He glanced at her. “One sec. I’m checking in.”
“I realize that.” She smiled at the clerk. “Excuse us for a moment, please.”
The charter bus the rest of the team had ridden in from the airport picked that moment to unload. A wave of testosterone flowed through the doors, raising the noise level to a dull roar as the athletes, coaches and staff members sorted themselves out.
Dragging Logan to an uncrowded corner of the lobby was no small feat given both her precarious balance and his resemblance to an immovable mountain. But he came willingly, which she appreciated. She raised her brows. “Are you insane? We can’t have separate rooms.”
“We not only can, we are.” He crossed his arms. “As soon as I get the keys, that is.”
Aghast, she stared at him, but he looked perfectly serious. “After you went to the trouble to hire photographers, what are the odds they’ll snap a picture of us going into separate rooms? Like a hundred and ten percent.”
He scowled. “So? We can be a chaste couple waiting for marriage, can’t we?”
His scowl deepened the harder she laughed. When she finally got herself under control, she gingerly dabbed at her eyelashes without fear thanks to Harper’s waterproof, smudge-proof, morning after–proof mascara, all of which Trinity had personally tested.
“Did you actually look at the pictures from Saturday night?” She had. A lot. And twice she’d had to finish the job he’d started herself. Her vibrator hadn’t ever gotten so much action. “They had ten times the reach that the ones from Friday did. The posed red carpet thing? Not for us. The spontaneous, hotter-than-hell, can’t-wait-to-screw-each-other vibe is what our fans like. What they want to see.”
His expression didn’t change, and her panic level started an uphill climb. She needed him. Needed to get hot and heavy away from the camera. Inspiration was in short supply, and he was hogging it all.
“No. It’s not happening. I’ve already made huge concessions—”
“Like what?” Hands on her hips, she forced her voice back down into a lower register before someone overheard them. She didn’t mind if the photographers captured a public fight, but she did not want them to splash the cause of it across the web. “I’m the one constantly changing my clothes and—”
“One time you changed, and only because I forced you—”
“You so did not force me. I let you change my clothes because it suited me. Make no mistake, you don’t control me.”
“I don’t want to, Trinity!” He apparently had no concept of volume, and several heads swiveled in their direction.
“Shh.” She jerked her head at the press, who had definitely clued in that something was afoot and started snapping away. Hopefully they’d get some good shots. “Act like you’re mad all you want, but we can’t afford any prying ears.”
“I’m not acting,” he growled. “I’ve already had phone calls about our impending engagement, despite your certainty that no one was going to ask about it. I don’t like being put in that position. Nor do I want to be in the position of defending my personal choices regarding sleeping arrangements.”
Gee whiz. His old-fashioned streak went a whole lot deeper than she’d credited. What a fun new challenge she’d stumbled onto here. Gaze narrowed, she swept him with a once-over designed to put a few thousand degrees of heat under his skin. “You must not be aware of what I have planned, then, if you think this is about sleeping.”
Instantly, wariness and a fair amount of caution snapped across his expression. Who was throwing up shields now, hmm?
“Separate rooms,” he said firmly.
“Fine.”
She threw up her hands, but only to make it look like she still hated the idea, when actually, she’d realized it worked in her favor. It was a much juicier story if they had separate rooms but, oh, look, someone just caught them macking down in the hall outside one of them. And then they could both duck inside to take the super-hot kiss to its natural conclusion.
It was also in her best interests to ensure it was his room...so she could accidentally on purpose let someone photograph her sneaking away from it at dawn.
“Separate rooms. But you have to take me to dinner,” she insisted. “Otherwise, we’ll miss a golden opportunity to get more lens time.”
He nodded with a smug smile. Probably because he thought he’d won. She let him think that. By the end of the night, he’d realize they’d both won.
* * *
One thing she could say for Logan, he did not cheap out when it came to putting up his fake girlfriend-slash-fiancée in a hotel.