She inhaled when Samson oh-so-casually asked his date if she liked to “Netflix and chill” with her nephew and his reaction when the far-too-patient woman explained what he was asking. “What did you think Netflix and chill meant?” Rhiannon demanded, pausing the video.
“Exactly what it says! Watch television and relax.” He shook his head, bewildered. “I didn’t know it was about sex. Why can’t people say what they want to say?”
“Because we live in a puritanical society that can’t use the S word out loud.” Rhiannon shook her head. “You’re not that old, how do you not know slang?”
He sniffed. “It doesn’t have anything to do with age. I haven’t been plugged in for a while. This is the internet’s fault, going around changing words and meanings.”
Rhiannon rubbed her hand over her mouth to hide her smile. But she had to bite her lip not to laugh when Samson’s big hand knocked the girl’s large glass of wine over. Right into her lap.
Samson cleared his throat. “Let’s shut it down there. That’s enough for you to get the gist of what happened.”
She turned the video off in the middle of Samson’s frantic attempts to dry the girl’s dress, and put the phone on her desk. Then she looked up at Samson, whose face was a deep red under his brown skin.
Maybe it was because she’d been talking to her mother, but all she could do was channel Sonya. “Oh, honey.”
He groaned. “I know. It was bad.”
“Not bad necessarily—no, you’re right.” Rhiannon handed him his phone back. “You were a fucking hot mess.” She shouldn’t feel good about that. It was mean to feel good about it.
Ah, but she did. Not only because he definitely hadn’t been this graceless on their one and only date, but because she wanted him to have some flaws. The man was too perfect and shiny otherwise.
“I’m aware.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s why I’m here.”
“I don’t know how I can help you with your gracelessness.”
“Aunt Belle’s assistant, Tina, said something interesting. About how you and I have much better chemistry than this poor woman and I did.”
Rhiannon narrowed her eyes, even as her heart skipped a beat or two. “I don’t follow.”
Samson rose from his seat and walked around the desk. She scooted back, to give him more room, because he required so much room. He perched on the desk and smiled down at her. “I have an idea for a better campaign. You and me.”
“We date?” Her voice squeaked.
“Not exactly. The idea we came up with was airing this debacle”—he gestured to the phone—“online. I originally didn’t want to do that, because I feel bad for Rachel, but I’ve talked to her since. She’s an actress, and eager for publicity, and she said it was clear I was the fuckup, not her.” His faint smile made it clear he didn’t mind that description.
“She’s not wrong. You will look bad, if that gets released to the public.”
“I’ll look foolish.”
“Doesn’t that upset you?” It would upset a lot of men she knew, to give the world the impression that they were anything but smooth as butter.
“Looking foolish? It wouldn’t be the first time. And it’s a pretty benign form of foolishness. After I got over my horror and embarrassment, even I found it funny.”
People would eat it up with a spoon. There was something utterly charming about a handsome, attractive, otherwise together man fumbling when it came to women. “What’s my role in all this?”
“All my matches are placed on hold. Instead, you and I go out to cool places around the city and chat about dating. We can say that you’re teaching me, helping me get back into the game. No cameramen, no closed set, we shoot it on our phones.”
“We’re competitors.”
“Like you said, we’re colleagues. The public loves it when brands work together, according to our marketing team.”
Not totally false, if the crossover was properly done. Rhiannon mulled that over. “And what do I and Crush get out of this?”
“You’ll be viewed as an expert on love and dating.”
“Meanwhile, Matchmaker will be cast as a clueless, old-fashioned ingenue in this setup,” she pointed out.
“Matchmaker is old-fashioned. We lean in on that, people wanting love the old-fashioned way. And a lot of our base will identify with a guy who feels bewildered with the way digital dating has changed love. Your base will identify with a woman of the world. You and I know we have a good rapport. This works. For both of us. For Crush and Matchmaker.”
She examined the idea all around, looking for more holes to poke into it. But other than the fact that it was something of a strange concept to craft a joint marketing campaign with your competitor—colleague, whatever—she couldn’t find anything, on its face, to discredit it.
Except for the fact that she’d be with Samson. Again and again. Talking to him about love and dating and then walking away. Priming him to be the perfect date for some other woman.
But those were emotional reasons against doing this thing, and she wasn’t ruled by her emotions. “You came up with this?”
His smile was sly. “Did I tell you my degree is in marketing?”
“You know you didn’t. You haven’t talked to Annabelle yet. She may not like this.”
“She doesn’t usually concern herself with this level of detail. William is happy with the idea, and our marketing people are ecstatic over it. She’ll be fine.”
“I have to talk to my team.”
He nodded. “Why don’t you do that today?”
“Is this time sensitive?”
“Anything meant for the internet is time sensitive, I’ve been told.”
She mulled it over for a long moment. As if he knew she was wavering, he leaned closer and placed his hand on the back of her chair, boxing her in. Her breath caught as he brushed his other hand over hers, where it rested on the arm of her chair. “Come on. It’ll be fun and benefit both of us. We do have good chemistry, Rhi,” he murmured. “You can’t deny that.”
She licked her suddenly dry lips. Rhi. Not the first time he’d used her nickname, but it slid over her ears like silk in his deep, dark voice. His palm was so heavy, the calluses of his thumb rasping over her skin as he rubbed in the tiniest gesture. She wanted to flip her hand over and hold it. “We might.”
“Might?”
His shoulders seemed to grow bigger. What was he, a peacock? If so, she was an animal too, because her heartbeat was responding to whatever mating dance body language he had going on. “I don’t think there’s any question about it.” He straightened away from her, unboxing her body. For the first time since he’d walked into the room, his face grew grave and vulnerable. “Look. Let me address the elephant in the room. I clearly like you and am attracted to you, so if something were to develop between us, physically or whatever, it would be fine with me. I’m not going to badger you about it, though, or make you justify your choices if that choice is no. You have my number. You can come to me.”
She tried to summon her voice, to explain the problem to him: she didn’t fuck with the same man twice, especially one who had hurt her before. It was far too risky. She’d been decimated before, and by someone whom she’d thought was on her side. Samson was technically a competitor, and she needed to be careful.