Page 17 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

Unfortunately, Chris followed me into my office. He sat down on the couch across from my desk. I tried not to stare, but Chris had such a presence. He had this personal magnetism that drew every eye to him—it wasn’t even conscious. It didn’t hurt that he still had a sculpted, athletic body that showed through his fitted gray shirt and dark pants. Dear God, was that a bulge in his velvety cords? I took a deep breath and reminded myself what an a-hole he was. But the word sexist kept morphing into sexy in my traitor brain.

“This is much nicer office than mine,” he observed.

“I’m not trading, and Greg’s is even nicer. Why are you here?”

“Whoa. Someone’s door isn’t open day or night. Shouldn’t you be nicer to your staff?”

Part of me wanted to growl, but another part of me knew that he was right. “Well, I guess you’re staff, because you report to me and to Greg. But in reality, we’re equals. It’s not like I could fire you—or even get rid of you, apparently.”

“Amanda, Amanda, Amanda. You promised to give me a chance.” Oh Lucky, your deep voice and sparkling smile might work on Brenda, but it was going to take more than that to impress me.

“Well, if distracting me so that I get no work done and the team falls into bankruptcy is your mission here, then you are succeeding. Again, what do you want?”

He held up the file folder. “What exactly am I looking for in these contracts?”

Okay, that was a reasonable question. Maybe he wasn’t complete idiot and he could actually help us here. “Good question. I guess we’re looking for anomalies.”

“Anoma-whats?”

Wrong. He was still an idiot. But the teacher in me bubbled out. “You know, if anything is strange about our contracts. Are we overpaying anyone? Are we in line with other teams? I don’t even know exactly—you probably know better than me what our team roster should look like. I’ve been looking at team performance and we’re in last place now, and we have been for the past two seasons. Why is that happening?”

“Hey, I can tell you that without even going to a game.” Chris had a know-it-all smirk on his face.

“Without actually seeing anything for yourself?” I tidied the stack of papers on my desk. “Isn’t that what’s really wrong with hockey? I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve been here that everyone in hockey operations seems to value intuition and experience over actual statistics.”

“Oh, you’re one of those analytics types.”

“What are analytics?” I knew the answer, but I was wondering if Chris really did.

“Uh, stuff like Corsi and Fenwick.”

“Which stand for what?”

“You know. Analytics are formulas to analyze on-ice performance. Like statistics on players and teams.”

“Aren’t statistics facts?” I opened my eyes wide as I asked.

“I guess.”

“So, when you make decisions in hockey, you don’t need facts?”

He laughed. “You’re twisting my words around. Sure, analytics add something, but you can’t base your hockey decisions on analytics alone.”

Hmm, my opinion of him shifted again. Not a complete waste of space, even if he occupied that space so handsomely. “Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone doing analytics on the Vice.” That would be my priority once I had more money.

“I’ll ask around. Maybe someone at the Millionaires is keeping track. We have tons of staff I haven’t even met yet.”

“Wow, that would be great.”

If Chris Luczak was going to be more than decorative around here, that would be a big bonus. But he was pretty easy on the eyes. As he left, I watched his amazing ass in those touchable cords. But he turned and caught me looking.

“Busted,” Chris said with a laugh. I blushed furiously.

8

Where Is Everyone?

Amanda

---