From Enemies To Expecting

“Hey,” Trinity called and repeated her greeting to Fyra’s CFO, Alex Edgewood, and then to Dr. Harper Livingston-Gates, the chief science officer, whose faces appeared in split screen on a TV mounted on the wall. Both of them were participating in the meeting virtually since they’d abandoned Dallas the moment their husbands crooked their fingers.

Trinity sank into a seat and mentally slapped herself for being unkind.

Alex was pregnant with twins and on bed rest, so it made sense that she lived in Washington, DC, with her husband, Phillip, a United States senator. Harper’s husband worked in Zurich, and Trinity didn’t blame her for wanting to be in the same bed with a man as hot as Dr. Dante Gates, especially since they’d just figured out they were in love after being friends for over a decade.

Maybe Trinity was a little jealous that everyone else had such an easy time with normal female things like falling for a great guy and having his support during pregnancy. And none of them had suffered a horrendous miscarriage that had left them feeling defective. Well, so what? Trinity had other great stuff in her life, like more men than she could shake a stick at.

Except lately, great men had been pretty scarce. The pitfalls of turning thirty. Made you think more about the definition of “great,” and pseudo–frat boys with Peter Pan syndrome were not it. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the type she met at her usual haunts, which was fine for the short term.

She just wished she knew why that didn’t feel like enough anymore.

Cass started off with a sly smile. “You and your reality show partner got pretty chummy. Do tell.”

“All for the cameras, hon,” Trinity assured her. God, what was with that pang in her gut? The kiss had been fake. On both sides—never mind that she’d liked how real it felt. “We were both interested in getting additional coverage. It worked.”

Alex and Harper both murmured their disappointment that the story wasn’t juicier.

“I know we’ve turned dissecting our love lives into a regular boardroom agenda item, but let’s move on,” Trinity insisted smoothly. “I’m sure Cass didn’t call this meeting to talk about my partner on a reality game show.”

“Actually, I did,” Cass corrected. “We’ve got a publicity issue that’s at the top of everyone’s mind right now. After the mess with the leak and then the FDA approval fiasco, sales went into the toilet. We’ve got new problems daily as articles keep popping up in what feels to me like a smear campaign.”

Felt that way to Trinity, too. Which was why it pissed her off so much. This was her territory. Her company. And someone was after it.

“Yeah, I’m aware. That’s why I did the show, remember?”

“I’m not sure it’s enough.” Cass frowned. “I approved it since the publicist suggested it, but we need to move forward with launching Formula-47. When can you schedule time to present the marketing plan?”

“Next Monday?” Trinity suggested and started calculating exactly how screwed she was...since the campaign didn’t exist. Very would be the precise amount of screwed.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault but hers, but then she’d never had a creative dry spell like this one, and she couldn’t even commiserate with her friends. Recent personal events for all three ladies had driven a wedge between them, with Trinity on the wrong side of the married mom division.

Trinity hated it. She was happy for her friends, but sad that they’d all chosen lives so different from the ones they’d had. So different from the one she’d mapped out for herself. And she was pretty sure that was why her creativity had completely abandoned her when she needed it most.

The sketching she’d done on that pristine white pad while Logan peered over her shoulder had been a welcome flood of ingenuity. Maybe the medium was the key—she’d run out at lunch and pick up one of those easels. It could work.

She could totally get her muse to make an appearance, work straight through and have a brilliant campaign by Monday morning. Especially if the publicity from Exec-ution worked like it was supposed to. With that load off her mind, then she could concentrate on turning Formula-47 into a powerhouse wrinkle and scar cream that would put Fyra at the top of the industry.

Cass nodded and shifted focus to numbers, so Alex took the lead on that, while Trinity sank down in her seat to let her mind wander in hopes of jogging something passable from her subconscious. Didn’t happen, but she had almost a week. No problem.

The easel and pad did not turn into a magic bullet. Neither did the marathon brainstorming session she called to generate ideas from her creative team. At four o’clock, she sent Melinda, Fyra’s receptionist, to the office supply store to get a dozen more blank pads. The remains of the two Trinity had purchased at lunch lay in ripped and crumpled pieces on her office floor. She might have stabbed a couple of the papers with her Louboutin heels, but only because big jagged holes improved the package design she’d started on.

She didn’t even have a product name, which meant she had no business trying to design the packaging. Her creative process required building blocks, and the name always came first, but she’d been desperate to make some kind of progress. Formula-47 would be Fyra’s premier product and as the CMO, Trinity should and would take on the heaviest lifting. Her creative team had enough on their plates with managing the rest of Fyra’s marketing juggernaut while she buried herself in this mess.

Melinda poked her head in the door. “I’ve got your pads. Also, Lara from Gianni Publicity Group is here. She doesn’t have an appointment. Shall I send her away?”

The publicist. Great. That was exactly what Trinity needed right now—a reminder that Cass had hired an outside firm to do Trinity’s job. And Lara’s big contribution thus far had landed Trinity in the arms of a do-gooder Texas boy who kissed like a wicked fantasy.

Logan McLaughlin was a name she should have forgotten by now. For God knew what reason, it still rattled around in her head, heating up places that shouldn’t be heating at the thought of a rugged, lean-hipped outdoorsy guy who wasn’t her type.

She sighed. “No, it’s okay. I’ll see her.”

Lara Gianni rushed into the office, long hair streaming behind her as the chic woman grabbed Trinity by the shoulders and kissed both cheeks, Italian style. “You brilliant, brilliant lady. Logan McLaughlin is magnifico.”

“Back off. I saw him first,” Trinity said drily. Was the woman reading minds now? “Why is he magnificent again? Please tell me it’s because you’ve got good news.”

The publicist laughed. “The best. Your video has already been shared over half a million times, and the response? Amazing. People love you two together. The comments are priceless. Love on the set of a TV show is brilliant marketing.”

“Wait a minute. Love on a TV show? It was an entrepreneurial game show, not The Bachelor.” The look on Lara’s face gave Trinity a very bad feeling. “The public was supposed to see the name Fyra and think positive thoughts about it. That’s how you sold the idea to us.”

“That was before you went in a whole different direction. One I love! You’re truly brilliant.”

Yeah, that part was clear. What wasn’t clear was what the hell Lara was talking about. “I didn’t go in a different direction. We lost the game and I had to do something extra. I kissed my partner. Voilà, now Fyra is all over social media.”

“No.” Lara shook her head. “You are all over social media. They like the romance you unwittingly created. I would highly recommend continuing it.”

Trinity’s stomach dropped into her shoes. “Continue what? There’s no romance. It was one kiss.”

A hot kiss. If she’d watched the footage a couple of dozen times before she’d posted it, no one had to know.

Lara shrugged. “I suggest you figure out how to make it into more than a kiss. It doesn’t have to be a real relationship so long as you get yourself photographed with Logan McLaughlin. A lot. While kissing and making goo-goo eyes at each other.”

The logic of it warred with the insanity. A fake relationship strictly for publicity? She couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Yet...how was that so different than a fake kiss for the same reason? Logan had jumped on that deal like a starving dog on a steak. Maybe he’d be really good at pretending they were a hot-and-heavy couple.

The thought unleashed a shiver that nearly unglued her. The side benefits of such an arrangement held many interesting possibilities that she could not ignore, like enticing a nice guy into a walk on the wild side. How much fun would it be to corrupt the hell out of the all-American boy, especially on camera?

No. A long-term fake relationship was a whole lot different than one fake kiss. Her acting skills weren’t that good. Except all at once, she couldn’t figure out if she’d be feigning she was into him...or pretending she wasn’t.

“No way. I can’t do something like that.”

Lara’s brow furrowed as she pulled out her phone and tapped a few times, then held it out to display a nearly all-red pie chart. “That’s the click-through rate from your video to Fyra’s website.”

All the blood drained from Trinity’s head. Seventy-five percent. Seventy-five percent. The click-through rate of her most successful social media campaign ever was 12 percent.

In the wake of the smear tactics someone had launched against Fyra, she couldn’t afford to pass up this idea.

Looked like she’d be paying Mr. McLaughlin a visit. Tomorrow. Hello, new boyfriend.

* * *

Myra slapped the printed spreadsheet on Logan’s desk and didn’t bother to hide her smirk. “Told you that reality show would work.”

Yes, it had. He didn’t need his publicist to point out the double-digit increase in ticket sales. The Mustangs’ entire front office had been buzzing about it since he’d walked in this morning. And he had Trinity Forrester, CMO, to thank.

Who would have thought that sizzling kiss would pay such huge dividends?

Duncan McLaughlin had never done that to get customers to open their wallets, but in Logan’s defense, it hadn’t been his idea. Yet he’d gotten on board with it pretty dang fast, at least once he’d realized the hot woman he’d been salivating over was not coming on to him. She’d simply found one last way to get the camera on them. As tactics went, he could find little to complain about.

Other than the fact that one bad-girl kiss later, he’d come to the uncomfortable realization that he could not wipe the feel of that tongue piercing from his memory.