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“Right. I know.” She blinks those long lashes over the pale blue of her eyes that I’m dying to stare at, despite my better instincts. So I change my tack.
“Need help with anything?”
Her eyes leave the chess pieces only long enough to shift upward and glare at me. “Nope. I’m good.” Her terse reply has nothing on the pink blooming over her face. She may think she’s glaring at me, but there’s no fire behind her eyes. Just sultry smoke.
It surprises me that I’m reacting this way to her. Maybe it was the stern warning earlier from Archer. I don’t exactly like being told what to do—or what not to do. He and Jackson described her in unflattering terms, but I think they were just saying, “Keep your damn hands off our sister.” I guess I should go talk with their brother Dashiell and see if I can make it three for three.
Up until thirty minutes ago, I had no plans of putting my hands on her. But once my fingers grazed the soft skin of her shoulders and waist when I caught her, all bets were off.
And now…I’m talking myself down because the last thing I need right now is to look at Archer’s veryyoungsister as anything more than a somewhat irritating chess opponent.
She finishes setting up the pieces, white on my side, and extends her hand so I can open.
I move a pawn. She does the same. I move a rook. She counters.
The first few moves are rote for anyone who plays a lot of chess, and she already knows where I’m headed.
She castles and looks up at me, gauging whether I expected the move. I have nothing, if not a good poker face, so I meet her gaze and try to keep my face a mask of indifference. It’s hard because I’m verynotindifferent to how she looks. The pretty pout of her lips, the curve of her cheek, the fresh-scrubbed skin free of makeup—my kryptonite.
But the second I put my hand on my knight and move it to the square I’m considering, she levels me with a question, almost like it’s part of her game. Who am I kidding? Of course it is. She’s playing to win.
“So how is hiding out here going to help your company’s stock? Or the media shitstorm you stirred up, for that matter?” she asks. Direct. I like it.
She’s the first person to ask me this question—well, the first other than me. It was the primary question I had for our company publicist when he told me to lay low and let the weight of my ill-timed statements blow over.
I can’t help it. I let out a chuckle.
Her quizzical stare is so unexpected that I laugh some more. “You want the real answer?”
“Yes, please.”
“I don’t fucking know. My public relations person told me to disappear for a bit. I’m not sure I agree.”
“Do you always follow advice you don’t agree with? Is that your strategy for running a billion-dollar company?”
“That seems like a rhetorical question.”
“Only if you agree.”
Maybe it’s the stress I’ve been under for the past couple days. Or the burrito-fest had by a family of squirrels. Or just the fact that she doesn’t even know me, yet she knows exactly what questions to ask.
Maybe I just like looking at her. But the sum total of it results in a new peal of laughter, and this time, I can’t stop.
I still have my hand on top of the knight because I’ll have to commit to the move if I remove my hand, and I haven’t fully thought it through. I have no doubt that the timing of her question was a ploy to distract me, but the fact that I can’t stop laughing is a bigger problem.
Lifting my hand away, I tip back in my chair as tears begin flowing down my face. I can’t stop. It’s the combination of the stress I’ve been under and maybe the wine and the goddamn squirrels, but I’m a goner.
PJ watches me for a moment like I’m insane, and I see the corners of her mouth turn up in amusement. Before she can stop herself, she erupts into her own fit of giggles.
We sit across from each other in inexplicable hysterics, and each time I feel myself starting to calm down, her laughter ratches up a notch and I start in anew. The same thing keeps happening to her.
Finally, the waves of laughter subside, and each of us wipes down tears and regains composure. I take a long sip of wine and try to come up with a way to explain what just happened.
“Sorry. I think it’s just the stress.” I shrug.
“Don’t apologize. That’s the first time I’ve laughed like that in ages. Even if I have no idea what I was laughing about.”
She looks back at the board, her forehead creasing when she sees where I’ve left my knight. I blink hard because I’ve just lost the game unless she makes a colossal mistake.
