“Holy shit,” Addison breathed.
Gretchen handed Addison her coffee. “He’s not all that. Trust me.”
Colton set the wreaths on the receptionist’s counter and shook Addison’s hand. She looked at it afterward as if she’d just touched God.
Colton then walked to Gretchen’s side again, tugged on a lock of her hair, and gave her a look that turned her knees to pudding. “Pick you up at seven on Friday?”
At her silence, he tilted his head in a puppy-dog way, and somewhere, angels began to sing. Dammit. With a growl, she whipped around and began to stomp toward her office.
“Hey,” he called behind her. “Why does Santa have three gardens?”
“Please don’t tell me—”
“So he can ho ho ho.”
Gretchen shook her head and looked at the ground. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. She chanted it in her head, but it was no use. She laughed.
“Ha,” he said triumphantly behind her. “My work here is done. See you Friday.”
Gretchen escaped into her office, set her coffee down as she sat, and immediately lowered her forehead to her desk. Mere seconds went by before Addison came in.
“Holy shit, what the hell was that, Gretchen?”
“The Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Are you seriously going out with him Friday? How did this happen?” Her voice rose an octave with each subsequent question until she hit a crescendo with, “Tell me what’s going on!”
“Nothing is going on. My family wants him to be our new brand ambassador.”
“But he’s picking you up Friday night.”
“For a business meeting.”
“Whatever that was out there between you two, it wasn’t business. That was foreplay.”
“Go back to work,” Gretchen ordered, turning on her computer. It would be five minutes before it properly booted up. She couldn’t afford a new one, though.
“Come on! Can you honestly say you’re not at all, even just a tiny bit, starstruck by him? I mean, it’s Colton Wheeler.”
Gretchen logged in to her computer. “You going to do any actual work today, or . . . ?”
“I knew it,” Addison said. “You like to play the ice queen, but not even you can be immune to someone like that.”
She shut the door behind her, leaving Gretchen alone with a single thought.
That was the whole problem.
She wasn’t immune to him. She was as susceptible to his infection as a dog to fleas.
But nothing had changed in the year since she’d scurried out of his hotel room. They were no better suited now than before. There was one reason and one reason only why she was going through with this: to secure her family’s blessing to join the foundation board.
The sooner this little charade ended, the better.
* * *
? ? ?
It was never a good sign when Vlad cracked his knuckles.
But that’s how he greeted Colton an hour later when Colton walked into the fitness center for Silver Sneakers. He was the last one to arrive and almost missed Vlad’s glare because standing behind him were two more guys Colton had not invited to class—Vlad’s hockey coach and some dude he’d never seen before.
He dropped his duffel bag and pointed. “What the hell are they doing here? Has Mrs. Porth seen them?”
Vlad’s eyes narrowed menacingly. “Forget them. We’ve seen the pictures.”
“And we’ve talked to the girls,” Noah added in a voice that Colton had only heard one other time, and that was when they raced two hours down the freeway in Colton’s car so Noah could get to Alexis before she underwent surgery, only for Colton to let it slip later that he had access to an actual helicopter.
He’d been intimidating then. He was terrifying now. The shit was clearly about to hit the fan. “Are Gavin, Del, and Yan not coming today, or . . . ?”
“Shut up and tell us what’s going on,” Mack said.
“Okay, look—”
“Are you seriously blackmailing her into going out with you?” That was Malcolm, whose voice rarely rose above a calming baritone but was rising toward Vienna boys’ choir.
“It’s not blackmail.”
“You gave her an ultimatum,” Noah said, staring at Colton as if he’d just sprouted a third eye. “Go out with you or go back to her family and tell them she couldn’t even get you to listen to a proposal.”
“I gave her a choice. Not an ultimatum.”
“Same fucking thing in this case,” Mack said. “When one option is clearly worse than another, that’s an ultimatum.”