“No problem,” I reply smoothly. “Sean, this is myhead of marketing, Isla Forrester. She’s the brains behind everything.” I gesture toward her with my hand. “Let’s continue our meeting, shall we?”
For the next half hour, I sit back and watch in awe while Isla works. My gut hasn’t steered me wrong before, and it didn’t now. She’s a fucking marvel to watch in action, and the way she understands my vision is incredible.
She’s beautiful, competent, intelligent, and everything I could ever want in a woman.
The way she saved me from Miranda’s borderline offensive approaches was entertaining…and confusing. I’m no idiot, I can tell we’re both dancing around something when it comes to the attraction we have for each other. But I’ve somehow managed to keep a lid on it. To remember she’s my employee and I owe her nothing but respect and professionalism.
Today she made it nearly impossible to remember that fact.
Today I felt her lips on my skin, albeit briefly.
Today I felt her hand on mine, not as an employee, but as a woman.
Today I realized I might not be able to contain this attraction for much longer.
And that could be a real fucking problem.
11
LUCA
It’s beenthree days since our meeting with Peak Properties and the debacle with Miranda, and I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but I feel like Isla’s avoiding me.
Not that we’ve had a reason to meet, but on most days, I run into her at the administrative offices that are finally complete at the stadium at least once or twice. This week? Once. I’ve seen her once in three days, and all I got was a quick smile as she hurried in the opposite direction.
I’m a forty-two-year-old man. I don’t obsess over things often. But the amount of mental energy I’ve expended thinking about Isla and wondering if she’s avoiding me is ridiculous.
And exhausting.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, boss, but are you sleeping okay? You look…tired,” Rafe says as I walk into the coaches’ office just next to the locker room.
I run my fingers through my already rumpled hair and let out a laugh. “Yeah, tired is one word.”
Rafe just chuckles, pushing back from his desk. “For fun reasons, I hope.”
I huff out a laugh of my own at the man who’s becoming a good friend. Good enough that he feels comfortable teasing me like that, even if he has no clue how far off the mark he is. “Yeah, sure.”
Not even slightly fun. More like pure torture, as sleep has eluded me every damn night this week. I toss and turn, thinking about Isla, worrying about how to handle my growing attraction to her, wondering whether she feels anything for me, and then wanting to kick my own ass for even thinking about that.
“Alright, well, the guys are ready for you. I told ’em to come up with questions or suggestions, but we’ll see what they’ve got.”
“Were you able to get everyone on the existing roster here?” I ask.
“Not quite, but most of them are here.”
“Great. So, before we go in, have you and Levi thought some more on who you want to add to the roster?”
He nods. “Yes. The existing guys are good. Solid. You’ve got a strong starting lineup, although you need more pitchers. I read up on the league rules, and we don’t have enough guys if we have a stretch of more than four games in a row. Remember the pitcher I told you about last week, Brady Dixon? My contact who told me about him tracked down his number, and I gave him a call yesterday. Turns out, he’s very interested, and he’s considering our offer. If we can lock him down, that would help.”
“He’s the one that was about to get called up to the big leagues, right?”
“That’s him. No idea why he walked away, but it’s good news for us.”
“Definitely. Isla can market the hell out of that acquisition, if he’s on board with some publicity. Can we find out why he walked away from the majors, just to make sure there’s no skeletons in any closets that could come back to bite us in the ass?”
“Good plan. I’ll ask some of my contacts in Vancouver if anyone has heard something. The head of media relations for the Tridents is the kind of woman who knows everything. I’ll give Willow a call.”
“Excellent,” I say with a smile. “Let’s make it happen.”
