Chapter 3
Leave it to Alec to make a right mess of things when he hadn’t even been in the States a week. Bloody hell. If his brother, Cal, had been at this stupid party, no doubt he’d be taking the piss out of him for terrifying the poor server with his ugly mug and ruining her evening.
Did he have to stare at her like that? Really?
Alec took a sip of his sparkling water and crunched on a piece of ice that hitched a ride with the bubbles.
He regretted it instantly when one of his right molars caught the edge of the cube.
The dull pain that radiated through his still-sore jaw was yet another reminder of what he’d hoped this foolish event would have taken his mind off.
Instead, the task was accomplished by, of all things, a lovely woman with curious eyes and the most adorable mouth hanging open so wide, his mate Fin could have kicked a ball clean through.
She looked about as desperate to be anywhere else as he was, balancing a tray of drinking glasses taller than her, with her dark hair trying to break free of its ties. It was a comical showing that was also the most earnest and interesting thing he’d seen all night.
And then he caught the moment she registered the rest of his face: the bulge at the top of his nose from being broken too many times, the small scar that, while not too visible from a distance, still made itself known by disrupting his beard growth.
On the rugby pitch, his look was all usual and customary. At a corporate banquet?
No wonder she’d turned from him so quickly. After the hits he’d taken recently, most women did. But unlike most women, they didn’t usually do an about-face right into his ex-girlfriend, dousing her with condiments.
Dammit all to hell.
What in the ever-loving fuck was Phoebe doing here?
He’d come to this event as a guest of Cal’s venture capitalist buddy who’d used the law firm’s corporate legal services a time or two.
And as Alec could no longer afford to pass up any investment opportunities, he figured he’d tag along while he was in New Jersey.
Hell, at least he’d get a few bites of food out of it.
He did not expect to run into his ex. Or, to be more specific, to startle a serving woman bad enough so that she would run into his ex instead.
No one deserved that level of punishment, and judging by the panicked expression on the woman’s face when she stopped wiping Phoebe’s gown and fled in the opposite direction, she’d experienced far too much of his ex’s hellfire than the job was worth.
Och, he needed to fix this. Phoebe was a handful on a good day, but it was his crass staring that had sent the kind server directly into the jaws of the lioness to begin with.
Alec dragged a hand over his trimmed beard and cursed into his cupped palm. “Gentleman,” he said, nodding to the crowd of men whose names he never caught and whose businesses he’d long forgotten, “if you’ll excuse me.”
Guilt made his stride heavy as he pressed through the crowd toward where the server was talking to a different woman.
Turned out, his guilt was more than a valid concern.
The server’s hands were swirling around her with a fervor approaching the speed of her nervous speech, which would be less frazzled had he not creeped her out a mere thirty seconds ago.
Alec slowed his pace and hung back behind a nearby drink display just so he could make sense of the furor that the slight server was stirring up.
He whistled low and shook his head. And Americans thought Scots were difficult to understand?
This wee woman spoke with her hands in such a heated rhythm, it was a miracle her words managed to keep up with her gestured story at all.
Alec didn’t know whether it was passion, persistence, or timing that kept her going.
Miraculously, she held the chairwoman, if he caught the wisps of their introductions right, if not riveted at least in play.
Whatever it was, it held him to the spot as well.
More bits and pieces of the conversation floated his way. Interest in a Christmas Ball. Candy making. Business opportunities. It all seemed like standard fare for standard chit-chat at a standard corporate holiday event, though somehow delivered with a magician’s flair for visual effects.
He chuckled softly. She certainly was a sight, this one, and if he were being honest, he didn’t quite mind being her captive so much. It sure as hell beat the stock market banter from earlier.
Until Phoebe slid into the frame.
Every muscle in Alec’s shoulders tensed as if he were preparing for a tackle. His jaw clenched, and his legs widened to absorb the blow.
Except the hit slammed into parts of him that had nothing to do with tightened muscles and readied stance, and everything to do with the banded arms braced across her chest and the stony cast of her features as she joined the server’s conversation.
His stomach sank.
“Fucking hell.”
He’d been on the receiving end of that pose more times than he’d like to remember, the final time being when Phoebe had all but flung him back to England to finish giving his body’s best years nurturing a sport that would never nurture him back.
Damn if his sore muscles could ever crawl out of bed without recalling those words.
Never mind that he practically grew up on the pitch and didn’t know a time when he didn’t have a rugby ball in hand.
Never mind that he’d promised to live with her in the States in the off-season and visit as often as he could during the series.
Never mind that, on the Sevens circuit, he’d made mates for life and was hoping Phoebe would join in his life as well.
The rejection, he’d managed to endure somehow, but the disapproval and disgust?
Well, a year later, he was still gnawing on those old bones, wasn’t he? Add in his most recent injury and mandatory medical leave and Phoebe would have all the fuel she’d need to drench him in a rain shower of I told you so and use the runoff from his shame to water her fucking plants.
Alec killed his drink and crushed the ridiculous stirrer in his fist as the server he’d been spying on began to falter under the weight of Phoebe’s expectant stillness and quiet disdain.
It ripped more wounds open because he knew exactly how hard it was to maintain one’s composure and not stammer beneath that kind of scrutiny.
All while it was clear that the young woman was trying her hardest to make a good impression with the chairwoman.
“Goddammit, Phoebe,” he ground out, startling an elderly woman whose forkful of pasta missed her mouth and launched the food onto her husband’s tie. “Sorry.”
Alec handed some napkins to the couple, offloaded his empty glass to the nearest waitstaff, and tunneled through the crowd, intent on at least apologizing to the serving woman he’d startled and fixing his blunder, if not swiping her out of Phoebe’s clutches altogether.
However, when he got close enough for his shadow to announce his arrival, something had shifted.
Phrases like I have a boyfriend and he just loves Christmas spun through the air, followed quickly by the chairwoman’s assertion that such a team would do a nice bit of holiday business.
Phoebe hadn’t noticed him, which was one of two reasons why she’d yet to pounce on him and drag him to the dumpster.
The second, and far more puzzling reason, was that the regal chairwoman on the arm of the white-haired chap who’d just joined her suddenly shifted her attention to Alec while Phoebe was still watching her prey dangle from a hook.
Which meant that, by the time Phoebe had finally whipped her barbed reply at the server asking where the woman’s boyfriend was, fully intent on humiliating the charming girl, a curious solution presented itself. One that felt oddly . . . fun.
Alec smiled, took hold of the idea, and tackled that sucker to the ground.
“Is he here?” Phoebe asked, making a show of scanning the room for someone.
Then he stepped forward. “Yes.”
He’d meant to speak the word with a fair bit of venom, knowing it would grate on Phoebe’s nerves about as much as hearing her voice did to him, but as was the confounded way of the evening, that went awry when the server gasped and locked her spine as still as a goalpost.
Och, hell. He’d meant to rescue her and fix his fuck-up, hadn’t he? Not traumatize her further.
But before the doubt had a chance to creep in, Alec was startled by a boisterous cheer from the man escorting the chairwoman.
“Holy smokes, I don’t believe it. You’re Alec Elms!
” The S in his last name was accompanied by an alarming amount of nose whistle as the man stepped forward and, with two hands, encircled Alec’s fist and began pumping his arm like the bloke was tapping a freaking well.
“Star forward for Great Britain Sevens. I’ve never seen a flanker tackle the pitch better than this fellow, let me tell you.
Poised to win the championship this year, too.
What you fellows are doing out there is pure magic.
Arthur Doley of Doley Enterprise Solutions. ”
“Appreciate it. Thank you. I don’t often find such avid rugby fans in the States, especially on the East Coast.”
“Oh, I know, and it’s a damn shame. Well, you’ll be happy to hear I’ve been working to change that.
Just sent in my sizable annual contribution to USA Sevens HQ, along with a few minor suggestions on some outreach endeavors I’m willing to help them with that I believe could really do a lot to positively impact the game’s position in the mainstream sports media here. ”
Alec nodded painfully while trying to discreetly wipe his sweatier palm on any bit of linen in reach. He settled for the tip of his tie that he’d managed to conceal beneath his suit coat.
If he had to hear one more wealthy benefactor spout off about their desire to save rugby, he was going to tackle the ice sculpture and try to get pinned beneath it.