Chapter 4 #3
Roger, who’d become a good friend to her, grimaced, which let her know she was probably fighting a losing battle.
Not that she planned to stop trying. She was struggling enough with her misplaced attraction to the last man on the planet she should be fantasizing about.
Going on a date with him would be the equivalent to throwing gasoline on a fire.
Her vibrator wouldn’t be able to withstand it.
“I need to be there in my official capacity, Benny, walking around, taking pictures, talking to people for my posts,” she insisted.
Benny crooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Roger offered to cover the event for you.”
McKenna narrowed her eyes, hoping her friend could read the words—“Et tu, Brute?”—she was thinking.
She shook her head. “Benny,” she started again, but her boss talked over her.
“Mac, there are going to be a lot of sponsors at the event. Not to mention the big-time fans, who are dropping a mint for the tickets just so they can meet their favorite Rays players. I’d feel a lot better if you were there to guide the conversations.”
“Do you seriously think I’m going to do or say something wrong?” Tank asked the table in general.
“No,” McKenna said. At the same time, Benny replied, “Yes.”
Unlike McKenna, Benny hadn’t been a witness to his redemption tour, so it was obviously going to take Tank a little longer to convince the PR director that he was walking the straight and narrow.
McKenna, on the other hand, had had a front row seat to all the promo ops, and she’d seen how well Tank had handled himself.
“Tank.” Benny leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Last year at this event, you told a dirty joke in the hearing of the president’s wife.”
“I didn’t know she was standing behind me.”
“And at the one this past fall, you and your,” Benny paused, drawing in a deep breath, “dates were on the dance floor most of the night. And let’s just say…you weren’t leaving much to the imagination.”
McKenna winced as she recalled Tank bumping and grinding with Emily and Lara, the dancing so sexually charged, she might have thought they were actually fucking if they hadn’t been fully clothed.
Benny tapped one finger on the table. “The only reason all this shit with Lara didn’t blow up back then was because Charles Steele had been out of town on business and couldn’t attend.
We didn’t make any photos of the three of you public, so you got away with it that time.
We’re not pushing our luck this time around, so I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if Mac attends the gala with you. ”
McKenna closed her eyes, aware nothing she said was going to change Benny’s mind. She glanced at Tank, hoping he would pick up the battle. Maybe he could find some way to persuade Benny it would be fine if he attended alone.
Their gazes locked—and she realized he wasn’t going to fight. Instead, he gave her a crooked grin and casual one-shoulder whatever shrug.
McKenna sighed. “Fine. I’ll go with him.”
“Great.” Obviously, now that Benny had gotten his way, he was making a quick escape lest she tried to change her mind. “Good luck tonight,” he said to Tank, as he and Roger left the hotel restaurant together.
“Looks like you and I are going on a date,” Tank said, kicking back and stretching his legs out under the table. His feet brushed against hers.
“It’s not a date,” she pointed out. “I’m going to this thing as your keeper.”
Tank grinned. “You know, I’m starting to think you don’t want to date me.”
McKenna couldn’t help it. She laughed. “What was your first clue?” she joked, but Tank didn’t take it that way, which was wildly out of character for the man who never seemed to take anything seriously.
“Why not?” he pressed, frowning. “What’s wrong with me?”
McKenna got the sense his question was a sincere one, and that she’d even hurt his feelings.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said, diplomatically. “You’re just not the kind of guy I date.”
“What kind is that?”
“I just told you. I’ve only dated three guys, Tank.
And I was in love with all three of them.
I’m not interested in sex without strings.
Unlike you, I want committed relationships.
So when I sleep with a man, it’s because I have feelings for him.
Meanwhile, you just admitted that your sole purpose for dating is to hook up. ”
Tank didn’t reply to that, and she knew why. They’d gotten way off base.
“This is a pointless conversation, because next weekend is not a date. It’s just an extension of the work we started a few weeks ago. Okay?” she asked.
Tank sighed, and for a moment, she got the sense he didn’t agree, though she didn’t have a clue why not.
Finally, he nodded slowly. “Fine.”
“Great.” With his agreement, McKenna decided to take a card from Benny’s playbook and make a quick escape.
For one thing, she was afraid Tank would want to resume their previous conversation about her dating history, and for another, she needed to get away from him so she could get her thoughts in order.
While she’d just insisted that the gala wouldn’t be a date, and that he wasn’t her type, she wasn’t so sure she believed either of those things. And she desperately needed to.
Fantasizing about the sexy hockey player while she got herself off at night was one thing.
But there was no way in hell she could let that attraction bleed over into the real world or her job. She’d made that mistake once before, and it had resulted in her moving away from home and starting a new job in a new city.
She liked Baltimore, so she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Which meant she needed to double down on her “rules to live by.”
No hockey players and no one from work.
Tank was both.
Fuck.