Carly Phillips - Hot Item

Some called her anal. She figured she was smart. And being smart, she couldn’t let chaos seep into the agency, despite all that was going on.

Yesterday she’d received a handwritten note from Spencer, postmarked from New York. “Laying low. Back in time for draft.” As if that would pacify John Cashman.

She walked over to the chalkboard she kept with everyone’s schedules marked on it. All active clients on the sports side were divided among the agency representatives. She’d doled out the PR to the new people she and her sisters had hired in the past few months, opting to leave the handling of Spencer’s situation for herself.

So far she’d avoided the media because she wasn’t ready to give a statement without talking to the man in question, which was one less thing to deal with, at least for now.

But the draft players represented by Yank and Spencer were antsy.

She picked up the phone and buzzed Spencer’s personal secretary, a woman named Frannie who’d worked for him for years. Frannie ran Spencer’s life.

“Frannie, this is Sophie. Can you bring me a list of all the places Spencer has vacationed in the past few years along with the phone numbers of any relatives he regularly speaks to?”

“Not a problem, but I don’t think he’d contact those people or go to any place that the press could easily find him.”

Sophie sighed. “I know you’re right but I have to do something. Otherwise I’ll lose my mind. How’s it going with Cashman?”

“I told him Spencer was due to call, but we just didn’t know when, and as soon as we heard from him, he’d hear from us. And I made him promise not to do something stupid in the meantime.”

Sophie tried to breathe steadily so she didn’t get light-headed and pass out, something she was known to do on occasion. “I don’t trust him or Cambias but it’s the best we’ve got for now. Thanks, Frannie.”

“Hang in there, honey. I’ll get those names to you as soon as I can.” Frannie disconnected.

No sooner had Sophie hung up the phone when someone knocked on her door. Obviously her secretary wasn’t sitting at her desk to intercept him. Lori did her work but enjoyed her coffee breaks more.

“Come in,” Sophie called out, hoping this was good news for a change.

She turned to greet her visitor and knew immediately she was in deep trouble. He had a black leather jacket slung over his wide shoulders, razor stubble on his handsome face and a reputation that preceded him. Although Sophie and The Hot Zone had never handled Riley Nash’s publicity, he’d been a client of her uncle’s too long for her not to know him.

He made his presence known each time he came to the office. He oozed raw male sexuality. And her body responded to it, despite her brain’s warnings to ignore the man. Normally her body listened to whatever Sophie’s analytical mind dictated but not when it came to Riley Nash.

As partners in The Hot Zone, Sophie and her siblings shared equal responsibility, but as sisters they had an understanding. Micki handled the difficult athletes and Annabelle the jocks, which was how they’d ended up paired with Damian Fuller and Brandon Vaughn, respectively. Sophie took care of the more refined aspects of the business. She booked photo shoots, galas and large charity events. Things that she could control.

Sophie didn’t do jocks. Not in any sense of the word. So the fact that she drooled at the sight of her uncle’s star football client really ticked her off. She hated that this cocky jock could affect her on a purely elemental level when the other men who came and went from these offices didn’t even make her blink. Riley Nash blew her precious control to hell and back.

She desired him badly and he knew it. He also knew the attraction flustered her and he took shameless advantage, going out of his way to seek her out and push her buttons. And just when she didn’t think the sexual tension between them could soar much higher, he’d stop by her office for a visit and up the ante between them. That he’d show up here now, mid-crisis, was a move she hadn’t anticipated and sure as hell didn’t appreciate.

Drawing a deep breath, she leaned against the desk and resisted the urge to check her hair and makeup. “Let me guess. You charmed your way past my secretary?” she asked him.

“If she’d been at her desk, I’m sure I would have.” He strode forward, full of cocky male attitude. “Nobody was outside to stop me.”

She sighed. This day was just getting better and better.

He stepped beside her, standing so close his warm scent penetrated her pores and she grew damp in places he never failed to remind her existed. She no longer tried to convince herself that her reaction was normal for a woman who’d been sexually deprived for well over a year. Her sudden increase in temperature and spike in arousal had everything to do with Riley Nash.

“So what can I do for you?” she asked him.

He grinned. “Depends on what you’re offering, sweet thing.”

Each time he spoke, he confirmed her notion that he was the embodiment of every jock nightmare she’d ever had. Raunchy, sexist, impossible to control. It didn’t matter. The man’s mere existence turned her into a drooling idiot.

She looked him up and down, trying to appear as if he didn’t faze her one bit. “Turn down the wattage on that smile, big boy. I’m busy and don’t have time to indulge your flirting today.” She glanced at her watch and tapped on the dial. “Well? What can I do for you?”

His smile withered. “I need to see Atkins.”

“Yank’s your agent,” she reminded him as if he were dense.

“This is personal not professional.”

His words took her by surprise. As far as Sophie knew, Riley had no dealings with Spencer Atkins or his former agency. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been to the office since the merger. “I didn’t realize you two knew one another.”

“And I didn’t realize I had to answer to you before I could see my…before I could see Spencer.” He clenched his jaw tight, obviously withholding information.

Sophie was in no mood to push him for answers or bait him today. She had enough on her plate. “Look, it’s been a long day.” It was as much of an apology as she was willing to offer him.

He glanced at his watch and chuckled, his light brown eyes dancing with flecks of gold. “It’s only ten in the morning.”

“Exactly,” she said wryly.

He met her gaze and the connection she couldn’t deny sparked to life between them. She wished it was purely sexual, but something about the man captured her so completely, she often wondered what more existed beneath the jock exterior. Something had to for her to be so drawn to him. She just wasn’t the type to be hooked by something as insubstantial and superficial as sex appeal.

“So what’s got you all riled up so early, if not my dazzling presence?” he asked.

“Let’s just say you could see Spencer if I knew where he was.” The admission was a huge one. She was trusting Riley’s discretion.

He lowered himself onto the corner of her desk and nodded slowly. “I guess if I were Atkins, I’d be laying low, too.”

“I take it you’ve seen the articles.” Not only had the papers picked up on the gossip column entry and turned it into front page headlines, but they’d noted Spencer’s sudden disappearance from his usual lunch and dinner haunts.

Riley nodded.

“But that doesn’t mean he ran away,” she said defensively. “How about you leave your number and I call you once I reach him?”

He tipped his head to one side. “No can do.”

“Well, you can’t stick around here waiting who knows how long just to have a personal word with-”

“My father.”

“What?”

Riley winced at his admission, then ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll keep that information confidential?”

“My word.” She tried not to show how affronted she was by Riley’s lack of faith considering she’d just divulged sensitive business information herself.

“I’d prefer something more tangible.” Riley reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wallet, thumbed through some bills and then lifted a folded check from inside.

Without warning, he looked up and met her stare and she discovered he was just as hot when he wasn’t deliberately turning on the charm. His gaze simmered with heat that had nothing to do with sex, but suddenly Sophie couldn’t think of anything else. Those big hands wrapped around the check had her imagining all sorts of other things he could do with them-to her.

He grabbed a pen and began to fill out the empty spaces on the check, all business.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m hiring you.” His head was still bent over as he wrote.

His sandy-colored hair was shaggy, long and as sexy as the man himself.

“That way I can divulge all my personal secrets and you’re bound to keep things confidential.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear them and her mouth grew dry. “I’m not a lawyer.”

“No, but you’re a publicist and if I hire you and tell you things about my life and career, you won’t go spilling the information to the press without my permission. True?” He cocked an eyebrow in certainty.

She nodded. “True.”

“Then consider yourself hired.”

Sophie accepted the check with trembling hands. She’d just entered into a business agreement that was bound to give her deeper insight into Riley Nash. And that shift in their dynamic could very well increase her desire for the man. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough, Riley had just joined her for the ride.

AT SOPHIE’S OBVIOUS attempt to feign composure and pretend his hiring her didn’t send her into a tailspin, Riley bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud.

She folded the check in half. “You could have just trusted me instead of insisting we enter into some ridiculous employment contract.” Her tone held a trace of hurt over his lack of faith.

Maybe she had a point. Hiring her probably made little sense, but he hadn’t been able to think of another way to guarantee his secret remained private.

“I don’t know you well enough to trust you, but we could remedy that,” he said in a deliberately suggestive tone, his words meant to explain as well as to tease.

Whenever he stopped by The Hot Zone offices, he could never resist coming to see the blue-eyed blonde. He enjoyed their sparring and liked trying to figure her out. Sophie Jordan presented an intriguing mess of contradictions, her inherent control and conservative facade so at odds with the simmering heat he saw in her eyes.

He inhaled deeply. As usual her luscious scent evoked images of hot bodies in tangled sheets.

“So now that I represent you, what comes next?” she asked warily.

He understood her discomfort. He and Sophie shared an unusual relationship that consisted mostly of a sexual dynamic neither understood.

For Riley, Sophie was the antithesis of every woman he was normally drawn to. Riley liked his women real. He enjoyed tousled hair he could mess up with his hands and he preferred to see a woman’s cleavage, not guess at what her breasts looked like beneath a prim silk blouse. His agent’s niece might be a knockout in the classical sense, but with her hair pulled into a tight knot and her prissy suit, she wasn’t his type. Yet she never failed to brighten his day.

He couldn’t say he did the same for her. Sophie had a distinct inability to deal with the sexual tension between them. Two minutes in his presence and she’d lose her composure, changing from Grace Kelly cool to downright flustered. A pink flush tinged her cheeks whenever he was near.

Today, however, she seemed more tense than usual and something suddenly urged him to be sensitive to what was going on in that head of hers and respect the boundaries she’d raised. Another anomaly, Riley thought. He always respected women but when it came to Sophie, he wondered what she was thinking.

Feeling.

Desiring.

He inhaled deeply. Unbidden, he was treated to visions of eating strawberries and champagne directly off her porcelain skin. His groin tightened with a hard-on he hadn’t felt the likes of in years. Not a good way to respect her feelings, Riley thought.

She picked up the pen he’d discarded and began to tap it against the desk. “Okay, if you aren’t going to explain, I have a few things to say first. And now that you’ve hired me, I have the right to speak my mind.”

“Lack of a professional relationship has never stopped you before,” he reminded her with a wink.

Her cheeks burned brighter. “But now I have the satisfaction of knowing you’re paying me to tell you the way things are going to be.” A Cheshire-cat grin tilted her lips as she enjoyed what she perceived as the upper hand.