Chapter Four
From Natalie’s rules for Foster Boyd, v2
Rule #8: The media has long made bank off the fact that you’re a ladies’ man. Your love of the fairer sex is more well documented than the Cold War. Avoid kissing people. Just, all people. I do not even want to put a gender on it, because I’m sure you’d see that as a loophole. Stick to cute puppies and babies. Maybe not even babies. Stick to animals, okay? I know what you’re thinking—it isn’t like that! Whatever, new rule. Kiss no one, not even cute puppies, unless you run it past me first. Your lips are dangerous.
Natalie stared out the floor-to-ceiling window, rocking back and forth on the leather swivel office chair. Her mind kept returning to the restaurant and how he’d bitten her fingertip. Was it wrong that the tiny pressure on something as ridiculous as her fingertip still had her zinging in awareness? Yes. Was she still electrified, wanting nothing more than to cross the room and crawl in his lap? Yes.
But she wasn’t going to let him know that. “He has five minutes to show up or I’m leaving,” she told Foster.
The man in question adjusted his tie. His too-long blond hair hung slightly in one eye, because he’d been running his fingers through it as time ticked by. “He’s going to come,” Foster insisted. But she heard the tension in his voice. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was alone with her or because his brother wasn’t there yet and he was worried about his plan.
Either way, him being twitchy wasn’t doing a thing to settle her own jumping pulse.
The office door opened abruptly, and Connor Boyd rushed into the room. “Let’s make this quick,” he said by way of a greeting. “I have another appointment in ten minutes.”
“Sit down, Mr. Boyd,” she said without missing a beat.
Both Boyd brothers stared at her, as if surprised to have someone else giving the orders.
That said, they both sat. She refused to smile, but the familiar sense of being in charge filled her, and she breathed out her tension on an exhale. There was no room for nerves, not if she wanted these two powerful men to listen to her.
“As you both know, the board hired me in an attempt to curb some of your more impulsive choices because of negative connotations implied by your choices. I’m here to help, but I can only do so with your cooperation.” Natalie considered each brother slowly, allowing the silence to stretch out while she stared them down.
They didn’t look like twins, although she could see them as brothers. Both had gorgeous thick hair, but while Foster had sandy-blond locks that hung straight, nearly to his nose, Connor’s was shorter, curlier, and much darker. More of a chestnut than a blond at all, really. Their eyes were matching gray, but Foster’s were just more intriguing, in her opinion. If she were a casting director faced with the two men, she’d pick Foster to be the hero. Neither man was apparently a fan of shaving, as they both had manly scruff. Not too much, but enough to add a little sizzle of sexuality to their smiles. From there, their bodies were quite similar. Both had broad shoulders, golden tans, and were crazy tall.
Basically, they were hot. Really hot. And she had them both to herself. The feminine part of her couldn’t help but smile like a cat with cream. The logical part recognized this as a dangerous situation, if handled badly.
Standing, she paced around the desk to lean on it and face them without the barrier. The openness of the motion suggested they were on the same team, in this together. She intentionally rested both palms on the desk behind her, crossing her legs at the ankle while she continued to stare them down. “In the current unstable market, things like reputation can be the difference between coming out of the quarter ahead of the game or way under the red line. Upon doing a little research into recent history, I know that you had an ad campaign that went off a little less than successfully—”
Connor interrupted her with, “It was a simple mistake.”
“Simple?” Foster replied before Natalie could get a word in. “The campaign slogan said, ‘young equals sexy.’”
“The perfume was called Young,” Connor defended.
“Women don’t like it when you point out that they’re aging. That’s why you don’t ask women their ages.” Foster barreled onward with his point as if his brother hadn’t spoken.
Shaking his dark head, Connor defended the campaign. “How was I to know that it would be interpreted as creepy? We sell makeup. Hell, we sell age-defying creams to help women look younger longer. The entire industry is all about making women look and feel young and beautiful.”
“Making them look and feel younger and coming across as a pedo bear are two very different things, Connor,” Foster said. “And if you hadn’t been distracted—”
“Gentlemen!” Natalie snapped. When they both swiveled in her direction, she gentled her tone and added a smile. “If you let me, I can help you both ensure that Boyd Cosmetics not only stays on top, but sees positive growth this quarter, failed ad campaign notwithstanding.”
“Look,” Connor said, but he was staring at her legs. Perhaps Foster was right and this might not be too hard after all. “Quantifiable data is the only thing I’m interested in, and you’re claiming that if we follow your directions, we’ll have that? Actual numerical evidence that your consultations have positively impacted sales for Boyd Cosmetics?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. Although Foster hired her for his own purposes, she was confident that she could enact positive change in their company. Although she didn’t believe for a minute she could magically make the Boyd brothers saints overnight, she could do a lot to avoid some of the bigger scandals…and spin the ones they couldn’t avoid.
“Fine, where do we start?” Connor asked. She tried not to note how quickly he’d shifted from angry at his brother to pouring on the charm, but it came across as inauthentic to her. That said, his smile was freer than his brother’s, given without hesitation or qualifier. For that reason, Natalie instantly found it less sincere.
“You’re just going to agree to this?” Foster asked, surprising her. He stood, pacing closer and towering over her. “Look, lady, I’m not sure what your plans are exactly, but we like our lives the way they are. Our business has thrived for years without…”
“Sit down, Foster,” Natalie said simply. She didn’t raise her voice, but her tone was stern.
Foster blinked at her, the shock on his handsome face as visible as his nose.
If she was playing her part, she was playing it well.
After a long moment of staring her down, he stepped closer, caging her with his body. He smelled absolutely wonderful. Her pulse kicked up a notch, but she worked to keep her expression unimpressed. “Or what?” he asked softly.
His voice stroked across her senses, but she focused on keeping her breathing even. Reaching behind her, she snagged a folder. Then she slapped the folder onto his chest. He caught it automatically when she let go, releasing her from her short-term imprisonment. “Or I’ll point out all the ways you’ve self-sabotaged yourself in the past year. Thanks for volunteering to go first.”
As Foster turned to sit, Connor laughed. Without missing a beat, she handed him a folder as well. “Don’t worry, I didn’t leave you out, handsome.” She winked at him. Flirting tone accomplished.
Connor quirked a brow at her, his laughter still not entirely subsided. “I would have been disappointed if you had,” he said.
Foster growled.
Glancing at him, Natalie tried to send him a nonverbal question. What are you doing?
He apparently didn’t speak eyes, because he just looked annoyed.
“Foster, I see here that you were photographed in Vegas…a month ago?” She checked her own file, but she’d memorized the points she wanted to make before facing off with the men. It made a nice prop, though, to scan her fingertip down the page before stopping and staring the Firstborn Prince down. “The headline on that one was Model Posts Post Coital Pics with Prince. Do you recall that incident?”
“I’m not a prince,” he pointed out.
She raised a single brow at him. “Your family history has nothing to do with the headline. The thing about image is we have to accept the things we cannot change, spin the things we can. In this case, I can’t change the fact that some media outlet dubbed all the billionaires of America as some kind of prince or another. What we can change is your willingness to let pictures leak of yourself in compromising situations.”
“I don’t know,” Connor interrupted, leaning back in his seat with a smile. “I thought that one of his behind on the cover of that weekly rag was particularly artistic. I mean, with the sunrise backlighting him and all…” Connor laughed as his brother punched his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t laugh too hard, Mr. Boyd,” she said to Connor. She intentionally didn’t use his first name, an attempt to signify that she was more comfortable with Foster than him. If Foster was right, and the goal was to imply a budding relationship, how she addressed them might actually matter. “If you’ll look in your folder, I think you’ll find an equally well-spread rumor that you got into a drunken fight with a photographer outside a club in Paris around the same time.”
Connor’s smile darkened, and he practically glared at her. “I wasn’t drunk, and it wasn’t a brawl, regardless of what the headlines said. I just pushed a camera out of my face.”
“Why were you at a club in the first place?” she asked calmly, refusing to be deterred.
“Sweetheart, why does anyone go to a club?” He tried to charm her, but she rolled her eyes.
“If you want to party, you have enough money and connections to ensure that the venue is private. If you don’t want the press there, don’t invite them.” She flipped the page in her own folder while both brothers sputtered.
“Natalie,” Foster began. “We do not invite the press to anything. They follow us around like hounds, on the scent trail of fresh blood.”
She held up a fingertip, tilting her head at him. “And there we have the root of the problem. The scent of blood.”
“Excuse me?” said Connor.
“You’ve been feeding the sharks for years, constantly getting into one escapade or another. They follow you because, if it’s a slow week, you’re sure to give them something to print. If you stopped for a while, they’d move on to other waters. That’s our goal, gentlemen. For the next week or so, I’d like you to be simply boring, not to mention wholesome.” She waited for them to protest, but neither of them answered for a long moment.
Finally, Foster said, “There are more articles about Connor than me.”
Connor snapped his folder shut. “Yeah? Well, I bet I can make less headlines than you. It’ll be easy, actually.”
Foster sat up, glaring at his brother. “Bet? You sure you want to go down that road, brother? The last bet we had, I won pretty easily.”
“House in the Hamptons,” Connor replied.
“House in the Keys,” Foster answered, holding out his hand.
Once they shook, Connor stood and faced Natalie. “Pleasure seeing you again, Ms. Stolen. I’ll look forward to our meeting tomorrow. Over lunch?” he asked.
When she offered her hand, he didn’t shake it. Instead, he slowly lifted it to his lips and brushed the backs of her knuckles with a soft kiss. His eyes were twinkling as he did it, and heat flooded her face, but what really stood out was the fact that he shot his brother another glance before exiting the room.
Looking for a reaction. Which he got, because Foster looked positively pissed off.
Once the door closed behind him, Natalie grinned at Foster. “It worked! Did you see how he looked at you?” If his plan was to distract his brother by making him compete, he’d clearly managed it. Not only had his brother just bet that he could be saintly for a week—and if she wasn’t mistaken, put property on the line as well—but he’d checked to see if Foster was jealous of his attention to her.
It worked brilliantly, and she was thrilled Foster came through at the last second and remembered to play his part.
But Foster didn’t look thrilled. He still looked annoyed. He stood slowly, stalking the couple feet to her and again caged her body with his big hands on either side of her on the desk.
“I was more focused on how he looked at you,” he replied.
She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, when he dipped his head and kissed her.
…
Foster couldn’t fault his brother for the way he looked at Natalie. After all, wasn’t that part of the plan? That said, it was one thing to look and another to touch. When his brother kissed her fingertips in that lingering way, pure fury flooded Foster’s system in a way that he hadn’t felt in many years.
If ever.
And her, all bubbly and happy about the entire exchange, when she should’ve corrected Connor for overstepping the boundaries of what was professional. Her cheeks had flushed, and she’d looked up at Connor like…
Well, he didn’t know like what, exactly, but it infuriated him. Without thinking it through, he stood to correct her. To point out that she needed to be careful around Connor. To warn her…
Of what, exactly? That his brother was good at being charming and talking women into taking off their clothes? She had to know that much, having read about him and now having met him in person.
In seconds, he’d moved to stand over her. Find some measure of control in the position. Something. But all he could focus on was the way she gasped, just a little, and her ripe lips parted, as if she expected a kiss.
One he was happy to provide. Dipping his head, he told himself he’d only just taste her. Sample those tempting lips for a second, to show her she was playing with fire.
Instead, he was the one on fire. He kept his hands on the desk on either side of her, but she rose into the kiss as if it were the air she needed to survive. Her small hands wound around his neck, and her mouth moved under his like sin brought to life.
He pressed closer to her, the whisper of fabric that she wore so soft and fine under his hands that he felt the heat of her through it.
He was keeping his hands on the desk, he reminded himself, so that things didn’t get out of control. But he couldn’t make himself release her, dragging his palms lower to cup her sweet little ass and pull it upward so she pressed more fully against him.
Turning his head, he improved the angle of the kiss, slanting his mouth across hers and twining his tongue with hers. The little sound she made in the back of her throat only served to make him hungrier. Needier. Harder.
Her nails scraped his scalp, and the fabric of that dress slicked upward under his palms, just giving him a hint of how hot and soft her flesh was as his fingers grazed her thighs.
God, she was a sexy little package. But then her hand braced on his chest, silently asking for distance between them.
“Foster?” she asked softly.
He blinked, reminding himself who he was, where they were, why it was all a bad idea.
Forcing himself to release her, he tried not to stumble as he backed away from Natalie. But he could still see her, flushed cheeks and abraded lips looking like she’d just been kissed and well.
“Sorry, I—” Connor’s voice broke into the silence growing between them. “Ha, sorry. Forgot my folder.”
His brother entered the room, grabbed the folder while grinning, and wiggled his brows at them both. “See you both later!” he chirped before leaving.
When Foster looked back at Natalie, she was running a hand through that mermaid mop of reddish gold and shaking her head. “Ah, I get it. You did that on purpose because you knew he’d be back. You’re clever, Foster. Ask, next time, before you randomly grope me, okay?”
She turned away from him, adjusting things on the desk, and Foster tried to find words. Part of him wanted to tell her that kissing her had nothing to do with the plan. It didn’t have a thing to do with his brother or anything so manipulative.
It had been partially out of jealousy and partially because he couldn’t resist the idea of touching her for even another second.
But the other part of him, the more rational part, recognized that anything he could say would be a loss of ground. She’d put him back in control and not corrected him for his lapse in judgment. Better to leave things as they were and not give up the position of power she’d granted him.
So, he said nothing, simply picked up his own folder and considered it. “You didn’t tell me you were putting this much work into the plan.”
She cleared her throat before pacing to the window to look down on the city below. “Yeah, you’re paying for an image consultant, boss. And that’s what you’re getting. I know you have your golden distraction plan, but I am not kidding insofar as following my directions would be good for your company. I expect you to follow the rules—I made you a list in the folder—as much as I expect Connor to. If I’m going to get business later, based on the fact that this venture was successful, I need you to cooperate, too. This is a referral and word-of-mouth-based business, so… Follow directions, got it?”
Her list for him was reasonably simple. She’d broken it down into ten rules.
“Does Connor have the same set of rules?” he asked, skimming the list in question.
“No,” she answered, still not looking at him. It bothered him, on some ridiculous level, that she wasn’t looking at him. “I made them specific to each of your weaknesses.”
“Boyds do not have weaknesses,” Foster recited automatically.
She finally glanced at him over her shoulder, and he was pleased at the little smile curling her sensual lips. “Everyone has weaknesses,” she replied.
He was fast beginning to believe that she was one of his. Which was good. It meant she’d be equally tempting to his brother.
Yeah, right, some part of him said. But he squashed the little voice with a fist.