Page 26 of Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars 6)

She smiled and propped an elbow on the table. “Yes. And she’s special. Sharp, attractive, fun to be with.”

“At the risk of incurring your wrath, there are thousands of women who meet that description. I’m looking for someone extraordinary.”

Her honey-colored eyes announced an amber alert. “Extraordinary women tend to fall in love with men who put them first. Which pretty much rules out a guy who excuses himself in the middle of a conversation to take a phone call like you did tonight.”

“It was an emergency.”

“With you, I suspect they all are. No offense.”

He ran his thumb around the rim of his mug. “I don’t usually feel the need to defend myself, but I’m going to make an exception now, and you can apologize when I’m done.”

“We’ll see.”

“A player I recruited a couple of years ago wrapped his Maserati around a telephone pole tonight. That was his mother on the phone. He’s not even my client—he signed with another agent—but I got to know his folks a little. Nice people. He’s in intensive care…” He nudged his plate back from the edge of the table with his thumb. “She called to let me know they don’t expect him to last until morning.” He gazed at her. “You tell me which was most important. Making small talk or comforting that mother?”

She stared at him. Then she laughed. “You just made that up.”

He was seldom taken by surprise, but Annabelle Granger had done it. He gave her his iciest glare. “Interesting that you find someone’s tragedy so amusing.”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners, golden flecks dancing in the irises. “You totally made it up.”

He tried to stare her down—he was superb at stare-downs—but she looked so pleased with herself that he lost it and laughed.

She regarded him smugly. “I have two brothers who are also overachieving workaholics, so I’m intimately acquainted with the tricks performed by men of your ilk.”

“I have an ilk?”

“A definite ilk.”

“It finally becomes clear…” He propped his elbow on the table, rubbed the corner of his mouth, and studied her over the back of his hand. “Poor, pathetic Annabelle. All the inappropriate put-downs you’ve subjected me to, the snide comments …A simple case of transfer. The result of growing up overshadowed by those magnificent brothers. Was it very painful to feel so neglected? Do the scars still ache when it rains?”

She snorted, a surprisingly loud sound coming from such a small woman. “I prayed to be neglected. Ballet, piano, horseback riding. Fencing, for Pete’s sake. Who makes their kid take fencing lessons? Girl Scouts, orchestra, tutors if I slipped below a B, monetary incentives to join every club with a special bonus if I ran for office. And yet somehow I survived, although the torture continues.”

She’d just described his dream childhood. Fragments of memory swept over him. His father’s drunken voice…Pull your head out of that goddamned book and go buy me some cigarettes. Cockroaches scrambling under the refrigerator, leaky pipes dripping rusty water on the linoleum. The scent of Lysol—a good memory—when one of the old man’s girlfriends tried to clean up the place, and then the inevitable bang of that warped metal door when she’d storm out.

Annabelle chased her remaining scallop to the edge of the plate and looked up at him. “I really think you’ll like Rachel.”

“I like Gwen.”

“That’s because she refused you. The two of you had no chemistry.”

“You’re so wrong. There was definite chemistry.”

“I don’t get why you need a wife right now. You have Bodie, you have assistants, and you can hire a housekeeper to handle all those impromptu dinner parties. As for having kids…It’s hard to raise them with a cell phone super glued to your ear.”

It was long past time to put Tinker Bell in her place. He settled back in his chair and let his eyes drift to her breasts. “You left out sex.”

She took a few seconds too long to respond. “You can hire that, too.”

“Honey,” he drawled, “I’ve never had to pay for sex in my life.”

She flushed, and he thought he finally had her where he wanted her, only to watch that small nose shoot into the air. “Which merely points out how desperate some women can be.”

“Speaking personally?”

“Raoul’s opinion. My lover. He’s very insightful.”

He grinned, and right then it occurred to him that he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much with a woman in a very long time. If Annabelle Granger were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organized, less bossy, and more inclined to worship at his feet, she’d have made a perfect wife.

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