He didn’t say anything to that as he finished the fries, then tossed all the trash back into the bag and set it aside. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and said another entire boatload of nothing.

“It’s just a role, Wade. And it could have been worse. We could have lost the endorsement entirely, or they could have traded you.”

“They’re that desperate for good press.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Hey, baseball isn’t exactly showing its best foot to the public lately. We need this. The Heat needs this.”

“And your father’s okay with it?” he asked carefully, with good reason.

Her father was one of the owners of the Heat. Her uncle owned their sister team, the Charleston Bucks. The McNead brothers were famous for getting their way, or more accurately, infamous.

And they were baseball royalty.

Or had been until Samantha’s brother, Jeremy—her equivalent at the Bucks—had stepped over the ethics line, the moral line, and several other lines as well, and brought the wrath of the press down on the McNeads. “Yes,” she said quietly. “He thinks it’s a good idea.”

“So they’re willing to pimp out their princess as it suits them.”

A McNead was expected to stick to the pack. “It’s just an illusion, Wade.”

“It’s an entire month, Sam.”

The reminder made her stomach quiver. An entire month of being his “girlfriend.” “We’re grown-ups.”

“Really? Because we’ve not spent more than two minutes together without snarling at each other.”

True.

“Well . . .” His smile turned sleepy and sexy. “Except for the elevator.”

Also true, and her stomach executed a somersault as the memory flew back, hot and sexy, resurrected by nothing more than the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes.

It’d been last season. The Heat had just lost, bad. Her family had been driving her insane, and she’d been in desperate need of a pity party for one.

Instead, she’d gotten stuck in that damn elevator on the way to her hotel room with Wade and a couple of little bottles of airplane Scotch. Adrenaline still racing, she’d found something she hadn’t expected—a naked party for two.

And now erotic, alcohol-tinged memories came in slomo and without conscious bidding, and as always, always, sent her spinning between total and complete humiliation and an even more devastating aching hunger.

Neither of which she was comfortable with.

If she could erase from her memory bank the pictures of Wade taking her straight to heaven in under five minutes, she would, but those memories seemed to strengthen with time, teasing her. She darted a quick glance at their driver, who was currently sipping a seventy-two ounce soda and rocking his head to the radio as he beat the steering wheel like a drum.

Not listening. Good. “I don’t want to discuss that night.”