In all the mental prep work I’d done leading up to this meeting, I hadn’t planned for this contingency. When I’d decided on my dress, heels, and hairstyle—not to look pretty, but to look kickass and mildly threatening—I didn’t question whether I was ready to meet the men who led the team.
But the man in front of me, who’d lost all the color in his handsome face at my appearance, was something I could not have planned for.
And God bless my long buried acting skills and the little angels hovering around me at that moment because my voice was even and smooth when I spoke. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
Okay, maybe my acting skills were a touch rusty because the words sounded like ice picks coming out of my mouth all aimed in his direction.
His thick throat worked on a heavy swallow as he watched me extend my hand, nails tipped with my favorite OPI red, Vodka and Caviar, and my wrist tinkling with the slender gold chains I’d worn as my only accessory. There wasn’t a single noise in the room as everyone watched us. The attention was heavy enough that I felt it raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
Like someone was trying to push his arm back down, he lifted it slowly, enveloping my hand in his own. His large fingers positively dwarfed mine, and the callouses on his skin were warm and dry, rough in a way that I was not accustomed to.
As the feeling of his hand on mine rippled down my arm, all the hairs there lifted, too, in a slow, rolling wave until they stopped at my shoulder. I wanted to rip my hand out of his, that wave was so strong. But there was no way in hell I would blink first.
“Luke,” was all he said. There was a tightness in his voice that made my lips curl up deliciously.
William adopted a smile so fake it almost made me laugh as he stepped up next to Luke. No one was dumb in this room. It was clear we’d met before, and I could almost hear their questions as if they were shouting them.
How did you know each other?
What the hell did he do to her?
Did they sleep together?
“Miss Sutton, this is Luke Pierson, our quarterback. He’s been with the Wolves for twelve years, so if there’s anyone out on that field you can trust, it’s him.” William clapped Luke on the back, and he jumped, blinking away as his hand slid out of mine. My fingers curled into my palm as if they’d been zapped. “Luke, this is—”
“Alexandra Sutton,” I interrupted, pinning Luke with as cool and even of a stare as I could manage even though my stomach was a tight, vibrating ball of unexpected nerves. “I guess I’m your new boss.”
His jaw clenched, and his dark, dark eyes narrowed slightly on my face. There was a gleeful streak of energy that punched through my body when I smiled at him. Petty to the hundredth power, I could admit it. But as we stared at each other, I knew he was thinking about how he’d spoken to me when I showed up at his door and our exchange just the night before in my backyard.
Unlike the other times I’d seen him, he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Today, his inked, muscled arms were covered in a simple blue dress shirt that fit him like it was custom made, which it probably was. It was a good look on him, intimidating just because of his sheer size but a good look nonetheless.
The coach cleared his throat, and I turned slightly to take his hand. He was a stern looking man in his fifties if I had to wager a guess. But his eyes were warm as he welcomed me to the Wolves, so I let out a quick breath.
The last person at the table that I hadn’t met was a tall, lean man with a sternly handsome face and serious eyes.
“Logan Ward,” he said with a firm handshake. He didn’t smile, but there was still something about him that didn’t come off as rude. Not exactly.
As we all took our seats, they waited until I’d taken mine first, and then all eyes were on me. Even Cameron—the polite, if a bit icy—CEO, was taking his cue from me for this small gathering, which had been called at his request.
The first man I’d met, Dayvon, gave Luke a quick, confused look, but he shook his head in a tiny, almost undetectable motion. His color was starting to return to his skin, but every inch of him looked tense and tightly leashed.
“Gentlemen, thank you for coming in,” I started, making sure my fingers were knit together firmly before I set them in front of me on the table. When I’d walked into the building, an intimidating glass and steel thing trimmed in glossy black and red, I’d made a promise to myself that I would not show them an ounce of nerves. I promised myself that they would be able to find no fault in how I’d present myself as their team owner. The night before, as I got ready for bed, I knew what I wanted to do.
After washing my face, I dropped the towel on the counter and saw both of my parents staring back at me. In my nose and mouth, the color of my hair, and the heart shape of my face, I saw my mother. And in the set of my jaw and the aqua green of my eyes, I saw my father. Eyes that changed color depending on what I wore were one visible thing I’d gotten from him. Growing up, it had felt like his DNA was only a small shred of who I was as I couldn’t identify anything innate as being Robert Sutton’s daughter.
But looking into my eyes, I had to convince myself that he would not have given me this massive thing if he didn’t believe I was capable of handling it. Forcing myself to believe that was the only way I was managing to stand, metaphorically, where I was standing.
The six men around the table watched me with a curious mix of wariness, curiosity, and anticipation, but they stayed silent until I spoke again.
“My father loved this team, and while it may have taken me by surprise to learn he was leaving it to me, I promise you that I will do everything in my power to continue the legacy of success he’s built over the past twenty years.” I smiled at each of them, my mouth only wavering in the slightest when I stopped at Luke.
He’d hunched over, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was in pain. Coach Klein elbowed him, and he sat up straight, looking anywhere but at me.
Cameron gave Luke a quick dirty look that surprised me, and William continued smiling like that alone would snap the tense cord between Luke and me.
Clearing his throat, Cameron gave me a tight smile. “Of course, everyone in this room is committed to that same legacy, and we’ll do whatever we can to make this transition as easy as possible. Obviously, there are only a couple of weeks before the season starts, but if you’re up for a crash course in football ownership, then we’ll give you the best one possible based on what we’ve all learned from your father.”
I was about to thank him when Luke’s chair squeaked obnoxiously from the motion of him leaning backward. He froze when everyone looked in his direction. Coach Klein closed his eyes briefly, looking very much like someone was digging a knife into his ribs.
William just kept smiling.
“Thank you,” I told Cameron. “Joy was kind enough to pass along the contact information for two other owners who she thought would be willing to speak to me. She thought that might be helpful as well.”
William’s smile broadened as he listened. “Yes, Joy is a remarkable asset for you. She worked with your father longer than anyone in this room did. Great idea. Good.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Excellent.”
Luke scrubbed a hand over his face and made a sound deep in his chest that sounded like he was in pain. The reactions to that were varied. Cameron looked like he would strangle Luke with his bare hands. Coach was rubbing the back of his neck and staring at a fixed point on the wall. Dayvon was giving Luke an incredulous stare as if he’d sprouted a second head.
Me? I smiled. I thought about dragging this out just a bit longer when he was so clearly miserable. But it wouldn’t help our current predicament to leave the rest of the room in the dark.
I cleared my throat in as ladylike a way as I could.
“Luke is my neighbor,” I said. “In case you’re wondering why he’s acting like an insane person right now.”
Cameron’s mouth dropped open. William’s smile fell, and Coach buried his head in his hands.
For the first time since we sat, Luke’s eyes were directly on me, and I could clearly see the warm flecks of gold in the brown. He was just as confused as the rest of them, but still, he said nothing.
“As much as it pains me to say this—because my first impression of him was hardly a good one—don’t be too hard on him right now. He had no clue who I was and vice versa.” Casually, I rested my folded hands on my lap and held his stare.
He let out a slow breath and glanced over at Coach Klein. That told me everything I needed to know about Luke Pierson at that moment. He was a player, and the person he would defer to would be the man leading the team on the field, not from a luxury box or a corner office overlooking the Seattle skyline.
Finally, he spoke. “If you guys wouldn’t mind, I’d like a few minutes alone with Miss Sutton.” His eyes found me again. “To apologize for my previous … behavior.”
What I hated most was that I hadn’t asked for privacy first. But second, I hated that his voice was low and commanding, without being overbearing. He carried his leadership as effortlessly as he wore that blue shirt. Like, I almost found myself getting up out of my seat and leaving the room, simply because he’d asked it.
Cameron gave me a look to question whether it was fine, and I nodded. After they’d filed out, William shut the door behind him with a quiet click.
And then we were alone. Faced off across a sterile conference table with the logo of a howling black and red wolf staring down at us from behind Luke’s big, dumb, judgmental head.
He watched me. I watched him. And neither one of us spoke.
Finally, I gave a pointed look at the clock on the wall. “You’re wasting prime apology time.”
Oh look, the humorless man was not amused. He folded his hands on the table in front of him, taking up far more space in the chair than I did, his biceps looking very much like boulders straining under the fabric of the shirt. “Why not sell? You can’t possibly want this team.”
Oh, that observation rankled, but I refused to let him see it.
I tapped my chin. “Strange version of ‘I’m sorry,’ but I can work with it.” One of my eyebrows lifted slowly. “If I thought for a second you were actually sorry for being a complete prick to me.”
Luke slicked his tongue over his teeth and regarded me steadily. Other than those first few minutes when I’d taken him by surprise, I could now see the unflappable side of him emerging. The side of him that would manage a game with a steady, calm hand.
“I’m sorry that it was impossible for me to have any clue who you were when you showed up at my front door.” He lifted a hand and gestured in my direction. “Similar to how you could have had no idea who I was when you shoved a plate of cupcakes at me.”
My cheeks burned hot, and his lips finally bent in a satisfied smile.
“Still,” I said with a sniff, “you weren’t exactly giving me the benefit of the doubt, were you?”
“No,” he conceded. “I’ve had years of experience behind me to back up the fact that when a woman who looks like you shows up at my house in a bathing suit, flaunting her … baked goods, it usually only means one thing.”
A woman who looks like you.
I nodded slowly, letting the slow burn of anger sweep through me.
He kept going, oblivious to what he’d just stoked inside my body and how high those flames could shoot. “So I apologize for being rude that day. And I apologize for turning off your terrible music in a way that might have been a bit heavy-handed.”
“Your sincerity is blowing me away,” I said dryly.
“You may not believe this, but this is incredibly sincere for me,” he answered between gritted teeth. “I am sincere when I say that if I’d known who you were, I would have been polite. I would have taken the damn cupcakes from you and gone about my day. I would have ignored you last night. I would have shaken your hand without wanting to drop multiple curse words about twenty minutes ago.” He leaned forward, and I found it hard to breathe evenly at the full force of his eyes, his personality, his everything at that moment. “And I am sincere when I say I hope that Robert knew what the hell he was doing because we don’t need anything getting in the way of us winning another Super Bowl, which is the only thing I care about right now besides my daughter.”
I knew his words weren’t meant to make me feel small or cause me to fight the urge to curve my shoulders in protectively, but it’s what I felt all the same. It took every ounce of moxie, every ounce of Sutton audacity to face him without flinching. When he finished his speech, I stood from my chair and looked down my nose at him. He leaned back, clearly surprised.
“I won’t mess this up for you, Pierson. You don’t need to worry your big, meaty head over that.”
His eyes darkened ominously, but I held up my hand.
“You know nothing about me. You know nothing about the type of person I am. I’ll treat you with the respect you deserve as the team quarterback, but you sure as hell better do me the same courtesy as the team owner. I may still be getting my footing, but I bet I could make all sorts of trouble for you if you ever felt the need to remind me what women who look like me usually do or say in your obnoxious, golden boy presence.”
Luke’s jaw was granite, his shoulders rippling with tension, but his mouth was shut, and that was all I cared about. More than likely, I’d want to pass out from sheer adrenaline once I wasn’t in the same room as him, but I’d be damned if he saw that.
“After we leave this room,” I warned him, “we start over. I won’t hold what you said to me against you, the way you treated a perfect stranger who was trying to be kind, and you won’t hold against me that I called you an arrogant, pretentious, narcissistic prick.” I pulled in a deep breath and folded my arms around my waist. “Deal?”
From the chair, he unfolded his body to his full height, and the way he towered over me made me lift my chin stubbornly. I couldn’t read a single thing in his eyes or in the set of his muscular body.
“Pretty sure you didn’t call me all those things earlier,” he said casually.
“No?” I shrugged. “Must have just been in my head. I think all sorts of interesting things when I’m not worried about when I’ll get my next manicure.”
Luke’s nostrils flared, but he was smart enough to know he had zero grounds to keep pushing me.
My entire life, I’d used charm and a sweet smile to smooth over situations like the one I currently found myself in. This was the first time I tried on my badass bitch suit, and even if it didn’t fit perfectly yet, at least I knew it was passable.
“Do we have a deal, Mr. Pierson?” I held out my hand again.
For one eternal second, he stared at it like it was made from poison, but then he took it. My arm zapped with energy, something quick and hot and annoying. The moment our hands separated, it stopped, and I felt the aftereffects strongly enough that I wanted to rub the skin of my palm.
“We have a deal, Miss Sutton,” he said quietly and walked out of the room.
As soon as the door shut behind him, my knees gave out, and I sank into the chair.
“Awesome,” I said into an empty room. “An excellent first day at work, I think.”
