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“Stop yourself,” she snapped back.
He blinked, then shook his head. “Right. Sorry. This conversation isn’t helping. Shall we get back to ground rules then? You’re going to have to let me touch you. Hand-holding and so on. When we’re out in public.”
“When it’s appropriate,” she said. “We’re meant to be demonstrating we’re a good team, not that we’re goggle-eyed teens in love.”
“Agreed. But couples touch. Particularly new couples. And you’re going to have to pretend that you like me.”
“Liking you is not the problem,” she said.
“Then—”
“No. We’re not discussing this again. This is the way it has to be. So, yes to touching in public. You can hold my hand and hug me and do that stuff.”
“How about kissing?”
“Only as a measure of last resort.”
His mouth quirked. “What, when you need CPR?”
“Something like that. Look, this is simple enough. Do what we need to do in public, but behind closed doors, it’s hands off, Winters. Agreed?”
“I don’t see that there’s much choice. So, yes.”
“Good. Now, what’s the next step?”
“We have to issue some sort of statement.”
“I’d rather that it just said that we believe private matters are private and leave it at that. We can deal with the owners’ questions if we have to but I don’t see the point of feeding the media beast any more than necessary.”
“We can talk to the PR people. They’ll know what’s best.” He sighed. “Okay, so outside of this room, and as far as everyone else but Mal and Lucas know, you and I are a couple.”
“Hana knows that I was going to break up with you.”
“Great. Well, you can tell her that you changed your mind, okay? That I wooed you back to reason.”
“This isn’t reason.”
“No, but it’s reality. So let’s deal with it and get on with taking Sutter down.”
It was another long day. Another round of phone calls and strategizing until they’d come up with a list of where they thought their votes currently stood and a plan for tackling the undecideds and the outright no votes.
“That’s a lot of plane trips,” Mal said, staring at the list.
“Good for your frequent flyer miles,” Alex said.
“Good for deep vein thrombosis,” Lucas said, looking cranky.
“You just don’t like to fly,” Alex retorted.
“I fly all the time.”
“Yeah, but you don’t like it,” Mal said.
“I’m not going to be able to do all of these trips,” Lucas pointed out. “I have patients whose procedures can’t be delayed.”
“It’s only a week.”
“A week’s too long when you’re trying to save someone’s leg,” Lucas countered. “I’ll clear my schedule as far as possible but I can’t just drop everything.”
