Page 167 of On Merit Alone
“She’s not sad anymore,” I declared, just in case he was wondering. Worrying.
“And you expect me to believe that’s because of you?”
“No. It’s because of her,” I said, eyes sliding over to him. “I mean, yeah, she’ll always be vulnerable about her family. But she was never weak because of them. Not since I’ve known her. And she maybe needed protecting when she was younger and being approached by all these new scary things. She may have needed you, Ry, but I can assure you I am not something she needs to be protected from. And I am more than capable of taking over the protecting from here on out. You can stand down.”
He looked at me, quietly surveying while I stood strong and determined in my statement. I didn’t know as much as I wanted to, but if he really was a pseudo-brother to her, then I would give him confidence that she was okay with me while also standing my ground and making my intentions clear.
As clear as I could right now anyway.
But Ryan being Ryan, I saw as the puzzle pieces snapped one, two, three into place. His eyes narrowed at me the more he made his realizations. Taking a step back, he huffed out a long sigh of frustration. And then he spat under his breath, “You know what you want now?”
“Yup.”
“But you’re not going to tell me?”
“Nope.”
“I cannot do my job effectively if you don’t tell me everything, King.” I gave him nothing. “What are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Nothing crazy.”
I honestly think hegroaned,a very not Ryan-like noise, as he tipped his head back. I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face, and that just pissed him off more. “A girl is all it took, huh?”
“Not just any girl,” I said.
Done with this conversation, he pivoted hard, murmuring as he stormed toward the door. “You two had better marry each other.”
I couldn’t agree more.
“Shit! Does my straw look shorter?” Stephens asked, holding the small black chute up to the dim blue light of the ballroom to examine it.
Kivvey yanked his arm back down. “No dummy, it’s the same size as the rest of them.”
“Oh,” Stephens said in a voice that indicated he was actually disappointed at not drawing the short straw. Looking around, he said, “Who has the short one, then?”
“Probably the only one too busy making eyes across the room to bother paying attention,” Kivvey murmured, directing his chin in the direction of Merit who had her back turned to everyone and was waving and making goo-goo faces at my nephew as they sat at a table behind us.
We were drawing straws to see who went up on the podium with me after dinner. We’d been here for more than an hour. The first hour was eaten up quickly by talking and mingling and schmoozing all the bigger donation givers present. The next half was occupied by introductions and formal announcements of the team rosters. And finally, a dinner in which we finally got a break and got time to hang out with our charity team. We spent the majority of it goofing around and cracking quiet jokes about our opponents and Rogers, who were sitting across the room.
Now that the night was winding down, I would normally love nothing more than to have Merit attached to me for the rest of it, especially since she seemed to have bloomed into a social butterfly in the confines of these doors without the cameras and questions. But the two captains of the charity team and another player would be going up in front of the whole room to do just that, and I didn’t want to ruin her big day with something that would unnecessarily stress her out.
Laying a hand over Mer’s thigh, I squeezed gently to grab herattention. When she looked back at me, her eyes lighter than any chandelier in this room, I felt a shot to the heart.
“What is it?” she whispered over her shoulder.
“You pulled the short straw,” I informed. “Are you sure you can handle being in front of a crowd like this?”
To my surprise she just shrugged as she lifted her eyes to scan the room. “Yeah, I can do it.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “They’ll be asking questions.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“They might ask you something personal. Especially since it's you and me up there,” I pressed.
She shrugged again. “Let them.”
“Okay, who are you and what did you do with the woman who literally tried to run away from me on the carpet tonight?” Looking around dramatically, I raised my voice slightly, joking, “Did somebody get my girl drunk?”
