Only with You (14 page)

Dark hair fell in thick waves around Jenna’s shoulders, and one perfectly groomed brow arched above a gray eye not unlike his own.

“Hello, brother dearest. It was so thoughtful of you to send your assistant since you couldn’t make it in person. I’d have thought you’d have just sent a town car, but this was a nice personal touch.”

Gray smiled thinly.

“You’re quite the assistant, Ms. Dalton,” Peter was saying to Sophie as Gray awkwardly hugged his sister. “You fetch lunch, answer phones, and pick up your boss’s sister from the airport…”

“What other services do you offer, Soph?” Alistair said with a grin, his eyes fixated on Sophie’s breasts.

And that was quite enough of that. Gray stepped forward between Sophie and the Blackwells.

“Jenna, it’s great to see you, but as you can see, we’re just wrapping up a business meeting here. Let’s meet up for dinner later?”

“By all means,” his sister purred, her expression betraying nothing.

Alistair finally managed to tear his eyes away from Sophie’s chest and did a double take as he took in the full impact that was Jenna. His sister was stunning, which had been hell on an older brother while she was in her teens. Now that she’d blossomed into a confident and edgy woman, she’d become downright dangerous. Her eyes were the trademark Wyatt gray, except hers tilted upward slightly, giving her the look of a predatory cat. A slim body and long silky chestnut hair had attracted the attention of many a modeling scout. Which Jenna had, of course, pursued, if only to irk both of her brothers.

The combination of Sophie’s sunny glow and Jenna’s sultry smirk was too much for the Blackwell men to handle, and Gray sensed their already-iffy focus starting to wane.

“We’ll get out of your way,” Sophie said smoothly, apparently sensing the tension in the room. “I’m sure both Mr. Blackwells here are eager to get back to work.”

“I was just about to suggest we men get back down to business. You took the words right out of my mouth,” Alistair said, puffing up slightly. “Ladies, I’d love to entertain you, but I’ve always been a man of focus, I’m afraid. Occupational hazard.”

“I completely understand,” Sophie replied with a straight face. “I couldn’t bear it if little women like me and Jenna here distracted you.”

Jenna snickered, and Gray sent Sophie a warning glance. Now was not the time for her to show the Blackwells her sugar-coated fangs.

“Perhaps we could all grab dinner after,” Alistair suggested with a lingering glance at Sophie’s shapely calves.

“Son, I’m sure they have a nice family dinner planned,” Peter said chidingly. “We don’t want to intrude.”

Jenna laughed softly. “You don’t know the Wyatts that well, then,” she said. “For us, family and business go hand in hand. Dinner just wouldn’t be the same unless work crept into it, right, Gray?”

The accusation stung more than Gray wanted to admit, but he gave a tense smile. “I’m sure Mr. Blackwell was just being polite with his offer. I can’t imagine what all of us would have to say to each other over a meal.”

Sophie shot him a look.
Watch it. Coddle them.

“But,” Gray amended hastily, “if you’re in town tomorrow night, dinner would be great. It’d give us a chance to talk about your property in a more informal setting. Maybe get to know each other better.”

Sophie smothered a laugh, and Jenna tilted her head to the side and eyed him suspiciously.

“Actually, we need to fly out tomorrow morning,” Peter said. “It’s my wife’s birthday tomorrow, so we need to head back to the islands. But no need to schmooze us over dinner. I think we’ve come about as far as we can in this discussion, don’t you think?”

Shit
, Gray thought, his mind reeling for ways to save the deal. “I have just a few more points to wrap up if you have the time,” Gray said hastily. “Jen, I should be done here within a couple hours, if you want to grab drinks.”

“Sounds great,” she said with surprising agreeability.

“Unless…” Sophie began.

Oh no. No. No. No.
But, of course, she kept going.

“Well, I’m just thinking, neither Jenna nor the Blackwells here have really seen Seattle. No harm in killing two birds with one stone. We could all see something of the city, and finish the evening with a dinner? Gray’s buying.”

Great. Now she was a fucking Girl Scout troop leader using company money?

“I’m game,” Jenna said.

“I could probably find the time.” Alistair looked ridiculously pleased with himself.

“Well,” mused Peter, “I suppose we all need to eat, and I wouldn’t mind hearing a local’s opinion on Seattle. Especially a beautiful local.”

Sophie laughed prettily, and Peter blushed slightly, smiling at her like a fond father.

The realization settled over Gray like a storm cloud. He had to do this if he wanted to save the deal. Sophie was the key to this whole damn thing. The Blackwells weren’t interested in the bottom line. They were vain, old-school fools who wanted to be flattered, pampered, and appreciated. They wanted someone to tell them that their property was special and important, regardless of its price tag.

He needed Sophie. And this dinner.

“Fine,” he said, dreading the impending painful evening. “If nobody minds, I’d like to include my brother, Jack. He’s expecting to see Jenna.”

“The more the merrier,” Sophie cooed.

Barf.

“I’ll call Jack,” Jenna said.

Gray closed his eyes briefly and counted to ten. He could do this. It would be hell, but somehow he was going to have to find a way to spend the evening with his estranged siblings and his two most difficult clients.

At least Sophie would be there.

Although for the life of him, he didn’t know if that would make the evening better or worse.

An hour later, Gray was drinking a lukewarm beer and watching his client hit on his sister, and his brother hit on his assistant.

He wasn’t sure what bothered him more: the way Alistair was staring at Jenna’s chest as she ran verbal circles around him, or the way Jack’s and Sophie’s heads were tilted together as they laughed over their beers.

“I had no idea that Seattle was a bowling town,” Peter said as he sipped his whiskey.

“I don’t know that it is,” Gray admitted. “But tourist options are limited on rainy days, and Sophie insists that this is a Seattle classic.”

Sophie’s head snapped around and she gave him a defensive glare. “What was I supposed to do, drag them through a soggy Pike Place Market? Maybe show them how much they
can’t
see in the fog from the top of the Space Needle?”

“Calm down,” Gray muttered. “Nobody’s attacking your bowling idea.”

“Are you having fun?” she asked him in a warning tone.

Fun? He
should
have been having fun. Everyone else was. But instead of joining in with the laughter and the flirtation, Gray had somehow ended up pairing off with the elderly Peter instead of chatting with his brother and sister. Instead of flirting with Sophie.

He felt like a decrepit old man watching the kids run around and have a good time.

“Yes, Ms. Dalton,” he replied. “I’m having
fun
. In fact, it was just this morning that I was thinking I haven’t been bowling in so long. Thanks for the opportunity.”

She narrowed her eyes, but Peter seemed to take Gray’s comment at face value, because he nodded agreeably.

“You’re up, champ,” Jack said, grabbing Sophie’s knee to get her attention.

Fantastic, they had nicknames now. Jack must have felt Gray’s gaze burning a hole in the back of his hand, because he removed it quickly from Sophie’s leg with a questioning eyebrow as if to say
Yours?

Gray avoided his brother’s silent inquiry by staring at the scoreboard, where he was placing…fifth. Out of six. Even Alistair was beating him. Peter at least was a good deal behind him, but the man had arthritis, for God’s sake. Nobody expected Peter to do anything other than gently push the ball down the lane with two hands.

Surely Gray could do better than this. It wasn’t like he’d never bowled before. He could remember a couple of birthday parties as a kid. So it had only been, oh, about twenty years since his last game.

Meanwhile, the blonde demon in his life had just thrown yet another strike, which had her tied in first place with Jack. The two of them were now doing some sort of victory dance that involved lots of touching.

This was just great. At this rate, Gray’s
next
bowling experience would probably be at the birthday party of his nieces and nephews as they squealed about how this was the place where their parents first met.

The thought of mini-Sophies and -Jacks put him in an even worse mood, so instead he studied the other flirtatious couple. Alistair had abandoned Sophie almost immediately after discovering that she was the better bowler. Pudgy losers like Alistair didn’t like to be beat in anything, even something as ridiculous as bowling. Jenna was barely better than Gray, which made her fair game for the younger Blackwell’s attention.

As Gray watched Jenna lay a hand on Alistair’s arm, he wondered why she wasn’t ripping her lame suitor to shreds. His sister wasn’t exactly approachable, even to eligible men. There was no way she’d waste her time with this overweight lecher boy currently trying to correct her bowling form. And yet her usual venom wasn’t seeping from her pores. Interesting.

He took another swallow of beer and made a concentrated effort not to scowl at the whole lot of them. Peter excused himself to the restroom, and Sophie fluttered into the vacated seat, filling his senses with…cinnamon?

She smelled like a freaking bakery. He’d noticed the sweet and oddly alluring smell the other night when he’d cornered her in his dark office like a creepy predator.

“You’re scowling, boss.”

“You think?”

She sighed as though dealing with a difficult child. “Really, this is the best thing. Peter is smiling, and Alistair…well…Jenna knows what she’s doing, right? I mean her humoring him will work in your favor, but she can’t possibly be attracted, can she?”

“
Jenna
knows how to handle herself.” He hoped.

“I’m guessing that’s your Mr. Darcy way of implying that
I
can’t handle myself?”

“Who’s Mr. Darcy?” he asked, his frown deepening. “And why does he get to go by his last name, while you’ve been calling me Gray since the moment you met me?”

She sighed again, wearily. Clearly he’d disappointed her somehow. Again. “Never mind about Mr. Darcy. I take it you haven’t told your siblings about our little elevator misunderstanding?”

“Tell them what, exactly, that I thought my assistant turned tricks? No, I didn’t mention it. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly prone to chatting.”

“I noticed. But the tension is only because you’re sitting here in the corner like the freaking Grinch. They
want
to talk to you, but your body language is telling everyone to fuck off.”

“I am not having this conversation with you.”

“Why not? You owe me; I picked your sister up from the airport.”

“Which expressly disobeyed my orders! Town car! I said to get Jenna into a town car!” he exploded.

Several pairs of eyes landed on him. Even in the noisy bowling alley, his voice had carried. Jack gave him a reassuring smile, but Jenna just rolled her eyes in disgust. She abruptly pushed past a startled Alistair and stalked off to the bar.

Sophie looked at him with a censorious expression. “You really should go talk to your sister. Now she thinks that you just wanted to put her into an impersonal Lincoln.”

“That’s exactly what I intended. Then we wouldn’t be in this dreadful bowling alley,” he mumbled.

She poked him in the side. “Go. This is your
sister
.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Jenna flirting with the tattooed bartender. Knowing her, she’d go home with the man just to irk him, end up with hepatitis C, and blame Gray for the whole thing.

Avoiding Sophie’s eyes, he got to his feet to go talk with Jenna.

“Wait, you can’t go
now
.” She tugged at his pant leg. “It’s your turn!”

He smoothed away the wrinkle she’d made in his trousers and glanced up at the scoreboard. Sure enough, there was his name blinking next to the string of small, single digits. “You play for me,” he told Sophie.

She snorted. “And ruin your stellar average? I don’t think so.”

“Just toss it into those divots that run down the side of the path.”

“Those would be the gutters, bro,” Jack said. “And by ‘path,’ I’m guessing you meant lane?”

“Whatever,” Gray said. “Would someone just play for me?”

“I’ll take care of this,” Alistair said smugly.

“That’s wonderful,” Gray said. “Just great.”

He hesitated for a moment, the smell of fresh cinnamon buns wafting up to him and filling him with an odd sense of longing. Or was it nostalgia? Unable to resist, and propelled by a rare sense of impulsiveness, he bent down until his lips nearly touched Sophie’s ear.

“Why do you smell like Christmas morning?”

He felt the hitch in her breath, and felt a little unhinged himself by the closeness. Jerking back, he avoided her eyes and headed toward the bar.

“What were you expecting, harlot perfume?” she called after him.

Hiding a smile, Gray slid onto the bar stool next to Jenna. She didn’t acknowledge his presence. He debated his options. Jenna and Gray tended to communicate mostly in sarcasm. Jack was the only Wyatt to ever learn the art of friendly conversation. But he could feel Sophie’s eyes boring into his back and knew she wouldn’t be a fan of anything less than he and Jenna singing “Kumbaya” by the end of the conversation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up at the airport,” he said quietly, gesturing to the bartender for another beer.

Her body stiffened slightly, and he knew she was debating whether to accept the olive branch or rake him over the coals. He was betting the coals. It was easier than dabbling in emotion.

But she surprised him.

“It’s okay,” she said finally. “I know you’re busy trying to save the world one precious hotel at a time.”