Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
“What, like I’m so awful?” He lowers his brows, offended.
Yes. Yes, he is. But I’m saved from answering that impossible question when someone comes up from behind Dane and puts an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey, now we can start the party!” he says, grinning widely.
Dane’s friend sees me and offers a hand.
“Hi, I’m Aaron Parker.”
“Parker, this is Nosy,” Dane says. “Arnold hired her to babysit me for the rest of the season.”
I shoot Dane a glare and then shake Aaron’s hand. “I’m Josie, nice to meet you.”
Aaron shakes my hand, still smiling. He has warm eyes and seems friendly.
“Likewise, Josie. And good luck keeping this one in line. Once he gets a few drinks in him, he turns into a werewolf.” He claps Dane on the back. “Should we go join the party?”
My heart races nervously as I follow the men to a back room of the steak house. I’ve never felt so out of place. When I work for top-tier clients, I’m part of a team and we’re talking public relations.
Here, I don’t know anyone except Dane who would rather hang out with anyone but me. I fight my urge to slip off to the bar and read my book because I can’t keep an eye on him from there.
There are around twenty-five people in the room, some standing and talking with drinks in hand and others seated at the long table set for around forty people.
I make eye contact with a woman talking to two other women, and she smiles, so I walk over.
“Hi, I’m Josie Garver.”
“Hey Josie, I’m Jenn Rogers, Aiden’s wife. This is my sister Carrie and this is Elena Parker, Aaron Parker’s wife.”
“Nice to meet you guys.”
They’re all beautiful. Jenn and Carrie both have long blond hair, blue eyes and are tall and lean. Elena is biracial, her eyes a beautiful coffee brown and her hair a mass of thick, tightly coiled black curls that look like they belong in a hair product commercial.
“Did you come with Dane?” Jenn asks.
I have to be quick on my feet to answer the question diplomatically.
“I did, but in a strictly professional capacity. I just started working for the team.”
Jenn’s expression brightens. “Oh! Welcome to the family. Are you a trainer?”
“No, I work in public relations. I’m more of an assistant to Dane.”
Elena bursts out laughing. “Say no more, sis. That one needs all the help he can get.”
I scoff softly and smile, grateful to have met women who know Dane. “Is he always so...abrasive?”
“Dane?” Jenn furrows her brow, confused. “He’s a total sweetheart.”
“He can be very charming,” Elena says. “But only on his terms. He never takes women to his home. My friend Tara went out with him a couple of times. It was dinner followed by sex at her place both times. When she asked if he’d go out with some of her friends or if they could make dinner at his place, he ghosted her.”
“Sounds like an asshole,” Carrie said.
I want to vent to these women like friends, but I can’t. This is a situation where I can gather information from them, but professionally, I can’t share anything with them they don’t already know.
Elena grabs a drink from the tray of a passing server and passes it to me. “Girl, you probably need this.”
I take a sip of what I think is peach champagne, though I’ll only be able to drink a little bit of it. When I sneak a glance at Dane, he’s got a bottled beer in hand and is having an animated conversation with Aaron and another man.
Already breaking his coach’s no-alcohol rule. Awesome. I don’t want to be forced to drive us home in his hundred-thousand-dollar car because he gets wasted.
Within a few minutes, a lovely woman in a well-cut black dress stands at the head of the table and asks everyone to sit down. A man in a gray suit with a blue dress shirt and no tie walks over to her, slides his arm around her waist and kisses her.
I look around, thinking this would be a good time for me to slip off to the bar. They surely didn’t plan on having a seat for me, and I don’t want to blow a big chunk of the money Jane gave me on dinner here.
Dane approaches me and my heart skips a beat as I get my first look at him not scowling or sneering. He’s half smiling and I realize he’s very good-looking.
I lean closer to him, getting a nice smell of his cologne. “I’ll be at the bar.”
“Just sit down,” he says, pulling out a chair for me.
Not wanting to make a scene, I sit, and he sits in the seat next to mine. Servers fill water glasses as the woman at the head of the table smiles at the group gathered.