Page 4 of Angel In Armani

“Red?” Lucas queried.

“Dean said to say he was sorry but there was an issue with the car you requested. So he gave you this one instead.” Ellen grinned at Lucas. “If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to borrow my truck and I’ll take the Mercedes for a spin.”

Lucas tilted his head at her. Sara couldn’t quite see his expression from where she was standing but Ellen’s cheeks flushed slightly and she smiled, so presumably it was amused not angry.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he said, dropping the keys into his jacket pocket. He turned back to Sara.

“I’ll call you when I’m leaving the party. It should be around ten.”

“That’s fine, I’ll be here.”

He nodded just as his phone started to ring. He fished it out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen before taking the call. While he spoke, Sara watched him, getting in a few more seconds of tuxedoed-glory-appreciation time. There was much to appreciate. But sadly appreciation was all there was going to be, so she forced at least part of her attention onto making a plan for the hours ahead. Hopefully Ellen would lend her the truck so she could at least drive to the beach and get in a walk on the sand and pretend she was wealthy enough to own one of the gorgeous houses lining the shore.

After that there was paperwork stuffed in her flight bag that needed her attention. More correspondence with her dad’s insurance company in dense legalese that she had to interpret and decide how to respond to. That painful task would earn her a few hours vegging out with her eReader and takeout in the tiny upstairs pilots’ lounge while she waited for the good doctor to be done with whatever beautiful-people gathering it was that he was attending.

Not actually that much different from what she’d have been doing on a Friday night after a long week anyway, when she thought about it. Which was just sad. She couldn’t, off the top of her head, think of the last time she’d been out. With her dad out of action, there’d just been too much work picking up the slack to want to do more than stay in and catch up on sleep when she got some downtime. Do the good and sensible thing.

Tired pilots made mistakes. And Charles Air really couldn’t afford another mistake. She’d flown exhausted and riding on adrenaline in the service but she didn’t have to now. She wouldn’t. Even when there were a thousand and one things calling for her attention, she tried to make sure she didn’t wear herself out. Sleep and rest were more important than bars and restaurants and the dating merry-go-round right now. Even if her therapist had made a few pointed comments about rebuilding her social life in their last session. Her best friend, Viv, had started to nag, too.

Lucas hung up his phone at last and Sara dragged her thoughts back to the present and him. Her client.

Her paying client. She was here to make his life easier, not obsess about her own. Was there anything she’d forgotten to tell him about the arrangements for the flight back? Nothing sprang to mind. Which meant it was time to stop admiring him in his tuxedo and let him disappear. But she allowed herself one last quick once-over and her eyes snagged on the laptop bag ruining the line of his jacket as it hung from his very broad shoulder. “You’re welcome to leave your laptop bag here with me,” she said. “Save you dragging it around.”

“We have some secure lockboxes,” Ellen added. “It’ll be safe.”

He nodded. “That would be helpful, thank you.” He held out the bag and Sara took it, ignoring the tiny flare of heat that rippled through her when her fingers brushed his. Holding his laptop was as close as she was ever going to get to Lucas Angelo. And as she watched through the glass terminal doors while he climbed into a red convertible and then sped off into the distance, she tried very hard to ignore the part of her that really, really wished she was speeding off with him.

Chapter Two

Intent on working the party, Lucas didn’t notice the rain at first.

The hum of conversation and the music playing through the sound system was loud enough to drown the world outside. Besides, he was focused on doing what he had come to do. Hunting for potential season ticket holders and corporate sponsors. Winning people over. Making them want to throw cash at the Saints.

Cash they needed. He and Alex and Mal had all put their share in, but they couldn’t keep throwing their personal funds into the team. Well, Alex probably could, given he was richer than God, and Lucas was not without his own resources. But that didn’t matter. The team needed to become self-sustaining. Had to function as a Major League Baseball team. Otherwise they, too, would eventually have to cut their losses. And at that point the chances of the Saints surviving without leaving New York were about a million to one.

Baseball teams were expensive to run. They were even more expensive when you were trying to recruit new talent and replace some of the existing team who’d decided to ply their trade elsewhere after the change in owners. They’d lost their second and third best pitchers and several other players. Pitchers were expensive. All players were expensive.

So they needed supporters. The Saints couldn’t compete against the deep, deep pockets of the top teams, but every little bit helped and Lucas would do his best to add to the coffers tonight. So he shook hands and made small talk and smiled at women in expensive dresses and even more expensive jewelry and shut everything else out of his mind for the time he had allocated to this task.

He did, however, notice when the lights flickered and the room went still for a moment. Then laughter broke out as the bulbs steadied and everyone clinked glasses, shrugged, and moved on. Which was the sensible reaction when you were down for the weekend and had no pressing need to be back in the city first thing in the morning.

A storm didn’t matter in those circumstances.

It did matter if you were planning to fly back to the city in a helicopter.

He excused himself from the conversation he’d been having with a couple who knew his mother and had spent the last ten minutes grilling him about her various charities. Stepping out of the main room, he pulled out his phone.

The signal was low—another casualty of the weather perhaps—but he had enough to open the weather app and find out what exactly the weather was doing. As he viewed the less-than-good figures on current rainfall and wind speed, the lights flickered again.

He didn’t need to read the warnings on the app to know that wasn’t good.

Just his freaking luck.

It was only nine o’clock, earlier than he’d planned on leaving, but making it back to Manhattan and his morning surgeries was more important than another half an hour of schmoozing. He just didn’t have any room in his schedule right now. If he didn’t make it back to the city, then some of his surgeries would be bumped. And for what he did, time was of the essence, particularly when it came to athletes. A delay in surgery could mean the difference between merely a good recovery and being able to compete again.

Delays meant him failing.

He didn’t fail.

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