Match Me if You Can (8 page)

“You’ll also go further if you at least pretend to suck up to me.”

“Here’s what’s sad. I have been sucking up.”

That country boy mouth crooked at the corner. “The best you can do, huh?”

“I know. Depressing, isn’t it.”

His amusement turned to suspicion. “What did Melanie mean when she said you should give me a raise?”

“No idea.” Her stomach rumbled. “I don’t suppose you’d consider feeding me?”

“We don’t have time. The next one will be here in ten minutes. I’ll buy you another drink instead.”

“The
next
one?”

He pulled out his BlackBerry in a blatant attempt to ignore her, but she wasn’t having it. “Portia Powers can baby sit her own introductions. I’m not doing it.”

“Yet only six days ago, you were in my office on your knees telling me you’d do anything to land me as a client.”

“I was young and stupid.”

“Here’s the difference between us…The reason I’m running a multimillion-dollar business and you’re not. I give my clients what they want. You give your clients grief.”

“Not all of them. Just you. Okay, and sometimes Mr. Bronicki, but you can’t imagine what I’m up against there.”

“Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.”

“I’d settle for a breadstick.”

“Last week I was on the phone with a client who plays for the Bills. He just bought his first house, and he mentioned that he liked my taste and wished I could help him pick out some furniture. Now I’m his agent, not his interior decorator. Hell, I don’t know jack about decorating; I haven’t even furnished my own place. But the guy broke up with his girlfriend, he’s lonely, and two hours later, I was on a plane to Buffalo. I didn’t blow him off. I didn’t send a lackey. I went myself. And do you know why?”

“A newly discovered passion for country French?”

He arched an eyebrow. “No. Because I want my clients to understand I’m always there for them. When they sign a contract with me, they sign with someone who cares about every aspect of their lives. Not just when times are good, but when things get rough, too.”

“What if you don’t like them?” She’d intended the question as a small dig—implying she didn’t like him—but he took her seriously, which was just as well. This weird compulsion to put him in his place had to stop. Her future depended on making him happy, not alienating him.

“I’d never sign a client I didn’t like,” he said.

“You like them
all
? Every single one of those demanding, egotistical, overpaid, self-indulgent jocks? I don’t believe you.”

“I love them like they’re my brothers,” he replied, with un-flinching sincerity.

“You are such a bullshitter.”

“Am I?” He gave her an inscrutable smile then rose to his feet as Portia Powers’s second socialite of the evening made her appearance.

D
on’t you have it memorized yet?”

Portia jumped at the sound of a deep and very threatening male voice. She spun around from her spot on the sidewalk in front of Sienna’s window and took in the man who’d come up next to her. It was only a little after ten, and people still strolled the sidewalk, but she felt as though she’d been sucked into a dark alley at midnight. He was a goon, huge and menacing, with a shaved head and a serial killer’s translucent blue eyes. An intimidating display of tribal tattoos decorated the ropy muscles visible beneath the sleeves of his tightly fitted black T-shirt, and his thick, muscular neck belonged to a man who’d done hard time.

“Didn’t anybody tell you spying on people isn’t nice?” he said.

For the past hour, she’d been circling the block, stopping each time she passed the restaurant to pretend to study the menu. If she looked over the top, she could see the table where Heath was sitting, along with Annabelle Granger and the two women Portia had arranged for him to meet tonight. Normally Portia wouldn’t have thought of being present during an initial introduction—only a few clients had ever requested it—except she’d learned he wanted Granger there, and Portia couldn’t tolerate that.

“Who are you?” she said, pretending a bravado she didn’t feel.

“Bodie Gray, Champion’s bodyguard. And he sure will be interested to hear what you’ve been up to tonight.”

The muscles in the small of her back cramped. This was beyond humiliating. “I haven’t been up to a thing.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me.”

“But then you’re hardly an authority on matchmaking, are you?” She regarded him coldly, doing her best to stare him down. “How about minding your own business and letting me mind mine?”

Her assistants would have dived for cover, but he didn’t even blink. “Champion’s business is my business.”

“My, my…Quite the dedicated gofer.”

“Everybody should have one.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the curb.

She gave a hiss of dismay. “What are you doing?” She tried to wrench away, but he didn’t let go.

“I’m going to buy you a beer so Mr. Champion can finish his business in private.”

“It’s my business, too, and I’m not—”

“Yeah, you really are.” He steered her between two parked cars. “But if you make nice, you might be able to convince me to keep my mouth shut.”

She stopped struggling and gazed at Mr. Bodyguard through the corner of her eyes. So…he was willing to sell out his boss. Heath should have known better than to hire a thug, but since he hadn’t, she’d take advantage of his naïveté because she did not want him to find out about this. If he did, he’d see it for exactly what it was, a sign of weakness.

The bar they entered was smoky and sour, with a cracked linoleum floor and a dying philodendron sitting on a dusty shelf between a couple of fly-specked trophies and a faded photograph of Mel Torme.

“Hey, Bodie, how’s it hanging?” the bartender called out.

“No complaints.”

Bodie steered her toward a barstool. On the way, one of her shoes stuck to something on the floor. As she freed it, she wondered how such a seedy establishment could exist so close to Clark Street’s best restaurants.

“Two beers,” Mr. Bodyguard said as she perched gingerly on the stool next to him.

“Club soda,” she interjected. “With a sliver of lime.”

“No limes,” the bartender said, “but I got a can of fruit cocktail in the back room.”

Muscle Man found this hilarious, and a few moments later she was staring at the faint outline of a leftover lipstick imprint on the rim of a beer mug. She pushed it aside. “How did you know who I was?”

“You match Champion’s description.”

She didn’t ask how Heath had described her. She tried not to ask any question where she wasn’t certain of the answer, and something had gone seriously haywire in her relationship with Heath the moment Annabelle Granger had entered the picture.

“I won’t apologize for doing my job,” she said. “Heath is paying me a lot of money to help him, but I can’t do that properly if he cuts me out.”

“So it’s okay if I tell him about the spying?”

“What you call spying, I call earning my paycheck,” she said carefully.

“I doubt he’ll see it that way.”

She doubted it, too, but she wouldn’t let him intimidate her. “Tell me what you want.”

She watched as he thought it over. Reading people was an important part of her business, but her clients were wealthy and well educated, so how could she tell what was going on behind those ice pick blue eyes? She hated uncertainty. “Well?”

“I’m thinking.”

She opened her purse, extracted two fifty-dollar bills, and set them in front of him. “Maybe this will help that difficult process along.”

He looked down at the money, shrugged, and shifted his weight to stuff the bills in his pocket. His hips were much narrower than his shoulders, she noticed, his thighs long boned and solid.

“Now,” she said. “We can just forget all about tonight.”

“I don’t know. It’s a lot to forget…even for someone like me.”

She gazed at him more closely, trying to decide if he was putting her on, but she couldn’t read him.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we talk the situation over next weekend? Let’s say a week from Friday. See how things are coming along by then.”

She hadn’t expected this. “Why don’t we not.”

“I’d do it this weekend, but I gotta be out of town.”

“What do you want?”

He studied her openly. His mouth was finely chiseled, almost delicate, which made the rest of his features seem all the more sinister. “I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Forget it. I’m not going to allow you to string me along.” She tried to stare him down, but he refused to play. Instead, his mouth quirked in a gangster’s cocky grin.

“Are you sure? If you are, I can always talk to Mr. Champion tonight.”

She gritted her teeth. “Fine. Next Friday.” She slid off the stool and pulled open her purse. “Here’s my card. Don’t try to screw me, or you’ll regret it.”

“Probably.” His eyes slid over her like hot caramel on ice cream. “Still, it might be interesting.”

Something heady and unexpected shot through her. She snapped her purse shut and left the bar to the sound of a wicked chuckle.

T
he next Power Matches candidate proved to be beautiful but self-centered, and Annabelle led the conversation to showcase her flaws. She needn’t have bothered. Heath had the woman’s number from the start. At the same time, he treated her with the utmost respect, and Annabelle realized that Heath wasn’t quite the egomaniac she’d first thought. He seemed to find the human condition in all its forms interesting. Knowing that made it tough for her to hold on to her dislike. Not that she’d been holding on to it very hard.

“Entertaining,” he said after she left, “but not in a good way. This evening’s been a time sink.”

“Your next match won’t be. I’ve got someone special lined up.” Nana’s senior client base was turning out to be a rich source of referrals. Rachel Gorny, the granddaughter of one of Nana’s oldest friends, didn’t have Barrie’s extravagant beauty, but she was intelligent, accomplished, and strong-minded enough to hold her own against him. She also had the social polish Heath seemed to require. Annabelle had considered introducing them tonight, but she’d wanted to see how he’d react to Barrie first.

She toyed with her swizzle stick to keep herself from studying Heath’s profile and made a mental note to look for a sweet, hunky, not-too-bright guy who’d treat Barrie well.

“You’ll need to do a better job, Annabelle. No more dates like the first one tonight.”

“Agreed. And no more making me sit through your Power Matches introductions, either. As you so wisely pointed out, helping Portia Powers isn’t in my best interests.”

“Then why are you still trying to talk me into seeing Melanie again?”

“Hunger makes me weird.”

“You got rid of the last one in fourteen minutes. Well done. I’m rewarding you by letting you sit in on all the introductions from now on.”

She nearly choked on an ice cube. “What are you talking about?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“By
all
, you don’t mean—”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He drew out a big gold money clip stuffed with bills, tossed a few on the table, and pulled her from her chair. “Let’s get you fed.”

“But—I’m not—I won’t—” She sputtered her way across the bar, trying to tell him that she had no intention of hanging around with Powers’s candidates and that he’d obviously lost what was left of his mind, but he ignored her to greet the owner, a wiry terrier of a man. They conversed in Italian, which surprised her, although why anything about Heath should surprise her at this point, she had no idea.

They’d barely been seated in the dining room’s prime booth before the waiter took their drink orders and Mama greeted Heath with a breadbasket and antipasto platter. More Italian flew. Annabelle couldn’t resist the yeasty smell of the warm bread, so she tore off a chunk and dredged it through a rosemary-flavored puddle of olive oil.

Like the bar, the dining room had roughly plastered gold walls and heavy purple moldings, but the lighting was brighter here, showcasing the salmon tablecloths and grape-colored napkins. Small earthenware pots at each table held simple arrangements of country flowers and herbs. The restaurant had a homey, comfortable feel, yet still projected an air of elegance.

Heath knew more about wine that she did, and he ordered a cabernet for her, but he drank Sam Adams himself. The antipasto platter overflowed with meats, stuffed mushrooms, sprigs of fried sage, and matchstick skewers of pecorino cheese and plump red cherries. “Eat first,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”

She was more than happy to comply, and he didn’t bother her until the entrées appeared—pale islands of sea scallops floating in a choppy sea of porcini and cremini mushrooms for her, pasta drenched in a spicy
pomodoro
sauce chunky with sausage and goat cheese for him.

He took a few bites, sipped his beer, then turned the same razor-sharp focus on her he’d directed at his dates all evening. “I want you around for all the introductions from now on, doing exactly what you did tonight.”

“If you ruin the best meal I’ve eaten in forever, I’ll never forgive you.”

“You’re intuitive, and you kept the conversations going. Despite your opinion about Melanie, you seem to know what’s working for me and what’s not. I’d be stupid not to make use of that, and I’m definitely not stupid.”

She loaded up her fork with a scoop of golden, garlicky polenta. “Remind me how it’s to my advantage to help Portia Powers make this match because I’ve forgotten that part.”

He picked up his knife. “We’re cutting a new deal.” With one efficient motion, he split a chunk of sausage in half. “That ten thousand dollars you wanted to charge me was nothing more than a fishing expedition, and we both know it.”

“It wasn’t a—”

“I paid you five thousand instead and promised the balance only if you made the match. As it turns out, this is your lucky day because I’ve decided to write you the full check, whether the match comes from you or from Portia. As long as I have a wife and you’ve been part of the process, you’ll get your money.” He toasted her with his beer mug. “Congratulations.”