Page 63 of Meet Your Match
I didn’t let myself overthink it before I was blowing a breath through my lips, shaking the whole thing off. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. But in a way, it was a good reminder of what I already knew to be true.”
Livia’s lips pulled to the side, but she didn’t argue.
“And I’m going to show Vince that, despite him ignoring me every time I’ve told him, this is a professional relationship.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I nodded, smiling wickedly as I sat back and sipped my martini. “I have a date. Tonight.”
“A date?” Livia almost laughed. “With who?”
I waved her off. “I don’t know. Some guy from the apps. I swiped right a few times and got a match.”
“Let me get this straight. Your plan is to go on a date with another man, presumably let him pick you up at the condo where you’re currently staying, and for that to somehow make Vince Tanev realize you’re off limits?”
“Yes.”
“You think,” she said, slower now, like I wasn’t understanding. “He’ll see you leave with this guy and take the hint, that he’ll leave you alone and think to himself, ‘Well, I guess that’s that. Maven is clearly taken and not at all interested in me?’”
“Exactly.”
This time, she did laugh, shaking her head as she plucked the olive out of her martini and popped it into her mouth. “Oh, honey,” she said. “This is going to backfire right in that pretty face of yours.”
CHAPTER 21
THIS FUCKING DRESS
Vince
“Man, I’mstarving,” Carter said, rubbing his stomach like an old man waiting for Thanksgiving dinner. “I feel like I could eat a whole cow.”
“Maybe if you did, you’d be able to hit the puck better,” Jaxson said, pinching Carter’s biceps with his fingertips. “That wimpy shot you made in our scrimmage today is going to reverberate in my nightmares.”
“Fuck off. It was bar down.”
“It would have actually had to go in the net to be bar down,” Will grumped. “Not doinked off like a missed field goal.”
“It went in and you know it, Daddy P. You just don’t want to admit this rookie scored on you.”
“That’s because you didn’t, Fabio. And you never will.”
Carter and Will were still horsing around when we pushed through the front door of the restaurant. We were immediately greeted by five employees at the hostessstand, all of them eager to welcome us and see us to our table. There were more eyes on Will than the rest of us, mostly because Daddy P didn’t make public appearances often. He was usually home with his kid, where he loved to be. I was glad we’d managed to pull him out for an evening, even if just for dinner.
But that wasn’t my sole focus of the evening.
“You good?” Jaxson asked me, pulling behind a bit to walk at my side.
“Peachy.”
“That’s convincing,” he said on a laugh, and then he narrowed his eyes when he saw me searching the place as we were walked through the restaurant to a back room. “Who are you looking for?”
I didn’t answer him, but when I spotted Maven and her date at a table by the window, I stopped dead in my tracks.
She was so gorgeous it hurt.
Her onyx hair was blown out in a soft, wavy style that reminded me of the night we spent together in Baltimore, her warm brown skin glowing in the candlelight. The gloss on her lips was almost as enticing as the heels strapped to her delicate ankles, and even from a distance, I could see the slit in her velvet blue dress, could trace the lines of her legs that it revealed beneath the table.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood and stared before Jaxson’s laugh cut through the haze.
