Lenora Worth - That Wild Cowboy

“Thanks,” she told him now, putting her guilt and her own reservations out of her mind. “That was a great dinner.”

His self-deprecating smile sizzled with charm. “I almost burned the steak.”

“The steak was just right but I was talking about the undercurrents around the table.”

“Oh, I see. You’d like to get that on the screen?”

“That’s the kind of family interaction we dream about getting on TV.”

“Keep dreaming then, darlin’.” He strolled her to her car then leaned back against it to stare down at her. “I don’t think my girls are quite ready for prime time.”

Victoria didn’t want to lose this chance, especially after meeting his family. At first, she’d only been intent on showing Clint Griffin in his worst light because she wanted to reveal him for the player he’d always been. She’d wanted nothing more than to expose his shenanigans to the world because viewers loved to see others in misery. But she had a gut feeling that showing him interacting with all of his female relatives would send a new message and make the ratings skyrocket. Women loved a man who knew how to handle women. It was a bit sexist but true. Clint’s handling of his many girlfriends would contrast nicely with how he interacted with his family. Plus, everyone loved watching notorious people having meltdowns. It was a sad paradox, but it was there. She had every reason to want to cash in on that.

“What can I do to convince you?”

“I’m almost in,” he said, nodding. “But even before you showed up tonight, I was gonna explain it to all of them and ask them to let me work around them—not include them, unless they agreed to it.”

“Susie seems interested,” she pointed out. “And she does have an impressive acting résumé from what she told me.”

“Yes, that and an ego the size of our great state,” he said on a guarded chuckle. “I’ll have to think about bringing her in but she just might work out and she does need some means of an income.”

“We could start with you,” Victoria replied. “We’d just coordinate scenes with you, doing your thing. Nothing too hard. Then we’d ease into the family stuff.”

“Me?” He puffed up. “Well, that’s what you came for, right?”

Right. But she was getting more than she bargained for. Just being in the same space with him upped her ante and made her have interesting, dangerous daydreams. “You don’t seem too worried, either way. Your picture is in the papers a lot and you make the local news on a weekly basis. This would just be another day at work for you.”

“With one infraction or another, yep.”

She tried another tactic. “Maybe you don’t want people to know that you’re really a decent man who’s trying to hold his family together, a man who takes in his sister and niece because they’re going through a rough patch. A man who takes in his other unemployed sister to save her pride. Or a man who makes sure his widowed mother has a home when she needs a place to get away and be by herself.”

“You got all of that from dinner?”

Victoria couldn’t deny what she’d seen with her own eyes. “I got all of that from watching you and your family and asking you questions. I think the viewers would be surprised, too.”

His gray eyes turned to silver and swept over her with a liquid heat. “Well, I like to surprise people.”

She wondered about that while she tried to shield herself from that predatory gaze. “So, what if we just go with taping you first and then see how everyone else feels?”

“How ’bout I think it over and call you tomorrow?”

Victoria needed more than that. She’d like to march triumphantly into Samuel’s office first thing in the morning and tell him she’d nabbed the infamous Clint Griffin for their show. But that would have to wait. “Okay. Call me early. I have a busy day tomorrow.”

“I have your card,” he replied. “I’ll get back to you.”

How many times had she heard that from a man?

Victoria left knowing she’d never see him again unless she subscribed to all the papers and magazines in town. He’d go on being him and she’d miss out on getting it all down on tape.

A shame, too. She really liked his mother.

CHAPTER FIVE

“OKAY, I’M IN.”

Victoria held her cell to her ear and rolled over to stare at the clock. Five in the morning? “Clint?”

“Yeah. I’m in. I’ve thought about it and I like this deal. But at the price I named and with the stipulations I requested.”

Victoria sat up and pushed at her hair. Greed didn’t seem to stop this man, but who was she to judge. She wanted him for the show. “Have you been up all night thinking about how you’ll spend this money?”

“No. About an hour or so. Couldn’t sleep. Old habits die hard. But yes, I’ve got big plans. You know, always think big. This is Texas and I plan to give the masses what they want, but the money will mostly go for a cause dear to my heart and maybe a few other things.”

Not sure what her boss would think, she let out a sigh. “Well, okay. I’ll tell Samuel and he’ll have our lawyers get with you to draw up the contract.”

“With stipulations,” he replied again, his tone as clear and precise as the silence that followed. “Highlight my nonprofit, Griffin Horse Therapy Ranch—better known as the Galloping Griffin—and don’t tape anyone in my family who is off-limits.”

“Got it.” She needed coffee to continue this conversation. “Is that all?”

“Like I said, I want to showcase a couple of organizations I’ve been involved with and...I want to secure my niece’s future. Nothing so underhanded and horrible, see?” He went silent and then said, “It’s not like I’m going to use the money to start that harem you mentioned. Or open a bar or hold a toga party at my house. Although, I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a toga, understand.”

His bad-boy attitude obviously came out during the wee hours of the night. That image got her fully awake and back to business.

“It depends on how the stipulations can be highlighted as part of the show. But I’ll leave that up to you and the lawyers. Samuel will want to sit in on the meeting, too.”

“And you. I want you there.”

“I don’t usually—”

“I want you there.”

His husky request in her ear singed the skin on her neck and left it all tingly and warm. “Okay. I’ll let you know the time and place.”

“Good enough. See you then.”

Victoria tapped her phone and ended the call. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, she got up and padded to the kitchen for coffee. Samuel would be happy but she didn’t have that sense of joy she usually felt when they were about to work with a new subject. In fact, she felt something new and disturbing and difficult to accept.

She was still attracted to Clint Griffin.

That would never do, she decided. Never. Slamming down a hammer of self-control on her carried-away imagination, she stomped to the coffee pot and hit the on button. On that distant night, she’d enjoyed kissing the man, but she’d chalked that up to being young and naive. She had not come looking for him to become the next reality star because, honestly, one kiss long ago had not shaped her whole adult life. She’d been attracted to him that night, attracted to the tension and intensity of the man and to the notion that he’d even noticed her. But what he’d really noticed was the nearest female and the chance to flirt with her and maybe take her home.

When Victoria, still bruised from being left at the altar, had turned him down flat, he’d walked away without so much as a backward glance.

Victoria had been hurt, yes, but she’d gotten over that and made a life for herself. Even after her groom had left her at the altar, she’d managed to brush herself off and get on with life. After a while, she’d been glad she hadn’t married so young and she’d sure been glad she hadn’t had a one-night stand with Clint Griffin. Now she was happy to be independent and free.