Page 26 of The Law of Attraction

I drag my mind from the gutter, again. ‘You mean when Goose says, “It’s bottom of the ninth; the score is tied, it’s time for the big one”?’

I spend the next twenty minutes explaining the quote. How the scoring works. The positions of the team. By the end of the game, she’s hurling insults and screaming when the bases are loaded. Not that I’d ever admit it to Sarah or Marty, but she’s the most fun guest I’ve ever had at a game.

‘Enjoy that?’ I ask when we’re squashed like canned sardines into the subway again.

The smile she gives me is worth every second of the torture I’m enduring on this ride. ‘Thanks, Drew. I know you’re busy and everything. Watching a game was way better than taking a tour.’

‘It’s really no trouble.’ And I mean it. Oddly.

With two stops to go, more bodies file into the already-packed car, and I feel her move against me. Her slender frame rubs against my waist. I jerk my attention to her, our eyes locking. I swear if the heat between us keeps ramping up with every look and touch, me and my big-city attitude are going to go down in flames.

The chug of the train breaks the tension but rocks her unsteadily into me. Instinctively, I wrap an arm around her waist to support her.

She looks at me, apologetically, but it’s me who should be sorry. Sorry that I can’t bring myself to move my arm from her waist, sorry that I must be giving off every signal on the planet that I want this woman, because I do. Badly. So damn sorry that I’m not the kind of man who does long term, and I can’t risk hurting her by doing what I really want to do and waving her out of my apartment hours later.

Not to mention, Edmond would kill me. Maybe he’d even bend the ear of the other partners who love a good steak in the exact opposite direction of supporting me getting my name on the door. The reward just doesn’t balance the risk either way.

When she drops her gaze to the floor, her head comes under my chin. She’s so close, I’m breathing her in. Defenseless. When we chug out of the next stop, whether she does it reflexively or not, her hand moves around my waist, and we’re locked together, forced together, in an unintentional embrace. Yet, neither one of us shifts as the train moves toward our stop.

Exiting the station doesn’t just mean I get fresh air; it means breathing space from my own irrational thoughts and from being pinned up against a woman who is quickly starting to drive me crazy.

We stop walking outside Lexington Tower. The orange glow from inside the building casts a light across Becky’s cheeks. Her lips look so kissable, it’s madness. That’s what I’m thinking when she cuts into my thoughts. ‘Do you want to grab a beer? Maybe a late burger? There’s an Irish bar just around the—’

‘Sorry, Becky, I can’t.’

I can’t be near you for a second longer without taking you to my bed and screwing you until you’re screaming my name.

‘I need to check on things in the office. Wait here and I’ll go grab my wallet to pay you back for—’

She presses a finger to my lips. ‘Stop. It’s fine, Drew. We’re two friends who caught a baseball game together. You don’t need to do the excuse thing, and you don’t need to pay me back. You can pay next time.’ She pats a hand against my chest and says, ‘I’ll see you when I see you, then. Have a good rest of your night.’ Then she heads toward Paddy’s Irish bar, her tight ass in those tiny shorts teasing me as she goes.

I ride the elevator to my office, staring out at Manhattan’s lights as the car climbs. I’m wondering whether I should have gone to Paddy’s because I can’t remember the last time I didn’t want a night to end as much as this. She’s beautiful, no doubt about it. But she’s also smart and wickedly funny. That’s a combination not often found in women I know.

My thoughts immediately change when I notice Sarah sitting behind her desk, then I hear my phone ringing in my pocket. She looks up as I retrieve the phone and cancel her call.

‘What are you still doing here?’

‘We have a problem.’

‘What kind of—’

‘Drew, what the hell kind of advice did you give me?’ Malcolm Eddy cuts me off, storming like a double-chinned bull out of my office.

My body instantly reacts, my shoulders drawing back and my chest rising. ‘You need to lower your tone and get the hell out of my space.’

Wisely, he takes a step back. I move past him into my office. He follows, closing the door behind him.

‘Talk,’ I tell him, in no mood to be ‘human’. We stand feet apart, facing each other.

‘Your advice was a load of shit.’

‘Hold up! You came in here asking about patents, trademarks and copyright. I told you how the protections work. There was no shit in there.’

‘You told me copyright attaches to an author without registration.’

‘It does. I also said registration gives you greater protection because it creates a presumption in favor of the author.’

‘A presumption! You didn’t tell me to register.’

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