Georgeanne rolled her eyes. “And Elvis is alive and raising minks somewhere in Nebraska.”
John chuckled. “Okay, I’m usually easygoing, but you’ve got to admit, this situation between us is unusual.”
“That’s true,” she conceded, although she doubted he would ever be mistaken for a nice sensitive guy.
John placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. The ends of his tie dangled above his thighs while his suspenders stayed flat against his chest. “This is important to me, Georgie. I don’t have a lot of time before I have to leave for training camp. I need to be with Lexie someplace where people don’t recognize me.”
“People won’t recognize you in Oregon?”
“Probably not, and if they do, no one in Oregon gives a damn about a Washington hockey player. I want to give Lexie my full attention, without interruption. I can’t do that here. You’ve been out with me. You’ve seen what it’s like.”
He wasn’t bragging, just stating a fact. “I imagine getting asked for your autograph all the time must get fairly annoying.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I usually don’t mind. Except when I’m standing in front of a urinal and my hands are full.”
Hands. What an ego! She tried not to laugh. “Your fans must really like you to follow you into the bathroom.”
“They don’t know me. They like who they think I am. I’m just a regular guy who plays hockey for a living instead of driving a backhoe.” A self-deprecating smile twisted one corner of his mouth. “If they really knew me, they probably wouldn’t like me any more than you do.”
I never said that I didn’t like you. The sentence hung between them, unspoken and waiting for Georgeanne to employ some tact and repeat it. She could tell him she liked him-easily. She’d been raised on polite lies. But when she looked into his cobalt blue eyes, she wasn’t sure how much would be a lie. As he sat there looking like every woman’s fantasy, charming her with his smiles, she wasn’t sure how much she really disliked him anymore. Somehow, he’d moved up from a negative thirty to about a minus ten. An improvement over an hour ago. “I like you more than this paper cut,” she admitted as she held up her index finger. “But less than a bad hair day.”
He looked at her for several prolonged moments. “So… I’m somewhere between a paper cut and a bad hair day?”
“That’s correct.”
“I can live with that.”
Georgeanne didn’t know what to say to him when he was being so agreeable. She was saved the trouble by the ringing of the telephone. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said, and picked up the receiver. “Heron Catering, this is Georgeanne.” The male voice on the other end didn’t waste any time telling her exactly what he wanted.
“No,” she said in answer to his inquiry. “We don’t do naked-torso cakes.”
John chuckled beneath his breath as he stood. He glanced about the room, then moved toward a bookcase beneath the window. The sun glinted off a gold cuff link at his wrist as he reached behind a thriving fern and picked up one of Georgeanne’s least favorite pictures. Mae had snapped the photo during Georgeanne’s eighth month of pregnancy, which was why it was hidden behind the plant.
“I’m sure,” she said into the receiver, “you have us confused with someone else.” The gentleman adamantly argued that he was positive Heron’s had catered his friend’s bachelor party. He went into detail, and Georgeanne was forced to lower her voice and say, “I know for a fact that we have never provided topless pool waitresses for any occasion. And I don’t even know what a bootie girl is.” She looked at John’s profile, but his expression gave no indication that he’d heard her. His brows were lowered as he stared at the picture of Georgeanne looking as big as a circus tent in a pink and white polka-dot maternity dress.
When she hung up the telephone, she stood and walked around the side of her desk. “That’s an awful picture,” she said as she came to stand beside him.
“You were huge.”
“Thanks.” She made a grab for the photograph, but he held it out of her reach.
“I didn’t mean fat,” he said as he stared at the picture. “I meant very pregnant.”
“I was very pregnant.” She reached for it again and missed. “Now give it to me.”
“What did you crave?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Pregnant women are supposed to crave pickles and ice cream.”
“Sushi.”
He grimaced and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. “You like sushi?”
“Not anymore. I ate so much of it that I couldn’t hardly stand the smell of fish for a long time. And kisses. I craved kisses every night at about nine-thirty.”
His gaze lowered to her mouth. “From who?”
She felt her stomach go a little squishy. A very dangerous feeling. “Chocolate kisses.”
“Raw fish and chocolate, hmm.” He stared at her mouth for a few more seconds, then looked back at the picture. “How much did Lexie weigh when she was born?”
“Nine pounds three ounces.”
His eyes widened, and he smiled as if he were very proud of himself. “Holy shit!”
“That’s what Mae said when they weighed Lexie.” She grabbed for the picture again and this time snatched it from his grasp.
He turned to her and held out his hand. “I wasn’t finished looking at that.”
Georgeanne hid it behind her back. “Yes, you were.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Don’t make me body-check you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, yes I would,” he said, his voice low, silky. “It’s my job and I’m a professional.”
It had been a long time since Georgeanne had flirted and teased. She didn’t do that sort of thing anymore. She retreated a few steps backward. “I don’t know what body-check means. Is it like being frisked?”
“No.” He tilted his head back and looked at her from beneath lowered lids. “But I might be willing to change the rules for you.”
The edge of the desk stopped Georgeanne. The room felt as if it had suddenly gotten a whole lot smaller, and the look in his eyes made her heart flutter like a debutante’s fake lashes.
“Come on now, give it up.”
Before she knew exactly how it happened, seven years of self-improvement flew out the window. She opened her mouth and words poured out like warm butter. “I haven’t heard such sweet talk since high school,” she drawled.
John grinned. “Did it work?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Are you going to make me get rough with you?”
“That didn’t work, either.”
His deep, rich laugher filled her office and lit his eyes. The man standing before her was intriguing and magnetic. This was the John who’d charmed her out of her clothes seven years, ago then dumped her faster than toxic waste. “Aren’t the people from GQ waiting for you?”
Without taking his eyes from her, he raised his arm and pushed back his cuff. He turned his wrist pulse side up and quickly glanced at his gold watch. “Are you kicking me out?”
“Absolutely.”
He tugged his cuff down and reached for his tuxedo jacket. “Think about Oregon.”
“I don’t need to think about it.” She wasn’t going. Period.
The door swung opened and Charles entered, putting an end to any further discussion and bringing with him a change in the air. With his brows raised, Charles looked from Georgeanne to John, then back again. “Hello,” he said.
Georgeanne straightened. “I thought we weren’t meeting until noon.” She set the picture on the desk.
“I finished with my meeting early, and I thought I’d come by and pick you up.” He looked back at John and something passed between the two men. Some primal and intrinsic male thing. A nonverbal encoded language that she didn’t understand. Georgeanne broke the silence and introduce the two of them.