The Devil in Denim (14 page)

“Seconded,” Mal said, bending to kiss her as well.

“And thirded,” Dan Ellis added. “How are you, Maggie J?” He kissed her hello as well. Alex’s eyebrows drew down, both at the nickname—the same one Ollie Shields had used—and at the way Maggie’s expression was ever so slightly more relaxed as she smiled at Dan.

Surely her no-colleagues rule extended to the team’s coach as well?

And now he was being as ridiculous as Ollie had been at the pizza test. One kiss. That’s all it had been. One tiny, fleeting, “under the mistletoe because it’s Christmas” kiss.

But damn, it had been good, and if sleeping with her was even better he could see why Oliver carried a torch for her. No sane man would want her to leave his bed if he could find a way to coax her there.

And here he was wasting a perfectly good opportunity to be able to touch her again.

“I’ll add my vote in favor,” he said, and took his turn, taking care to keep the kiss as brief and friendly as the other three. It was difficult when he breathed in the scent of flowers and Maggie as his lips touched her cheek.

Damn. He stepped back because that’s what he had to do. Throwing his guests out and carrying Saint Maggie off to his bedroom was not going to achieve what this party was meant to achieve.

Time to suck it up and be smart. She thought he was the devil but he was beginning to suspect that she might have been sent to tempt him. Because she was right; the last thing he needed in this position was to foul things up with sex.

He wasn’t stupid. He’d been honest with himself, and with her, acknowledging the inconvenient pull he’d felt even before he’d really touched her, and he’d vowed to be sensible, but now he wasn’t so sure he could. Or what he’d do if she proved to be made of sterner stuff than him.

Maggie’s smile faltered as their gazes met when she stepped back from him, but then she pasted it firmly back in place and made a sweeping gesture that took in the four of them in their dinner suits. “Well, you all look pretty good too,” she said lightly. She turned and surveyed the room. “In fact, there’s a whole lot of pretty men in this room. I knew there was a reason I liked baseball.”

Lucas, Mal, and Dan laughed, and Alex made himself join in.

“So you’re not in it for the thrill of the win?” Lucas asked.

Maggie laughed and pivoted back to them, eyes alight. The sound seemed to hit Alex straight in the part of his brain that was exactly the Neanderthal she’d accused him of being, making his desire to throw her over his shoulder and take her somewhere private flare again.

“You do realize you bought the Saints, don’t you?” she said, grinning at Lucas, tone teasing. “The thrill of the win doesn’t come quite as often as a girl might like. So we have to console ourselves with eye candy.”

“What about the guys?” Alex asked. “No eye candy for us.”

“Well, you get beer. And hot dogs. And the joys of whining over everybody’s stats. Of course, you could add eye candy. Go crazy and have a cheer squad.” She snickered as she said it.

“A cheer squad?” Dan looked appalled. “There are no cheerleaders in baseball.”

Maggie laughed again. “It was a joke.”

“It’s not a terrible idea,” Alex said. “The TV guys would love it, that’s for sure.”

“No cheerleaders in baseball,” Dan and Mal said in unison.

Lucas grinned and he patted Alex’s shoulder. “I think you’d have your work cut out convincing people to go along with that idea, A.”

“You could call them the Angels. No. The
Fallen
Angels,” Alex said, unwilling to let go of the idea completely. He pictured cheerleaders bouncing around with cheesy fake wings. It wouldn’t hurt their attendance numbers, that was for sure.

Maggie rolled her eyes at him. “You can call them whatever you like but it’s a terrible idea. Don’t even think about it. Besides, I thought tonight was a party. And here the four of you are huddled away talking shop.”

“You’re the one who brought up baseball,” Alex protested.

“And now I’m changing the subject. So, boys. What did Santa bring you all for Christmas?”

*   *   *

Ten minutes later, Maggie was waiting for a chance to extricate herself from the conversation—and Alex’s unsettling presence—when she spotted an unexpected face across the room. “What’s Ramona Clarke doing here?”

“Some of the players asked if their agents could come. We thought it was a good way to start getting to know them,” Alex said. “Problem?”

“No. Just some things we usually keep to the family.”

“Well, the family is expanding,” Alex said.

Maggie’s hand tightened around the stem of her glass. “I guess so. I’d better go say hello. Excuse me.” She pivoted on her heel and crossed the room to where Ramona stood talking to Shelly and Hector.

Ramona was dressed in her usual razor-sharp black, her dark hair slicked back from her face and diamonds winking in her ears. Red lips and nails stood out against the smooth brown of her skin. Her satin shoes matched the shade exactly. “Maggie, hi.” She leaned forward, air-kissed Maggie’s cheek. “Long time, no see.”

“Ramona, you look great. Happy New Year.”

Ramona cocked her head. “I guess that remains to be seen. Things are changing round here.”

There it was, the opening shot. Ramona was a brilliant agent but she wasn’t Maggie’s favorite person. And not just because her dad had raised Maggie to view agents as the enemy to a certain degree. Her smile grew fixed. “I’ve always liked change.” She looked at Shelly, hoping her friend could read her mind and introduce a change of subject.

Shelly, thankfully, got the message and asked Ramona where she’d spent Christmas, but Ramona had barely started her tale of a Caribbean vacation when yet another unexpected face joined their group. A face Maggie hadn’t seen in years.

“Maggie, you remember Will, don’t you?” Ramona said.

Will Sutter. Yes, she did. Will was an inch or two shorter than Alex, built along stockier lines—he’d filled out since the last time Maggie had seen him. His pale hair was cut brutally short and his eyes—the same steely blue as his father’s—gave her a quick up and down. She extended her hand before Will could move to kiss her hello. He took it with a smile. And held it just that fraction too long.

Maggie tugged her hand free, her fingers sliding against the heavy gold bands of the rings he wore. They matched the watch on his left wrist.

“It’s good to see you, Maggie,” Will said.

“What brings you to New York, Will?” Maggie asked. Will’s father had died about twelve months ago. Sutter Industries had its roots in the Texas oil industry and its head office was in Dallas. And, as far as she knew, that’s where Will had gone home to when Tom had fired him from the Saints … what, nearly a decade ago?

“Well, I ran into Ramona on her vacation,” he said, watching Maggie with an odd expression in his eyes. “Reminded me it had been too long since I’d been to the old Big Apple. Is your dad here tonight? It would be nice to say hello.”

“No, he couldn’t make it.” And for that, Maggie was suddenly thankful. She hadn’t had a lot to do with Will back in the day but she hadn’t liked him. He’d made a few not-so-subtle passes at her even though she’d been seventeen and dating Ollie. He’d been pushy and arrogant and not in any kind of good way. The fact he had come here tonight made her instincts prickle, no matter what he said about just running into Ramona. He’d never struck her as the type to forgive and forget.

But Tom wasn’t here and, as long as Will behaved himself, there wasn’t much he could do to disrupt the party. Most of the current team wouldn’t even know who he was.

*   *   *

Despite her good intentions, Maggie found herself lingering as the party started to break up. She’d done her duty, stayed on the more, joining Alex and Mal and Lucas—doing her best not to spend more time with Alex than the others—as they worked the party, talking to the players and their wives and girlfriends, making small talk and getting to know everyone a little bit better. Maggie steered conversations toward topics of interest, filled in awkward conversational gaps, and kept an eagle eye out for anyone who was looking bored and disgruntled. She’d watched with a vague sense of relief as Ramona Clarke and Will Sutter had left around half past ten. And she’d made sure the caterers were doing their jobs and directed the drinks waiters toward people’s favorite drinks and, in a few cases, told them to cut people off.

Ollie was one of them. She’d forgotten how he tended to let loose in the off-season, and after watching him down one whisky too many and send a disapproving dark gaze toward her and Alex when they were talking with Indy Jones and Moira, she moved over to Hector and had a quiet word that resulted in Ollie being herded from the room and put in a cab home before anything could happen. The last thing she needed was Ollie getting mouthy with Alex because of his stupid possessiveness. For one thing, if he pissed off Alex enough, then he might find himself traded. And for another, she didn’t need any rumors about her and Alex getting started at the club.

Hana joking with the other WAGs was bad enough—though there was no avoiding the wives-and-girlfriends grapevine in a club—but as long as she didn’t give them any fuel for the fire they’d lose interest and move on to the next topic of speculation soon enough. But if the players got the wrong idea about her and Alex, then there could be all sorts of trouble.

If they didn’t trust her, she couldn’t do the job that Alex was paying her to do. That was the last thing any of them needed.

Still, here she was lingering. She told herself it was just fulfilling the role any hostess would play at a party as she farewelled people and then made her way to the kitchen to make sure the caterers were wrapping things up.

She found Mal there, making himself coffee and eating leftover desserts from a platter that hadn’t been cleaned up.

She halted at the sight of him but he smiled at her and beckoned toward the tray. “Still hungry? These little caramel things are pretty good.”

Maggie shook her head but joined him at the long stainless steel counter, leaning forward and taking the weight off her aching feet. Stupid shoes. They were pretty but pretty never quite equated to comfortable at the end of five hours on her feet. Still, she could hardly slip them off and go barefoot, as tempting as that thought was. It wasn’t her house.

Mal ate another pastry in two bites and took a mouthful of coffee to wash it down. “You did good work tonight,” he said. “Thanks.”

Maggie shrugged a shoulder. “It was fun. And nothing I haven’t done before.” Saints parties she could manage in her sleep.

He regarded her over the mug. “Well, you made things easier for the three of us. Did you have a good time?”

“Sure. I like spending time with the team and everyone,” Maggie said. “They’re family.”

“Even family drives you crazy sometimes. Is anyone giving you a hard time about the sale?”

“Not so far,” she said. “People are still adjusting to the news, I think.”

“And how are you adjusting?” Mal asked. “Alex talked you into this and he can be a little … single-minded.”

Maggie looked down at the counter, at the fuzzy warped reflection of her face in the steel. Was Mal apologizing for Alex or trying to subtly feel her out about something else entirely? She hadn’t spent enough time with him yet to judge his signals. Or know anything much about him. She really needed to sit down with Shelly and find out what she’d learned about all of them. Shelly had said that Mal was the mystery man, but he seemed like a good guy, albeit of the strong, silent action-man variety. “I won’t say it’s not strange. Or that it’s what I wanted, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do a good job for you all.”

“Okay,” Mal said easily. “But don’t let Alex get his way on everything. If you disagree, don’t forget to let Lucas and me know. As much as Alex likes to think he runs the universe, the three of us are in this together.”

Maggie smiled, liking Mal more than ever. “I will. How did the three of you meet, anyway?”

Mal paused in the act of reaching for another caramel thing. “Alex didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head.

“Ah. Well, then. Short version is we met at college. University of Texas.”

Maggie frowned. “I thought he went to Yale.”

Mal nodded. “He graduated Yale. He started college in Texas though.” He drained his coffee in a couple more quick gulps. “And any more than that, you can ask him about. Now, I’m going to hit the road.” He came around the counter and smiled down at her. “Are you okay to get home?”

“I’m fine. I’m going to make sure everyone’s gone and then I’ll get a cab.”

“Alex could call his driver.”

Maggie glanced at the watch on Mal’s wrist. “It’s two
A.M.
A cab will be fine.”

“Okay.” He studied her for a second, dark eyes inscrutable. Mystery man, indeed.

“Good night,” he said finally, leaving Maggie feeling like she’d missed part of the conversation as he walked out of the kitchen.

She stared at the doorway for a few more seconds, then shook herself. Mind on the job. The caterers seemed to have the kitchen under control. The tray of pastries that Mal had been munching on was whisked away now that he’d gone, along with his mug. The kitchen was mostly empty and sparkling clean, only two of the white-coated catering staff left.

With nothing left to do, she backed out of the kitchen and headed toward the living areas where the party had been held. Alex’s apartment must’ve been half the floor of the building, one long rectangle, bisected by a single corridor that led from the kitchen at the far end back to the huge living space. The corridor was painted the same pale cream as the rest of the place, the expanse of off-white only broken by a series of black-lacquered doors, firmly shut, and the art hanging on the walls. She curbed her curiosity, resisting the temptation to snoop.

She had no right to poke her nose into Alex’s business. Even if somewhere behind one of those doors was his bedroom, presumably. She wondered if that might be as sleekly male and modern as the rest of the place. Then ruthlessly cut off the dangerous train of thought.

Still, she walked slowly, trying to ease the ache in her feet as she stopped to look at the art lining the walls.