Page 22 of Stirring Up Love
Her archenemy, come to steal the show with characteristically terrible timing.
She wouldn’t turn around and acknowledge him. Maybe this was a trick of her nerves, and the voice was all in her head. Maybe if she plowed on with her speech, the ghost of farmers’ markets past would evaporate into the ether of her subconscious.
Nope. Finn strode out to join her in the spotlight. Backed up a step and hovered half in shadow, half in the glare. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Simone,” he said, squinting.
Liar. Like he hadn’t expected to ambush her? At least he had the decency not to butcher her name this time. Hadn’t mispronounced it since their first meeting, in fact, ever since she’d replaced the missingeon her name tag. Almost like it was an innocent mistake. Almost like he cared enough to get it right.
Maybe that would’ve counted in his favor if he hadn’t kept showing up at her market. Every single week. All summer. Setting up shop like he owned the place and befriending all the people who were supposed to be on her side. Winning over the town one smile, one sale at a time.
Innocent mistake? More like insidious undermining, a calculated assault.
“You two know each other?” Constance Rivera, seated at the far end of the table, narrowed her eyes. Her black hair was styled into a razor-sharp bob, and she wore a maroon suit with satin lapels and a thin, black tie.
Two years after graduating from Yale, she’d sold her tech start-up for a whopping $70 million and created a nonprofit aimed at getting girls from underresourced communities involved in STEM. She’d branched out from her tech roots to invest in companies across a wide array of categories with an interest in socially conscious brands.
You two know each other?
“No,” Simone said, free-falling, at the same time Finn blurted, “Yes.”
Next to Ms.Rivera, Keith Donovan, a retired NFL quarterback as famous for his flowing locks as his pass-completion percentage, belted out a laugh. Half up in a ponytail, the rest of his signature dark-blond tresses fell to his shoulders in a glossy tumble.
A sucker for comeback stories similar to his own, Mr.Donovan was known for championing newbie entrepreneurs aiming to reinvent themselves as well as their businesses. “Well, which is it?”
Invisible behind the glare of the lights, the audience was surely on the edge of their seats in anticipation of Simone’s answer, eager for drama. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The merits of her business proposal had earned her this chance, and she’d leave here with her dignity intact, deal or no deal.
“We’ve met. But we don’t know each other well.” Damage repair. A die-hard fan ofThe Executivesever since the pilot aired, she remembered countless times the investors eviscerating contestants caught embellishing the facts.
Uncrossing her arms, she wrestled a smile onto her face. “I mean, we’re not friends. Barely acquaintances. We’ve just run into each other a few times.” Too many times.
Often enough for her to notice he got his caffeine hit from energy drinks, not coffee. To see he wore the same pair of jeans every week, faded Levi’s with a ripped hem on the left leg. Enough to know he had one small freckle under his eye, another on the side of his cheek, and a deep dimple in his chin, usually hidden under scruff that glinted russet brown in the sunlight, darkened to walnut on cloudy days.
Too many times. Enough for her to wish she hadn’t tried to banish him on their first fateful meeting. But she couldn’t let wishful thinking hold her back, not with her business on the line.
Brow furrowed, Donovan steepled his fingers, tapped them against his lips.
Finn stepped up next to her and claimed the spotlight, the closeness of his presence assaulting her senses with the scent of pine boughs and clean sheets. Appealing like breakfast in bed and late-morning sex and ... holy crap, what was wrong with her? She bit down on the inside of her cheek.
“Simone didn’t appreciate me infringing on her turf.” He chuckled, like they were rival neighbors in an HOA battle when in reality he was hell-bent on poaching her customers and driving her to extinction.
“Only because you blindsided me.” His specialty.
“You’re from Illinois as well?” This from Constance. Her dark eyes shifted between them, drawing conclusions. Incorrect ones, no doubt.
“Yes, ma’am. Springfield.” Finn smoothed a hand down his suit jacket, and Simone tried not to notice the cut of the fabric against his frame. From her completely disinterested observations over the summer, she knew hehad the kind of unpretentious muscles born out of manual labor, not the gym, and the tailored suit accentuated his narrow hips and rounded biceps.
If she’d known Finn planned to be a contestant onThe Executives, she would’ve pegged him for a guy who went with jeans, sneakers, and a branded T-shirt. That is, if she’d ever in a million years expected to go head to head with him here. But the allure of the show was that it allowed aspiring entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their ideas with the investors’ undivided attention.
Never once in their ninety-six episodes had two entrepreneurs pitched toThe Executivessimultaneously, let alone two competing entrepreneurs with a business in the same category. She would know. She’d watched every single episode. Twice.
“Springfield, Illinois, that is. Not Missouri.” Finn rocked back on his heels as if primed to dissolve into the shadows again. She wished he would.
“I’m aware which Springfield you meant, son,” Keith said. At the word “son,” Finn flinched. A deep-red flush spread across his cheeks. Sympathy flared in her chest like heartburn.
Sympathy and totally misguided lust. Because somehow, even flustered and blotchy, he was still gorgeous. Well, screw him with a rusty drill bit.
“All due respect,” he said, and Simone snorted. Like he was so big on respect. “I was told it was my turn to pitch, but there must be some mistake ...” He trailed off, fingers bunched into white-knuckled fists before he shoved both hands into his pockets. On someone else the gesture might have been intimidating, but on Finn, it read as vulnerable.
“No, no mistake, Mr.Rimes.” Keith’s genial smile morphed into a sneer, a condescending expression Simone would bet good money he got coached on prior to each episode. Reality? The whole show was a theatrical performance. “We have a very unique situation on our hands. You two come to us professing yourselves to be the god and goddess of barbecue.”
