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“That’s interesting,” I say, annoyed by his dumb comment, and Violet’s beauty, and the whole damn night. “The only people I’ve seen arguing against that regulation are the ones who could be convicted of corruption if it became law.”
Hank looks affronted. “What are you implying?”
Before I can answer, Violet reaches over and pats my thigh soothingly, the very picture of the supportive girlfriend.
Except her hand is way too close to my dick to be soothing.
“Nothing.” I make myself smile blandly at Hank. “I’m sure your friends disagree with the regulations for entirely different reasons.”
Perhaps sensing the growing tension between her husband and me, Katarina jumps in to change the topic.
“Violet, you must tell us, where did Gage take you for your first date? Please say it was somewhere fabulous.”
“It was a restaurant,” I say shortly.
Katarina looks disappointed. “Oh.”
Violet playfully touches my chest. “He never tells it right. The truth is, I was supposed to meet this guy on a dating app. When what do you know, the jerk stands me up!” She gives a little, self-deprecating laugh.Ialmost believe her.
Violet continues. “It was a really popular restaurant, and the waiter was giving me a hard time about how I was taking up a table because I hadn’t ordered anything. It was so humiliating. Of course, Gage had been watching the whole thing from the bar. When the waiter starts laying into me, he strolls over, apologizes for being late, and tells the waiter we’ll need a few more minutes to make up our minds.” She sighs fondly and smiles up at me. “The next thing I knew, we’d spent the whole night talking. And I just knew. There’s no one in the world like him.”
I shift uncomfortably. Why did she have to embellish so much? To hear her tell it, I’m a damn white knight. What part of “do the bare minimum to pretend we’re a couple” didn’t she understand?
That’s when I realize what’s happening. Violet is having fun.
I smirk, amused despite myself. If that’s how she wants to play it...
I lean over and whisper in her ear, like a lover too smitten to care about proprieties. “I know what you’re doing. And you’re going to regret it.” I trail a casual, possessive finger down the side of her neck, and she shivers.
“Ah, young love,” Sutton, an older man at our table says. He’s one of those relaxed, eccentric rich men who inherited vast sums of wealth at birth and used it to fund every random whim he ever had. He’s attending this event with an opera singer half his age. I think she’s wife number six.
“I could say the same for you,” Violet tosses back, and the whole table laughs.
That’s my girl, I think, before tamping down that ridiculous thought. She’s my employee, not my girl. And at the rate she’s going, she might not even be my employee by the end of the week. If she weren’t Tom’s sister, I would have fired her the first time she screwed up a call transfer.
The conversation moves on. I lean back, retreating to my own space. Rationally, I know that was more than enough to teach Violet not to play with fire. But a part of me isn’t ready to stop. I drape my arm over the back of her chair, letting my hand graze her arm.
She’s so damn soft.
“Did you hear the Colorado Coyotes are being sold?” Sutton asks.
I stiffen. That was my dad’s favorite baseball team. He wasn’t a perfect dad, but he always made time to watch those games with me when I was growing up. While we watched, he’d tell me stories about growing up in Colorado. Mostly I don’t think of my dad. He died years ago, back when I was in high school. But sometimes when I glance at the paper and see a headline about the Coyotes, it takes me back to those lazy afternoons with him.
“Isn’t the Colorado team the Rockies?” Katarina says.
“That’s the Denver team,” I say, annoyed. Just because Denver’s team is better funded, better marketed, and wins way more games than us is no reason for people to forget the Coyotes exist. “The Coyotes are in Colorado Springs.”
“Does Colorado need two baseball teams?” the opera singer asks.
“That might be part of the problem,” Sutton says. “The Coyotes had a good run all the way through the nineties. But then they got new management, and the team has been struggling ever since.” He shakes his head sadly. “People just don’t care about baseball like they used to.”
“Plenty of people care about baseball,” I say.
Violet throws me a curious look. Belatedly, I realize I’m showing way more interest in this conversation than I have in anything else anyone has talked about tonight.
Sue me. A guy can have hobbies.
“I hear Scott Chaney is interested in buying it,” Hank chimes in.
