Exec-ution’s set teemed with people. Logan stood in the corner nursing a cup of very bad coffee because it was that or rip off someone’s head due to caffeine withdrawal. He should have stopped at Starbucks on the way to the studio, but who would have thought that an outfit that asked its contestants to be on the set at 5:00 a.m. wouldn’t have decent coffee? He was stuck in hell with crap in a cup.
“Logan McLaughlin.” A pretty staffer with an iPad in the crook of her elbow let her gaze flit over the other contestants until she zeroed in on him standing well out of the fray. “Care to take a seat? We’re about to begin filming.”
“No, thanks. I’ll stand,” he declined smoothly with a ready smile to counter his refusal.
Chairs were for small people; at six-four, 220, Logan hadn’t fit in most chairs since eleventh grade. Plus, he liked being able to see the big picture at a glance.
A soft-looking middle-aged man in a suit nodded at Logan. “Thought I recognized you. I’m a Yankees fan from way back. Used to watch you pitch, what, ten years ago?”
“Something like that,” Logan agreed easily.
The Yankees had let him go eight years ago, but who was counting when the career he’d poured his heart and soul into ended in a failed Tommy John surgery? His elbow still ached occasionally, just in case he didn’t have enough reminders that his days on the mound were over.
“Man, you were great. Sorry about the arm.” The man shook his head. “Shame you can’t get any of your starters shaped up. The Mustangs could use a guy with your skill.”
Yeah. Shame. Logan nodded his thanks. He tossed his crap in a cup into a trash can and crossed his arms over the void in his chest that owning a baseball team hadn’t filled. It was getting harder and harder to convince himself that his glory days were not behind him.
Winning games. Ticket sales. Merchandise sales. These were things that would fix that void. And when he won Exec-ution, sports news outlets would have something to do with his name besides dragging it through the mud.
The staffer called a few more people to take seats around the boardroom table. A photograph of the downtown Dallas skyline peeked through the faux window behind the table. Crew members buzzed around the cameras, and a few tech guys sat behind glass in a control room, wearing headsets. The host of the show sat at the head of the table, hands carefully laced in front him, with perfectly coiffed hair and a bogus TV smile.
“Let’s have a good show!” The staffer melted away, and Well-Coiffed Guy launched into his spiel.
“Hi, everyone! I’m Rob Moore, your host for Exec-ution, where executives compete in two-person teams in an entrepreneurial challenge designed to showcase the ability to run a business. The winners get one hundred thousand dollars for charity. Losers? Executed!”
Logan rolled his eyes as the host smacked the table with his trademark chopping motion. So cheesy.
A commotion caught everyone’s attention. A dark-haired woman strode onto the set with the pretty staffer dogging her heels.
Logan promptly forgot about the smarmy host and fake boardroom in favor of watching the real show—the dark-haired woman walking.
She moved liked an outfielder with a batter’s home run in the works: fast, purposeful and determined not to let that ball go over the wall. Maybe she could teach his guys a few things about how to hustle.
The closer she got, the more interesting she became. A wide stripe of pink ran down the left side of her hair. The right side had been shorn close to her head in an asymmetrical cut that made Logan feel off-kilter all at once. Or maybe that was due to her thick, black Cleopatra-style eye makeup, which was far sexier than it should be.
She had everyone’s attention exactly where she wanted it—on her. A woman dressed in a slim-fit, shocking pink suit cut low enough to allow her very nice breasts to peek out clearly expected people to notice her.
“Sorry I’m late,” she offered the host. Her throaty voice thrummed through Logan in a way he hadn’t been thrummed in a very long time. Not since his pitching days, when baseball groupies had been thick on the ground, which he’d taken advantage of far less than he could have.
This lady in pink had the full package, and then some. For some other guy.
Logan avoided packaged women like the plague, as they often came with nasty surprises once you unwrapped them. He liked his women simple, unaffected and open, a younger version of the best woman he knew—his mom.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate a gorgeous woman with a sexy voice.
Pink Lady drew even with Logan, electing to stand despite open seats at the table and ice-pick heels on her feet that couldn’t be comfortable.
“I tried to explain that we’d already started filming,” the staffer told Rob Moore in a hushed voice that carried across the whole set. “She barged in anyway.”
“It’s okay,” the host said with a crafty smile. He waltzed over to them, his gaze cutting back and forth between Logan and the lady in pink at his side. “Oh, I like this. Very nice. Bad girl meets all-American boy. The viewers will love it.”
“Love what?” Logan glanced down at his blue Mustangs T-shirt and jeans and then at the dark-haired woman. Moore’s comment sank in. “You want us to be teammates? I don’t think so.”
That was not happening. But Moore had already moved on to the next couple, both of whom looked relieved with their matches.
The sinking feeling in Logan’s stomach bottomed out. Pink Lady had crossed her arms under her spectacular breasts, shoving them upward so that they strained against the fabric of her suit. He averted his eyes as she started tapping out a staccato rhythm with one stiletto.
“What’s wrong with being my teammate?” Her agitation pushed her voice up a notch. “You don’t think I have any business savvy because of the tongue piercing. That’s crap and you know it.”
A…tongue piercing? Instantly, he envisioned exactly what skills a woman with a steel bar through her tongue might have. And they all centered on being naked. With her mouth on his flesh as she pleasured him.
Dragging his thoughts out of the gutter took entirely too much will. That’s why he liked unassuming, unsexy, uneverything women.
“I didn’t even notice that,” he informed her truthfully and tried to stop himself from catching a glimpse of the piercing. “My objections have nothing to do with you.”
That part was patently false. It had everything to do with the fact that she had distraction written all over her. He’d have to get a new teammate, no question.
For God knew what reason, she laughed, and that did a hell of lot more than thrum in Logan’s gut.
“I have a BS meter with new batteries,” she said. “Look around, honey. Everyone else has been paired. Can we get with the program?”
Logan peered down at his new teammate’s fingernail, which had landed in the dead center of his chest. Then he glanced back up at her incredibly disturbing eyes. They were a shade of ice blue that seemed so much more stark and unique than they should, probably because of her eye makeup.
“I’m with the program.” He reeled back the curl of awareness that her finger had aroused. “The question is, are you? I wasn’t late.”
“Five a.m. is an ungodly hour, and I was only fifteen minutes late. You can’t hold that against me.”
Yeah, actually he could. He’d been on time and so had everyone else. But since it did appear as if all the other teams had been set, he sighed. “Fine. You’re forgiven. What did you say your industry is again?”
“I didn’t. What did you say your name is again?”
The point wasn’t lost on him. He’d completely abandoned civility