Chapter 9 #2
Gabe and Hunter hold the door for Cat and another woman.
Breathing a sigh, I smile, refusing to be disappointed.
As Cat approaches me to say hello, my eyes dart up again when the door opens and Tate appears.
Unaccompanied. I hold in the grin that wants to break out and tell my heart to calm down because what the hell?
“Hey, fancy running into you here,” Cat says as she gives me a hug.
Hunter and Gabe are more noncommittal in their response, probably because of all the press present.
There are a few murmurs of hello and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out as Tate appears, heading in my direction, eyes lasered in, expression unreadable.
“So now you’re a reporter turned stalker,” he says.
“You’re confused, Fontanna. Last I looked you followed me here.”
“I’m here because we always come here for postgame dinner. It’s been a tradition for two seasons and running. I’m practically Louie’s adopted son. Isn’t that right, Louie?”
I see we have an audience, a very interested and amused audience comprised of his teammates and friends and Louie. Luckily they’ve blocked out the other reporters with their bodies like a human wall around me and Duff. And even my sidekick cameraman is amused.
“Too bad you don’t have your camera, Duff. We could do a human-interest story on the football player slash Italian restauranteur.”
“Oh, don’t go calling him that,” Gabe says. “Last time he cooked—” The lovely woman who I could swear I recognize but can’t place shushes him.
“What should I call you, Fontanna?” It’s the way I say it that sends an edgy message and I can see by his expression the message is received. Interest just south of lust, but only by inches.
I can’t help flirting, he’s so delicious, and it’s not just the whiskey talking.
Cat says something about the flirting and I laugh it off. She arches a brow and I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t matter. Cat’s good people and means me no harm. No need for me to get paranoid.
Louie announces the group’s table is ready. The two couples move on to a private room but not before Cat gives me a wink.
“You coming, Tate?” she asks, “Or are you going to stay and play with Chloe? Unless you want to invite her to eat with us—”
He snaps his head around, tearing his gaze from mine, and says, “No. She’s here with her friends.
” He waves his arm to encompass the bar full of media types, and a couple of them raise a glass and invite him for a drink.
He smiles affably enough, pretending he doesn’t think we’re snakes in the grass, but I know better.
I know what he really thinks of us. All of us, but especially me.
“It’s been a happy coincidence to run into you,” I say, more to annoy him, though it is the truth, even the happy part.
“But you’re right, I’m here with my friends.
” I give him my invitational look to test his resolve and he bestows a one-dimpled smile.
That’s all the encouragement I need. I lean in close as he tries to pass by me.
I whisper, “If I’m still here when you’re done with your meal, how about I buy you a drink?”
“If you’re still here by then, I’ll buy you a coffee,” he says back in a mock whisper. I laugh. He doesn’t know me very well.
“Don’t think I can hold my liquor?”
“You’re right—what was I thinking? You’re Smitty.
” There’s a definite twinkle in his eye now.
His friends are gone and Duff and Foley and the others are arguing about the last World Series in Boston, so we’re on our own in this tête-à-tête and I kind of like it.
A lot—if the sizzle in my panties can be credited.
“So how about it, big boy? An after-dinner drink with your favorite girl reporter?”
“No reporting and no reporter friends and especially no cameras,” he says in a deep raspy voice, the kind that comes from banked excitement.
Now, I knew we had a spark between us, some kind of connection, but the enormity of it hits me. He feels it too and I know for sure, no guesswork needed, no hiding or pushing it under the rug. Flat-out forbidden desire right out in the open, big and raw and hungry.
“You have yourself a deal.” My voice turns out to be raspier than his, clogged with something. Who am I kidding? There’s a big ball of carnal greed stuck in my throat.
I see the way he swallows, the Adam’s apple in his throat big and menacing and pulsing.
It takes everything in me not to squirm or gravitate to him like he’s a black hole sucking me into the void.
He’s hot and he’s available, but everything else about him screams all wrong.
He hates me, everything I am, because being a reporter is in my DNA.
And he’s a player with a capital P. He’s decent, but let’s face it, he knows he’s special because every woman he’s met since he was twelve years old has probably told him how wonderful and hot he is. Not my kind of man.
He walks away like he owns the world, with that special swagger, understated and effortless, proving every wrong thing I think about him is true. And wishing I didn’t know deep down how genuine and driven and passionate he is.
Fuck. I should go home now, but Duff claps my back and the bartender puts a bowl of pasta in front of me, so I’m not going anywhere.