by Inara Scott
“He’s hiring someone to be a close advisor. He needs an attorney he can trust, but also someone he wants to have around. If he doesn’t see me as that kind of person, I’ll never get anywhere with him.”
Connor wrinkled his forehead. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me, Zoe.”
She swallowed. “I don’t quite know how to say this. He’s a guy’s guy. He likes to talk about sports and motorcycles and whiskey. The problem is, I know next to nothing about those things.” She gestured toward her sling. “Honestly, you’ve seen up close just how sporty I am. And I know absolutely nothing about motorcycles. I can learn about the technology—I’m not worried about that. But I need something more if I’m going to impress Aims. I need to know what might make someone sit on a waiting list for months to own one of these bikes. I need to be able to have a conversation about the Warriors and not sound like an idiot. Basically, I need to learn how to speak his language. And I’m hoping you might be willing to teach me.”
…
Connor blinked. He might have smiled, but she was so serious, leaning forward with an earnest crease in her brow, that he couldn’t. “Um, Zoe, you know that sounds a little crazy, right? Learn to speak his language? It sounds like he’s just a guy—and not an incredibly nice one, either. Why ask me? Why not Luke or Rafe?”
Her cheeks pinkened, and she took a deep breath. This was clearly not easy for her. “Look, you saw what happened at the gym today. The guys are looking for a reason for this not to work out for me. The last thing I want is to go back to them for help. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me to do anything like this until you said you were on their waiting list. But then I realized that you’d have insights into the brand I would never have considered.”
Connor rubbed his head, still bemused. “I get that, but you want me to teach you about sports? You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, Zoe. You don’t need me to explain the rules of basketball to you.”
The compliment seemed to surprise her, and her color deepened. “That’s really nice of you to say, but I don’t just need to learn about the surface stuff. I need the deeper insight. The things you know when you’ve been following a team for years. Not to mention that you play all the time, right? And played in college? You’ve got exactly the kind of inside information I need if I’m going to impress Aims. And I need to know about whiskey, too. Aims loves whiskey, and you know way more about it than anyone should.”
“Well, that’s flattering,” he said drily.
She waved her good hand in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I just meant that I was not a whiskey aficionado in the past, but I swear I will become one. I know this sounds totally nuts, but I’m also wondering if you could coach me a little in basketball. Just enough so maybe I could join a league or something.”
His mouth dropped open. “You want to play basketball?”
“Why is that so crazy?”
“Because…” He gestured toward her in disbelief. “Zoe, seriously?”
Her jaw set into a familiar, stubborn expression. “After I get the cast off, obviously. Look, I realize I’m short and not particularly athletic. And maybe I don’t know anything about the game. But I’m sick of being excluded from Luke’s favorite place to make deals. Besides, don’t you coach a team already? Is it that hard to learn?”
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “If you want to play in a league? Yes.”
“I need to start somewhere, right? This problem of mine isn’t going away, and I’m not going to lie down and take it anymore.”
“You want to be able to talk sports with the guys.” He cleared his throat. “Didn’t you ask me last month who the quarterback for the Warriors was?”
“I was kidding,” she sniffed. “I know basketball teams don’t have quarterbacks.”
“Are you sure?”
Her mouth tightened. “This has not been a priority for me. But I’m making it one. Starting today.”
He made a small sound of despair. “I’m not sure about this plan.”
Her expression turned pleading. “I know it’s a lot to ask. And I promise, I will do anything you want in return. Anything. I swear.”
It took about five seconds for the import of her words to wash over them both. She quickly glanced away, and Connor was struck dumb at the image of what he’d really like to ask in return, which was entirely inappropriate, as it involved Zoe and a whole lot of nudity. He cleared his throat and tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Zoe fidgeted in the silence, just enough that their knees bumped, and the tip of her tongue peeked out as she wet her lips. For half a second, he imagined a flare of desire in her eyes. Of course, there was no way that she was having similar thoughts.
Right?
He tried again to speak, but in his haste all he could do was blurt out the first thing that came to his mind that didn’t involve Zoe removing her clothes. “Could you learn to play bridge?”
That caught them both by surprise. She drew back. “What?”
“Bridge,” he repeated. Now that the words were out, it somehow sounded both crazier and more logical than it had in his brain. “Didn’t you say once that you played a lot of cards?”
“I told you that?” she said, surprised. “When?”
“I don’t remember exactly. It was a while ago.” To be honest, he could describe the night in detail, from the high-heeled black boots she’d been wearing to the bottle of cabernet she’d been drinking. But given that she might think the way he remembered things about her was creepy, he decided not to share that precise piece of information. “You’d had a few glasses of wine, I think.”
“I must have been talking about poker,” she said. “I played a lot in college.”
“Just college? You haven’t played since then?” He narrowed his gaze. “I also seem to recall hearing something from Luke about you and Vegas.”
She glanced away. “Really?”
“Really.”
She waved a hand. “That was just a onetime thing. I’m not really a gambler, I just like to run experiments with numbers. It’s all about probabilities, you know.”
He had to suppress a smile at that. The GPGs would love her. Hard as it was to believe, she might actually be his ticket to infiltrating his mother’s home and her band of merry physicists.
The thought had occurred to him at the time, but he’d suppressed it as absurd. But she did meet all of their requirements. She was very smart and not affiliated with the club. She didn’t like being bossed around, but maybe if he could make her understand the need, she’d go along with it?
His mother didn’t trust him with her secrets, but she obviously trusted her fellow GPGs. And if she trusted them, wasn’t there a chance she’d trust a new team member? One who happened to be a woman?
“Poker’s your only game? Ever tried bridge at all?”
“I’ve tried it,” she said doubtfully. “It was my chess coach’s version of cross-training. Nothing too serious.”
“So you do play.” A feeling of relief and excitement washed over him. Suddenly, his crazy plan didn’t seem so crazy after all. “I can’t believe it.”
“I don’t play,” she corrected. “That’s like saying I play basketball because I was on a team in fifth grade. Real bridge players study the game for years. They run computer training simulations and spend hours memorizing scenarios. It’s an absurdly complicated game. You don’t just learn it once and then go out and play it. You need practice. Lots and lots of practice. Not to mention a partner who is willing to trust and bring you along.”
When she put it that way, it was a little harder to imagine his plan coming together. Still, he knew Zoe wasn’t your average card player. According to Luke, she had won more than five thousand dollars at poker in just a few hours, but she was so risk averse, she took her money and never went back to the tables.
“That just means you’d have a lot to learn. Zoe, you’re perfect fo
r the game. You know numbers and probabilities, you’ve got a ridiculously good memory, and you’ve been counting cards for years.”
“Of course I could learn, but I wouldn’t be good,” she said.
“I don’t think I need good.” He thought about the last conversation he’d had with the GPGs as they contemplated their need for a substitute for their upcoming tournament. “Just absurdly smart and coachable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re flattering me. Really, Connor, why in the world do you want me to play bridge?”
“It’s a bit complicated.”
“But it could help you somehow?” She leaned forward again. “If that’s the case, just tell me what you need and I’m there. We could do a trade. I play bridge—”
“In return for me teaching you how to speak Aims’s language?”
“Exactly.” She gave him an earnest, pleading look. “I can’t tell you how important this is to me, Connor. If I could win over Aims, it would change my career. Being able to return the favor and do something for you would make me feel so much better about asking.”
And there it was. A deal was now on the table.
He could just agree to help her without taking her offer in return. He should do that. What she wanted from him was entirely aboveboard. What he wanted from her was manipulation, and perhaps even a tiny bit of dishonesty.
He paused for only a moment, then held out his hand. It wasn’t like they were bargaining for a soul. Zoe would never do anything immoral or dishonest.
Really, if anyone could find a way to ethically spy on his mother, it would be her.
“I think we’ve got a deal.”
She looked at his hand, then at him. After a half second of hesitation, she joined their palms. But instead of the brisk shake that he’d expected, for some reason neither of them pulled away. Instead, their hands remained joined, and he found himself lost in her eyes, their crystal depths even more complex than he had realized, spiked with flecks of dark blue and gray.
“Sounds like it,” she said huskily, still not pulling away. “When do you want to start?”
“You probably need to get home to rest.” He watched in fascination as her chest rose and fell in an increasing rhythm. “Maybe next week?”
“Can’t wait that long. You have plans tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night? You’re supposed to be resting, you know. Taking it easy.”
She gave her head a firm shake. “Tomorrow night. We can start with the whiskey and work our way up to motorcycles and sports.”
Their hands grew warm where they were joined, and when she finally pulled away, he regretted the loss—and wondered what the moment might mean. Had something between them changed? And if so, did he have the strength to stop it from progressing?
“Would it be terrible of me to ask you to keep this quiet?” She glanced down at her lap. “I can’t deal with Luke on this one. He’ll give me such a hard time.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. Selfishly, he had to admit she wasn’t the only one who might want to keep their arrangement a secret. The last thing he needed was for Mason or Nate to find out about it. “They might not understand. Or might jump to the wrong conclusion.”
It was like he was outside his body, watching himself try to act like this was no big deal. Like they could go out and drink whiskey and the only thing that might go wrong would be their friends misunderstanding.
What they should really do, of course, was exactly the opposite. Tell everybody everything. Invite the group along and keep it all aboveboard. Yet he could no more do that than he could have let her go home on her own the night before.
The entire situation was ripe for disaster, and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
She rose at the same time he did, and they ended up far too close together in the small space between the sofa and the coffee table. She wobbled and reached out with her good hand to steady herself against his chest. He caught her wrist in his hand.
“Zoe…”
Tell her that this can’t happen. Tell her that your friendship is too important.
The words wouldn’t come. Instead, he found himself holding on. Her hand relaxed against his chest and she leaned just a fraction of an inch toward him.
And then something flared in her eyes. A moment of realization and recognition. A shared moment, emotions laid bare. There was something there. A spark. A feeling.
But before he could say any of the things he desperately wanted to say but knew he shouldn’t, she pulled away. In a matter of seconds, she was looping her purse around her neck and heading for the door.
“Don’t you want to hear exactly what I had in mind?” he asked. “About the bridge, I mean?”
“It involves playing cards, I assume?”
“Well, yes, but it’s more than that.”
“Tell me tomorrow,” she said. “Over a glass of whiskey.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter Eight
Zoe was only in her office for a few minutes on Monday morning before Luke peeked through her partially opened door.
“Any chance I can buy your forgiveness with a mocha?” he asked, extending a coffee cup in her direction.
“Not a chance. But you’re welcome to try.” She gestured for him to hand it over. “Whipped cream?”
“Extra.”
She took a sip of the coffee—really, the dessert item masquerading as a coffee—and sighed with pleasure. “I assume you feel horrible,” she said, realizing too late it was hard to maintain a forbidding expression while licking whipped cream off your top lip.
Luke sank down in the chair opposite her desk and shook his head in regret. “Racked with guilt.”
“And you’ll never do anything like it again?”
“You should know by now that Rafe and I can be dicks. Mostly Rafe, but a little me.”
She snorted.
“No, seriously,” he said. “I can be, too. I know it’s hard to believe.”
“This is a terrible apology.”
He gave her one of his trademark winks. “I’m just warming up. You’ll see, it gets better.”
“Is that what she said?”
“That’s why I love you,” he said fervently. “You make even worse jokes than I do.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry we moved on Hugh without talking to you about it. Honestly, I’d just met him a few times and wasn’t thinking that things had gotten to that point yet. He seems like a good guy. Having him out there with us was as much social as it was business.”
“Of course it was,” she said. “It always is. That’s exactly the problem.”
“I know, and it’s lousy, and we need to try harder to make sure you’re in the loop. But Aims? I’ve met the guy several times. You’re the best damn patent litigator in this town, Zoe, but I don’t think that’s going to make a bit of difference to him. Look at his team—look at the people he surrounds himself with.” He shook his head in disgust. “He’s not exactly equal opportunity. He’s got an idea in his mind for what he wants and, I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s you.”
“I’ll convince him otherwise.”
He sighed. “I see you doing that stubborn jaw thing, and believe me, I get that you’re frustrated and I can understand why they’d be a great client for us. The company is solid, their numbers are great, and they’ve got a huge buzz and lots of room for growth. We’re the right firm for the work, and you’d do a hell of a job. But we’re talking about a CEO who bought out Hooters for one of his early staff parties. I don’t think he even knows how to talk about anything other than motorcycles, women, and sports.”
“And whiskey,” Zoe added. “He recently bought a controlling interest in a new craft distillery outside Santa Rosa.” She pushed back her chair and walked over to the window. Their building was on Telegraph Hill, just north of the Financial District, and from their tenth-floor perch she could see a line of cars moving in every direction. Her wrist wa
s feeling a little better today, though it had taken her close to an hour to get dressed and do her makeup with one hand.
“So what’s your plan?”
She turned toward him. “What do you mean?”
“Zoe, I’ve known you for three years. You always have a plan, and I wouldn’t begin to imagine that you don’t have one now. If you’re going after Aims, you’re not going into it blindly.”
She acknowledged the truth of his statement with a slight incline to her head. “I’ve already started researching the company. I’m meeting Wednesday with one of his former engineers to talk about the technology.”
“How’d you arrange that?”
“We went to engineering school together. It was a long time ago, but we’ve kept in touch here and there.”
“And?”
She strode back to her desk, picked up a pad, and started to read off items on her list. “I’ve already got the conflict check started. Austin is pulling related patents so I can review the field. We’ll need to update everyone’s résumés with the latest hits so I can have fresh glossies of the firm ready by the end of the week. And you and Rafe and I need to sit down to figure out a pricing strategy.”
“What’s the timeline?”
“We send our materials on Friday. If he wants to meet with us, we should know within a week, maybe a little more, but I know he wants to move quickly and get this settled before Thanksgiving.”
“So you’ve got two or three weeks to prepare for a meeting, depending on scheduling.” He stroked his chin. “And you’re going to be an expert in motorcycles by then?”
“And whiskey,” she said, rubbing absently at the spot on her neck where the sling rested. “And sports.”
“How are you going to manage that?”
She hesitated. “I have a friend who can help.” She tried to keep her voice offhand as she looked down at her list. “He’s going to give me a tutorial.”
Luke cocked his head and gazed up as if trying to catalog their mutual friend list. “Really? Which friend?”
“Just a friend.”
He blinked a few times, then cleared his throat. “Here’s the weird thing. I can only think of one guy that we both know that happens to be a bit of an expert about all three of those topics.”
