But she shook her head. “It’s enough that you’re on the board, that you’re being the face of Hannah’s Hope. I’m certainly not going to ask you to do my job on top of that.”
“I’m not doing your job,” he argued. “I’m doing my job.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiled at her obvious confusion. “You don’t know what CMF does, do you?”
“It provides healthcare for impoverished children.”
“That’s half of what the Cara Miller Foundation does.” His grin lit with mischief. Like he was about to share a secret. She felt herself leaning toward him. “When I started CMF, that was my intent. But along the way I realized how hard it was to start a nonprofit. I quickly realized that without the financial and personal resources I had, I never would have gotten anywhere. That’s why I started the other branch of CMF.”
She frowned. “The other branch?”
“Yes. Helping kids was Cara’s thing. But that’s not what really excites me.”
“What is?” Heat flooded her cheeks as she realized the double meaning behind her question. But she quickly forced her embarrassment aside. Yes, there seemed to be an attraction simmering between them, but he seemed determined to ignore it. And if he could, then she certainly could, too.
She forced her attention to the topic at hand. She’d thought she knew exactly what the Cara Miller Foundation did. She’d thought she knew exactly why he was here. Just to provide a glamorous face to promote Hannah’s Hope. Had she been wrong?
“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”
“A little bit,” she admitted, chagrined because he seemed to read her as easily as if she had thought bubbles dangling over her head.
“Let me back up. Have you ever heard the term business incubator?”
“I think so.” She’d read an article in the paper not too long ago about them. “They’re companies whose sole purpose is to help new companies get started, right?”
“Exactly. The secondary branch of the Cara Miller Foundation—the branch that doesn’t get a lot of publicity and isn’t in the news all the time—is a nonprofit incubator. We find people with great intentions and dedicated personnel and we help them get their nonprofit off the ground. We don’t do the work for people, we just provide them with the training and resources they need to get the job done.”
“I had no idea such a thing even existed.” Surprise—no, to be honest it was out-and-out shock—washed over her. “How did I not know this?”
“I don’t know.” For a second he looked as baffled as she felt. Then he quickly shrugged it off. “Rafe certainly knew. It’s why he asked me to be on the board.”
“Yes, and he’s been such a font of information,” she muttered drily. “If that’s why you’re here, I should have been told that before you showed up.” Her indignation crept into her voice. She didn’t like being kept out of the loop.
“I thought you were.”
“Well, I wasn’t and—” But she broke off, frowning as she tried to summon up exactly how the conversation had gone the night Emma had called with the information about Ward coming.
What had Emma said about Ward? Had she even really listened to Emma’s explanation? There’d probably been a solid thirty seconds during which Ana had dropped the phone and silently squealed in excitement.
And then, a few minutes later, it had really hit her. Ward Miller. Working with her. But working for Rafe.
Her excitement had given way to unease. All of her real-life knowledge of celebrities had slammed head-on into her fandom. To do her job, she’d have to bury her fantasies. To protect Hannah’s Hope, she’d have to be suspicious of his every action. She’d have to set aside everything she wanted to believe about him.
Throughout that epiphany, Emma had kept on talking, possibly explaining exactly everything Ward was bringing to the table. And Ana’s cynicism had made her miss it.
Now, she cringed. “It’s possible that Emma explained everything and I just didn’t hear her.” She sighed, massaging the tension in her forehead with her fingers. “That must be what happened. Emma wouldn’t have purposefully left it out.”
Emma put her heart and soul into her charity work. Which was why making sure Hannah’s Hope flourished was so important. Ana couldn’t bear to let Emma down. And knowing what she knew now, she didn’t want to let Ward down, either. If he wasn’t going to immediately kick her sorry butt to the curb, if he was going to give her another chance, she was going to grab it with both hands and never let it go.
Full of renewed resolve, she straightened. “Okay, Mr. Nonprofit Incubator, you’re the expert. Where do we go from here?”
Four
Ana’s question hung in the air between them. Where do we go from here?
He could think of about a dozen places they could go. Dinner. Some cozy restaurant where he could ply her with food and wine. Down to the beach where he could coax her into kicking off her shoes to walk with him on the sand. Where he could free her hair from that maddening knot she’d worn it in and bury his nose in the skin at the nape of her neck. Breathe in that intoxicating cinnamon scent.
Hey, he had a lot of suggestions. None of them were the least bit appropriate. Not for a woman he worked with.
So he buried his gut-level reaction and gave her the answer she really needed. “We go to Charleston.”
She blinked in surprise. “Come again?”
Ward nearly laughed at the sheer disbelief on Ana’s face. “Charleston,” he repeated.
“The city?”
“Yes, the city. I certainly wasn’t planning on taking you dancing.” A look of confusion flickered across her face and he added, “I have horrible rhythm.”
She narrowed her gaze, clearly unsure how to take his words. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“Honest to God. I can’t dance to save my life.”
She just shook her head, obviously deciding to ignore his teasing. “What’s in Charleston?”
“The Cara Miller Foundation headquarters. Once you see the kinds of things we do there—”
She didn’t let him finish but cut him off. “Are you insane?”
Again, she didn’t give him a chance to answer, and he let her talk, her impassioned words pouring out in a stream. “I admit that the street fair is a good idea, but between that and my normal work, I can’t possibly jaunt off to Charleston on a whim. Even if we had the money in our budget for such a trip—which we don’t—I can’t take the time away from work.”
Frankly, it impressed the hell out of him that she had the confidence to rant at him. Most people didn’t. She seemed to have the unique ability to forget that he was a superstar.
“This isn’t time away from work,” he pointed out. “I’m not suggesting you come to Charleston to go sightseeing. It’ll be a working trip. You can meet our lawyers and accountants. People who can make the work you’re struggling with here go twice as fast. Two, three days max. If we leave Sunday night I’ll have you back in San Diego in plenty of time to get ready for Chase and Emma’s wedding next weekend.”
She seemed to consider it for a moment. Then firmly shook her head. “I just don’t see how I could justify—”
He took that as a yes. She kept on talking as he pulled out his iPhone and dialed his assistant. He was midway through the conversation before she even noticed he wasn’t listening. She came to stand directly in front of him, hands propped on her hips, gaze narrowed in annoyance.
“Hang on, Jess,” he said into the phone before he lowered it. He cocked an eyebrow at her in silent question.
“Did I just hear you say ‘first class’?”
“It’s a long flight. At night. You really don’t want to fly coach.”
“I don’t want?” she repeated. “I don’t want to go at all.”
“I know that. But you’re going to have to trust me. The trip will be worth it.”
Before he could explain more, Jess started talking again and Ward turned his attention to him. He was listening to Jess’s reply as he felt a tap-tap-tap on his biceps. He glanced over to see Ana frowning at him, arms crossed over her chest.
Into the phone he said, “Call me back with the details on the flight. Thanks.”
As he slipped the phone back into his front shirt pocket, her scowl deepened.
“I can’t just run off to Charleston for the weekend.”
“Of course you can.”
“No. I can’t. In addition to all the paperwork—which I’m ridiculously behind on—” she gestured to the whiteboard behind her “—now I also have to plan a street fair.”
He laughed outright. “You’ve already said all of this. Now you’re just grasping at straws. Besides, you don’t have to do anything about the street fair.”
“Of course I do.” She threw her hands up in the air in obvious frustration. “Everyone here is excited about it and—”
He gently grabbed her arms. “Exactly. They’re excited about it. Let them handle it. You don’t have to be in charge of everything. Jess could do this kind of thing in his sleep. Presumably, your people have contacts here who can smooth the way. My PR guy, Ryan, is relatively new and still eager to prove he’s useful. Frankly, I haven’t had a lot for him to do yet. He’ll be thrilled to have something to keep him busy.”
“You make it sound so easy.” Her tone was heavy with accusation.
“It is easy,” he assured her.
For an instant, doubt flickered across her face. He was struck by how warm and solid her arms felt under his hands. Unlike so many of the women he knew in show business, Ana had meat on her bones. She certainly wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t scrawny, either. Her arms were leanly muscled, her body curvy in all the right places. This was a hell of a time for him to notice it.