AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Alex thought for a moment, still not even sure what he was meant to be doing. His mind was still full of Maggie. Of dark eyes and soft skin and little moans that made him?—
Mind on the job.
Lucas. Right. Nothing sprang immediately to mind. “No.” He figured that getting rid of the two of them was the best way to ensure neither of them caught on that there might be something they needed to wring out of him.
“Okay then.” Lucas spun on his heel. Then turned back. “Oh wait. Tomorrow night. Football. No can do.”
“Why not?” Alex asked. He’d sweet-talked the owner of the Giants into giving him seats in the owner’s box for a play-off game. A way to be seen, with bonus football thrown in. Sure, it wasn’t as good as baseball but …
“Big surgery tomorrow. No way I’ll be done in time.”
Well, there was no arguing with that. For Lucas, business trumped pleasure every time. It was that pesky Hippocratic oath of his.
“I have to bail too,” Mal said.
“What? No. I don’t want to go on my own.” It was far more fun with at least someone he knew to drink beer and yell at the refs with. Particularly surrounded by football fanatics rather than baseball.
“Ask someone else. Maybe even a girl,” Mal suggested.
“Why can’t you go?”
“Because you insisted on us buying a death trap and I have things to do to stop us all dying in a fiery ball of pain.”
Alex frowned. It was a glib answer. Might be true or might be Mal getting up to something. Well, he wasn’t going to push right now. That might lead to one of those discussions about things he didn’t really want to discuss. “The point was for the three of us to go and get some publicity.”
“So, take Maggie,” Lucas said. “Still shows team spirit, plus she might know more people there than you do.”
It was a tempting idea. But he doubted she’d go for it. “Me showing up with Saint Maggie might start some publicity of the wrong kind.”
“Not if you keep your hands off her,” Mal said. He frowned suddenly. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”
“Keeping my hands off her? Nope,” Alex lied. His mouth might be a different story. “But she’s determined that everyone knows that it’s strictly business.”
“So, take Maggie and flirt with someone else,” Lucas suggested. “That should divert any rumors.”
“Oh great. Then it will be ‘playboy’ Alex Winters screwing around when he should be focusing on his new baseball team.”
“Yeah, but they’ll love it anyway. The press always do.”
“The press might. The other owners might not.” The vote was weeks away. He was determined not to jeopardize his numbers if he could help it.
“Well, it will put their minds at ease that you’re not violating Saint Maggie,” Mal said easily. “That ought to help on that front. Lesser of two evils. Plus, you never minded being called a playboy before.”
Actually, he had. It was stupid and juvenile and, hell, he never ran around on the woman he was seeing. If there had been a few of those in the last few years, well, nothing was wrong with that. But he really didn’t like the idea of Maggie thinking that that was who he was.
Still, he couldn’t come up with another argument against inviting Maggie, and his backbrain was coming up with a hell of a lot of reasons why it might be a very good thing once they were out of the spotlight after the game. It was cozy in the back of his town car and maybe he could even coax her up to his apartment.
Easy, boy.
“Fine, I’ll take Maggie,” he said, trying to still sound annoyed.
“Prettier than the two of us,” Mal said.
“Prettier than you,” Lucas said with a grin. “Me on the other hand…”
“So sad, still delusional,” Mal retorted.
It was an old joke. It had started with bets over pizza and beer and trying to get pretty girls in bars to pick who their favorite of the three was. The score was pretty even actually but Lucas did have a slight lead. It was those damned blue eyes. Girls were suckers for them.
