1
Georgie
“Georgie Jensen, can you share with our viewers how it all began?”
Georgie smiled at the glossy-haired Wake-Up Denver Morning Show TV host then glanced at the cameras pointed in their direction. One would think after a whirlwind three months in the spotlight, she’d be used to the glaring lights and the bevy of how-did-you-get-here questions. She turned up the wattage on her grin, relying on her childhood days as a contestant on the beauty pageant circuit to get her through another interview when a gentle squeeze to her hand brought her back. Warmth traveled from her fingertips all the way to her chest as relief edged out anxiety and calmed her frayed nerves.
She dialed back her deranged prom queen expression, then tightened her grip on the hand holding hers.
“I think Jordan would agree that it all started with a dog.”
“A dog? I thought you two met when you were paired up to compete in the CityBeat Battle of the Blogs contest back in June?” the shiny blonde replied, sharing a look with her equally shiny male counterpart.
“No, Georgie’s right! It all started with a runaway mutt named Mr. Tuesday,” came the deliciously sexy voice of her boyfriend and co-creator of their joint blog, More Than Just a Number, Jordan, no longer a perfect ten, Marks.
Jordan ran his thumb over her knuckles, and a tingle that wasn’t made for morning TV traveled down her spine and landed squarely in her lady parts.
“The day we learned we were chosen to compete for a spot as a paid contributor on the CityBeat lifestyle blog site, I’d gone for a run, and Georgie was out chasing down her dog,” Jordan added.
She chuckled. “I’d forgotten to attach the leash to Mr. Tuesday’s collar, and he took off toward the park.”
Jordan laced their fingers together, reigniting that zing of a tingle.
“Georgie was yelling at the top of her lungs and demanded I help her catch her dog.”
She scoffed. “I didn’t demand you help me.”
“You did,” he answered with a cocky smirk that damn near melted her panties.
Georgie held her boyfriend’s gaze as the characters from her three favorite books, her imaginary literary trifecta, Lizzy Bennet, Jane Eyre, and Hermione Granger, swooned in her head.
Once upon a time, her CrossFit guru boyfriend blogged about striving to be a perfect ten in his Marks Perfect Ten Mindset blog.
But not anymore.
Jordan Marks had significantly veered away from the perfection-or-bust mantra he’d preached in his debunked philosophy.
Now, that didn’t mean he’d abandoned his fitness regime and his goal of helping others follow a healthy lifestyle. Thanks to the prize money they’d won, he’d opened a gym right next door to her bookshop. Between him training clients and her spouting the genius of Jane Austen or reading aloud to children in the shop’s newly added kids’ section, they collaborated on their joint More Than Just a Number blog. Here, they offered a measured approach to relationships, fitness, and a myriad of other lifestyle topics. And to say the blog was a success would be the understatement of the century.
Every day, the offers rolled in.
Advertisers. Book deals. Speaking tours. Interviews. Product endorsements.
During the CityBeat Battle of the Blogs, she and Jordan had been splashed all over the internet’s top blogging site. Millions of people across the globe had tuned in to watch them not only compete but go from being enemies to lovers in real-time.
She still maintained her Own the Eights blog. However, after joining forces with Jordan on their new endeavor, her blog had morphed into more of a book club only site where she chatted online with literary enthusiasts and led a monthly book discussion. To her surprise, in only a matter of months, she’d garnered nearly as many followers as Oprah’s behemoth of a book club.
It was no joke. Their lives had completely changed the moment they’d learned the blog battle they thought they’d been competing in had been a giant ruse to catch two cheating fraudulent sibling bloggers, known on the CityBeat site as the Dannies.
In the end, she and Jordan were brought on as paid contributors and were crowned the winners, and not just for the contest but in the game of love as well.
A romance fit to be made into a movie? Yep, they’d even received offers for that.
A naughty spark glinted in her boyfriend’s eyes. “The day we met, I helped Georgie corral her pup and then we parted ways, but not before she called me an—”
Georgie pressed her hand to Jordan’s lips, silencing him but not dampening the playful twinkle in his gaze.
“It’s safe to say it wasn’t love at first sight,” she finished, feeling her cheeks heat with embarrassment.
She’d called him an asshat, which, at that point, he was. He’d grumbled about helping her, insulted her beloved Birkenstock sandals, and was a giant, well, asshat, when he spouted that dog leashes worked better when actually attached to dog collars.
But it wasn’t just that. She remembered every second of their first encounter.
All bare-chested and glistening with sweat and looking like a photoshopped fitness god, Jordan Marks had been the epitome of everything she’d preached about avoiding.
A little over two years ago, after a date from hell when a handsome creep named Brice Casey told her he could only date a perfect ten and that she was an eight at best, she’d become a woman on a mission.
A mission to help others avoid the pitfalls of looks and status and focus on the attributes that really mattered. Substance. Character. Kindness. Intelligence. She’d deemed these the qualities of a solid, reliable eight. And thus, the Own the Eights blog was born.
The shiny male morning show host tapped his chin. “So, Georgie, when you learned you would have to team up with Jordan to compete in the CityBeat Battle of the Blogs contest, I’m assuming you weren’t excited.”
Jordan chuckled. “She was the opposite of excited. That’s when Georgie anointed me the Emperor of—”
Again, Georgie pressed her hand to Jordan’s mouth.
The Emperor of Asshattery.
That’s what she’d dubbed him.
And, again, it was a spot-on description in the beginning.
Georgie schooled her features, determined to get them back on track. “I was absolutely floored and completely mortified that I was going to have to team up with the asshat I’d met in the park a few hours earlier.”
Jordan chuckled and shook his head.
She gasped and pressed her hand to her chest. “Did I just say asshat?”
“Yep, and now you’ve said it twice on a live morning show,” Jordan answered, biting back a grin.
“That’s the Wake-Up Denver Morning Show,” the female host chirped as if on cue.
Georgie stared at the frozen perma-grins plastered across the hosts’ faces as her trifecta cringed.
Would she ever be camera-ready? Would this life of fame and notoriety ever feel normal?
“Moving on,” the male host replied, rustling a pile of papers. “It says here that you two are quite involved in the community and have an event coming up.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. There was no chance of dropping another asshat bomb now.
“We sure do,” Jordan answered, then gave her hand another gentle squeeze.