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She hated that he could bait her so successfully. “You give me too much credit. As far as I can tell, your urges don’t need any help in being called forth. They appear of their own volition.”
Hawk chuckled. “Aren’t you at least curious about what I have to offer?”
She frowned, but forced herself to adopt a saccharine-sweet voice. “You forget that I already know. Unless your offer involves business, I’m not interested.”
Was his facility with sexual innuendo boundless?
He shifted toward her, his leg brushing her own, and Pia tried to stifle her response of frozen awareness before he could discern it.
Hawk looked too knowing. “As it happens, it does. Involve business, that is.”
This time, Pia didn’t try to hide her reaction. “It does?”
Hawk nodded. “A friend of mine, Victoria, needs help with a wedding.”
“A female friend? Ready to give up on you, is she, and move on?”
She couldn’t stop herself from needling him, it seemed.
He flashed a grin. “We never dated. Her fiancé is an old classmate of mine. I introduced them to each other at a party last year.”
“You do seem to know quite a few people who are getting married.” She raised her eyebrows. “Always the matchmaker, never the groom?”
“Not yet,” he replied cryptically.
She fell silent at his vague response.
Once upon a time, he might have featured in her wedding fantasies, but they were well past that point, weren’t they? Instead of the well-trod path, they’d veered down a detour from which there was no turning back.
“When is the wedding?” she heard herself ask.
“Next week. Saturday.”
“Next week?”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
Hawk nodded. “The wedding planner is quarantined abroad.”
Pia raised her eyebrows.
Hawk quirked his lips. “I’m not joking. She went on safari with her boyfriend, and they were both exposed to tuberculosis. She can’t get back to New York until after the wedding date.”
Pia shook her head in bemusement. “I suppose I should thank you…?”
“If you want to,” he teased. “It might be appropriate under the circumstances.”
Pia bit her lip, but Hawk looked down and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.
“Here’s the bride’s contact information,” he said. “Will you do it? Will you call her?”
Pia took the paper from him, her fingers brushing his in a contact that was anything but casual for the two of them.
She noted the name and phone number that he’d written. Victoria Elgemere.
Just then the lights overhead blinked a few times, indicating that people should take their seats because the show was about to begin.
“I’ll call her,” she said quickly.
