Angel in Armani (2 page)

But in his profession, flying was inevitable. People were hardly going to wait while their crack orthopedic surgeon took the bus across the state or across the country.

So he sucked it up and flew when he needed to. But he didn’t like it and he never would.

Focus
.

He took a deeper breath, schooling himself to be calm, and tried to send his attention back into the next patient file.

Which would be easier if he were back in his office in Manhattan rather than flying to the Hamptons to attend a party he had no desire to attend.

Socializing was another necessary evil of his career. Hospital fund-raisers, charity golf games, and all the hoopla that came with being a member of the oh-so-wealthy, oh-so-philanthropic, oh-so-full-of-expectations Angelos.

But this party wasn’t one his family was roping him into. No, this one was due to the latest piece of insanity to enter his life.

The New York Saints.

He still wasn’t sure how his best friend, Alex Winters, had convinced him—and their other friend Malachi Coulter—to join forces to bail out the baseball team they’d all supported since childhood.

There’d been bourbon involved but also a good dose of crazy.

He didn’t do crazy.

But he did do baseball. And for once, he hadn’t been able to resist a bad idea. Owning a baseball team. He’d imagined it as a kid, as his parents made him attend cotillions and play golf and learn to sail and tried to discourage his love of baseball.

It hadn’t worked. It was an incurable disease.

His presence in this helicopter was firm proof of that. As was the fact that he was now officially part owner of a Major League Baseball team. Even if it was the worst team in the MLB.

“We’re about twenty minutes out, sir.” The voice of his pilot buzzed in his headphones. He liked her voice. It sounded confident and relaxed and had a pleasant female thrum to it that was a small distraction from his discomfort.

He flicked his gaze up from the laptop but saw only the back of her head. The ends of her medium-brown hair curled out in wisps under the cap she wore; the set of her shoulders in the very plain blue shirt was relaxed, but he couldn’t see much more than that.

He hadn’t seen much more than that in three trips so far. She was always seated in the pilot’s seat when he boarded the chopper, already wearing a cap and her headphones or whatever you called the radio-mike thing that let them communicate during the flight.

He did know that she had pretty eyes. Blue. Not bright blue like his. More ocean-y. A hint of gray and green lending depth. Sea-blue eyes and a cute smile, though he’d only seen that once.

The main thing he knew about her—other than the fact her name was Sara Charles, as attested to by the neat name badge on her uniform—was that she seemed to be a very good pilot. She got him where he was going in one piece, with no flashy maneuvers to shatter his hard-won calm, and she didn’t bother him with chitchat.

Which was why he’d hired her again after the first time he’d booked her when his regular guy couldn’t fit him in. And why he’d booked her again for this trip.

He was glad she’d taken the job. Though any sensible person would, given he was paying quite a nice bonus to have her hang around and wait to fly him home again after the fund-raiser. With Sara Charles, for some reason, even though being in a helicopter still sucked, it wasn’t quite as bad as usual. Still, he’d be happy when they were both safely back on Manhattan soil at the end of the night.

He intended that the end of the night would come sooner rather than later. He had surgeries lined up in the morning and roughly four hundred other things to juggle around in his schedule ahead of the Saints decamping to Florida for spring training in a little over two weeks.

Alex and Mal had decided that he, as an orthopedic surgeon, was the one most qualified to keep an eye on things in Florida. Most qualified and also the one with less Saints business already on his plate. Mal was busy trying to bring Deacon Field—the Saints’ home stadium—out of the security Stone Age, and Alex was wheeling and dealing with finances and TV deals and the money stuff. Which left Lucas to deal with the team, the potential new players, and getting everyone ready for the coming season. The Saints’ first season since they’d taken over.

Of course, that was mostly the job of the coaching team and the trainers and the scouts, but he was going to be boss man on the ground as much as possible. Which meant the weeks between now and the beginning of the season in April were going to be a nightmare as he tried to split his time between New York and Florida. And that was before he even thought about all the air time that was going to involve.

He didn’t want to think about that.

So he wouldn’t. Instead he’d finish reviewing the files he’d brought with him so that he was ready for tomorrow’s procedures, and then they’d arrive at their destination and he’d do his duty at the damned party and get the hell back to New York.

*   *   *

Sara led the way across the airfield to the small building that served as the terminal. Dr. Angelo—she didn’t really feel like she could call him Lucas—had thanked her politely when he’d climbed out of the chopper, taken a moment to straighten his impeccable bow tie, slung his black leather laptop bag over his shoulder, and then asked, “Which way?”

That had been the sum total of their conversation. The afternoon light had turned golden, the weather warm for this time of year despite warnings of possible storms later on. He looked not quite real as he walked smoothly across the grass, the gilded light playing on his hair and face.

He moved a bit like a tiger, she thought. Lithe and powerful. Graceful for a tall guy. She was five six and he easily had half a foot on her. She wondered if he’d played a sport of some sort before he’d become a doctor. She’d spent a lot of time around guys who kept themselves in good shape in the army, but even among them it was the ones who’d been great athletes who, in her experience, moved like the man walking besides her. Totally in control of every inch of his well-honed body.

The one she wished didn’t make her skin spark with awareness every time she saw him. The one that made her desperately need a little more control over her own body.

Thankfully the walk to the terminal building was a short one. Dr. Angelo held the door for her—of course he was the kind of guy who would hold a door for her—and she walked into the terminal, looking around to see who was on the desk.

She spotted Ellen Jacek, who ran the airfield with her husband, before Ellen spotted them. But not much before. Ellen’s dark eyes widened and a smile of appreciation bloomed on her face as she took in Dr. Angelo. Which was gratifying in a way. It meant it wasn’t just Sara who was dumb enough to react to the sight of him.

But like her, Ellen was a professional, and her smile smoothed into something more welcoming as she came toward them.

“Sara, honey. How are you? How’s your dad?”

Sara returned her brief hard hug. “I’m good. And Dad’s doing better. Hoping to get back in the air in a few more months.” She remembered why she was there. “Ellen Jacek, this is Dr. Angelo. I think there should be a car waiting for him?”

“Oh sure, Dean delivered it a while back. It’s parked out front.” Ellen turned her attention to Lucas. “Nice ride. I’ve got the keys over at the desk.” She headed in that direction and Lucas strode after her, leaving Sara to follow behind. She did so, listening to Ellen chatter and Lucas give short answers until Ellen reached the desk, leaned over it, and grabbed a set of keys before passing them to Lucas.

“It’s the red one out front,” she said.

“Red?” Lucas queried.

“Dean said to say he was sorry but there was an issue with the car you requested. So he gave you this one instead.” Ellen grinned at Lucas. “If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to borrow my truck and I’ll take the Mercedes for a spin.”

Lucas tilted his head at her. Sara couldn’t quite see his expression from where she was standing but Ellen’s cheeks flushed slightly and she smiled, so presumably it was amused not angry.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he said, dropping the keys into his jacket pocket. He turned back to Sara.

“I’ll call you when I’m leaving the party. It should be around ten.”

“That’s fine, I’ll be here.”

He nodded just as his phone started to ring. He fished it out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen before taking the call. While he spoke, Sara watched him, getting in a few more seconds of tuxedoed-glory-appreciation time. There was much to appreciate. But sadly appreciation was all there was going to be, so she forced at least part of her attention onto making a plan for the hours ahead. Hopefully Ellen would lend her the truck so she could at least drive to the beach and get in a walk on the sand and pretend she was wealthy enough to own one of the gorgeous houses lining the shore.

After that there was paperwork stuffed in her flight bag that needed her attention. More correspondence with her dad’s insurance company in dense legalese that she had to interpret and decide how to respond to. That painful task would earn her a few hours vegging out with her eReader and takeout in the tiny upstairs pilots’ lounge while she waited for the good doctor to be done with whatever beautiful-people gathering it was that he was attending.

Not actually that much different from what she’d have been doing on a Friday night after a long week anyway, when she thought about it. Which was just sad. She couldn’t, off the top of her head, think of the last time she’d been out. With her dad out of action, there’d just been too much work picking up the slack to want to do more than stay in and catch up on sleep when she got some downtime. Do the good and sensible thing.

Tired pilots made mistakes. And Charles Air really couldn’t afford another mistake. She’d flown exhausted and riding on adrenaline in the service but she didn’t have to now. She wouldn’t. Even when there were a thousand and one things calling for her attention, she tried to make sure she didn’t wear herself out. Sleep and rest were more important than bars and restaurants and the dating merry-go-round right now. Even if her therapist had made a few pointed comments about rebuilding her social life in their last session. Her best friend, Viv, had started to nag, too.

Lucas hung up his phone at last and Sara dragged her thoughts back to the present and him. Her client.

Her
paying
client. She was here to make his life easier, not obsess about her own. Was there anything she’d forgotten to tell him about the arrangements for the flight back? Nothing sprang to mind. Which meant it was time to stop admiring him in his tuxedo and let him disappear. But she allowed herself one last quick once-over and her eyes snagged on the laptop bag ruining the line of his jacket as it hung from his very broad shoulder. “You’re welcome to leave your laptop bag here with me,” she said. “Save you dragging it around.”

“We have some secure lockboxes,” Ellen added. “It’ll be safe.”

He nodded. “That would be helpful, thank you.” He held out the bag and Sara took it, ignoring the tiny flare of heat that rippled through her when her fingers brushed his. Holding his laptop was as close as she was ever going to get to Lucas Angelo. And as she watched through the glass terminal doors while he climbed into a red convertible and then sped off into the distance, she tried very hard to ignore the part of her that really, really wished she was speeding off with him.

Chapter Two

Intent on working the party, Lucas didn’t notice the rain.

The hum of conversation and the music playing through the sound system was loud enough to drown the world outside. Besides, he was focused on doing what he had come to do. Hunting for potential season ticket holders and corporate sponsors. Winning people over. Making them want to throw cash at the Saints.

Cash they needed. He and Alex and Mal had all put their share in, but they couldn’t keep throwing their personal funds into the team. Well, Alex probably could, given he was richer than God, and Lucas was not without his own resources. But that didn’t matter. The team needed to become self-sustaining. Had to function as a Major League Baseball team. Otherwise they, too, would eventually have to cut their losses. And at that point the chances of the Saints surviving without leaving New York were about a million to one.

Baseball teams were expensive to run. They were even more expensive when you were trying to recruit new talent and replace some of the existing team who’d decided to ply their trade elsewhere after the change in owners. They’d lost their second and third best pitchers and several other players. Pitchers were expensive. All players were expensive.

So they needed supporters. The Saints couldn’t compete against the deep, deep pockets of the top teams, but every little bit helped and Lucas would do his best to add to the coffers tonight. So he shook hands and made small talk and smiled at women in expensive dresses and even more expensive jewelry and shut everything else out of his mind for the time he had allocated to this task.

He did, however, notice when the lights flickered and the room went still for a moment. Then laughter broke out as the bulbs steadied and everyone clinked glasses, shrugged, and moved on. Which was the sensible reaction when you were down for the weekend and had no pressing need to be back in the city first thing in the morning.

A storm didn’t matter in those circumstances.

It did matter if you were planning to fly back to the city in a helicopter.

He excused himself from the conversation he’d been having with a couple who knew his mother and had spent the last ten minutes grilling him about her various charities. Stepping out of the main room, he pulled out his phone.

The signal was low—another casualty of the weather perhaps—but he had enough to open the weather app and find out what exactly the weather was doing. As he viewed the less-than-good figures on current rainfall and wind speed, the lights flickered again.

He didn’t need to read the warnings on the app to know that wasn’t good.