First Down (Texas Titans #3) (5 page)

He seemed to give her question serious consideration. “I’m set in my ways. I’m a perfectionist. I expect a lot of myself and others.”

“Must make it tough to have a relationship.”

“I don’t do relationships,” he said quickly. “I’m a terrible boyfriend, always forgetting birthdays and anniversaries. I don’t think I have a romantic bone in my body.”

Alana laughed. “Romance is overrated.”

His lips twitched before he tried to school his expression. “I travel all the time. I love to party, but I’m a workaholic. I live for High Rollers. What else do you need to know? Oh, I’m crazy competitive. I think it’s a sickness.”

“You might be right,” Alana said, thinking he might be the most adorable man she’d ever met. “You should think about getting help for that.”

With a cleansing breath, he closed his eyes and braced his hands on his knees. “I feel so much better now that you know the ugly truth about me. Ready for dinner?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Grayson was smitten, no question about it. As he raised his glass to toast Alana’s new job, he realized he would have to admit to Jaxon that he’d been right to hire her. He hated admitting he was wrong—his best friends enjoyed it way too much. But this time, it would be worth it.

“Here’s to new beginnings and having the courage to seek them out,” he said, enjoying the rosy glow on her cheeks.

Alana was enjoying her second glass of wine, which she said was a rare treat, and it was obviously lowering her guard. She’d told him stories about growing up with overprotective brothers that made him laugh so hard he was wiping away tears. The outing was supposed to be a business dinner—correction, it was supposed to be a fishing expedition—but Alana had turned it into the most pleasant evening he’d spent with a woman in years.

“Cheers,” she said, touching her glass against his. “I know you had your doubts about me, Grayson. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

“I know you won’t.” He poured the rest of the wine into her glass before she could protest. “I can call our driver when we’re ready to leave.”

“You have a driver?”

“We have a reliable service we use when the need arises.”

“I see.” She took a sip of the wine before setting it down. “You don’t have to go to all that trouble. I can just call a cab.”

“It’s no trouble.” He smiled. “My mama always told me when you pick a woman up, you see her home. No exceptions.”

“Your mama raised you well.” She returned his smile.

The sexual tension between them had him thinking about how he would like the evening to end. He’d never slept with one of their employees, nor had any of his partners. They’d agreed early on that that would be a mistake, but Alana made him question everything he thought he knew about propriety. She was clearly a classy lady, used to living a privileged life, but he sensed she could get a little wild too. That was the side he most wanted to see after hours.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, trying to hide her smile.

“I was thinking about your family.”
Liar.
“You said your brothers were over-protective. How did they feel about you marrying Ronan?”

“They never really liked him. They warned me he was too intense, even in the beginning, but I didn’t want to listen.” She sighed. “He was my first love, the man I wanted to build my life around. And I did, for years. In the process, I lost any sense of who I was.”

“Why did you finally decide to leave him?” He was happy she’d finally come to that decision. If he’d met her while she had still been married, he feared he might have felt the same intense attraction, and pursuing a married woman went against everything he believed in.

“He cheated on me. Then he had the nerve to suggest we have a baby.” She looked a little sad. “I knew that would bind us together forever. I would have had no way to escape him, because he would have always been a part of my life through our child.”

“It sounds like you made the right call,” Grayson said, trying to sound casual.

“I did, no question about it.” She twisted the wine glass instead of looking at him. “Still, I really want to be a mom someday.”

Marriage. Kids. Commitment.
Grayson felt beads of perspiration break out on his forehead. “Did you like being married? I mean, do you want to get married again someday or did that experience turn you off?”

“I loved being married at first,” she said, looking wistful. “Ronan was sweet and attentive, as though making me happy was the most important thing in the world to him.”

“What happened to change that?” Grayson wondered if he was a masochist for wanting to know so much about her marriage.

“It was weird,” she said. “I started working out at a gym near the office on my lunch hour. After working all day, I was too tired to work out in our home gym. That’s when I started noticing subtle changes in Ronan.”

“How so?”

“He started questioning me about where I was going and when I was coming back. If I bought a new outfit to wear to the gym, he’d ask who I was trying to impress. Things escalated when I hired a personal trainer to help me prepare for a triathlon.”

“Triathlon?” Grayson tried to conceal the shock in his voice. No wonder she was ripped. She wasn’t just a fitness buff—she was a warrior.

“It was on my bucket list,” she said shyly, looking up at him. “I wanted to challenge myself, you know, to see if I could do it.”

“And did you?”

“A few times,” she said with a proud gleam in her eye. “Turns out there’s very little you can’t do when you set your mind to something and refuse to let anything stand in your way.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” He was beginning to think there was very little he wouldn’t do to get her into his bed.

“Anyways, Ronan went ballistic when he found out I was working out with a man. He insisted I fire him and hire a female trainer who could work with me in our home if I was so hell-bent on competing in a triathlon, which he thought was a waste of time.”

“So what did you do?”

“I stood my ground,” she said, folding her arms. “I wasn’t going to let him bully me into backing down. John was just trying to help me be the best I could be, and I needed him for that. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could do it, especially with Ronan telling me it was an impossible feat.”

“It must have pissed him off when you didn’t do as he asked.” Grayson knew men like Ronan. Simply because they were wealthy and powerful, they thought they had the right to call all the shots in the relationship.

“Would it have pissed you off?” she asked. “If your wife had defied you that way?”

“Defied me?” Grayson chuckled. “I can’t say I’ve ever had much experience with obedient women. My mama and sisters are all pistols. If someone tried to tell one of them what to do, there’d be holy hell to pay.”

“They sound like my kind of women,” Alana said, grinning.

He hadn’t taken a woman home in years, but he could imagine Alana sitting around his parents’ dinner table talking and laughing with the most important women in his life. No question, they’d love her. Which meant they would put all kinds of pressure on him about when they would see her again… “Will you be back in town by Sunday?”

“I guess I’ll have to be if I’m starting work on Monday morning, right? Why do you ask?”

“Since you’re new in town, I thought you’d like to meet some people.”

“That might be nice,” she said, smiling. “You mean my coworkers?”

“No, my family.”

Her eyes widened. “Your family?”

“Yeah.” He knew he should try to retract the offer, but he didn’t want to. “We all get together Sunday nights for dinner. It’s been kind of a tradition for as long as I can remember.”

“I couldn’t intrude on your family dinner,” she said, looking a little panicked. “Thank you for the offer, but—”

“You wouldn’t be intruding. My mama’s always had an open-door policy. Ranch hands, neighbors, hell, even stray cats and dogs sometimes show up for my mama’s grub.”

“Your parents live on a ranch?” she asked.

“Yeah.” She was tempted to accept his invitation, he could tell. He just had to focus on the soft sell to seal the deal. “You know anything about ranching?”

“No, I can’t say that I do, but when I was a kid, I used to love riding horses. I took riding lessons three times a week.”

“What made you stop?”

Her eyes filled with sorrow. “My horse died. I didn’t want to think about replacing him, so I just stopped riding.”

“My parents have horses,” he said. “You’re welcome to ride one, if you’d like.”

“Really?” she asked with excitement. “You don’t think they’d mind?”

“Of course not.”

“If you’re sure, then I’d love to come on Sunday. Thanks for the invitation.”

“My pleasure.” He had no doubt that spending more time in her company would be a pleasure indeed.

***

Jaxon launched a paper airplane across Grayson’s office. “Just admit that I was right about hiring Alana.”

Grayson rolled his eyes at his friend’s antics. “I don’t have to admit anything.” Waiting for Sunday to roll around so he could see Alana again had made it the longest week of Grayson’s life, but he would be damned if he’d admit that to Jaxon.

“You don’t have to admit it. I know you took her to dinner at the club.” Jaxon grinned as if he’d just revealed a sordid secret. “Why didn’t you mention that?”

Grayson should have known his partners would find out. Zach’s parents owned the club, and his father had greeted them when they’d walked into the restaurant. “So what?”

“You like her.” Jaxon balled up a piece of paper and aimed it at the wastebasket. “Just admit it. She’s totally your type. I could tell the first time I met her you’d be into her.”

“Don’t you know trees are being cut down as we speak to support your juvenile games?” Grayson grabbed the stack of paper from his printer and shoved it in a drawer before Jaxon could steal another sheet.

“You’re trying to change the subject,” Jaxon said, settling deeper into the chair. “It’s not going to work. I’m not leaving until you admit you’re into her.”

“Then you’ll be waiting a long time,” Grayson said, trying to get back to work.

“I got that background check on her. You know, the one you asked for. You wanna hear what Sulli came up with?” Jaxon tapped the manila folder he’d brought into the office with him. “It’s all right here. Every dirty little secret.”

The background check. Grayson had forgotten all about that. He should have told Jaxon to forget about it, but he’d been too distracted to give it much thought. “I don’t need to see it.”

“Why not?” Jaxon asked, smirking. “There’s some really interesting stuff in here. Makes for interesting reading.”

Grayson hated that Jaxon knew things about Alana that he didn’t, but he wanted her to be the one to tell him her life story—maybe while they were lying in bed after a marathon session between the sheets. “Not interested.”

“You’re such a liar,” Jaxon said. “And not even a very good one.” He flipped through pages in the folder before he held up an 8x10 glossy photograph of Alana onstage wearing a bikini and high heels. “Did she tell you she competes in fitness competitions? She’s been doing that since the divorce. She’s placed twice in figure at some pretty prestigious events. Her diet must be pretty damn tight to pull that off, huh?”

Grayson knew his friend was just trying to bait him, and he refused to fall into Jaxon’s trap. Alana’s life was private, and he had no right to uncover more than she was willing to divulge. When he’d suggested their investigator check her out, he had been more interested in whether anything in her past would pose a threat to the company, not a blow by blow of how she spent her days.

“Think this guy’s her boyfriend?” Jaxon asked, holding up another glossy photo of Alana in workout clothes.

She was standing outside of a gym with a muscle-bound man who seemed to be hanging on her every word. He was in her personal space, crowding her against a car. They looked cozy, Grayson thought, biting his tongue. Too damn cozy.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Or maybe it’s this guy…” Jaxon held up another photo of Alana talking to a middle-aged man in a designer suit. Again they looked friendly, bordering on intimate.

Alana had told him she didn’t have many male friends and wasn’t interested in dating, so how had the investigator turned up so many pictures of her with men who looked as though they were interested in more than a casual cup of coffee?

Jaxon slid the pictures back into the envelope. “You’re dying to know who they are—I can tell. You want me to have Sulli find out? If you’ve got competition, you should know who you’re up against.”

Grayson wasn’t in the habit of competing for a woman’s attention. “I don’t need Sulli to do any more digging. If I want to know anything, I’ll ask Alana.”

“Suit yourself,” Jaxon said, tossing the folder on his friend’s desk. “But I’ll leave this here in case you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Grayson called after him.

“We’ll see.” Jaxon shut the office door behind him.

“Smug bastard,” Grayson muttered. He tossed the folder into his trashcan, waited ten seconds, and pulled it out. He had no intention of reading it, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t hang on to it… just in case.

Alana was waiting for a taxi to take her to the airport when Ronan showed up looking angry and determined. She was in the lobby of the office building where she’d been temping, sitting on a sofa in front of a bank of windows.
Nowhere to hide
. She squared her shoulders and prepared for another fight. Thankfully, they were in a semi-public place, and the security guard was making his rounds, so Ronan couldn’t cause too much of a scene.

“What do you want, Ronan? I thought I made it clear last time I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“What’s this I hear about you moving?” he demanded, curling his hands around a chair. “You can’t do that! Your family’s here. I’m here!”

“You’re the reason I’m leaving,” she said as a couple stepped off the elevator and cast a curious glance in their direction. Ronan didn’t mind making a spectacle of himself, but she could live without it. She lowered her voice. “You refuse to accept it’s over. You harass me every chance you get. What the hell did you expect me to do?”