Fake It List

Three

The headache Chris Williams woke up with came back with attitude and a Thor-size hammer. He would have dropped his head to his desk if he wasn't working so hard to keep himself together. The look on Reysha's face kept flashing in his brain like a neon sign. How one woman could be so gorgeous and unaware of it was beyond him. He wasn't supposed to think of her like that. Chris put considerable time and effort into not thinking about Reysha Beckett, but just seeing her smile opened Pandora's box in his chest. In a small town over an hour outside of LA, he had a simple task: boost station ratings, get the place in shape, move on to bigger and much better things. Things he'd actually gone to school for, things he wanted to do.

That was the short-term plan when he'd agreed to take the job as 96.2 SUN station manager.

"Agreed suggests you had a choice," he muttered.

Maybe that was true if he didn't mind choosing between proving himself to his father or not living up to a long legacy of familial expectations. Chris hadn't paid much attention when his dad purchased the station, along with a number of other businesses under the same umbrella, because he hadn't realized, at the time, it was going to be his final stepping-stone. Nathan Williams loved setting out hoops for people to jump through, and as the youngest of Nathan's four kids, Chris had the most to prove. His brothers were already working in their preferred areas of their father's companies. Not that they didn't get shoved through the wringer on a regular basis, but at least they were doing what they loved.

He leaned back in his leather chair, ignoring the groaning creak it always made, and closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands. Nope. Couldn't unsee the sadness in Reysha's expression. Or the way her backbone had gone ramrod straight and she'd pulled on that goddamn titanium shield. She was the toughest woman he'd ever met. It was all kinds of attractive, but it also kept her slightly removed. A bit untouchable. Definitely untouchable. He had to remind himself of that all too often. Quiet, a little socially awkward from what he could tell, and very talented, she was like invisible lightning. When he was near her, energy burst through his veins, making him abnormally tongue-tied. You're her boss. Who has one foot out the door.

Her angry, on-air confession ran through his head again. The listeners would get over that. Most would laugh it off, not that there was one funny thing about it. Remembering the humiliated tinge of her voice carved a hole in his gut. Professionally, the dead air was a slightly bigger problem. It shouldn't be a big deal—glitches happened. But his father kept him under a microscope, waiting for him to screw up, for any chance to tell Chris that he hadn't earned his right to ascend the ranks. He hadn't worked this hard, come this far, to have something minor block him from the prize.

His door slammed open, and Stacey Ryan stood in the opening, hands on her hips, glaring at him like somehow he was the enemy.

"This was my fault. I overstepped, but you shouldn't have sent her home. You know how good she is at her job. How much it means to her," she started, her gaze burning into his brain stronger than the headache.

He knew, but only because the deejay told him. Whenever he was around Reysha, they did an awkward dance of him offering curt sentences and her giving back polite nods.

Chris loosened his tie, wishing the windows in his office actually opened so he could get some fresh air. "I didn't send her home to be a jerk. This is better than having to field calls about her goddamn love life to all the people who are already phoning in. She'd hate that, and you know it." He pointed at her and stood up, pacing the pathetically small room.

The thought of Reysha having a love life unsettled his stomach. It had to be some sort of karmic irony that he met a woman who intrigued him more than any other at a time when keeping his eye on the end goal mattered more than ever.