He might be scorchingly hot, but he’s off limits. Our abysmal sex lives have no place in this relationship. We’re co-workers. He’s my client. Sort of. That kiss between us that I keep replaying? The one that was Oscar-worthy even though it was built on total miscommunication? I hit my mental delete button.
With a few cleansing breaths and a renewed vow to be a true professional, I square my shoulders. “You know what? Let’s start over. I’m Tori Russo, and I’ve been assigned as your PR manager. I’m at your service.”
The thing about marketing is that you have to be good at bending the truth. Not blatantly lying because most people can see through that in a heartbeat. Spinning the truth for the purposes of accomplishing a goal is fair game though. If I had told Mike the Wolves assigned me to be his handler, he would never have shown up at my door to offer his cooperation. My little white lie benefits him as much as it does me. He gets to save face, and I get more experience.
Mike nods. His chest heaves with a deep sigh. “I’m Mike Mitchell. And…apparently, I’m in trouble. I would appreciate your help with turning around my image very much.”
“I can definitely do that.” I flash him a smile that hopefully conveys we’re starting with a clean slate.
“So…” He blows out a forceful breath then places the throw pillow in its original position in the corner of the couch. “Where should we start?”
I can’t help but sneak a peek at his crotch. It seems his issue is completely under control now, which means we’re finally on the same page. “You said you came here to offer me your total cooperation. I admitted I don’t have much information to market you with. How about if we start there? How would you like me to present you to the world?”
His relaxed posture doesn’t match his heated words. That’s a skill we can use to our advantage if he can be taught to use it all the time. His body language has been all over the place so far tonight. “I’d rather you not market me at all. I want to prove myself on the field by working hard, but my coaches flat-out told me if I don’t play nice with you, they’ll bench me.”
I wince because I empathize with his situation more than he knows.
No one made me aware of how much is on the line for Mike in this arrangement. As far as I know, I’m just supposed to keep him out of trouble by being a glorified babysitter while feeding intel to the actual marketing department. The words “look pretty and be a good distraction” might have been used. Which I have no intention of doing. Mike’s just given me a very good reason to add to my list for not doing exactly what I’ve been told.
“I want to make this as easy as possible on you, so let’s start at the beginning.” I have my own ideas, but it’s time to run another test. “Tell me what the fight between you and Alex Fossoway was about.”
“I would rather not,” he states flatly. “It was personal. Our argument had nothing to do with football.”
So, when he told me he was here to offer his full cooperation, he lied. That makes me feel a little bit better about my ruse. “Because you’re old friends, and friends sometimes fight?”
Darn it. I wasn’t supposed to lead him in any way.
“Yep.” He nods. “You’ve got it. Wow. You’re really good at this whole marketing thing. Case closed. Guess we’re done here.”
I watch in confusion as he hops up from his seat on my couch and wipes his hands down the front of his jeans that cling to his muscular thighs. “Mr. Mitchell? I mean…Mike? We’re not nearly done here. Remember the whole threat about getting benched thing?”
He offers me a completely fake smile before plopping back down. “Oh, right. Well, can’t blame a guy for hoping.”
I sigh. This is going to be more difficult than I thought. My career ambitions have always been corporate marketing, not personal. If I’m going to make lemonade out of lemons, I have to hone in on my primary target market—Mike Mitchell. I need to sell myself to him before I can promote him to the masses. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t really know how to market yourself, and the very idea of it makes