Chapter 15
When I step into the marketing offices, Chase, Miller, and Preston are all tossing out ideas at Mary and Taylor.
“Grant.” Mary looks up from where she’s taking notes. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“Sorry I’m late. Keep going, I'll catch up,” I say as I slide into a chair at the round wooden conference table.
Chase reached out at the last minute and asked for a meeting with the communications team and Taylor specifically to discuss his charity idea. This is the last requirement of his plea agreement and the pledge we made to the Nashville area.
“So just to recap,” Taylor interrupts Chase and Miller’s debate on the best colored golden retriever. “You want to host a pet adoption drive at the stadium and invite all the local pet rescues and the humane society?”
“Yes,” Chase nods. “And we want donations collected at the event to go into a pot for a foundation I’ll create to support the rescues in the future.”
“Don’t forget we’re calling it Bark in the Park, Tay Bake.” Miller taps the table. “Make sure you write that down.”
“Yes, Miller, I have ‘Bark in the Park’ written down.” Taylor rolls her eyes at him, clearly accustomed to his behavior. He’s like a child sometimes.
“When could we host this event?” I ask. “We need it as soon as possible.”
During our initial meeting, it was suggested to host the charity event before September so all focus would be on the postseason, so the timing of this meeting is perfect.
The Troubadours are still leading the division.
With any luck and the favor of the baseball gods, we can make the World Series this year.
“Agreed,” Preston says, looking at Taylor. “And we’re on the road again next week without much time to help, which is why we were hoping you would be able to work your magic.”
Hell, even my players are going to her for help and she’s not even the head of the communications department.
“Mary, how soon do you think the team can pull this together?” Taylor asks the actual director of communications.
“It might be pushing it, but a couple weeks. Let me pull up the schedule again.” Mary navigates to something on her tablet then looks back up at Taylor.
“We’re off on Labor Day and the team is away the weekend before.
It would give us time to prep the field and then break it all down again before the next home game on that Tuesday. ”
I watch in real time as the wheels turn in Taylor’s head. She’s mapping out the event and all the moving pieces. “Labor Day is perfect! Most people are off work so attendance would be good. We can turn it into a family fun day too.”
“You’ve got full support from me. Do whatever you need to make it happen.” I give my stamp of approval and turn to Chase. “Chase, very impressive. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this, and your captains supporting you today go a long way to proving you belong on the roster. Keep it up.”
Chase nods appreciatively. “Thank you, sir.”
“You got it, boss man,” Miller chimes in.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Rapping my knuckles against the wooden table, I stand and leave the room.
“But I get credit too!” Miller calls after me.
An hour later, Taylor bursts into my office, her hands flying animatedly as she talks. “That went great. I already have lots of ideas for who I should reach out to.”
I kick my feet up on the desk, luxuriating in her excitement. “For you to reach out to?”
“Yes, Chase doesn’t have time to do it.” She gives me an incredulous look.
“No, but you’re not his agent,” I counter, lacing my fingers behind my head.
She scoffs. “Please, Toddler Tom couldn’t tell a cucumber from a zucchini.”
“What?” I chuckle.
“He’s clueless.” She waves a hand at me.
“Okay, so Tom sucks. But who said you could plan the event for the Troubadours?” I can’t resist teasing her.
She stares at me blankly, like the wheels spinning in her head all came to an abrupt stop. “What do you mean? You did.”
“I said you could help with the image rehab,” I point out, quirking a brow and barely suppressing a smirk.
“This is part of the image rehab,” she argues.
Shrugging, I say, “Seems like event planning to me. I have a robust event team already. We do stuff like this all the time at the stadium, and if I really needed the help, I have someone from Stella who can come in to handle things.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As you like to remind me often, you don’t work for me.”
She huffs and falls into the chair opposite my desk. “So damn dramatic.”
“Why do you want to plan this event anyway?”
Please say it’s so that you can stay here with me.
“Because it needs to go perfectly for it to work, and it’s tied to Chase’s reputation.” When I only stare, she adds, “And it sounds fun, okay?”
It’s now or never, Grant. Don’t fuck it up.
Deciding the best angle to approach the topic, I drop my feet to the floor and take her in. My eyes dip to the hint of cleavage peeking out of the vee of her shirt, unable to stop staring, when she crosses her arms and pushes her tits up further, her skin flushing at my perusal.
“How would you feel about a barter?” I ask.
“For me to help with an event? You want to barter for it now?”
I lace my fingers together on top of the desk and say, “Yes. This is a new scope of work from the previous engagement, so new terms.”
“As the engaged party, I think the terms are fine as is.”
“As the client, I beg to differ. New terms and you can plan the event to your heart’s content. I may even still pay you for it.”
“What do you want?” she asks, skeptically, tapping her fingers on her bicep.
“Move in with me.”
Her arms and jaw drop in unison. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Move in with me,” I repeat, my heart beating out of my chest.
“Are you having a stroke? You can’t be serious.”
“Healthy as a horse, Tay baby.” I wink to hide how damn nervous I am that she’ll reject me. “And I’m very serious. You can help plan this event, but you have to move in with me.”
She stares at me with narrowed eyes before slowly asking, “Why?”
“Several reasons, actually.”
“Care to list them all?” She gets up and pours herself a double shot of bourbon like she needs it to prepare for whatever I say next.
“Well for one, you’re already staying in the same hotel. Why not stay in the penthouse?” I stand from behind my desk and slowly walk in her direction.
“Um, maybe because I don’t live there?” She looks back over her shoulder.
“You could.”
Her hand trembles as she brings the glass to her pink lips and takes a sip. “What’s the second reason?”
“It’s free for you to stay with me.”
“It’s also free to stay with Ivory or Gabby.”
“Yet you’re staying with neither.”
She shrugs. “I like my space.”
“There are four bedrooms,” I counter.
“And my alone time.”
Placing a hand over my heart, I pledge, “I do solemnly swear to leave you alone.”
“There’s not a single piece of that swear I believe.” She scoffs, taking another sip.
“We can set quiet hours.”
“You’re ridiculous. Any other reasons?”
“Just one.” I step closer, halfway across the office now. “Because married people live together.” My word choice is intentional, and from the way her eyes drop to the gold chain and the wedding band looped around it, I know she’s remembering the words I gave her in the hallway in St. John.
Because married people wear wedding rings.
“What?” Her barely audible question spurs me on.
Stalking closer, I don’t take my eyes off hers until I’ve caged her against the bar cart.
“I want you to move in with me. While you’re in Nashville and helping with the team, live with me. I’ll give you space. I’ll let you have alone time, but I want to live together.” Removing the glass from her hand, I take the last sip of bourbon and place it down behind her.
“As what?”
“How about we start as friends?”
“Are we friends?”
Damn, that hurt. She must see the pain on my face because she puts a hand on my chest and apologizes. “I’m sorry. Of course, we’re friends. I’m just having a hard time understanding why you all of a sudden want me to move in.”
“It’s not all of a sudden,” I protest, knowing I need to confess what I’ve been too afraid to say outright the past couple weeks.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The heat of her palm seeps into my skin beneath the shirt, but she doesn’t move it.
“You know what it means, Stella. You’ve always known where I stand with you.”
“Grant . . .” Her eyes fall closed, her long lashes fluttering against her cheeks. I can’t stop now, not when we’re so close to our second chance.
“I get it if you’re not ready, but at least give me this. Being close to you, working with you, it’s been great, but I want more.”
She peers up at me sadly. “I don’t know if we can have more.”
“We’re never going to know unless we try.”
“That was always our problem, wasn’t it?” She sighs, dropping her forehead against my chest.
“Maybe we could’ve put more effort in before, but timing is everything.
It wasn’t our time then.” I hold her close, relishing in the feel of her being in my arms again.
I don’t know how long we’ve been standing together—it could’ve been five minutes or five hours—when she pulls back with a determined look on her face.
“Just because I move in doesn’t mean that we’re back together and living happily ever after.”
Victory!
My mouth splits in a wide grin, releasing her when she pats my chest. “Does that mean you’re moving in?”
Taylor puts distance between us, moving around to the other side of the table where her bag is. “Let’s say I do. If I’m moving in, there should be some ground rules.”
“I never took Taylor Baker for one to lay down the rules.” She’d always been wild, free, and less likely to paint inside the lines.
“In this case, I think it’s very necessary,” she says.
“Okay, boss. What is it?” I lean a shoulder against the wall, crossing my ankles and my arms. Her eyes latch on to my exposed forearms and then continue down my body. I feel it as surely as if she were touching me with her hands instead.
“No sex.” She blurts out.
Not at all what I was expecting. I blink at her in surprise. She slaps a hand over her mouth like she spoke her inside thoughts out loud.
Clearing my throat, I offer, “I wasn’t proposing a friends-with-benefits situation.”
“Great, then we’re on the same page.” Her voice is tight and everything about her demeanor, from the hitch in her breath to the flicker of a frown on her face as she picks up her bag to leave, tells me she misinterpreted my attempt to save her from embarrassment as rejection.
“To be clear…” I prowl towards her. She steps back a few paces until her back hits the wall near the door.
Draping an arm next to her head, I lean in close.
“I’d love nothing more than to fuck the sass right out of you, but when we fuck again it won’t be because of some hookup arrangement.
” Her breath hitches. I swallow hard at the thought of affecting her like that but forge ahead.
“I made a promise a long time ago that the next time I had sex, it would be with my wife. And while you are technically my wife, you like to pretend you’re not.
” Leaning even closer until we’re barely a centimeter apart, I feel the whoosh of her breath against my lips.
“So until you’ve changed your mind about that, no sex.
” Her chest rises and falls in quick succession as I linger in her space.
As much as I’d love to stay in this moment with her, I need space before I show her exactly how much I want her, so I push off the wall, open the door beside me and wait for her to leave when one final thought hits me.
“One last rule. The only one who makes you orgasm under my roof is me, wife.”
“I’ll think about it,” she saunters down the hallway, leaving me speechless because I thought I won that round.