Page 21 of Skins Game

The cool girls and the young pros took notes and asked questions. The grizzled pros cracked jokes about the colors it came in.

And Kingston? His steady gaze alternated between the slides and her eyes.

When he stared into Nicole’s eyes, even from across the room, she forgot what she was saying and why golf clubs were important because she was caught, stuck to the wall behind the screen by the weight of his gaze.

Nicole looked back to her notes full of chicken scratch and meaningless numbers and sucked in a deep breath before she looked at the slide, back to her notes, at the slide, her notes, and didn’t look up at Kingston’s mesmerizing gaze again.

Part of her brain laughed at herself for being so easily distracted even while she reeled off digits and explained graphs. If she was going to bethisweird, she might as well crawl under the table and run the meeting from there, her hand occasionallysnaking up to the surface to slap the button and advance the slides.

Another part of her brain warned her off.

Nicole had terrible taste in men. He was probably a cheater or a trash fire if she liked him.

Somehow, Nicole survived and answered questions from the sales team. They all asked questions except for Kingston, who seemed to watch how she answered more than listening to the data itself.

Finally, at three o’clock on the frickin’ dot, Ron stretched and announced, “Good meeting!” before standing and walking out, leaving the handouts Nicole had distributed on the table.

The others gathered up their handouts—the young pros having written down some numbers, the blondes with copious notes—and chatted for a few minutes before exiting the conference room, leaving Nicole alone with Kingston Moore.

He was leaning back in his chair but still watching her.

“Did you have any questions?” she asked him.

He paused, and the still air in the conference room gathered around Nicole, squeezing her, until he said, “So, you said the Mojave is the latest in the Rattler line.”

Words flopped off her tongue. “Yes, right, uh-huh.”

His gaze flicked to her, pinning her like a dead butterfly against the projection screen. “So what line is the Scimitar Edge in?”

“That’s, um, the marketing people haven’t named the line yet, in case it’s a one-off.”

“Is it a one-off?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“And so, whatshouldthe line be named?” he asked.

“That’s not my job.”

‘That’s not what I asked.”

She paused that time, watching him as he lounged in his chair at the far end of the conference table, utterly at ease with waiting. “The Legendary Line.”

“Interesting. And what doyoucall the line in the lab?”

“Stabby McStabberson,” she admitted.

He looked down and chuckled. “Yes, marketing might not go for that. Why ‘Legendary?’”

“Because it’s a great name.”

“It is. I’ve heard several people say the Scimitar is like ‘magic.’ What’s thenextone in the line?”

“R&D has not released any prototypes of further designs.”

“Again, that’s not what I asked.”

“There’s no use even discussing concept models until we get to early prototypes.” She swiveled and flopped into a chair. “Probably eighty percent of models that we mock up on CAD don’t even get to the late prototype stage, so flapping our gums about them is a waste of air.”