“Fans are going to love it,” Eve said, gushing a little.
Or at least gushing for Eve. Anything other than a sour face was a triumph for her, in Evan’s opinion.
“Do you know how much attention and coverage you’ll get? You can’t put a price tag on that,” she said.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” Evan said, feeling a whole lot better about his career—and his sex life. “I won’t let you down.”
Nor was he going to let Kendall walk out of his bedroom with a thumbs-up the next time he had her in it.
KENDALL forced a smile for the cameras flashing in front of her and wondered what the hell was going on with Evan. She had expected that he would be furious over having to essentially piggyback on her sponsorship, but he had shown up grinning from ear and ear. He’d shaken hands with the deodorant people and her. Now he had his arm slung casually over her shoulder as they posed for pictures wearing Untamed Deodorant ball caps and each holding up a stick of the product.
Maybe he was just grateful to have any sponsorship that wasn’t adult diapers or erectile dysfunction pills.
He certainly didn’t seem aware of the fact that she was monstrously uncomfortable with him being so close to her. Nor was she thrilled about the fact that the SL Smith Corporation seemed to be implying that she couldn’t sell product on her own. That her fan base wasn’t big enough. They needed the gimmick of his and her deodorants.
“Can you move just a little closer to Mr. Monroe?” the photographer asked, his hand waving her over.
Trying not to roll her eyes, Kendall scooted a few inches closer to Evan, well aware of his arm, his leg, his shoulder, his entire essence right next to her. She could feel the heat radiating off of him under the hot photography lights. She could smell him and it wasn’t the scent of Untamed deodorant. It was him. Just warm and earthy and . . . sexy.
Kendall grimaced.
“Can you smile a little more?” the photographer asked, indicating the corners of his own mouth. “You don’t look very natural.”
“I don’t feel very natural,” she muttered under her breath, forcing her mouth open in a big smile.
“Just relax,” Evan told her, his hand coming up to rub the knot in her shoulder.
How he knew she had a knot there was beyond her, but the last thing in the world that was going to make it disappear was his hands on her body. Even just him touching her shoulder made her want to jump out of her skin. And into bed.
“I’m trying to.” The golf shirt they had her wearing was too tight and Kendall tugged at the collar. She felt like she was choking.
“Put your hand down, please.”
That little twerp was starting to irritate her. Kendall knew he was just doing his job, but she was trying to do hers. She wasn’t a model. She was a driver. And Evan breathing down her neck smelling of eau du sexy wasn’t helping at all.
The lights made her want to blink. The clothes felt stiff and unnatural. Holding up the deodorant made her feel cheesy. She hadn’t been sleeping well for the past week, worrying that having sex with Evan had been a huge mistake and stressing over her qualifying laps for Bristol. Her car had been running tight, and she’d much rather have been in the garage than here in this studio being posed like a Barbie doll.
Like a cranky, stiff, sexually frustrated Barbie doll.
That was going to read well in print.
The rep from SL Smith was standing next to the photographer and he was frowning, his mouth turned down as he held his jaw and chin with one hand. He was wearing an expensive suit and was an attractive man in his mid-fifties. The kind who got better looking with age and scored a new, younger wife every decade or so.
“I realize this is just a press announcement shot,” he started. “But . . .”
Great.
“Untamed is marketed at the fourteen- to thirty-four-year-old crowd . . . it’s a sexy, young, vibrant deodorant.”
How the hell a deodorant could be vibrant was beyond Kendall, but she just nodded at Mr. Suit.
“These shots are too traditional. Too forty-year-old-on-the-golf-course. Ladies-at-the-salad-luncheon kind of bullshit. We need to sex it up a bit. Take a ten-minute break and let’s see what we can do here.”
Sex it up? Was he kidding? Kendall felt the remnants of her fake smile disintegrate altogether.
“I can definitely do that with you, Jay,” Evan murmured.
She turned and glared at him. “Don’t tell me you’re going to agree to this. And stop calling me Jay. It’s a ridiculous nickname.”
“Relax. It’s just a publicity shot. They’re not going to do anything more than have us sitting on a car wearing jeans instead of these stupid khaki pants. And I’m looking forward to seeing you in jeans . . . you have a hot—”
Kendall cut him off. “Keep your voice down, God!” She felt heat rising in her face as she glanced around to see if anyone had overheard their exchange.
“Why? It’s not like they can’t see you have a great ass.”
“Are you trying to wreck your career?” Kendall asked him, incredulous about his casual attitude.
There was no time for him to respond because the corporate executive came back into the room holding the smallest tank top Kendall had ever seen in her life.
That better not be for her.
“This is for you, Kendall.” He held the scrap of black cotton out to her. “The golf shirt looks too unnatural on you . . . like you work at a Best Buy or something. This should help you feel looser.”
Looser being the key word.
Kendall had opened her mouth to tell him “hell no,” when Evan yanked the shirt out of the guy’s hands and held it up. It looked even more offensive dangling in the air, a V cut out in the front for cle**age display.
“There is no way Kendall is wearing this,” he said flatly. “I won’t allow it.”
Which ticked her off even more than the idea of wearing the Untamed boobie top. And that had her pretty hopping mad.
“Excuse me?” she said quietly, narrowing her eyes at him as all the blood in her body rushed way past the boiling point. “What did you just say?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVAN was well aware that maybe his choice of words hadn’t been the best. But he had seen that trashy tank top and had seen red. They were going to take Kendall’s very impressive cle**age and make it the center of the shots. He had told her not to play down her gender, but damn, throwing her chest out there would totally send the wrong message to fans.