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“‘Billionaire owner of the Dallas Mustangs celebrates as Fyra Cosmetics executive says yes to his proposal.’” She cleared her throat. “That’s verbatim. I’m reading it straight off my screen.”
Since he didn’t need any more invitations to church, he bit back an inventive curse. “It’s...complicated, Mom.”
He couldn’t flat-out deny it, not until he knew if Trinity had planted the story on purpose. She better not have. He’d already told her his views on a fake engagement. His temper set off at a slow boil.
“Oh. So are you engaged or not?”
He couldn’t lie to his mom, either. They’d always been close, but since his dad had died, Logan made sure that his mom wanted for nothing. They’d made the agonizing decision together to sell McLaughlin Investments, the online stock trading company his dad had founded, and then split the money in half. It had bonded them in a way nothing else could have. “I’ll call you later and tell you. How about that?”
“As long as the answer is yes, sure.”
Of course that was what she’d say. She’d been bemoaning the lack of a daughter-in-law for going on ten years now and recently had started in on the lack of grandchildren. You’re not getting any younger, she liked to remind him, and I’m certainly not.
He had a ticking clock in his head, too, and didn’t need any help feeling like the life full of family and kids that he saw when he closed his eyes did not even slightly resemble the one he lived every day. The line of eligible women wrapped the block twice, but he couldn’t seem to find the right future Ms. McLaughlin. Certainly he would not increase his chances by parading a fake one around.
A shower did not improve his mood, and neither did the images that had been flashing across his mind since the undressing of last night. Trinity’s body was the stuff of legends, and he was not the nice guy she’d painted him as.
Oddly, thinking about that second kiss put more wood in his shed than visualizing her perfect breasts as he peeled off that outfit made of sofa cushion material. So horrible. But once it was gone? So beautiful.
The woman. The kiss. The way she’d made herself vulnerable to him, both on that bed as he’d stripped away all of the outer trappings that hid Trinity from the world and on that bar stool as he explored what he’d found. So amazing.
He palmed himself and took care of the worst of the aching need, but he suspected he wouldn’t ever fully absolve it until he gave in to the inevitable.
Which wasn’t happening.
When he got out of the shower, he hunted up something to eat in the enormous kitchen that had come with the house he’d bought in Prosper because it was close to the Mustangs training facility and the school district was one of the best in north Texas.
Yeah, it had occurred to him that the woman he eventually married might like to pick out her own house, but he’d fallen in love with the property the moment his Realtor showed it to him. Twenty rolling acres spread out around the main house with plenty of room for kids and dogs, and a stable sat up on a hill overlooking a lake that he’d stocked with fish. Now all he needed was the wife.
Apparently he’d been granted step one in that process without his consent, and since he really couldn’t put it off any longer, Logan snatched his laptop from the built-in desk near the fireplace in the great room and booted it up as he mainlined coffee.
The shot spilled onto his screen, and yeah, it was hot. He was standing between Trinity’s legs, back to the camera and his hand on her thigh. The photographer had captured the kiss perfectly to show Trinity’s face and expression—rapturous.
Logan’s entire body cued up at the memory. This wasn’t a picture of two people faking it for the camera. They wanted each other more than they wanted to breathe, and it was all there in full color for the world to see.
That’s what his mom should be worried about, not whether the caption had any validity, although it did say exactly what she’d said it did.
Trinity Forrester was not the woman of his dreams. Fantasies? Sure. It would be impossible not to think about finishing that kiss with all her clothes on the floor. But the idea of her being his fake fiancée did not sit well. At all. He needed to call her, but it was barely nine o’clock on a Sunday and despite all of the evidence burning up his laptop screen, he did have a small sense of decorum left.
His phone beeped with a text message from none other.
Looked like she wasn’t a late sleeper, either.
Did you see? It’s all over my social media. I need a ring.
That pushed far more buttons than he should have allowed, and his temper flared. A fake relationship was one thing, because frankly, it wasn’t all that fake. They were dating, and no one had asked how serious it was, so there had been no reason to lie. Until today.
