Chapter 7

7

Lila

Duggan Field is deserted. The last game of the season was several weeks ago, and it's currently ten o'clock at night.

Twenty years ago, I spent an afternoon here with my mom, watching my first and only baseball game. We lived in Germany. Uncle Al was this distant rich relative that I knew existed because he sometimes sent weird presents for birthdays, holidays, and Talk Like A Pirate Day. But that summer, we were in the States for vacation. Dad had had a show in the city—he was a painter, like Bob Ross for the Dungeons & Dragons crowd—and so it had just been Mom and me.

Want to see where I grew up? she'd asked.

I'd rolled my eyes, because I was twelve, but she'd taken me anyway.

We hadn't told Uncle Al we were going, which was fine with me, because instead of being cooped up in the owner's suite with him, which I suspect probably looks like the set of a porn movie, if the condition of his house is any indication, we sat in the sunshine on the third base line. There'd been popcorn and hotdogs. And debating the statistical likelihood of each player getting a hit based on the kinds of nitty-gritty mathematical analysis that I tend to deny I love, sort of like I'll deny just how much I love reading history books for fun between my romance novels.

But Mom got it. She liked math too. And history. And romance novels.

And baseball, I discovered that day.

I hated spending my childhood here, but I miss it now , she'd said.

And she'd told me stories about all of the legends who used to play for the Fireballs.

Of the years they'd made it to whatever the semi-finals are called in baseball—playoffs?—but not gotten to that final game. Of how much her parents loved the team.

Of having players over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Going to their weddings. Welcoming babies.

We were one big baseball family , she'd said.

The next day, they left me with her high school best friend, who had a daughter about my age, and they left for what I was told was a private mommy-daddy vacation to Savannah.

Except they never made it to Savannah.

Or possibly even out of Copper Valley, for all the authorities could find any trace of them.

The weird thing about parents disappearing is that there's no closure. Twenty years later, I still wait for them to call. To suddenly show up at home one night. To be walking through Central Park and come across my parents on a park bench.

Even though I know they're not coming home, I still feel it.

And seeing Tripp Wilson's kids this morning?

Those kids whose mother is never coming home?

It's hitting me hard, and I don't want it to.

I want this to be all business and baseball. Not memories and emotions that steal my breath and hit me out of nowhere when I least expect them.

Especially not because of a man who lied to me about his name .

That's why my parents disappeared.

My mom trusted the wrong person. The CIA is almost certain she was betrayed.

I pull my coat tighter around me and shift in the folding seat along the third base line. Three lights are shining on the field, not nearly enough to illuminate the whole thing, but enough to make me feel like I can see all the ghosts of everyone's memories made here over the years.

And it's not just the memories.

It's the expectations. The pressure.

Owning a team is about more than just sitting in a private box and shaking hands with other executives when your team wins, and firing people when they lose. Parker's brother plays in New York. He's forever doing volunteer work and community outreach, and I've watched his team run brand awareness campaigns on social media that have been brilliant to a level I can't understand, but I want to.

My days at Wellington Holdings are coming to a close. It could be over in a matter of days, if I just make the right phone calls.

And I thought I'd be satisfied running a small publishing company—I call it my parting gift from Wellington—but sitting here, staring at this baseball field, the only thing I have left of my mother now, I have to wonder if this is more in my blood than I thought it was.

And then there's the guilt—the guilt at knowing his employees might not have gotten paid right this past year is gnawing at me.

I could've fixed that.

I glance at my phone, waiting for a text back from Uncle Guido.

He's not really my uncle and his name isn't actually Guido—he's supposedly John Smith, like that's believable—but he has a hook-up for everything, a habit of making people who piss him off disappear, and he's never short on cash despite appearing to never do any actual work.

When I was in boarding school, he'd send care packages. Weird care packages, but still care packages, and oddly usable, as opposed to the gifts Uncle Al would send me in Germany before my parents disappeared. Things like window breakers and mini flashlights and care packages to share. Not animal bobbleheads with butts that shook. He was able to give me more updates than Uncle Al ever could, since he had connections. He helped me out with some of the legal stuff that came with having parents who disappeared. He helped me get my own bank account and get some independence. And he's officially now the one person in my life that I've known the longest.

So I call him Uncle Guido. It's how my mom introduced us back before she went missing. He's never asked me to call him anything else. Not surprising. If I were a retired spook in witness protection, I'd probably be good with no one knowing my real name too.

Update? I text Uncle Guido now, with only the smallest degree of guilt that I used my backdoor channel to get in touch with him to ask him if he had any information on the men trying to get their hands on my family's baseball team.

My phone rings almost immediately. "That good, hm?" I answer without saying hello.

"That jackass who insulted you cuts corners with safety in his oil refineries," he says with a cackle. His accent is Midwestern, not too deep and not too high, and if you saw him on the street, you wouldn't give him a second glance.

" What? "

"Yep. It's an explosion waiting to happen. Authorities just got an anonymous tip."

"Oh my god."

"Don't go feeling bad for him, Lila-lou. You did good asking ol' Uncle Guido for help. Ah, feels good to be doing something worthwhile again."

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Tell me you didn't rig this."

He snorts. "Rigging that would've taken at least four days. He's a genuine, grade-A corner-cutter, and you probably just saved hundreds of lives in asking me to play superhero. Good job, kid. Who else you need dirt on? I got your hook-up right here."

I shouldn't ask. I shouldn't. Because I really don't want to know. But— "No dirt on the other one?"

"Tripp Wilson? Nah. Guy's so squeaky clean, it's surprising he was ever famous."

I frown at the field. "You didn't find a single thing?" That's not like Uncle Guido.

"Not saying he's worthy of you , but his money's clean, he doesn't have any STDs, no known associates in the pharmaceutical industry, and the most embarrassing video of him on YouTube is him trying to do the MC Hammer."

"That's…embarrassing?"

"Everyone who ever did that dance should be embarrassed."

I smile and sweep a look over the shadowy field again.

Every passing minute, I'm getting drawn deeper and deeper into wanting to tackle bringing this team back from ruin.

"You ever have a dream, Uncle Guido?"

"Yeah. Dreamed once that my third ex-wife got genital warts from the wanker she left me for, but I didn't want to get close enough to her to check to see if my dream came true."

"Life's rough sometimes."

"Fuck yeah it is. Hey, you know that chick who's writing those pornos about blue aliens and goat shifters?"

I sigh and squeeze my eyes shut, because romance novels aren't pornos , but there's only so much I can do to educate people who are determined to believe otherwise. "Yes."

"You know her in person?"

"Yes."

"I want an introduction. She sounds hot."

While I throw up a little in my mouth over the idea of introducing Uncle Guido to Knox's nana, he hangs up without another word, which is pretty standard. He knows when we've been talking long enough for someone to get a trace on the call, and he always hangs up before The Man—or anyone else—can get a read on where he is.

Apparently old habits die hard.

Considering the amount of information he can find out in a matter of hours, I can see where Uncle Guido might have reason for paranoia.

He's still remarkably connected for someone who's supposedly retired.

My phone dings with a text message.

Had to see a man about a skillet. Also, this is the other embarrassing thing I found.

The text is accompanied by a picture of a baseball card.

I blow it up to look closer, and hello , young Tripp Wilson in baseball pants.

I didn't know he played baseball. But that is definitely Tripp Wilson. It's in the seriousness in his pale blue eyes. The way he holds his mouth in that determined line while he holds the bat behind him. The cut of his cheekbones.

After seeing him side-by-side with his brother, I can both understand how someone who doesn't follow pop music closely could believe he's Levi, and also how no one would ever mistake the two men.

Levi—the real Levi—strolled into the room with a friendly cheerfulness that just screams I like to have a good time and I'd like to show you a good time too , whereas Tripp has this grounded presence that would make me suspicious of him even on a good day for how reliable he seems.

Yes, I know. Trust people who seem reliable, Lila .

Except those are the ones who can so easily lull you into a false sense of security. Also, the Tripp of this morning wasn't exactly the same man I met in that club two weeks ago.

Someone behind me clears his throat, and I leap, drop my phone, and come up in a ninja squat.

"Nice night for looking at the cleaned-up scene of so many massacres," Tripp himself says.

He's alone—no children clinging to him—and in jeans and a hoodie instead of the business suit that was stained with blood and snot when I last saw him earlier today.

And yes, he's carrying that responsible, dependable, businessman presence .

My phone is face-up with his college baseball card showing.

Lovely.

"This is private property." Way to be a prude, Lila .

"I picked the lock. No regrets. Can we talk?"

I squint at him.

He sighs and looks to the sky, hands in his pockets. "I bribed a security guard, but I'm not telling you which one, because I had an unfair advantage and I don't want you to fire him."

"What unfair advantage?"

"I know how much he likes to talk about his kids."

My lips part, but only for a moment. I was expecting him to say I slipped him a dozen Benjamins , not I convinced him I was nice by asking about his kids .

"Would you fire him if you were in my shoes?" I ask.

"Only if I didn't understand the extenuating circumstances."

"Which are?"

"That if we're going to work together to make this team the team they can be, then we need to clear the air."

If we're going to work together . Clearly, he's talked to Pakorski, who has the distinct privilege of being the only person in the world who can actually make me do something I don't want to do.

Namely, hire Tripp Wilson to be the Fireballs' president of operations if I want to keep the team.

"Is that code for I will make you forget that I lied to you about who I am ?" I ask Tripp.

Yep. I have trust issues.

It's easier to squish them and be relatively normal when I'm not at the last place I have good memories with my mom, and in town to bury her brother, who wasn't the guardian I wanted or needed, but he was all I had.

Maybe he's with her in heaven now.

The thought sucker-punches me, and I have to work hard to get a grip on the hot wetness building behind my eyeballs.

I went through a phase in college where I read amnesia romances like they were candy, because I convinced myself that maybe my mom had amnesia and was still out there. Uncle Guido's second wife finally came by and took them all away from me when my roommate hacked into my phone and texted him an SOS because I started missing classes to search out more amnesia romances at the library and asking my dormmates if they'd seen people matching my parents' description wandering around campus lost.

You could say grief came late.

I don't like grief. And I don't like being vulnerable.

Tripp doesn't sigh like I'm being dramatic and unreasonable in questioning him while poised to take him out with a ninja chop if necessary, though I've had enough self-defense classes that I could. He merely walks down the steps and sits two rows in front of me, twisting so he has to look up to me.

I slowly lower myself back to my own seat and retrieve my phone, shoving it into my pocket after I turn it off so he can't see his baseball card showing on it.

"You ever lose someone you love?" he asks quietly.

"I did just bury my uncle."

"You two were close?"

I don't answer.

He holds eye contact, and there's no small part of me that wants to leap over the two rows of bleachers to wrap my arms around him and hug him, even though I shouldn't.

"I hadn't," he says quietly. "Not that I could recall, anyway. Never knew my dad. My grandpa passed when I was too little to know him, and I still see my grandma a few times a year. Which means losing my wife last year was the first time I've ever faced grief. Real grief. And it was big, and unexpected, and messy, and even though it'll be two years in just a few months, I still feel it some days like it was yesterday. Especially on days when I leave my kids with her parents, and see all the pictures of her, and the pictures of her with the kids when they were babies, and remember how much she's missing. Logically, I know she's gone. Emotionally, most days I'm there too. Hell, I have those pictures at my house too. But that night…" He shakes his head. "I shouldn't have told you I was Levi. I just needed to be not me for a little bit."

This shouldn't be relatable, but it very much is.

I shift my attention to the field as a soft baSQUAWK! sounds somewhere nearby.

"Where are your kids now?" Yes, it's a bad deflection. But it's the first thing that comes to mind.

"Home sleeping. Levi's keeping an eye on them. They asked for my buddy Beck, but he wasn't available."

Beck. That'll be Beck Ryder. Former member of Bro Code and current fashion mogul best known for modeling his own brand of underwear.

Which I won't confess to wearing—that would be awkward—but I will say they're damn comfortable. And I need to be back on neutral ground. "You talked to Sam Pakorski."

"I did."

"And you're willing to take the job."

Now it's his turn to glance at the field. Probably wondering if I'm willing to agree to the commissioner's ultimatum too. Maybe looking for that squawking sound.

Or maybe wondering if he can find enough dirt on me to make me sell to him.

"It's not ideal," he finally says quietly as he pulls a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket and squirts out a small dollop.

"Because it's more work than sipping bourbon in the owners' office and letting everyone else do the job for you?"

He grins at that as he rubs his hands together, and oh, god , he's adorable.

Just like that night in the club.

Relatable. Friendly. And adorable.

He's too old to be adorable—I doubt a man in his mid-thirties would appreciate being told I have a crush on how cute he is, which I wouldn't confess anyway, because he lied to me , and not about if he liked chocolate or vanilla ice cream, but about his identity—but when he smiles, he's so boyish and light and not at all weighed down by being a single dad who can't have my team.

Yes, my team.

"It is a bit more work than that, yes," he acknowledges.

"I'm not the kind to sip bourbon while everyone else does the work either. And I will expect the kind of attention that a president of a baseball team should deliver, and if you pull anything like lying to me again, make no mistake, I will end you."

His gaze lands back on my face, and I'm grateful for the cool, dark evening, because I swear he just silently promised me all the attention I can handle.

And probably all the honesty too.

"My team put together a report on you," he says. "I didn't get to read it before the meeting, but I glanced through while my kids were napping. You're Dalton Wellington's personal executive assistant?"

I cross my arms like I didn't investigate him just as thoroughly. "You put together a report on me."

"I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, oldest son of a single mother. Going to Fireballs games with my brother and our friends was the highlight of my summer. This team is why I wanted to play baseball, and this team is what I walked away from when I signed on for Bro Code to keep an eye on Levi. I want my kids to get that chance to sit in these bleachers and have a home team. I want every kid in Copper Valley to have that opportunity. It's not a game . It's an experience. With heroes and heartbreak and hope. The Fireballs have lost that. I'm bringing it back, and every single person in a hundred-mile radius of here is going to feel it, and they're going to benefit from it. So, yes, we put together a report on you. I won't stop until the Fireballs are the team every other team wants to be, and Copper Valley is the sports capital of the world. No matter what's standing in my way. I can't say I'm sorry enough for what I did in New York a few weeks ago, but I also won't go meekly into the night just because I fucked up. Not when it's my team on the line."

Did I say it was cool here? Because I'm pretty sure we just hit the peak of summer. His brutal determination to take over my family's baseball team is hot as hell.

"How are you going to balance your duties with your kids?" I force myself to ask.

"I've had part-time nannies since they were born. We're just…unfortunately in between at the moment."

"Part-time?"

"You expected me to say full-time?"

"I'm curious how often they'll be accompanying you to the office. If you take the ultimatum." And, yes, I want to know if he did that patient dad thing with them when his wife was still alive. I always assumed most people in Hollywood have full-time nannies. I was apparently wrong.

But I won't swoon at him rocking that dad thing. More, I mean. He's already lied to me once. It takes more than letting a kid bleed all over a dress shirt and rescuing a baby chipmunk without freaking to get back in my good graces.

"My plans for the office include the addition of on-site daycare and preschool for all employees," he informs me.

Unfortunately reasonable. It's an option we used to look at in every investment opportunity that came to Wellington, because we liked to see those little nuggets that mean a company cares about its employees' whole life. Not just about squeezing forty productive hours out of them every week.

A chicken squawks again, and this time, another chicken answers it, though it doesn't sound like a happy chicken.

Chicken? That is a chicken, isn't it?

Tripp glances at the field with a frown. "Are they nesting down there?"

"Do you really think chickens are the biggest problem the Fireballs have?"

He grins, and hold my ovaries, I am going to swoon against my better judgment. Dammit .

"Aside from the easy jokes about who gets to lay eggs on this field, they'll tear up the turf." He rises and heads to the field like he owns the place, even though that honor currently belongs to me. I scramble to follow.

He easily swings open a door I didn't even see in the half-wall around the field and strolls out, his phone flashlight activated, scanning the ground and following the squawking.

"No chickens on this turf," I announce.

"And you're ready to give your first inspirational talk to the players. They're gonna love you."

"Sarcasm doesn't become you."

"Just saying. You're not chickens always goes over better with pro athletes than get your wimpy asses out there to get whooped ."

"I know plenty of pro athletes, and you'd be surprised who actually is a chicken."

We're headed to the dugout, which I only know the name of because I've been binging every baseball romance novel Knox has ever recommended on his blog.

"Which pro athletes?" Tripp asks.

"The Berger twins." Kind of. The identical hockey-playing tanks have a sister who's friends with Parker and Knox, and our paths have crossed occasionally at book club.

"The Berger twins are like five people. And afraid of nothing."

"Zeus hates spiders. And Brooks Elliott."

"Zeus Berger hates Brooks Elliott?"

"No. I mean I know him too."

Tripp stops and turns to face me. "You know Brooks Elliott. Personally."

"No."

"Now you don't know him?"

"I know him very well. His sister is one of my best friends. We hung out at her wedding recently. But no, I'm not asking him to come play for the Fireballs. He has family in New York. That would be rude."

He closes his eyes briefly and his nostrils waver while he sucks in an audible breath.

Translation: Dear god, the new team owner is an idiot.

I cross my arms and glare at him. "I'm well aware that professional athletes often have to live away from their families, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't enjoy being close to home while they can."

Plus, his mother is terrifying. I will not break that woman's family up.

She'd put a hit out on me, and Uncle Guido wouldn't be able to stop it.

The squawking erupts again nearby and saves me. There are no visible chickens on the field, and it gets louder as we approach the dugout on the first base side.

Louder and more intense.

Very intense.

Like, are there chicken police? Because we might need the chicken police.

I drift directly behind Tripp while we approach the noise, shameless in using him as a human shield if this is a chicken uprising. What's that movie? The one with the apes that rebel and take over the world? That's what this sounds like, except with feathers and clucks instead of chest-pounding and grunts.

"Should we call security?" My self-defense classes didn't cover protecting yourself from rabid chickens.

"That'd be a foul," he murmurs. And then chuckles to himself, and oh my god .

"Foul— fowl ? Like a bird-fowl? Did you just make a dad joke at a time like this?"

"A time like this? You mean a random Tuesday night at a deserted ball field?"

"At a time when the chickens are gathering for a ritualistic sacrifice of one of their own."

His shoulders shake, and he seems to be struggling to cough.

"Oh, god, did you inhale a feather? Is that how this starts? They shed their feathers to choke us to death?"

"Please don't talk about chickens and choking in the same sentence."

"That was not a dad joke."

"No, it was—oh. Duck ."

I squat low, spinning to see what I'm ducking from.

Tripp flips his flashlight on me. I squint and cover my head. "Stop! I can't see! What's coming?"

"Lila. Ducks. Ducks . Not chickens. It's mating ducks ."

He swings the flashlight to the dugout, and—oh.

Oh .

"Is it…supposed to be that violent?"

There are two ducks under the bench in the dugout, one flapping its wings and chasing the other, who's squawking so loudly she could wake the dead.

And— " Ohmygod , I did not need to see that!"

Duck penis.

Duck penis .

Oh my god. Duck penis. Duck penis should not look like that .

Tripp's bent double laughing.

"Where's security?" I demand. "Hello? Security? Security? I'll give whoever removes this duck a ten-thousand-dollar bonus. Right now."

No one comes running for ten grand, because no one can hear me .

The squawking. It's a cry for help.

"It's nature," Tripp says. He's wiping his eyes now, he's laughing so hard. "Give 'em a few. They'll finish up."

The girl duck is racing back and forth under the bench.

The boy duck is chasing her with that thing .

And I am not having it. "Shoo. Shoo! "

"Lila!" Tripp calls, but I'm already gone.

Flapping my arms. Yelling. Charging the dugout and the ducks.

Why are they even here? There's no pond here. Winter's coming. They should be flying to the Caribbean for Mai Tais and sunshine.

And instead, they're ruining the sanctity of my ballpark.

"Shoo!" I yell again.

I hit the stairs down to the long covered bench, and the boy duck suddenly seems to realize I'm coming at him.

He turns, pointing that thing at me, flaps his wings, and gets this evil glint in his eyes that means I really should've thought about what I was doing before I came in here.

"Woo her nicely ," I snap.

He squawks—no, quacks at me.

Crap.

I need to go back to kindergarten to learn my animal sounds again. I'm a city girl. We don't do farm animals.

"And put that thing away! "

"Lila." Tripp's laughing so hard he's wheezing. He grabs my elbow and tugs. "Let the ducks be."

"I'd let it be if he wasn't attacking her."

"Maybe that's how ducks have sex."

" Then maybe ducks shouldn't exist ."

" QQQUUUUAAAACCCCCKKKKK! " the boy duck yells.

It's like a Braveheart yell, and I realize I'm asking the wrong question.

I shouldn't be asking why is the duck assaulting the other duck in a dugout?

I should be asking what have humans previously done to this duck because he's going to kill me?

It charges, wings flapping.

I scream and take off running. Tripp mutters a well-timed, oh, fuck and runs with me. "The other dugout," he shouts, pointing to the dugout on the third base side.

Another light flashes up in the stands.

"Security!" I yell. "Arrest the duck! Arrest the duck! "

It's gaining on us. Quacking louder. And it can fly. It can fly .

It's going to swoop over us, poop on our heads, and whack us with that—that—that mutant penis and then scoop us up in its talons, and—" Aaah! It got me. It got me! "

It bit me on the butt .

"Don't fuck with nature," Tripp grunts.

And suddenly I'm in the air.

Tossed over his shoulder.

Bouncing while the man who made out with me while lying about his name saves me from a rabid horny duck.

He dashes down the stairs to the other dugout, through a door, and then slams it shut behind us.

A thud follows.

The kind of thud that suggests a bird—or a duck—just hit a wall.

"Ohmygod, we killed the duck!"

He sets me on the ground, hands to my hips as he steadies me, and after a beat of staring at me like I have the mental capacity of an amoeba, he bursts out laughing.

Again.

I straighten my jacket and frown at him. It's a good frown too. It's the same kind my mom used to use on me when I'd lie to her about doing my homework.

At least, I hope it is.

That frown was terrifying.

But it's not fazing Tripp.

Nope, he's still grinning at me, eyes dancing, chuckles still racking his body while he casually leans a shoulder against the door, clearly trying to get himself under control. " Now you're worried about killing the duck?"

"I was worried about the one duck killing the other duck. I don't want the ducks to die. I just want them to live in harmony."

The humor slowly leaves his expression as he studies me. "You think we can live in harmony?"

Duck, indeed. That's a loaded question. "Are we talking philosophy?"

"No, Lila. You and me. Working together. To make this team work."

He doesn't add or would you rather just sell it to me? , but I swear I can read it in his eyes.

His fascinating pale blue eyes.

I'd wondered what color they were behind those glasses the night we met, and now they're all mine to study. To puzzle out. To understand.

Not that I have any business going there. Technically speaking, I'll be his boss. Having the final say in how my uncle's baseball team gets turned around.

The team that Uncle Al asked for help with.

The team that probably would've done a lot better this year if I hadn't filed his email in the trash.

If my mom was still around, I know she would've wanted me to help. Family's complicated, honey, but they're still family. If we don't help them, who will?

I've unconsciously drifted next to Tripp, my own shoulder leaning on the door inches from him while I study him right back. "We don't have a choice, do we?"

Yet. I will find a choice, because I don't think I can do this for long.

Especially not when his gaze dips to my mouth oh-so-briefly, and I get that same flutter in the pit of my belly that I got the night we met.

The I'm into you vibes are still there.

His jaw flexes as he snaps his gaze beyond my ear. "Not so long as we both want what's best for the Fireballs."

What's best for the Fireballs .

Something tells me that's not the two of us working together.

Question is, which one of us will break first?

And by break , I don't think I mean quit.

I scramble straight and take two steps back. "You can report to human resources in the morning for paperwork and salary negotiations."

He studies my eyes like he's looking for the catch. "Or we could do negotiations right now."

"No kissing."

It slips out without conscious thought, and my whole body whines a protest while one side of his mouth quirks up and heat floods his eyes. "That's your first stipulation?"

"Considering how we met, yes."

"Considering how we met, I'd think your first stipulation would be no wearing smoothies on your head. "

"Very funny, Mr. Wilson."

"Tell me, Lila. If I hadn't said I was Levi, would you have still gone into that bathroom with me?"

Yes. Yes . "Of course not."

His eyes call out my lie, and when he pushes off the door, all of my erogenous zones shout a hallelujah at what they know is coming, even as my brain screams that there's a stop sign we're ignoring as we fly head-first into an intersection we can't walk away from.

He's going to kiss me again.

I'm going to let him.

And I'll regret it in the morning. Probably sooner.

"In that case, Ms. Valentine," he says, low and throaty as he reaches a hand to me, "we're going to be able to work together just fine. Happy to serve as the president of operations for the Fireballs. Welcome to the home team."

Oh, hell.

He's not reaching for me.

He's holding a hand out.

To shake.

I hold my head high and put my hand in his, bracing for the electric shock that I know is coming.

Except there's no spark. No jolt.

It's all liquid heat spiraling out from our connected palms, spilling up my arm and making my breasts tingle. Touch me there too. Lick me there. Suck me there. And then get your hand back in my panties and finish what you started two weeks ago .

"Same to you, Mr. Wilson." I withdraw my hand as delicately as I can. "I look forward to working with you."

And I do.

Way, way more than I should.