On-Air Passion

Of course, Clive loved the idea. Ever the publicity hound, he even brought up the idea of filming the date if Elle agreed to it. Ahmed kept his instinctive response—hell no!—to himself. He had the feeling Elle would cut that bad idea off at the knees all by herself. She didn’t seem the type to punish herself by hanging around somebody she didn’t like, not even for publicity, or whatever Clive promised her.

“Right,” Sam muttered in response to Ahmed’s earlier comment about asking Elle out. “If I went anywhere near that woman, you’d crush my face.” Then he snorted, the corners of his eyes crinkling briefly in amusement. “Or at least try to. Hell, Stevie Wonder could see how you were looking at her. You should’ve just asked her out instead of yanking her pigtails like a damn kid.”

Squirming where he stood, Ahmed didn’t bother to acknowledge his cousin’s truth with a response.

He looked away from Sam and focused deliberately on the reason he was away from Atlanta and his home with his comfortable bed and the kitchen where his mother and sisters were no doubt worrying about his safety. Not that there was anything to be concerned about.

Ahmed settled his hands in his pockets and planted himself more firmly in the moment. He opened his ears and paid attention.

At the end of the rally, nearly three hours later, he was emotionally exhausted and ready to drop. The walk had been longer than any of them had planned. The police showed up but, maybe because of media attention, everyone kept a peaceful presence. Ahmed and Sam made it back to Atlanta in time for a late dinner.

In the kitchen, he stood at the stove sliding an omelet out of the pan and onto a plate when his phone vibrated with a text notification.

“Sam?” He passed his cousin the omelet and pulled his phone from his pocket.

She agreed, the text said. Come into the office before the weekend to talk specifics.

“What’s up?” Sam’s voice pulled him from his frowning contemplation of the phone. “You look like someone just kicked you in the throat.”

An odd feeling swirled in Ahmed’s gut. It took him a moment to realize it was disappointment. “Elle Marshall. She just agreed to go on the publicity date.”

“Don’t pretend that’s not something you want to do.” Sam poured himself a glass of milk and sat down on the other side of the breakfast bar in the gleaming chrome and black marble kitchen, his voice a rumbling calm that somehow did the opposite of settling Ahmed down. “She’s nice enough,” Sam said. “The idea of seeing her again doesn’t exactly make you sad.”

Not sad exactly, but something. He moved restlessly around the kitchen, picking up a glass then putting it back to grab something else until what he had in his hands was the clear highball glass he’d started with in the first place. He turned the glass over and over in his hand, grateful that Sam remained quiet—as Sam was apt to do—while his thoughts swirled in too many directions at once.

It wasn’t until he was on the verge of putting the glass down again that he pinpointed the feeling. And the cause. Ahmed had been, surprisingly, working his way toward asking Elle out. On the surface of things, it was to apologize for being so aggressive with her on the radio, maybe invite her to lunch or dinner to give himself the chance to prove he wasn’t as much of a jerk as she thought. Once the apology had been issued, though, he planned for his intentions to take a more lustful turn.

But not now.

Although he didn’t know it and probably wouldn’t care if he did actually know, Clive had basically cockedblocked Ahmed.

The thought of Elle going out with him because she wanted more for her business, instead of just wanting him, turned Ahmed all the way off. And made him a little sick. No matter what he’d said about naïveté, maybe he’d had a little bit of that, too. Enough that he’d wanted her and was willing to go against his instincts in order to get her.

“None of that matters now.” Ahmed put down the phone. “I’m meeting her and Clive at the station to iron out details.”

“Maybe you can ask her out for real then. Before any of this starts.”

“Yeah, right.” Once a woman saw profit near the end of her goal, anything else was off the table.

He sat across from his cousin with his own omelet and glass of orange juice. “This is all business now,” he said. “Besides, you know she wasn’t my type anyway.”

“Yeah, you mean she’s not a random hookup you can take out for some full-contact action and never see again? You’re right about that.” Sam used his knife and fork on his omelet, his mild gaze meeting Ahmed’s.

“Have I told you how much of a pain in the ass you are?” Ahmed asked.

“Not lately.” Sam pointed his fork at Ahmed, laughter glinting in his eyes. “You’ve been slacking.”

“I need to fix that,” Ahmed said.

But his mind was already wandering back to Elle and the sway of her hips under that pink princess dress. Less than twelve hours after meeting her, the thought of her was like candy coating his tongue. Sweet and lingering.

Damn, he thought. I think I’m in trouble.

Chapter 4

Elle didn’t want to be anywhere near Ahmed Clark. But that didn’t matter since she was stuck with him in the already claustrophobic-feeling general manager’s office.

“Relax,” Shaye muttered under her breath from her seat next to Elle. “You look like you’d rather be getting a colonoscopy than sitting here with us.”

“Sounds accurate,” Elle said, shifting to relieve the slight ache in her feet from the lavender stilettos she’d bought weeks before but hadn’t had the chance to wear until now.

Getting dressed that morning, she’d reached into her closet for anything that could make her feel outstandingly pretty, needing something to build up her armor against the unsettled feelings Ahmed provoked. The vicious-looking high heels and cool white sheath dress did their job. She crossed her hands over the lavender purse in her lap and waited.

It didn’t take long for Ahmed and his ridiculous bodyguard to walk into the office, filling the small space with their bulk and maleness. Elle and Shaye had come early on purpose.

“Good afternoon.” Ahmed Clark settled into the leather chair across from the antique-looking wooden desk while his bodyguard took what seemed like his usual place with his back to the wall, his hands loose at his sides.

Clive walked in just behind the two men, smiling wider than Elle thought was humanly possible. Another man, wearing a three-piece suit and carrying an iPhone, trailed behind him and took a seat near Ahmed.

“Good, good! Everybody is here.” Clive would’ve probably clapped his hands if not for the massive coffee cup he carried.

Barely fifteen minutes before, he had welcomed Shaye and Elle into his office, offering them coffee and croissants that Shaye immediately accepted and Elle refused, before doing a disappearing act. Elle was too nervous to eat. Not to mention the last thing she wanted to do was eat in front of Ahmed Clark, get crumbs all over the front of her white dress and give him yet another reason to tease her. Elle straightened her back and showed the men her teeth. Clive sat behind his desk, still grinning.

“This is one of the station’s lawyers.” He waved at the suited man who only nodded once at the room in acknowledgment. “He’s here to make sure I don’t agree to anything we can get sued for. Now—” he set the coffee mug onto the desk with a solid thump “—I’m glad we could come to an agreement on this.” Then he clapped his hands in a show of barely restrained excitement. “This is going to be a big win for everybody!”

Elle was sure the actual opposite was true. This was going to be a disaster. Already, the trepidation hummed in her belly, twisting it into something like nausea. Shaye, on the other hand, looked almost as excited as Clive, her eager gaze flicking between Elle and Ahmed, dollar signs practically lighting up in her eyes.

“So, tell me, Clive.” Elle deliberately used his first name like he’d insisted on during that last phone call. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, Elle, I’m glad you asked,” Clive said.

He flicked his gaze around the room, perhaps to make sure everybody was paying attention, then he jumped in, outlining a plan that included Ahmed and Elle, a night of romance...and cameras.

Absolutely not. Elle opened her mouth to disagree.

“No, no cameras, Clive.” Ahmed’s deep voice rumbled with finality.

He sat with his thighs sprawled in the leather chair, his pose one of careless comfort, but his eyes were sharp on Clive with a serious look that made Elle think of a high-school principal or a daddy with a belt. Although she wasn’t intimidated by Ahmed, she’d never want that particular expression turned on her.

But Clive didn’t seem to get it. “But how is the audience gonna know you actually went on the date?” He sounded like a kid being denied his favorite toy.

“They can trust us.” Ahmed’s voice was firm. “Your guys can take some pictures of us before the date, and Elle can take a couple of selfies during, if she feels like it, but no one is going to follow us around like we’re on a damn reality show.”

“Well.” The lawyer spoke up for the first time. “If you insist on some media documentation, you can have a mini press conference at the beginning of the evening and tell the audience on camera what the plans are for the date. Then you can take a few photos throughout the night, as Mr. Clark recommended.”

“Oh, like prom!” Shaye chimed in. Elle almost kicked her.

“Exactly.” Clive flashed even more teeth.

The lawyer looked pained.

When he didn’t say anything else, Clive went on. “After the date, you come back to the station for a follow-up on-air appearance to talk about the date, how the service went—the goal for this, after all, is to advertise your business, Elle—and how you would change or tailor it to other clients.” Clive paused. “A potential AhmElle relationship attached to your business and this station would bring us all to the winner’s circle.”

“AhmElle?” Elle frowned at Clive.

“You know, like Brangelina or TomKat,” he said with another flash of teeth. “A lot of celebrity couples have names like that.”

Jesus...

“That’s a great idea,” Shaye said, her eagerness on full display. She practically wiggled in her chair, attracting the now wide-eyed attention of the lawyer.

Elle’s hand twitched with the urge to throw her purse at her best friend, to hell with the delicate lavender leather of the bag. This could all go wrong so easily. For some reason, Ahmed got off on tormenting her, and while she was never one to take any kind of abuse lying down, even when she’d been an orphan growing up in the system, she hated that she had to constantly be on her guard against him. Her skin prickled with uncomfortable heat, and her teeth were on their way to being ground down to a fine powder. He just set her completely on edge.

Damn Shaye for asking her to do this.

Elle tightened her hands on top of her bag. “How long is this farce of a date supposed to last?”

“As long as you two can stand each other, is my recommendation,” the lawyer said the same time as Clive offered his own. “We don’t have to go as far as filming your walk of shame the next morning.” He flashed a smile as he spoke, but Elle didn’t get the impression he was joking.

“I told you we don’t want anything filmed,” she said and thought she caught a look of surprise on Ahmed’s face. “Let’s just do the bare minimum of what you need to get this thing off the ground.”

She prompted Shaye with a look, and her friend jumped in with her part of the plan, whipping out her iPhone and opening the app with one of her endless lists with the brisk tap of a finger.

“I’ll put together one of our best packages for you both—I won’t tell you what it is and spoil the surprise, Elle, and that way you can really talk about it on the radio from the perspective of someone being wined and dined and whisked away on a special romantic night.”

Across the room, Ahmed shifted his position in the dark leather chair in a way that immediately drew Elle’s eyes to the weight between his legs. She quickly looked away, feeling unbalanced.

“We can’t do it at night,” she said with a pulse of desperation beating in her throat.

“What was that?” Ahmed looked at her, amusement lighting up his dark eyes.

Shaye giggled then moved to Clive’s desk, her iPhone screen held out for him to see what else she had planned.

For God’s sake... “Not like that!” Elle gritted her teeth and fought in vain against the tide of heat rising in her face. “What I mean is I don’t want to do anything at night. The date. An afternoon outing should be fine.”

Ahmed had the nerve to actually laugh at her, white teeth flashing, the corners of his mouth tucked up. “Why? Do you think you won’t be able to resist me if we go out together at night?”

Elle rolled her eyes. “Resisting you won’t be a problem,” she lied. “But I’d rather not waste any of my weekend nights doing this. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

“I doubt you have any idea what I’m feeling, princess.” And something unnamed moved across his face, not annoyance exactly but something from the same family.

“I told you not to call me that.” The words flew from between her teeth, sharp and cutting, catching even her off guard. Immediately, she regretted her tone.

The hum of conversation in the room between Shaye and Clive stopped. Even the bodyguard’s attention flew toward Elle in a snap of his pale brown gaze. But she refused to backtrack.

Ahmed’s gaze was as inscrutable as his cousin’s. But where his cousin seemed only vaguely curious, Ahmed watched her with a laser-like focus that made her want to squirm in her chair. But she kept absolutely still and met him stare for stare.

He leaned forward in his chair, arms braced against his thighs, a frown between his expressive eyes. “Listen, can we talk privately for a few minutes?”

“No.” Elle didn’t want to talk with him at all. The thought of being closer to him and in a private space filled her with an anxiety she didn’t want to name. “I have nothing to say to you that you can’t address right here and now.”

If she thought the silence in the room had been disturbing before, it was just about deafening now. Shaye and everyone else in the room stared openly at them. At Elle.

A muscle worked in Ahmed’s jaw and he made an audible sound of frustration. “Do you have a problem with me?”

“No, I don’t. But you seem to have a problem with me.” Unease rippled across Elle’s shoulders, tightening her muscles painfully. Were any of the potential gains even worth this hassle? “We probably shouldn’t do this,” she said, fully expecting him to agree with her.

But he shook his head. “We already agreed, so we might as well do this. I don’t go back on my word.”

“But I do?”

His look loudly said what his mouth did not.

She jumped to her feet. “You don’t get to imply—”

But Clive stood up, too. “I think we should all calm down and keep things in perspective.” He turned to Elle, but she backed away from him, keeping her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes on Ahmed. “I’m sure Ahmed didn’t mean to insult you. He just doesn’t get to mingle with polite company very often. Right?” His pointed look in Ahmed’s direction only yielded a shrug and setting back of broad shoulders against the leather chair. “Let’s do this and get it over with. This promo is a win-win for everybody. We just have to see it through.”

“I agree.” Shaye tucked away her phone. “Everything will be great. Just smile a little for the camera, look like you don’t want to kill each other and we’ll all be better off at the end of this thing.”

It was like she and Clive had conspired to be the Ahmed and Elle—aka Team Train Wreck—cheerleaders. This wasn’t going to work the way either of them planned, Elle could feel it.

Shaye cleared her throat. “I think we’re done here. Great decisions, everyone.” She took a page from Clive’s book and clapped her hands with a sharp note of finality, of a decision made. “I’ll put the date together and we’ll go from there.” Shaye moved closer, lowering her voice. “Are you okay, Elle?” Everything about her body language pleaded with Elle to finish what they’d started with Ahmed and the radio spot.

“Fine.” She gave her friend a look that clearly said she wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. Then she pasted a neutral expression on her face. “So, by Friday we’ll have this all sorted out?”

“Um...yes.” Shaye made a few quick notations in her phone’s notes app then went quickly around the room collecting phone numbers from everyone but the bodyguard. “I’ll contact Ahmed with the details, and we can arrange the date for this Saturday afternoon?” She made the last bit a question, looking at Elle.

“That sounds good to me. Ahmed?” Elle turned a closed smile on him and waited for him to agree.

“Yes, this Saturday afternoon is fine for me.” He glanced briefly around the room, eyes touching each person before landing once more on Elle. “Can Elle and I have the room, please?”

She blinked in surprise. Who the hell did he think he was? She’d already made it clear that she didn’t want to talk to him alone. Elle drew herself up to her full height of five foot nine and prepared to refuse his order. But before she could say anything, everyone quickly left the room.

What the...?

The door clicked shut behind them all before she could say any of the things ready to fly from her tongue.

“Elle...” Ahmed’s tone was almost conciliatory.

But she wasn’t in the mood to hear anything he had to say. When he reached out to her, she shrugged off his touch before it could even make contact. Her spine felt tight, brittle enough to snap.

“Everything is fine. We’ll do this date then never have to be alone again. As long as we all get our money’s worth, right?”

“Wrong.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and frowned down at her from his much greater height. “Would you just let me apologize?” He barreled on before she could tell him to where to stick his too-late apology. “I know we—” he held up his hands when she opened her mouth to remind him exactly who had started this war “—I got off on the wrong foot with you, and I want to say I’m sorry for that. There’s no reason we can’t go on this so-called date being at least cordial with each other. I don’t want to suffer through a couple of hours of your company, and I’m sure you feel the same way about mine.”

Just exactly what was his game? Even in the office, he had been flippant to the point of being rude. And now he wanted to kiss and make up? It didn’t make any sense. But if he wanted to pretend, she could do it with the best of them.

“Fine,” she said. “Apology accepted. All’s right with the world. Are you happy now?” But she didn’t want for him to answer. She turned on the heel of her lavender stilettos and wrenched open the door. Clive, Shaye and the bodyguard were only a few feet away from the office door. She was surprised the bodyguard had left Ahmed alone with her.

Clive’s eyes crinkled with amusement when he saw her. He stepped away from Shaye and approached Elle. “Are you sure we can’t have a camera guy follow you and Ahmed that afternoon? He wouldn’t be in the way.”

Elle barely kept a smile on her face and the civility on her tongue. “No, Clive. Just no.”

Shaye appeared at Elle’s shoulder while brushing an invisible piece of lint from the clinging material of her blouse. “I think it’ll be much more interesting and more fun to have them talk about the date on the air,” her friend said, and Clive seemed unable to look away from the nearly caressing motion of her hand on her own chest. “That way, you won’t have all that dead air and boring meal chitchat on film. With them back on the radio, you can get to the meat of the story that much faster.” Shaye said the word meat with far too much pleasure.

But that was apparently what Clive needed to hear. He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to Shaye’s face. “All right. But we’ll have a guy get some pics of you two that afternoon. I’ll send them over to your place about an hour before you’re supposed to leave.”

“I’ll send you the address,” Shaye said.

Elle rolled her eyes. This was turning out to be a bigger farce than she’d ever expected. And it was all Shaye’s fault. She cut her eyes at her best friend, but Shaye only smiled placidly back.

It was all right, though. They both knew Shaye owed her big-time for this one.

Chapter 5

“He’s on TV.” Shaye popped around the corner from the living room, her cocktail in hand, just as Elle turned off the blender.

“What are you talking about?” She poured her margarita into the extra-large glass with a sugar rim and took a sip. Yum. A little too much tequila, but the current situation excused it.

“Ahmed Clark. He’s on the news talking about the Garvey High school closing.” Shaye dumped a fresh bag of tortilla chips into a bowl and, hugging the bowl to her chest and her drink in one hand, made her way back into the living room. Her plush behind, in cutoff shorts, wiggled away from Elle’s sight.

Elle licked a trace of the margarita mixed with sugar crystals from her bottom lip and hummed again with pleasure. Against her will, she thought of Ahmed Clark. The tart and heady flavor of the margarita, potent as hell, was like the effect he had on her senses. Despite his bad manners, despite the not wanting to deal with him one-on-one, she couldn’t deny how much faster her heart beat in his presence, how the way he poked and prodded at her like a kid outside a tiger’s cage made her feel more energized than she had in years. She frowned. Really? Was his teasing really working on her outside of grade school? Apparently so.

Elle took a healthy sip of her drink, groaning out loud at how good the margarita tasted, how perfect for the hot summer day, and made her slow way to the living room and TV where Ahmed Clark dominated the screen.

She dropped down onto the sofa next to Shaye, who had already started on the chips, dipping them into the bowl of guacamole with one hand while lifting her drink to her lips with the other. Her friend was already Friday-afternoon tipsy.

After the flood of new business that had come in from Elle’s appearance on Ahmed’s show, she and Shaye decided to take the afternoon off for a little impromptu celebration.

From this side of the screen, it was easier to like Ahmed Clark. His chiseled and handsome face easily belonged on the big screen. The distance and the cameras amplified the energy that crackled around him when he was in any room while making his otherworldly handsomeness almost expected or commonplace. But that wasn’t exactly the word she wanted to use. The right words always escaped her where he was concerned.

“It’s criminal how he’s actually better looking in person. And sexier, too.”

Elle rolled her eyes. “He’s talking about some serious issues, Shaye. And all you can comment on is his body? You’re a mess.” As if she hadn’t just been thinking about how handsome he looked.

“I can care about educating our youth and how juicy that man is. I have no problems multitasking.”

After their meeting in Clive’s office, Elle had been too furious at her friend to speak to her. It took over twenty-four hours and an invitation to her newly purchased East Point house for Elle to agree to see Shaye. After meeting Elle at the door with the first margarita, Shaye had just kept the drinks coming. So now, at nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, they were both well and truly relaxed, both because of the drinks and because they’d managed to dodge every important topic. Until now, apparently.

“I wish you wouldn’t see him as the enemy, though,” Shaye said, managing to frown, drink her cocktail and scoop more guacamole toward her mouth at the same time.

“I don’t see him as an enemy.” On the TV screen, Ahmed Clark walked away from the cameras, his ever-present bodyguard at his side. “I admire what he’s doing. I think it’s great that he’s using his fame for something other than getting more women and more money. A lot of kids look up to him and the other celebrities talking about social justice issues. I think it’s amazing what he’s doing, getting the discussions about the needs of our community off Facebook and into our living rooms and our kitchens.”