It was a total disaster having Evie Cooper take notes during that shit show of a conversation. I kept sneaking glances at her, ostensibly to make sure she was doing her job. But when she shifted in her chair and uncrossed, then recrossed, those long tan legs, I couldn't help but stare. And Gram saw everything.

Evie, thank God, didn't notice at all. She'd been absorbed in writing on the legal pad, pausing only to look up in utter confusion when my grandmother dropped an eff bomb or three. Or stopping to stare at my dense cousin and his ill-timed wisecracks. Welcome to the Jenkins family, Miss Cooper.

Still, she rolled with Gram's attitude and didn't seem impressed with Beau's brand of humor. A definite plus. Watching her interact with my family gave me an idea for a special assignment for sweet Evie. The seed of the plan came while chatting with Gram tonight. It's a little wild, but it could work.

There was a TV movie that I'd watched recently when I couldn't sleep. It was a romance, where the heroine needed to save her flower shop and inexplicably needed a fake fiancé. I'd tuned in at two in the morning, when I was stressed as fuck, hoping it would bore me to sleep. It hadn't. It reminded me of my sister, Savannah, and what happened between her and Dante.

And now I can't stop thinking about the movie's plot.

Or Evie.

Or how I want to crush my smarmy jerk cousin once and for all.

Evie's a perfect candidate for this plan since she's ending her employment as an intern soon. Still, this is an idea I need to ponder before I ask her to be involved. I do need to run this by my lawyer, and I want to get a read on her first. That's the other reason I want to drive her home.

Can we carry on a conversation together? Or will our moments be spent in awkward silence? I hate those moments of quiet when I'm with a woman. Makes me nervous, like I'm not doing enough to impress her.

Can I impress Evie?

Will she annoy me, like that one temp assistant a few months back who made the weird phlegm noise with her sinuses? Is she going to shift into being too flirtatious, too seductive, too tempting?

Hell, she's already too tempting. She's barely acknowledging my existence, which is a bit of a shock—usually women try to flirt with me. Now I'm standing next to her in the elevator, trying not to breathe in too deep. I don't want to inhale more of her intoxicating, sweet scent. I've been smelling it since we left my office then stopped on her floor to get her bag.

She's staring down at the floor, her beautiful face flushed. It almost looks like she's breathing fast, but I can't tell because she keeps doing this sexy thing with her mouth where she presses her lips together then plumps them into a pout.

The elevator opens to the parking garage and I hold the door. The flickering glance as she walks out—what's that about? I'm trying to do something nice here, and she seems annoyed. I want to drive her home since I was such an ass to her earlier.

"This way." I point to the space closest to the elevator. It's my reserved parking spot, where my true love and its electric charger awaits. "You're going to like my new car. It's literally the fastest in the world."

Like I do every day after work, I gaze upon my new toy with all the affection a man normally reserves for his lover. My candy-apple red Tesla Roadster. Zero to sixty in one-point-nine seconds, top speed of two hundred and fifty miles an hour. All electric. Limited edition. Elon Musk himself met me at the dealership and handed me the keys.

A dream machine for a gearhead like me.

I go to the passenger door so I can hold it open for Evie. She'll be so impressed by this.

Wait. Where's Evie?

I look up and she's ten feet away, closer to the elevator. She's not headed in my direction.

"Thanks, I'll take the train." She whirls and takes a few steps toward the elevator. I jog to her as she's pressing the button.

"Wait, wait, wait. No. I don't want you taking the train this late. It's unsafe."

She folds her arms across her stomach. "I take the train all the time at all hours. It's fine."

"It's not fine. There was an assault last weekend. I saw it on the news."

Evie rolls her eyes. "Whatever. I saw that story, too. They were drug dealers. I wasn't planning on buying cocaine tonight."

"Still. I don't want you taking the train with drug dealers." I pause. "Why are we even having this conversation? Get in the car and I'll drive you home. It's really no bother."

Evie nervously eyes the Tesla. "It looks like a race car."

"It is a race car." I chuckle, until I see her glare. "What? You don't like fast cars?"

"Not at all," she snaps.

"Okay. I promise to drive like Gram in a Cadillac in Palm Beach. C'mon." I hold my hand out, declining to tell Evie that Gram behind the wheel is a terror.

"Okay," she mutters, and walks past me, toward the car.

I follow, and open the door for her, which gives me a chance to inhale her perfume again. Slowly, while clutching her messenger bag to her chest, she eases into the black-and-red leather seat. I shut the door gently, as if not wanting to spook a wild animal.

Once I'm sitting next to her in the car, I fire it up with the keyless ignition. I love the full-throated sound of the engine, and I glance at Evie. She's staring straight ahead at the dashboard.

She's not impressed, even a little.

"What's your address?" My finger hovers over the in-dash GPS screen.

Evie tells me, and it's not an area I'm familiar with. I plug it into the computer. It's sixteen miles away, on the city's south side, in a suburb.

I pull out of the parking garage and onto the street, going slower than I thought possible with this car. She eases up on the death grip on her bag, and we ride in silence for several minutes.

Evie's sitting up straight in the seat, still staring ahead out the windshield at the road. When her eyes flicker to me a few times, I take this as an opportunity to ask about her. It's far preferable to thinking of my own issues, like Beau's naked ambition.

"Do you still live with your parents?"

"No, me and my sister."

"Is she older, younger?"

"Younger. She's graduating from high school in a couple of weeks."

I sense there's a backstory here. Why would a recent college grad be living with her teenage sister? Despite my own family's lack of decorum, I should know better than to pry into Evie's life.

"You and your sister? Where are your parents?"

"Dead." Her tone is flat, and I instantly feel like an ass for asking. "Don't say you're sorry. It's not your fault."

Aw, hell. This makes me feel like a total shit. But I'm even more curious about her background now. Not enough to ask more questions and come off like an even bigger jerk than I already am. "I'm sorry for sticking my nose in your business. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay." She focuses out the windshield. "Most people don't understand what Sabrina and I are going through."

"Try me. My friends say I'm an excellent listener."

She slides a glance to me while shaking her head. "Thanks, but I'll pass. You have enough going on, and don't need to hear about my woes."

What are her woes? A couple of minutes go by in silence. It's driving me crazy.

"What was your major at Emory?" I finally ask.

She huffs out a curt laugh. "What's up with all the questions?"

I lift a shoulder. "I want to get to know you better."

"Marketing, with a minor in business."

"I was a business major." I glance at her. She's a little more relaxed now, I can tell by the way her lovely eyes have softened.

"Where did you go to school?" she asks.

"University of Georgia. I almost didn't go at all, though."

She shifts in her seat to look at me. "Really? Why?"

"You don't know?"

"No."

"I used to race motorcycles. Semiprofessionally. Well, professionally. When I was a teenager and into my early twenties." A look of horror crosses her face, and I can't help but grin. "Probably your worst nightmare, I guess, if you don't like going fast. But I loved it. I loved speed. Still do, I guess."

"Why did you stop racing?" Evie's right hand is white-knuckling the door handle, but the curiosity in her voice is evident.

The GPS announces that I need to exit the interstate, and I slow the car. When I break at the end of the off-ramp, her body tenses.

I clear my throat. "I figured I'd eventually run my family's company, and it would be more responsible to get a business degree than travel the world racing a bike around a track at two hundred miles an hour."

"That sounds awful. The motorcycle part. Not the business part." She shudders. I'm not sure I've ever met someone who is so offended by speed.

"Do you miss it?"

"What? Motorcycle racing? Or going fast?"

"Both."

"Hell yes. But I still get a taste. You should see me when I go on the track at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. I have a supercharged BMW bike and a tricked-out Porsche. I know the owner of the track, and he lets me play a few times a year in the off-season."

This should really impress her. It's one of the biggest tracks in the country, and other than pro racers, few get to rip around the asphalt there.

She lets out a disapproving little grunt that somehow also sounds adorable. "Sounds dangerous."

Evie Cooper is not easily impressed, or maybe she's the most safety-conscious woman in the world. The GPS directs me onto her street. It's in a neighborhood that a few years ago would've been considered a little rough and one that you wouldn't walk in at night. Now the tired old bungalows with their stately yet scruffy trees are flanked by new boxy modern condos with minimalist landscaping. It gives the area a mismatched, chaotic feel.

"Danger's not a bad thing," I murmur.

Her house is a little yellow place with a bright light illuminating the dollhouse-like porch, like a small beacon in the dark. It's so small that I wonder if it's one of those sheds they sell at the hardware store. Okay, it's not quite that tiny, but it definitely fits the southern definition of shotgun shack.

"Thank you for the ride. I know it was probably out of your way. You probably live in some mansion somewhere in Buckhead." Her hair sways against her shoulders and the urge to touch her skin is back.

"I don't do mansions. I live in a condo a few blocks from the office." A penthouse, to be exact, but mentioning that here, in front of her tiny house, seems like bad form.

A frown crosses her face. "And you still drive to work?"

I shrug. "What can I say? I love my car. Hey, let me walk you to your door."

"No, no need." She unclips the seat belt and her hand flies to the door latch.

"It doesn't seem safe around here. Let me open your door."

"No, Alex. I'm okay. I know everyone on this street. And, anyway, danger's a not bad thing, right?"

For the first time since we got in the car, the corners of her lips turn upward, a genuine expression of mirth. It's like goddamned sunshine at midnight. If I was attracted to her before, I'm captivated now. She slips out of the car while I'm still grinning like a fool. I open the driver's door and stand between my open door and the Tesla, watching her glide over the broken concrete of her walkway. Her head's held high and there's a subtle yet seductive sway in her hips.

I lean on the roof of the car, enjoying her strut more than I enjoyed undressing my last one-night stand.

"Maybe I'll take you to the track someday and let you drive the Porsche," I call out, then immediately cringe. What am I? Lovesick? A teen rom-com screenwriter? The star in a boy band video?

She turns around and tilts her head. "You'd trust me with your precious car? Somehow you seem like too much of a control freak for that."

This makes me chuckle. She might not be impressed by my Tesla, or my connections, or my past.

But I'm impressed with her.

Taking a couple of steps back, she grins at me, then whirls and strides to the door, her hair floating behind her. Oh yeah. The feisty and stunning Evie Cooper might be the woman I need to help secure my place as the CEO of my family's company.