year…everything had hit the fan.
His gaze followed the twists and turns of the roller coaster track—a track that bore a resemblance to his life over the past twelve months. Hell, even HAMC’s top-notch PR team hadn’t been able to find a way to put a positive spin on the discovery his mother’s secret daughter or one of his sisters getting inseminated with the wrong donor’s sperm at a nationally renowned fertility clinic. Luckily, his new half-sister wasn’t half-bad, and his pregnant sister’s situation had turned out well when she’d married her baby’s biological father last month.