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Ralph is punishing me.
This is such bullshit. How is making me miserable going to help the team and my career?
I give him a scowl, which he ignores.
“Pleased to meet you, Mason,” Rowan says coolly.
I don’t reply.
Rowan sighs. “All right, Mason, here’s the deal,” she says. “I am going to need your cooperation if we’re going to turn your image around.
“The public loves me,” I grumble.
“But do theylikeyou?” she parries.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Does it matter?”
“They have a schoolgirl crush on you right now,” she concedes, and she can’t hide a little bit of an eye roll at the notion. “We want to make them genuinely like you as a person.”
Well, what I personally want is to play the game I love, and have everyone stop trying to crawl up my ass.
I curled my mouth up in the kind of smile that melted the panties right off my female fans. “And what about you, Rowan? Schoolgirl crush, or does it go much deeper with you?”
She smiles sweetly and ignores the question. “I’m really excited about our plans. We’ll be going on a tour of children’s cancer hospitals. Every two weeks we’ll be visiting a different hospital. You’ll meet one-on-one with leukemia patients. You’ll read books to children, sign autographs, play some card games, and give them Rovers merchandise, including that adorable mascot. We’ve arranged for extensive social media and press coverage.”
The hell?
I straighten up in my chair and give her a patronizing smile. “Aw, that’s a cute little idea, but no thank you. Not for me.”
Her eyes spark in annoyance. Ah, there was her hidden fire. I want to see more of it.
No, wait. No, I don’t. I want to see her walking out the door, and the door hitting her on her shapely ass on the way out.
Rowan returns my smirk with a cool stare. “Thank you, I’m so relieved you think my idea is cute. Her name is Susie. I spent all morning primping her up and making her pretty.”
Cecelia coughed into her hand.
Amanda’s lip curls up in a sneer and then she flashes a sympathetic smile at me while tossing her hair. Well, look at her, she can multi-task.
She’d be way more fun to hang out with than Rowan.
Rowan would just give me a hard time in general. So hard.
My God. Rowan is actually making me hard. What the hell is wrong with me?
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, crossing one leg over the other, and try to imagine the least sexy things I can think of. Garlic breath. Hairy toes. Old men in G-string bikinis. It helps, a little. I cannot be sporting a woody when I stand up, damn it.
She pushes a business card across the table at me. “There is my business cell phone number.”
“Thanks for making that distinction,” I say dryly.
Cecelia spoke up. “Mr. Raker, Rowan’s idea is a slam dunk, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor. There is nothing the public loves more than celebrities visiting hospitals, to say nothing of the fact that you can bring some joy into sick children’s lives.”
Emotional manipulation doesn’t work on me. If it did, I’d be a miserable drone in my father’s office.
I grimaced. “I’m not a kid person. I’m not a people person, and this whole thing isn’t necessary. I’m also a grown man who doesn’t need a babysitter.”
“Your recent behavior suggests otherwise,” Ralph growls at me.
