The Billionaire Athlete’s Christmas Fling - Leslie North Page 0,61
Christmas season—were very clearly searching for the right buyer. Which meant price, or the thickness of the wad of money Josh was prepared to offer, didn’t matter. At all.
They wanted a family-oriented buyer, and Josh was the farthest thing from it.
He must have spent too much time staring at his computer screen in thought, because Amelia finally said, “Uh, Josh?”
“Hm?” He clicked through a few screens as a new idea occurred to him. He went into the search engine to type in “wives for hire.” This seemed like one of those searches that could only end poorly, but he had to try.
“Are we going to plan your trip?” Amelia asked.
“Right.” He sighed as the results showed exactly what he feared, all sorts of barely-legal international stuff. The IT department would get a kick out of this if they ever searched his browser history. “Dammit.”
“Sooo…” Amelia clicked the top of her pen. “Are we trip planning or not?”
Josh worked his jaw back and forth, swinging to face Amelia. He studied the top of his desk, lost in thought.
“You look like a mad genius right now,” Amelia said.
“Do you know the owners of the Cedar Grove Hotel?” he blurted.
She knit her brows together. She’d recently begun filling in her eyebrows, per the recent makeup trends. She was the only woman he thought could pull it off with flair. “Not personally, no…But I think their youngest might have been a few grades above me in high school.”
Prickles spread through his gut. He was on to something here.
“And you’re, uh, single, right?” He hated that the words hadn’t flowed easily for him. When she’d started at Denton Hotels, she’d had a boyfriend, but along the way he’d caught wind that situation had dissolved. He made it a point to not inquire into her love life. Deep down, a part of him worried he’d get jealous.
Her brows formed a ridge. “Yes…”
He drew a fortifying breath as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The plans he’d wanted Amelia to make were for him to visit Cedar Grove and woo the owners himself. But what if he included her in the mix, and they just happened to think she was his doting fiancée?
“I need you to hear me out,” he began.
“I really hate it when you start sentences like that,” she said.
“When have I ever started a sentence like that?”
She lifted her hand, counting off each finger as she spoke. “First, there was the prank you wanted me to pull on your brother when I first started. Next, you had me rearrange the seats for the annual gala, which almost caused the accounting department to withhold my paycheck. Then, there was the—”
“Okay.” He raised a palm. “I get it.”
“Harebrained schemes, I think they’re called,” she added.
He fought a smile. “I’ve got one more scheme.”
She sighed exaggeratedly, cocking her head. As she shifted in the chair, the front slit of her blouse opened, and he caught a glimpse of the fascinating landscape beneath, pure cleavage and creamy skin. His gut tightened.
“I wanted you to come in here and help me plan a business trip to go woo the owners.” He paused, wetting his bottom lip as he raked his gaze over her. She had to agree to the plan. He’d make sure she couldn’t say no. “Now I want you to come with me and pretend to be my fiancée.”
Amelia’s eyes went saucer-wide. “What?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
She scoffed. “Josh. I can’t do that. That’s my hometown, everyone there knows me.”
“Except the Cedar Grove owners.”
She paused.
“It’s not like I’m going to ask you to do this without compensation,” he went on. “What do you think—time and a half for the duration of the trip?”
She blinked. “Like…for every hour we’re gone?”
He nodded.
“How long will the trip be?”
“Probably a week,” Josh said, his heart rate picking up. Just say yes. “I promise, it won’t eat into your Christmas vacation time. We’ll finish up right before you’d be heading home for the holidays anyway.”
Her crystal blue eyes went wider, cheeks stained pink. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not. I need you to do this.”
She deflated slightly. “But, Josh, you want me to lie. It’s true I don’t know the owners, but I know everybody else. The people in my hometown have known me since I was a baby.”
“If money won’t convince you, then what will?”
Amelia nibbled at her bottom lip, the lip that he had imagined kissing only in his weakest moments. He looked away. He knew better than to mix business and pleasure, which was why this idea felt safe to him. Amelia posing as his fiancée was pure business. And he’d make sure to keep it that way.
“Honestly? A promotion.”
Her words fell with a thud. He frowned, letting the idea percolate through him.
“You’re sick of being my assistant?” He tried to joke it off, but the fear was real.
“No, not sick of it. I just want to move up the ladder.” She softened a moment later, like maybe she’d noticed that he was worried. “Trust me, I love working with you. But I want to be a location scout. I want to take the trips to find the new properties…and then I want to move up from there. Maybe so high that I’ll be sitting on the same tree limb as you someday.”
He couldn’t fight the grin. “Yeah, well, it’s not as great up here as it might seem.”
“You’ve got power and prestige.”
“And no time for a personal life.”
She shrugged, not even flinching. “I already don’t have one of those, so no big deal.”
He hesitated. “I really hate the thought of losing you as my assistant. But…” He shook his head, allowing the truth to settle into him. “I knew this day would have to come.”
She batted her eyelashes at him, an infectious grin overtaking her face. “So? You’ll do it?”
“If you’ll come on this trip with me and help me secure the hotel,” he said, the words coming out heavy, “then yes. You’ll get your promotion.”
Amelia squealed and leapt out of the chair, pumping her fist in the air. “Then you have a deal!”
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