Page 26 of Elevator Pitch

From his casual position, still perched against his desk, his eyes narrow. “And how often do men propose his place or yours to you?”

More mouth gaping. More lip smacking. Never. “I don’t see how that would be any of your business.”

My dating history is not the discussion at hand. This preposterous proposition is.

Those blue eyes of his become flames before he rolls his gaze down my body, the look causing a feather-like rush right down my center. A ripple of lust skitters over my skin, and I shiver.

Then I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’d like to help but I just can’t—”

“This was your idea.”

“Mine?” I choke, back to one-syllable questions.

“The morning after.”

My lips part once more, prepped to repeat what he’s stated. Instead, I stare at him, my brows knitting tightly together in confusion.

“You said I needed a change in routine. Like sleeping with a stranger in a hotel room.”

“I never said that.” More blinking. More staring. “But if I had”—because I’m slowly recalling I might have said something similar—“How do you remember that?”

“Because I remember everything.” His eyes laser in on mine. The look intense, electrifying even.

About that night? About me?

“And I’m thinking it can’t be just anyone in my bed. It needs to be you.”

Me? A virtual stranger?

Truthfully, we aren’t complete strangers anymore. Did ten minutes trapped in an elevator make us besties? Absolutely not. But we shared roughly nine hours together in one bed in a hotel room in Houston. We learned a thing or two about one another. However, that didn’t make us friends or bed fellows.

His final request stalls all higher functions. My brain stops trying to make sense of his thought process. My breath hitches. My heart, however, continues to hammer because deep down in my gut, I want to be significant to him, which is a puzzling concept.

“The facts are, I wanted this job, managing the Anchors,” he continues. “And the only person I’d told about my fear of being fired from the Flash, and my hope of being hired here, was you. Then it happened.”

Coincidence, I want to argue.

“Then we hadn’t won a game in the first week of this training season, until you showed up a week ago. Then we win.”

“Not exactly scientific evidence of—”

“And then . . .” he continues as if I wasn’t speaking. “Today. You’re here and we finally win for the second time.”

I stare at him. He can’t be serious with this nonsense, and yet, staring at him, the hopeful gleam in his eyes tells me he’s convinced this is how things evolved. My presence, not the talent of his team, brought about a win.

“So give me training season tickets, and I’ll attend a few more games.” I can’t believe I’m playing into his theory. This preposterous idea that I’m lucky for him. But as I’m not writing like I should be, maybe attendance at a couple more training games will be good for me, too.

Silence falls between us like a ball-drop in the outfield. I turn my head, glancing at a whiteboard with a baseball diamond embossed on it. Players on a team working in sync are vital to success, not a silly talisman. And certainly not some random set of happenstances.

Facing Ross again, I prepare to present my argument.

“Look.” He holds his hand up, stopping me before I speak. “I know it sounds outrageous. Strange. Ridiculous even. But I’m not beyond begging you to take a chance on me. On this little experiment. Just give me one night. Maybe two. I’m staying at the hotel here on the campus.”

I glance behind me as if I can see the four-star chain hotel on the opposite side of the stadium grounds.

“I need you,” he states, his raspy voice softening from sandpaper against wood to soft grains of sand falling. His eyes lighten, vulnerable, hopeful.

And herein laid the problem.