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I noticed that the woman held him long enough to press her cherry-red lips against his cheek. Her eyes cut over to me as she did so, and a smug smile appeared.
“When you said you were too busy to get dinner tonight, I assumed you would be here. A coworker offered me floor seats, although I expected you to be up in your luxury box, not down here.” Her eyes took me in from head to toe, and then she asked, “Who is your… friend?”
“This is Amber Moltisanti, one of our senior engineers,” Owen said.
Jocelyn gave a nod that seemed to imply she thought someone like me had to be a coworker rather than a date. It made me bristle.
“An engineer,” she replied. “You’re exactly what I picture when I think of coders sitting in dark rooms, typing away on their keyboards. I could never do what you do.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t,” I said, meaning it as an insult. But Jocelyn barely seemed to register it because she was turning her attention back to Owen.
“We really must discuss our partnership soon,” she said, sitting in the chair next to ours.
I couldn’t help but speak up, now. “I’m not sure we need you anymore. Your company does data processing. We’ve been doing all of our work internally, and have two coders dedicated to creating an algorithm-based solution. I designed the outline for it myself.”
She smiled patronizingly at me. “I’m sure you think that will work. But I would not expect acoderto understand the big picture. That’s what leaders like Owen—and myself—are for.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from giving her a bigger piece of my mind, but fortunately we were interrupted by the pre-game announcements. The lights in the arena went dark and music blared as the players were announced.
After the tip-off, while both teams ran up and down the court and the crowd cheered and taunted, I kept glancing over to my left. Jocelyn was speaking in Owen’s ear, too low for me to hear over the ambient noise in the arena. Owen laughed politely every time she said something, but he didn’t tell her to leave him alone.
I wanted to kiss him, to put my arm around him possessively and say,fuck off, bitch. This is my man. But of course, we were still keeping our relationship private. The little bit of snuggling we had done before the game was the most we were willing to risk in public. So I sat in my seat, ordered another beer, and pretended to have a good time watching the game.
At halftime, Jocelyn got up and said, “I’m going to head up to the VIP lounge to mingle with someone I know. Enjoy the game,Owen.” She said it like she wanted him alone to enjoy the game, deliberately excluding me. She didn’t even acknowledge me or glance in my direction before walking back up the steps. In her leather skirt and silky blonde hair, she drew every eye from the spectators as she left.
“Courtside seats and she leaves at halftime,” Owen muttered “And she claims she’s a hardcore Warriors fan.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s almost like she only bought these tickets to get close to you.”
He flashed me a grin. “Can you blame her? I’m a great guy to be around.”
Rather than laugh at the joke, I glared at him. “You seemed to enjoy being around her, too.”
“She was actually kind of annoying,” he muttered. “I just wanted to watch the game but she kept talking about our companies working together.”
“I bet you want towork with herall right.”
He gave me a look. “Relax. There’s nothing going on there.”
“She clearly wants there to be. Did you hear the way she talked to me? A lowly coder? You could have defended me, you know.”
Owen snorted and ran a hand through his hair. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, kid, it’s that you can defend yourself.”
I knew he was right. But I wantedhimto tell off Jocelyn publicly. That was unreasonable, especially since our two companies very well might do business together in the future, but it didn’t stop me from wishing for it. I wanted Owen to burn a bridge with her.
As the third period of the game began, I analyzed my feelings a little deeper. I didn’t like being reminded that Owen had other options out there. That wasn’t exactly fair since I was juggling three men myself, but I couldn’t help how I felt. The thought of Owen kissing Jocelyn, or any other woman, was unbearable for me.
Owen smiled at me, and acted like nothing was wrong, but for the rest of the game I kept thinking about how I needed to make sure I didn’t take my situation for granted. I was lucky to be with Owen, and Jude and Furio for that matter. An external threat from another woman helped remind me of that.
And I need to remind him how lucky he is to be with me, too.
As the game neared the ending, I hatched a plan to do exactly that.
56
Owen
Amber was a lot of things. Impulsive. Introverted, to a certain degree. Wickedly intelligent. Incredibly sexy.
