Chapter Five
From Natalie’s rules for Foster Boyd, v2
Rule #5: It is not funny when you tell people at a public venue that Buffy is a bomb-sniffing dog or a drug sniffer… this is the stuff I was talking about. You’re feeding the press. Knock that shit off, or I swear to god, I’ll buy you a Chihuahua. Good luck looking manly with a Chihuahua.
The visit to the children’s hospital was a no-brainer when it came to image. The press would likely see through the move for what it was—an attempt to clean up the twins’ reputation—but the public still ate up this kind of thing, which was what Natalie banked on when she planned the visit.
What she didn’t plan was the shock of both brothers when she presented the idea. “What do you mean, you don’t do that sort of thing in front of cameras?”
Connor lounged in the chair, taking up as much physical area as possible with his body. One of his long legs was thrown over the arm of the padded seat, the other stretched into the space in front of him. The dark-haired man shook his head at her, as if she’d said something almost funny. “We don’t do meeting people like this. Yes, we help a lot of charities and have a few foundations that we’ve started, but one-on-one interactions…it just doesn’t really work out like that, so we don’t do them. When we do, we never invite camera crews or reporters. It just isn’t how we do things. It feels too much like using them to further our own cause rather than helping.”
“Exactly,” Foster agreed. Unlike his brother, he didn’t sprawl in the chair as if he wanted to take up as much of the room as possible with his muscular body. Instead, he sat composed and dignified—even though his presence seemed to suck up all the excess oxygen in the room, leaving her breath quick and stilted.
There was something about him, Natalie couldn’t help thinking. Focusing on the problem at hand, she decided more questions were in order. “Why don’t you do one-on-one interactions? The media loves to see their darlings doing good deeds. And a children’s hospital—”
“Is a press nightmare. They surround whatever building we’re in, blocking up traffic, and it just causes chaos. If the idea is to help the children, blocking up traffic hardly serves the purpose. It won’t work,” Connor explained. He tossed her a charming smile, as if to take the edge off his words.
Natalie had no interest in his charm, tapping her fingertips on the arm of her own chair in annoyance. They’d met to discuss her plan for the day in one of the more comfortable rooms of the Boyd building, yet the surroundings were still posh and luxe. A glance behind her at the towering windows was sufficient reminder of her situation.
Either make this job work or give up views like this forever.
Straightening her spine, she said clearly, “Just because it didn’t work in the past, doesn’t mean it won’t work now. I’ve scheduled an exclusive interview with Doc Waters—”
“How did you manage that?” Foster asked.
A tiny thrill zinged up her spine. Was it her imagination or did he sound impressed that she’d landed an exclusive with Doc? The woman was famous for both her longevity in the business and her ability to scrape past polite veneer and ask really tough questions. Doc mostly scheduled this interview to pay back an old favor to Natalie, rather than in any active interest in a non-scandalous story about the Boyds.
Outwardly, Natalie ignored his interruption, barreling onward. “At the children’s hospital. We’re meeting Doc in the cancer ward, so you don’t have to worry about the children involved being contagious or anything.”
“Do you think we’re that heartless?” Connor asked, considering her with increased interest.
“No,” Natalie sputtered. Breathing deep, she reminded herself of how tenuous her control over these two men really was, and that if she let her composure slip for even a moment, they’d likely devour her in one easy gulp. In more modulated tones, she explained, “Not at all, Mr. Boyd. As I was saying, it is an exclusive interview, and we’ll arrive through the basement parking garage. In and out, less than a half an hour, and that should avoid any media frenzy. You go in, read to some children, talk to Doc, and we’re back out again. Easy as pie.”
Once she’d gotten the brothers to agree, if hesitantly, she thought that they’d arrive in separate cars, as she often did with other clients. Instead, she found herself bundled into a town car, trapped in close confines with two of the sexiest men in America. She managed to survive the drive to the hospital, mostly because both brothers were intent on their devices, but once in the open air of the parking garage, she again had their undivided attention. “If you’ll follow me, gentlemen?”
Foster moved to open the door to the wing for her, putting them in close contact for a brief moment. Their eyes met and held, and she had to force herself to look away. She reminded herself, for about the hundredth time since coming to work for them that whatever signals she thought he was giving off were in her head or were pretended for the sake of the plan.
And for about the eighty-seventh time, she wondered how many times she’d have to actively check her own impulses when it came to him.
Doc met them at the nurse’s station, as planned. Natalie was still thrilled to see how well both brothers managed to field the questions the veteran news anchor threw at them. In what seemed like moments, Connor was seated cross-legged on a colorful carpet, children’s book in hand, while he read to a group of sick kids. The photo ops were media gold.
It was going perfectly, and the cameraman Doc brought was packing up her stuff in what seemed record time.
“Thanks again, Doc. This means the world to me,” Natalie admitted.
“My pleasure, dear. You’ve always been a joy to work with, and I hope to work with you again in the future. We’ll air this on the Sunday night program, and it will be a wonderful humanitarian piece. I should be thanking you. Speaking of the Boyd men, where’s Foster?” Doc replied, glancing over Natalie’s shoulder.
“Restroom, probably,” Natalie responded. She hadn’t noticed that he’d snuck off until Doc pointed it out.
“Well, tell him I said thanks for the exclusive. It isn’t every day I get a peek inside the Boyd Cosmetics team.”
Natalie nodded and went to watch Connor finish his story to the children. Once he was done, Natalie again glanced around for Foster. Connor said he’d head out to the car, but Natalie couldn’t leave yet. Not until she found the missing Boyd…
Where was Foster, anyway?
After a quick check at the nurse’s station, Natalie was directed to one of the patient rooms. Apparently, Foster had heard from one of the children that a teenager who was sick refused to come to do the meet and greet, so he’d decided to go say hello to the child on his own. Which was sweet, since the men were handing out gift cards to the kids for toy and video game stores in a local mall. Nice of him to think of giving one to the kid who was too sick to attend…
Natalie finally spotted him laying on a hospital bed next to a child of about ten or eleven. “Foster?” she asked.
“Shh,” the billionaire replied. “We’re winning.”
In Foster’s hand was a controller and both he and the bald-headed kid on the bed were intently focused on a flat screen on the wall. The display showed zombies falling at a speedy and gory rate as two players gunned them down with what appeared to be laser pistols of some kind.
“On your left,” the kid shouted in a voice that was almost too deep for his body.
“I got him, kid. You focus on your side of the screen.” Foster nudged the child with his shoulder.
Natalie backed out of the room, staring at the man in confusion. There were no cameras, no press, nothing in the room to make it worth Foster’s time. He’d seemed so dedicated to his business—to plotting and planning—that it felt like she was peeking at a different man altogether. Wandering back to the nurse’s station, Natalie did what she did best.
Research. Turned out the kid was a lot older than she’d guessed—sixteen, although the meds he’d been on since he was nine stunted his growth. Bastian Pergola was the child’s name, and his cancer was aggressive. He’d gone into remission twice, but both times the sickness came back. More interestingly, apparently this wasn’t Foster’s first visit to the child’s room. The billionaire was a regular in the ward, donating a few hours of his time here and there whenever he was in town.
The nurses liked Bastian, but he kept to himself. “He says there’s no use hanging out with the other kids here,” the nurse explained. “They all have expiration dates. We’ve tried to socialize him more, but since he misses so much school, he doesn’t have a lot of friends his age and refuses to get attached to the kids in the ward. Sad really. It’s nice that your boss spends so much time with him.”
When Foster finally reappeared from the child’s sickroom, he blinked at Natalie as if surprised to see her. “I told Connor to go back to the office and take the car, that I’d find my own ride, a while ago. I thought you would have left with him,” Foster said.
For a moment, Natalie sputtered. It was, after all, her job to distract Connor—not to wait around for Foster. At the same time, she really wanted to know what made him hang out with a sick kid playing video games after the press had gone.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone in case the press realized you were here,” she finally managed lamely.
“Nice save, Ms. Stolen,” he said. “I want food. You hungry?”
“I really should be getting back to the office. I can call for a car,” she began.
“Nonsense. Food’s on me. I really worked up an appetite killing zombies.” The man adjusted his tie and strode down the hall, power suit and potent demeanor back in place.
But Natalie couldn’t get the image of him laying side by side with the sick kid out of her mind. There was more to him than met the eye.
And she intended to find out more.
…
He’d managed to surprise her again, which amused him. Not just at the hospital event, but with his choice of dinner options. He led Buffy by the leash and tossed a glance to his little image consultant. She was looking particularly gorgeous in the evening light, cheeks flushed from the breeze and brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle him out.
“Drive-thru tacos and nachos and a park bench,” she muttered. “This is not what I expected when you said grab some food.”
The temptation to capture one of her wild locks of hair between his fingertips proved too great, so he toyed with the end of the silken strand while answering. “You can’t beat the view, and Buffy needed the exercise,” he replied.
Her fast blush rewarded him for his cheesy line, so he nudged her shoulder to get her to look at the bridge. Vibrant reds and golds spiked through the purpling sky, illuminating the bridge in fantastic color. “See what I mean?” he asked.
She relaxed a little, so he dug food out of the bag and passed it to her. For long moments, they sat in mostly silence while they ate. Seeing the kid at the hospital made him feel particularly introspective. Usually, when they did charity work, it was at a distance.
Raising money for something that sounded awful was a very different thing than seeing a kid so full of life and possibility and knowing that there wasn’t a guarantee he’d ever live to be an adult, or ever get to sit on a bench like this with a pretty girl, enjoying the sunset and cheap food.
“So, about the hospital,” Natalie began.
He didn’t want to talk about it. Bastian was a good kid—he’d been visiting him for almost a year already—but not something the spin doctor needed to focus her whirring little brain on.
“I’d rather talk about Connor, honestly,” Foster interrupted. He passed a bit of taco shell down to Buffy and then scruffed the fur between the dog’s ears.
“Oh?” Natalie tapped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Yes, I think the plan is going really well so far.”
“Do you? Because I ended up spending most of my day doing a charity visit while he went back to work.” Arching a single brow at Natalie, he took another bite of his own food. It was just the right amount of spicy and flavorful, without any nutritional value.
It was perfect.
Natalie’s hand went into a fist, crumpling the paper wrapper she held. “Well, no one told you that you should—”
“I’ll let today pass, but in the future, I’d like the events to be more dedicated to honing Connor’s reputation. Also, you’ve been wearing the businesslike stuff again. What happened to the floaty dresses and the elegant heels?” He took another bite of his food, but kept his focus on her. The light hit her hair, making the already wild color of it erupt into something more lovely than the show in the sky.
Not that he’d tell her that.
“The plan for today didn’t really seem like one that would make ‘floaty dresses’ work appropriate.”
“Depends on the job, I would think,” he inserted.
“Can I pet your dog, mister?” a kid asked.
His beleaguered mother gave Foster a quelling look before he could agree, so Foster answered, “Sorry, pal. He’s a drug-sniffing dog and she’s working. Maybe some other time.”
As the child and parent continued walking away, Natalie whispered, “You can’t tell people that your dog is a drug dog.”
He arched a brow at her. “Why not?”
“Because it’s a lie,” she explained.
“I’ll say she’s a bomb-sniffing dog next time. Or a cadaver dog, if you’d rather.”
She blinked at him slowly before sitting back and considering the bridge. “You’re distracting me because you don’t want to talk about the kid you met at the hospital.”
She didn’t face him when she spoke, which gave him a second to mask his surprise that she’d seen through him that quickly.
Her clever brain…it turned him on. A lot.
“I’m not sure how bringing up a completely valid work point is distracting. And besides, that’s your job description, not mine.” The defense had a lot of holes in it, but he gave it a go anyway.
She stood, still facing the bridge, and he wondered what expressions her pretty face hid. He wanted to capture her wrist, spin her to face him…
Look into those haunting eyes of hers.
But when she faced him, her expression was as unreadable as he’d guess his own to be. “I kind of like the humanized version of you,” she admitted.
“I don’t know what you mean.” But he did. He swallowed, surprised at how much she saw when most people took him at his words.
Tilting her head at him, she smiled slowly. “I’ll catch my own ride back to work,” she said. Her fingertips lightly grazed his head, stroking through his hair in a movement that almost echoed his own toying with her hair a few minutes previously. “I can see why they’d label you a prince, Foster Boyd.”
He didn’t get up to follow her, but he’d lost his appetite for tacos.
For the woman, his appetite had only increased. Reminding himself that she was for his brother seemed a hollow thought when right then…
He kind of thought she might be the perfect woman for him.