Nothing in Grace’s closet felt right for the fund raiser. Yes, she had plenty of dresses that would do just fine, but Ashton had seen them all before—no, not Ashton—Ash. She was calling him Ash now, because it seemed to knock him off his center a bit. And she liked seeing Ash off balance.
Grace wasn’t stupid. She knew Ash had a bit of a crush on her, but she was also smart enough not to take it personally. Ash flirted with no less than six women at a time. It was his default mode—something Grace had learned quite well the first month she’d worked with him. The man could turn up the flirty heat. That first month with him had been fun. They’d gone head-to-head to the point that had Frank hiding under the desk more than once.
Grace wanted that dynamic back, which was why she’d dropped the news that she was single and shown Ash that the two of them had a deadline. Seven shows… like the old days. It was time to fire back and leave Ash singed, but she could only really do that if he was playing along.
Once and for all, it was time to declare herself the undisputed champion of the Battle of the Sexes, which was why she was on her fifth department store for the evening. She needed a new dress.
If Grace wanted to walk out of tomorrow night with the upper hand, she needed to blow Ash’s mind and then blow him off. She had no doubt that Ash was walking into tomorrow night with the exact same plan. He’d already made it quite clear that he considered his kissing technique to be swoon-worthy, and it was clear that her role in his imagination was to be blown away and drop in line, like so many women had before her.
The man was going to be disappointed.
If Ash’s reaction on the show earlier that day was any indicator, Grace had every advantage tomorrow night. All she’d done was send him a few looks, lick her lips a few times, and take off her jacket. The result? Ash had become barely coherent. He definitely wanted her.
A slight buzz moved through Grace at the knowledge before she tapped it down.
She couldn’t take Ash’s attention seriously. For all she knew, Ash was on a date with Traci that very moment and would be flirting with Emily at work again tomorrow… or soothing a crying baby while he flirted with its mother.
Grace took a slow breath as she remembered how seamlessly he had stepped in to help the woman with the stroller the day before. That kind of skill didn’t come on accident. He’d known exactly how to work the buckles and how to hold the little girl. He’d known just how to talk and the faces to pull as he bounced the baby and stopped her screaming. Grace had felt herself swoon a bit before looking around and realizing she wasn’t the only one. Literally every woman within fifty feet was watching Ash with a dreamy look in their eyes.
Grace wanted to hate him for how easily women bit on his hook, but she had to give him credit for the fact that none of his behavior was an act. Apparently he had some practice and was just good with babies—or at least female babies. Things might have played out differently if the baby was a boy.
Who knew?
Grace had known Ash for two years, and she didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of women she’d seen go weak-kneed at the other end of his gaze. She’d always had Phillip to keep herself safe from his flirtations and invitations, but now Phillip was out of the picture. No more buffer. Now it was just up to her sense of self preservation to refuse Ash’s seemingly sensitive blue eyes as they tried to lure her into becoming one of his flings.
Nope. Wasn’t happening.
First off, it was way too soon. She and Phillip hadn’t even been apart a week.
Second, she just refused to be that stupid. Ashton Miller was what he was. And while she was more than happy to use what she knew of the man to her advantage, there was no way she wanted to get close enough to get burned.
Yes, Ashton Miller was a beautifully sculpted man. Yes, he was funny. Yes, she had talked to him for two hours a day for the past two years and never gotten tired of him. And yes, there were a lot of reasons to find his interest flattering, but the fact was that the man didn’t know how to commit and Grace had just spent three years dancing that dance. She didn’t want to start all over again with a new partner.
Grace glanced toward the main entrance, looking for Esme. What was taking her so long? Esme was supposed to drop by Small Steps and see if she could find out how much they had raised before helping Grace find something to wear tomorrow.
Grace needed an extra pair of eyes, because nothing was looking right. Every dress was too… something. Too casual. To skimpy. Too professional. Too plain. Too tight. Too expensive.
She needed to drop Ash’s jaw without looking like she was trying too hard. Plus, she needed something that would go with the pair of jeans Ash would no doubt be wearing. The man was permanently in casual mode—something she would definitely fix if they ever dated.
Which they wouldn’t.
Grace was eyeing a blue sleeveless dress with a triangle cutout in the back when Esme approached as quickly as her high heels would let her. When she made it to Grace’s side, she gripped her hand and whispered, “Twelve grand.”
Grace flinched in honest surprise. “As in $12,000?”
Esme nodded. “As of thirty minutes ago, yes. And considering that their goal was to raise $25,000 by the end of tomorrow night—with all the games and everything—I can tell you that the crew over at Small Steps is pretty giddy right now.”
Grace was still stuck on the number. “Twelve seconds?”
“Yeah.”
Grace’s heart picked up its pace, imagining what could happen in twelve seconds, before she blinked the images away. “That’s dangerously close to make-out territory.”
“It kind of is,” Esme agreed, looking more intrigued than scandalized. “You’ll be venturing into the territory where it starts to get weird if there’s no tongue.”
Grace shook her head. “There will be no tongue. That I can promise you.”
“I’m not judging either way,” Esme said with a shrug. “I would go there.”
Grace felt an unexpected ping of jealousy run through her. “Excuse me?”
Esme smirked playfully. “What? If a guy that hot is going to kiss me, I’m going to make sure he remembers it. I don’t care if you like him or not, you should still want to knock his socks off.”
Grace grew still for a moment, unsure what she was feeling, but fully aware of the kick of her heart against her chest. But seriously, did she want to knock his socks off and leave him off balance, or what?
“They’re going to show the kiss on the news,” she said lamely.
“So keep it covert,” Esme said, checking out the blue dress herself. “I like this one. You look great in bold colors.”
Grace pointed to the back. “Yeah, but I think the back cutout is too racy for the news.”
“Hmm. Probably,” she agreed, and they moved on. “But we’ll find something that will make it clear to every man in the room that you’re back on the market.”
“Yeah,” Grace said, feeling a bit nervous when she realized she didn’t care what any other men thought about the dress. Only Ash.
That was not a good sign. But Grace could work on her wayward thoughts of Ashton Miller later. Right now, she needed a dress.
The local park had been turned into a small fairground by Small Steps. There were bouncy houses and games. There was a row of food vendors selling everything from Indian food to candied almonds. Grace had gone with the almonds. Everything else seemed like a bad flavor for a kiss, and she needed something to even out her blood sugar.
There were hundreds in attendance, and the closer it got to concert time, the more it looked like the attendance might be in the thousands, and a lot of them were fans of the show. Grace might be on the TV every day, but she was rarely treated like a celebrity in the real world. Recognized, yes. But no one really wanted pictures or autographs.
But at this particular fund raiser on this particular day, Grace was an outright celebrity. She’d never posed in more pictures. The first ones we
re with the Small Steps staff, who were giddy but tight lipped about how much they’d earned. They were still taking cash donations at the door, so the tally wasn’t final. Their enthusiasm made Grace a bit nervous, but she tried not to think about it too hard. Everything would be on the table at 8:00, before Neon Trees hit the stage.
Until then, Grace mingled, gave an interview for the paper and then another interview for their news broadcast, teasing the kiss that would be on the nightly news where they would reveal the amount it raised for Small Steps.
Everything was so insane that Grace almost forgot that she was at her first event without Phillip in a long time, and her first time going anywhere without a date in… forever. Unless Esme counted as a date.
Grace gripped her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “Seriously, thank you for coming solo.”
Esme squeezed back. “Hey, happy to play camerawoman for all these strangers on your big day.”
Grace looked around at the packed park. “There are a lot of people here, aren’t there?”
“Yeah,” Esme said. “But if it makes you feel better, I think they’re here for the band. Not you.”
Grace grinned. “That makes me feel a whole lot better. Thanks.”
“No prob.”
Just then, Ash stepped in next to them. He was wearing jeans. Grace had called that one. Although in a surprise move, he had opted for a button-up shirt, a formality he compensated for by keeping it untucked and rolling up the sleeves. Still, it was a nice, summery blue color that almost made it look like he’d tried to coordinate with the floral crop top and pencil skirt she and Esme had picked out the night before. Visually speaking, their outfits would look good together under the lights of the stage.
“This is insane, right?” he said, then he turned and looked at Esme, holding out his hand. “Hi. I’m Ash.”
Grace’s eyes narrowed. Ash? Since when did he introduce himself as Ash?
Esme slid her hand into his. “I know who you are.”
He sent Esme one of his lopsided grins—the kind that always got a smile in return, even if you knew it was coming. “Then you have one up on me. I don’t have the pleasure.”
Pleasure? Pleasure? Whatever he was playing at, her best friend was definitely off limits.
Grace watched as her coworker and her best friend shared a smile. When Esme spoke, her voice was a little breathless.
“I’m Esme.”
What. Was. Happening? Because whatever it was, it was definitely not happening. Not under Grace’s watch.
“Esme is my best friend,” Grace said.
“Ah,” Ash beamed. “So you’re the one I need to get in with for dirt on Grace.”
To Grace’s surprise, Esme didn’t snap back. She purred. “That would be me.”
They were still “shaking” hands, and it was all Grace could do not to slap their hands apart. They’d met. That part was over. They could stop touching now.
“We should do lunch,” Ash said, eyes on Esme.
“Nope,” Grace replied before Esme could say anything to the contrary. “Get your dirt somewhere else, Ash. Esme’s off limits.”
Ash grinned at Grace, finally releasing Esme’s hand. “Chicken.”
“Poacher,” she replied, looking around. “Unless you want to trade. Did you bring that niece of yours that you’re always talking about? We could trade lunch dates.”
He visibly paled. “It’s probably best not to involve minors.”
She grinned. “Now who’s the chicken?”
Ash’s eyes narrowed competitively. “It’s going to be fun to kiss that smirk off of your face for once.”
Esme’s mouth formed a small “oh” of surprise as Grace stepped forward. “Yeah? We’ll see who’s smirking when all is said and done.”
When a flash went off, Grace realized that people around them were taking pictures. Not good. She backed off and made her smile more pleasant. “By the way, we should totally post a quick selfie and ask listeners to predict how much they think we’ve raised tonight.”
“Sure,” he said as she pulled out her phone and found her light.
“Say cheese,” Grace said, feeling ridiculous the moment the words left her mouth. Say cheese? Who said that anymore? But what was done was done. All she could do now was pretend not to notice Ash’s cologne as she snapped a few shots. She quickly typed in a caption: The countdown begins to the big kiss for Small Steps. How much do you think we raised? When she was done, she showed Ash her screen. “Work for you?”
He glanced at it and nodded. “Works for me just fine.”
“Good,” she said, hooking her arm into Esme’s to lead her away. “See you in a few, Ash.”
Then, for reasons she didn’t want to analyze, Grace fled.
“Are you ready for the Neon Trees?” Allison called out into the stage’s microphone.
The crowd cheered and whistled. Megan and six of her friends screamed like teenagers next to Ash, bringing a smile to his face. He was giving them their space, but it was nice to see his niece acting her age. And the fact that he had been able to get Megan and her friends into the concert only improved his cool-uncle status.
“We’re only minutes away!” Allison said. “But before we go to the main event, we have a last-minute co-main event to address. Grace? Ashton? Do you want to come up here?”
Megan sent him a smile and held up a high-end DSLR camera she had borrowed. She had warned him: There will be GIFs.
Somehow that felt more ominous than knowing he and Grace were going to be on the news.
But as Ash made his way onto the stage, one look at Grace told him he’d laid the groundwork well. Even though she was smiling and waving to the audience as she made her way up onto the stage, he could tell she was still annoyed from when he’d approached Esme. Good. An annoyed Grace was a more reckless Grace, and that’s what he wanted in the woman he was about to lock lips with: a dash of poor judgment.
“Most of you probably know these two from the radio show, Battle of the Sexes,” Allison said into the mic. “Some of you might even follow the flirty hashtag speculating as to whether or not these two will ever throw politics to the wind and become a couple—”
Ash froze. Wait. What? Allison knew about the hashtag?
“—but either way, they both stepped up to be heroes for tonight’s event—helping Small Steps raise more money in one night than we raised in all of last year combined!”
The crowd cheered as he and Grace moved up the stairs on opposite sides of the stage.
Man, she made that dress look good.
Megan had informed Ash earlier, when she’d picked out his shirt based on a picture she’d seen in Grace’s Instagram feed, that Grace’s outfit for the night was very Taylor Swift, and very on trend. He believed her, but at the same time, his eyes barely saw the dress. He saw trapdoors, like the inch of bare skin exposed between Grace’s skirt and top. How was his hand not supposed to land there and slip under the gap? And her skirt was at least three inches shorter than usual. If they stood close to the edge of the stage, people would be able to look right up it. He couldn’t have that.
Then there were Grace’s curves. She was way too sexy for the nightly news in that dress. Just standing in front of a camera with a mic in her hand would raise flags, but kissing? Those cameras had better zoom in tight—and Ash had told them as much. Shoulders and up. That’s all they could show before the whole event became PG-13.
Ash tried not to stare as Grace’s ballroom legs walked his way. Instead, he focused on the fact that her heels made her about two inches taller than he was used to. Flat-footed, Grace hit him at chest level. In her usual work shoes, she was the height of his shoulder, but whatever she was currently wearing had the top of her head hitting him at chin level. All it would take to connect their lips would be for him to look down and her to look up.
His heart hammered at the thought.
This was happening. It was really happening. And if he played his cards right, it would
happen again when they were off the stage and away from cameras. Then they’d really see where they stood.
But first things first.
“Give them a hand!” Allison was yelling into the mic.
Grace earned a few catcalls as she walked across the stage, causing Ash to search the crowd for the offenders. Yes, she looked great, but those men could keep the volume down on their thoughts as far as Ash was concerned.
Allison continued her role as MC. “When I dared these two to kiss for charity two days ago, I had hopes that it would bring in some much-needed funding, but I had no idea of how big the response would actually be,” she said, smiling ear-to-ear. “So for that, I thank each of you—the ones who donated tonight and the ones who gave online. The response is more than we could have hoped for.”
Ash glanced at Grace, who looked a bit nervous under the smile she flashed as she stood on the other side of Allison. She could have walked up and stood right next to him, but she hadn’t. She’d gone for the buffer. Yeah, she was nervous. For some reason, that made Ash feel better.
“Are you ready to hear how much your generosity has raised for homeless and underprivileged children tonight?” Allison yelled into the mic, and was met with cheers. Her smile widened as she looked at Ash, then at Grace. “Are you two ready for this?”
“Bring it on,” Ash said, sending Grace a competitive look.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Grace replied, leveling a playful glare on him.
It was on.
“What if I told you…” Allison drawled, “that in the past forty-eight hours this community came together and donated $43,316 dollars to get shoes on the feet of children in this community and beyond?”
Ash actually choked on his next breath. “What?”
He looked at Grace, whose mouth had fallen open. Then she covered it with her hand and started laughing.
The crowd cheered, although Ash got the sense that it was a cheer for the money amount in general, not the accompanying stunt.
$43,316? That would make it a 43-second kiss. Anyway you cut it, that was not appropriate for any type of newscast.
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