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Okay. Alex thought fast. “I’ll talk to Tom, see if he knows anything about this. There’s not enough time to meet up before the press conference so just watch it where you are and then we can get together. Come up with our strategy. I’m in the city, where are you?”
“My place.”
Alex did mental math, trying to figure out how long he needed to call Tom and then make it back to his apartment. He didn’t want Lucas and Mal arriving before he did and figuring out he hadn’t spent the night at home. “Okay. Let’s meet at my place in an hour.”
“An hour?” Lucas sounded surprised. “How long is this call with Tom going to take? Wait,” his voice turned suspicious. “Where are you?”
“Watching TV,” Alex said evasively. “And now I’m hanging up. I need to call Tom.” He hung up before Lucas could process. He started to hit the button to bring up Tom’s number but then remembered Maggie, sleeping down the hallway. He should wake her but the clock was ticking.
“Fuck,” he muttered again, and then dialed Tom.
There should be a man in her bed. Maggie wasn’t sure what time it was or exactly how much sleep she’d had but she was clear on that particular detail. Her body protested in a sleepy, pleased manner as she rolled over and the man who’d put her muscles through the workout causing that protest should’ve still been beside her. Even ready for another round though she wasn’t sure that was humanly possible unless he really was the devil or possessed of a supply of little blue pills. Somehow she didn’t think Alex Winters was the kind of guy to turn to little blue pills.
Nope. He’d managed to do damned fine work au naturel last night. Several times.
She grinned at the memories, then shivered as remembered pleasure swept over her.
Where exactly was he? She wanted more. He wouldn’t have left … surely? He’d pulled her against him as they’d finally succumbed to sleep, tucking her body into his and curling his arm around her protectively. Not the actions of the man who was desperate to make a getaway.
Hoisting herself upright, she listened. He wasn’t in the bathroom but she thought she could hear something in the apartment.
She found a pair of Saints boxers and a shirt and pulled them on, pausing in front of the mirror to see if her bedhead was dire enough to need rectification before she ventured out.
But her curls seemed as pleased with the night’s activities as she was … and hadn’t morphed themselves into an imitation of Medusa overnight. She decided the smudged eye makeup was sexy, not messy, and that, really, Alex wasn’t going to notice anyway. Not if she made him breakfast and dragged him back to bed.
It was Saturday. Surely they could take a lazy Saturday? Figure out a plan on how to handle what had happened.
Because she knew she wanted it to happen again, but she was also damn sure that she wasn’t ready for the fact she’d slept with Alex to become public knowledge. So they needed a plan on how to be discreet.
A sneaking-around plan. That sounded good. Not forever. Just until they figured out what might happen next.
And that part she wasn’t ready to think about so she put it out of her head with a mental shove—and stuck out her tongue at the inner therapist who was busy writing notes about denial and facing challenges directly—and went in search of Alex.
She found him, not in the kitchen as she’d half expected, but instead parked on her sofa, face intent as he studied her TV. His hair was rumpled and stubble shaded his jaw. He wore jeans but no shirt, and his feet were bare. He looked like a man who’d spent half the night having hot sex. But he didn’t look happy.
The fizz of happiness in her stomach went abruptly flat.
“What’re you watching?” she asked.
He flicked a glance upward, then his gaze returned to the screen. “Sutter’s announced a rival bid for the Saints.”
“He’s what?” She moved so she could see what was on the screen. Sure enough, Will Sutter stood behind a podium, looking slickly confident as he answered questions from a shouting room of reporters. The banner cycling across the screen confirmed Alex’s statement. Shit.
“Can he afford it?”
“You know him better than me,” Alex said.
“Hardly. I hadn’t seen him in years until your party.” The prick. He’d been all smiling and smarmy last night. Pleased with himself. Because he knew he’d been about to do this.
Alex turned toward her, eyes sharp. “What did you two talk about yesterday?”
Maggie rubbed her temple, where a drumbeat of panic was starting to throb. “Nothing much. And no, he didn’t mention the fact he was going to do this. I would have told you. So, can he afford it?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Dad won’t want to sell to him,” Maggie said. “He sacked him once, he isn’t going to hand the team over to him.”
“Your father doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. If we don’t get the numbers in the vote, then Tom still needs to sell. And I can’t see too many other people stepping up to the plate to buy the Saints.”
