Most Valuable Playboy(5)

As the guys file out, Violet calls to me. I stop and turn. She’s a tall woman, and even taller in a pair of black, high-heeled boots that jack her up on those trimmed, toned legs. But I’m six-four, and I easily have six inches on her in those shoes.

I look down. She reaches a hand up and smooths a strand of hair out of place on my forehead.

“This is your first year out there as the starting quarterback,” she says with a soft smile.

I smile. “Crazy, huh?”

“You’ve killed it every year as the backup. You’re going to kill it harder as the starter. Plus, you’ve played great the first three months.”

I reach above her head and knock on the wall. “Knock on wood. We need to keep playing great.”

“You will, because my ritual is intact, too.”

I arch a brow, curious. “You don’t say. You’ve come to the superstitious side, Vi?”

Her eyes glint. “I wear my Cooper Armstrong jersey to bed every night and have since your week-three win.”

“Excellent.” I wag a finger at her. “And it pains me to say this, but no matter how tempted you are, don’t switch to lingerie.”

She play-punches my shoulder. “Don’t you switch to lingerie, either.”

I gesture to my chest and down to my thighs. “One hundred percent birthday suit at bedtime.”

“All right. Get out there. They’ll bid even more this season for a date with the new quarterback.” She takes a beat. “But not if this piece of hair keeps sticking up.” She runs her finger over a strand.

“I have faith you can fix it for me. Because you’re a miracle worker.”

“Of course I am, and I can.” She smooths it out over my ear, and it feels better than it should when she touches me. She steps back and observes her handiwork. “Empirically.”

I smile. “Clinically.”

She moves her hands to my tie, straightening it. I already did that, but I see no reason to stop her.

“Hey,” she says, as the corners of her lips turn up. “What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?”

“I don’t know. What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?” I ask, since Violet likes to tell silly jokes.

Her eyebrows rise. “An investigator.”

I laugh. “Good one.”

She shoos me off. “I need to pack up my supplies, and you need to get your butt to the stage.”

A husky voice floats down the hall, a smoky alto, belting out the chorus to “It’s Raining Men,” and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Maxine,” I hiss.

She’s the owner’s can’t-keep-her-hands-to-herself sister, and she doesn’t just want men to rain down on her. She wants one guy to fall from the sky into her lap.





2





I brace myself as I walk down the hall. I consider my options. Duck into the stairwell to avoid the woman in red? There’s one ten feet ahead. Dart into a closet to hide for a while? Pretty sure I spotted one just beyond the next suite.

The trouble is, Maxine is sashaying toward me. Her dark eyes are dripping with desire. The sway of her hips tells me she’s not bothering to hide her intentions, and the tune she’s belting makes everything 100 percent clear. She’s at the part in the song where she raises her hands over her head and cries out “hallelujah.”

God help me now.

She points at me, that kind of decisive I own you gesture. She flips her black hair off her shoulders, stares, and licks her lips.

Salaciously.

As if there’s any other way for her to lick her lips.

I groan inside. Time to act as if I’m as dumb as a box of rocks. I turn around, as if she must be pointing to someone else. It couldn’t possibly be me, the guy she’s tried to corner after practice, the player she hugs—I’m talking full-body embrace—after every game. But there’s no one behind me, so my dumbass routine won’t work. Nevertheless, I persist. I keep walking with a clueless look on my face, like I’m not the guy she’s trying to drag into her lair.

Who, me?

But she’s closing in. That pointing finger of hers curls, beckoning me. She mimes reeling me in. She plants her feet like she’s hoisting her haul onto the deck of the boat. “Cooper Armstrong, do you know who I had dinner with last week?”

I shake my head and glance at my watch. “I have no clue, Maxine. But I need to get out there. Jillian won’t tolerate tardiness. You know how she is,” I say, trying to make Jillian out to be an ogre.

Maxine steps closer. She’s a local cabaret singer, as well as a fortune-teller, in addition to being a generous contributor to charities. She was widowed at a young age, and when her much older husband died a little more than a year ago, he left most of his money to a cat shelter and the rest to her. She’s a bit of a puppy dog—or maybe a pit bull. She’s insistent, absolutely persistent, and I'd like to keep her at a distance.