Priceless would be the word to describe the face Kade had on as they stood in line for entry onto the cruise. That’s right, just like any other ordinary Dallas person.

"I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” he said out of the side of his mouth as he tried to stand as tall as he could and see the front of the line.

“Pose.” She grabbed him and put her face by his as pictures were taken.

“Tell me the truth,” Kade said, as he kept her close to him, putting his arms around her waist and blatantly smelling her.

“You’re smelling me,” she said, her heart thrumming nicely.

Continuing to smell her, he let out a breath. “Smelling wasn’t forbidden in the contract. I think it’s a grey area.” Relaxing his hold, he smiled a dopey smile at her and scrunched up his nose. “I may not be able to fall in love, but I can smell all I want, boss.”

The camera continued filming and the camera got shots from different angles.

She kept on her nice face.

“No slapping.” He taunted her. “Remember, it makes you feel bad."

Irritation wove through her as she tried to shut out this attraction she had for him. It was so annoying. “How would you know that?” she whispered into his ear, making it look like she was being friendly.

He yanked her closer to him, smelling her hair. “Because I saw the look on your face. And I’d recognize regret anywhere.”

Turning in his arms, she took a step forward and glared, then put a nice face back on for the cameras. “Almost on board.” She called out happily.

He kept her hand in his and leaned over and whispered. “I’m getting real tired of the show. I want to talk to the piano girl.”

Butterflies erupted in her stomach, and she tried to pull her hand away from his, but he wouldn’t let her. She leaned back into him. “The piano girl isn’t real.” She yanked her hand free and turned away from him. What was happening to her? She could only think about how good he smelled and how she wanted to be near him. How had this day gotten out of hand?

The sun was setting, and pinks, oranges, and blues enveloped the sky. She tried to calm herself. It was fine. This date was almost over.

The feel of his hand in hers was making her all topsy-turvy. She could feel the calluses on his hand. Presumably from holding the football or throwing it so much. She smelled his cinnamon scent. What was that cologne? Stop thinking of that cologne!

The camera guys positioned them in different ways.

Right before getting on the boat, Kade pulled out his wallet and gave each of the guys a couple of hundred dollar bills. “Thanks for your work. Let’s call that a day, okay.”

“But …” She tried to protest and didn’t have time as the cruise guy took their tickets and Kade moved them forward.

“Can’t be holding up the line, now can we?” He flashed her a smile.

Immediately, the guy recognized Kade. “Oh, a special guest.” He looked like he was flummoxed. “Mr. Kincaid, let me get you a special table up top.”

“Great.” Kade said, pulling her forward and following the guy.

She was stupefied. “What are you doing? The best part was supposed to be you country dancing and eating shrimp from a buffet.” She blurted out, instantly regretting playing all of her cards.

A smug grin washed across his face. “Oh I know what you had planned, little missy. I know it. I think we got plenty of footage from our date earlier today and just now to make the fans happy." He pointed at her. “So I don’t have to eat at a buffet.”

Disappointment fell through her, but it was quickly replaced by laughter at the ridiculousness of this situation. She couldn’t hold back the giggles. It had been highly amusing to her that Kade had gotten extremely sick after a buffet in Vegas and he’d sworn he’d never eat at one again. “Remember, this isn’t for your fans. It’s for the children’s hospital, right?”

“Exactly.” He pointed at her. “Don’t twist my words. I give a lot to this community. I think they can live without footage of me eating at a dinner cruise.” He frowned as they followed the worker up the steps to a much nicer area with private tables.

She resigned herself to the fact that they would have a nice dinner. She followed him to a table. “I know. You gave one point seven million last year.”

“What?” He looked surprised as he sat.

“That’s what your estate donated to this community. It is impressive.” She slid into the table next to him.

A look of surprise, followed swiftly by satisfaction, moved across his face. “How do you know that?”

“It’s my job to know you.” She shook her head, still mourning the fact she wouldn’t be forcing him to dance. “Why didn’t you have the camera people come?” Now they were alone, and it felt like a real date.

The waiter appeared to ask them what drinks they wanted.

Kade scanned the ship. “Hey, do you care if we go stand by the side of the deck for a bit?”

Confused, she acquiesced.

He told the waiter they would be back.

They moved to the side. People were passing them by, some were looking over at him, but most didn’t even seem to notice him or her.

Making his way to the side of one of the lookouts, he took the binoculars and admired the view, ignoring her question.

Turning to the sky again, she saw the sun making its final descent. It was getting darker, and there were lights strung above them. It was a very romantic atmosphere.

Pulling back from the binoculars, he pointed to them. “You should look. You can still see it.”

Even though she was feeling annoyed, what could she do about it now? She thought they probably shouldn’t even be on the ship if there weren’t cameras.

“C’mon, take a look.”

Playing his game, she took the binoculars and looked. She knew what he was talking about. “I don’t see anything.”

He let out a laugh. “Whatever, there’s Titan Stadium right there, all lit up. The guys work on the fields some weekends, so they light it up at night. I love looking at it.”

It did look cool. Her heart raced as she realized she was really on a date with Kade Kincaid and none of it was for show. She met his eyes.

The blueness of them caught her off guard, and she thought of the city pool she’d grown up by and how she’d always want to go to the pool right when it opened to stand at the deep end and jump in before anyone else.

“What are you thinking?” He squinted at her and looked perplexed.

“What?” She blinked and moved back toward the side.

Taking her hand, he moved next to her. “What are you thinking?”

Looking down at their hands, she felt her breath catch. “You don’t need to pretend to hold my hand. There are no cameras.”

For a second, he didn’t say anything. Then he laced their fingers together. “Maybe I want to.”

She tried to yank her hand back. “I told you—”

His hand squeezed a bit tighter. “Dang, woman. I know what you told me. I know what the contract says, but hand holding is not falling in love.” A slow smile filled his face. “Unless you can’t control yourself when I touch you?” His voice was sultry.

Butterflies fluttered in her gut, and she felt like he was challenging her. Like if she took her hand back, she would be admitting that he had an affect on her. She shrugged, keeping her hand in his. “You don’t have any affect on me.”

A sarcastic laugh came out of him. “Okay.”

They stood like that, and all she could think about was how wonderful it felt to hold his hand. He was the epitome of alpha male, and so what. Fine, he affected her.

“If you tell me what you were thinking about, I might give your hand back.”

This man was infuriating. “About the pool.” The words practically burst out of her. It sounded ridiculous. Like her brother used to tell her, she should keep most of her thoughts to herself.

“O-kay.”

Figuring she was already in it, she continued. “I always liked to be the first one to the city pool on a summer day so I could stare at the blue in the water without it being all messed up.” She let out a light laugh. “My brother used to tease me about it. He thought I was eccentric.” She let out another puff of laughter. Yes, Jimmy had thought she was more than eccentric. “Your eyes reminded me of the color of the pool.”

Kade didn’t respond.

Maybe it didn’t sound so strange. She didn’t look back at him, didn’t want to. Didn’t want to see the polite rejection in his eyes as he realized she had convoluted streams of thought most of the time.

“You don’t get along with your brother?” he asked lightly.

Thinking of his and Anthony’s, clearly tense, relationship she shook her head. “Oh no. It’s nothing like that.” Unable to stop herself, she smiled, thinking about Jimmy and the easy way he always teased her. “I adored my brother.” For some, stupid reason, all the emotion of losing him got bunched up in her throat, and she blinked.

“Are you okay?”

Commanding herself to be a normal person, she nodded and thought about jumping out of the airplane to distract herself.

He squeezed her hand. “Something you’re not telling me, Smalls.”

For a beat, she didn’t say anything.

He was patient.

“My brother was killed in Iraq two years ago.” The relief of admitting it staggered her. She never spoke of Jimmy.

Kade seemed frozen.

“He called me eccentric because I read all the time and talked to him about all these ideas floating in my mind.” She smiled and felt a single tear escape. She wiped it quickly. “I called him jughead because he walked around without his shirt on and flexed for people every chance he got. And he would braid my hair as I sat at the piano playing. Isn’t that weird?” Pain and joy filled her as she spoke of her brother. “He used to say, ‘A real man braids.’” A light laugh escaped her, and she realized it felt natural to talk to Kade. Almost like this could be a real date. She frowned because it wasn’t real.

He cleared his throat. “Your brother sounds like he’d be a fun guy to hang with,” Kade said quietly.

She nodded. “He was.”

For a few moments, neither of them said anything. Kade pulled his hand back from hers, still holding it loosely while tracing the back of it with his other hand.

Once again, the gesture felt too intimate, but for some reason, she didn’t demand it back.

“When I saw you playing the piano today, I could swear you were ethereal, a pixie from a fairy land. Or an angel.”

Caught in the intimate feeling he’d shared with her, she wondered again, who this man was. “You’re not like the Kade Kincaid in the press.”

His face froze just before he reared back with a laugh. Letting go of her hand, he actually put it over his stomach as he doubled over.

“What?” Annoyance rippled through her. What was he laughing at?

He didn’t get to explain because a couple had moved over to them. “Mr. Kincaid, could I have a picture with you?”

Kade stopped laughing and nodded at the couple.

Before she knew what had happened, a lot of the guests were lining up to get selfies with Kade.

It struck her again, how giving he was with his time. She hadn’t been in PR long, but she knew a lot of people didn’t want to stand around doing selfies with the general public, but he seemed like he had all the time in the world just as he had at McDonalds earlier that day.

Finally after about twenty minutes, the ship captain announced drinks and appetizers in the main hall. The crowd finally dispersed, and she was grateful. Which was funny. Why should she care if they spent the whole cruise in a photo session posing with people?

The rest of the people began trickling into the hall, but his hand was in hers again, and he held her back. “Do you mind if we just enjoy it out here for a bit?”

The ship was already going around the lake, and it felt heavenly. She felt released from having to put on a show all the time for the cameras. “Sure.” She followed him to the front of the ship where there was more space to sit. They sat and stared out at the city lights. He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I laughed so hard about how I’m not what you thought I’d be, but …” He exhaled a breath and closed his eyes for a second. “The press.” Another big exhale. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life trying to make the press happy. To not rock the boat. It’s just so …”

“Empty,” she said.

He turned to her. “Explain.”

She shook her head. Why was she even wasting her time doing this? “No, sorry.”

He squeezed her hand again. "Just spit out what you were going to say.”

“Fine.” She saw he had that determined look again. “I spent four years studying communications. Studying a field that by its nature lends itself to working at PR firms where we can ‘manage’ people’s appearances."

“Like mine,” he said quickly.

She nodded. “I’ve just been wondering why I did it, why do I want to protect this image, something that’s not even real?"

He nodded. “Yeah.”

She sighed.

“So why do you?”

“What?”

“Why are you doing it?”

This left her with a stickiness in her throat, and she let out a laugh. “Obviously to pay the bills.” She tried to pull back her hand.

He released it. “Not good enough.”

This floored her. “What?”

“Not good enough."

"Hey, just because you are a billionaire who has the luxury of deciding to buy a house outright as a ‘gesture’ for a date, doesn’t mean the rest of us live that kind of charmed life."

He didn’t respond right away. “Lots of people aren’t billionaires, and they don’t do PR. You can change, right? You can rework your strategy. You can change your plays, pick a new job.”

Glaring at him, she shook her head. “I love how you turn everything into football speak. Not.”

He hesitated, glaring back at her. “Hey, whatever. You can discount what I’m saying or turn it into something it’s not meant to be, but I have worked hard to get where I’m at.”

She didn’t argue with him. As seen earlier when skydiving, the guy had grit. She’d been studying him the past couple of days and knew his training was grueling. He was right. He competed at a high level, and he knew how to give his all.

He exhaled. “I always think at the beginning of any season, if we don’t have the way, we find the way. If we don’t think we can fill a need, we work with a different player and fill that need. When you start asking yourself ‘how’ to do something instead of giving a bunch of excuses, the way opens up."

It ticked her off that he couldn’t see outside of his own experience. She wondered if he’d ever dealt with a heart condition. She rolled her eyes. “This might surprise you, Mr. Kincaid, but everything’s not a stupid football game. Not everyone gets the advantage of seeing the field or seeing the obstacles or the potential obstacles before they come at you.”

He frowned. “I wasn’t saying—”

She put up her finger, remembering again why she didn’t get close to people. “You have no idea who I am or what I’ve been through, so please, don’t placate me with platitudes about how ‘it’s not around the obstacle, it’s through the obstacle’ or ‘your attitude determines your altitude.'”

Holding her gaze for a moment, he scoffed. “Guess you’ve already decided who I am.” His eyes hardened, and he looked away.

She scoffed back. “Yeah, the guy who walks on a cruise ship and automatically gets upgraded from the buffet.”

Pointing to himself, his eyes got wild. “Oh, I can eat a buffet, Ms. Song.”

“Can you?” she asked back, sounding every bit as wild as he was. She felt ludicrous.

“Oh, we’re totally eating the regular buffet now.”

“Fine,” she said, wishing she wasn’t pushing it because she really didn’t enjoy buffets.

“I can be every bit as normal as every other guy.”

“I guess we’ll see,” she said snarkily.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments, and she felt an extreme awkwardness.

It was funny. She felt more awkward now than she had all day with the cameras on them.

“Real is scary,” he said quietly.

Swiveling to face him, she noticed the laser-like way he was looking at her again. The same way he’d been looking at her while she’d played the piano. The same way, it appeared, Kade Kincaid approached anything he was extremely interested in. Her heart rate kicked up a notch. “I don’t know what you mean?”

Letting out a light laugh, he stood and took her hand. “I like it when you’re not pretending for the camera." He kept staring at her. “Actually, I just think I like you period, but obviously, it’s hard for you to let others see the real you.”

Once again, her heart kicked up a notch, something it had done more and more around Kade. She didn’t know what to say.

Smiling, he started moving down to sit where the normal people sat. “C’mon, Song. Let’s eat the horrible buffet you had planned.”