“Well, that certainly makes me feel safer.” Clay jingled the keys in his coat pocket. He’d much rather drive—not that he was a control freak. Much. Georgie was smart to get a ride for them. Washingtonians and winter driving didn’t mix when it came to maneuvering the streets of DC. He grabbed his topcoat from the old-fashioned coat rack in the corner while Georgie ducked out to her office to grab her own coat.
They nodded to the guard as they left the building and strode straight to the black Suburban idling next to the curb. Georgie ended up sandwiched between him and Boone in the backseat. Clay’s thigh pressed against hers and he heard her breath hitch. Glancing at her, he caught the flushing of her creamy skin, obvious even in the darkness of the winter night. Interesting.
Hunt twisted around in the front to look at them. “Jeez. Did I forget my deodorant or something? Nobody fighting over who gets to ride shotgun?”
“What are you doing here?” Clay was surprised to see his chief of security in the driver’s seat.
“Georgie said you were buying. At Max’s. That means good beef. Hell yeah, I’m driving.”
Boone laughed and jumped out, ducking into the front passenger seat a moment later. “I’ll sit up here, bro, since you’re such a big baby about riding all by your lonesome.”
The brothers argued good-naturedly during the drive to the restaurant. Clay breathed shallowly because Georgie had barely moved into the seat vacated by Boone. She was close enough their shoulders brushed each time Hunt turned a corner. And that was so not good. Boundaries. Clay needed them. Not to mention he had plans of the romantic variety over the holiday break. A Broadway star was anticipating his presence as her escort at a variety of glittering parties in New York and Boston. Parties where the rich and powerful would be. Parties where he would make contacts to further his political aspirations and allow him to test the waters surrounding his run for the party’s presidential nomination.
When they were seated in a round booth inside Max’s a few minutes later, the brotherly banter continued. Clay envied his cousins. Aunt Katherine could be a domineering matriarch but she also baked cookies, was a staunch supporter of her children and loved them fiercely. He remembered his own mother as being weak and subservient to the old man. She’d loved him and his brothers in her own way, and they’d loved her. When Cyrus had married his stepmother Helen, she’d done her best to mother him, Cord and Chance, but she’d become pregnant fairly soon after the wedding and the twins kept her crazy busy. Until that fateful rainy day when a drunk driver and a blind curve had changed everything.
Georgie nudged him with her shoulder. “Penny for your thoughts?”
He scowled at her for a moment. “They aren’t worth that much.” Which was true. Introspection never did him any good. He tuned back in to the conversation. Boone and Hunt were going at it again, claiming each was their mother’s favorite.
“My Christmas present will be the biggest.” Folding his arms across his chest, Hunt smirked at Boone.
“Nuh-uh. Mine will be. Mom loves me best because I’m cutest.”
Hunt snickered. “You know that’s not true! That claim belongs to Deacon. Mom has always thought he was the cutest.”
“That’s because he’s a star.” Boone rolled his eyes as he made air quotes around the last word. “She just wants to go to the Country Music Association Awards with him.”
Clay snorted, getting into the conversation. “Deke taking Aunt Katherine to the CMAs? Riiight. Not gonna happen. That boy has girls draped around him like his momma’s mink stole.”
Boone reached across Georgie and punched Clay’s shoulder with a loose fist. “Just like someone else I know. When are you headed up to New York to see Giselle?”
After checking the calendar on his phone, Clay shrugged. “We’re scheduled for a charity reception at the Plaza on the eighteenth. I’ll probably fly up that morning.”
The conversation paused as their waiter appeared and delivered their plates. The men all dug into their steaks and baked potatoes with gusto. Georgie was a bit daintier as she cut and chewed. The excellent medium-rare Angus beef almost melting in her mouth wasn’t the only thing she chewed over.
Clay was still seeing Giselle Richards, the Tony award–winning actress from Oklahoma. That discovery shouldn’t have surprised her. Except Clay seldom dated anyone for longer than a few months. Giselle had been on his horizon for almost nine. Georgie kept her eyes on her plate and worked to keep all expression off her face. Clay dated. This was a fact of life. She had absolutely no claim on him outside the office. Period. Her life was simpler that way. And her heart infinitely safer.