“Judging by how closely you keep tabs on my social media, we both know you’re lying. Sorry, Sugar Plum. It’s nothing personal, but I don’t mix business and pleasure.”
“You don’t treat baseball like it’s business.”
I snort. “It’s not. Baseball is the pleasure. Women are the work. And I don’t need a job when I can play a game for money.”
She takes me down corridors that get progressively more and more narrow until we pass the front desk and go into a private hallway with an exclusive elevator. “You are the most obnoxious man I’ve ever met,” she says. “I would rather have to decorate the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center than be stuck with you for another minute.” We stare at each other in the reflection of the elevator. It’s coming down from the seventeenth floor. My elevator only showed sixteen floors.
“That literally sounds like the best time of my entire life. I’m in.” Judging by the twitch in her eye, my last comment broke something in her brain. “Let me guess: I’ve enraged you so much, you’re planning to throw me off the roof,” I say.
“If I were going to murder you, it wouldn’t be a crime of passion. It would be slow, painful, and totally untraceable.”
The numbers keep ticking down. “So where are we going?”
“My room.”
“Yourroom? Where?”
“The Owner’s Suite.”
“Hold on. If you’re the Fischer brothers’ sister, that makes your dad Bruce Fischer, the umpire. Umps do well, but notthiswell. Is your mom a secret billionaire, or something?”
She winces. “No, my best friend’s fiancé is, though.”
The elevator dings.
“Okay. I see how it is. You’re hoping to wow me with luxury so you can have your way with me.”
As the doors slide open, the image stretches until I catch a final glimpse of half of my grinning face and half of her frowning one. We step onto the elevator, and I lean against the wall, while she stands primly, clutching her bag.
“My way would necessitate burying your body,” she practically bites. “Now, we’re here to work. So shut your trap so we don’t have to room together.”
“Marty was kidding.”
Her blue eyes turn icy. “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Okay, Scrooge.”
“Okay,Buddy.”
The elevator doors close, and up we go.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIESEL
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
My best friend got stuck on an elevator last Christmas with her nemesis, and here I am, just walking onto an elevator with mine like I haven’t read this story before?Smooth move, Fischer!It worked out beautifully for Juliet, but then, Cooper Kellogg is no Nate Cruz.
For one thing, Cooper isn’t a sexy European billionaire. He’s an odious American millionaire. Yes, he may have a great jaw, but that doesnotmake him sexy. Besides, he’s hyperaware of how attractive he is. To other people, I mean. Not to me.
For another, Cooper doesn’t care about things like justice and kindness. I mean, I haven’t watched him around anyone else, but he’s right: I’ve seen enough of his social media to know he’s all about grandstanding, and he takes an inordinate number of selfies with women. Unless you play Banana Ball and have gone viral for lip syncing a Taylor Swift song on your way to thebatter’s box, no player should have that many female fans lined up.
He smells like spiced sandalwood, too. And let me tell you, a smell that divine does not belong on a man so decidedlynot.
Oh, and can we talk about how Cooper argues abouteverything?Everything! My best friend loves to debate, but she thinks it’s fun.
I don’t.
