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Evan rounded the corner. “Ah, you should have told me you were waiting for my help getting dressed.”
Startled, I dropped the clothes back into the hamper and scampered away. “Oh, no you don’t.” His hands on me while I was naked would guarantee I wouldn’t be on time. “Stay away from me. I can’t be late.”
Downstairs, the tall blonde I passed as I exited the elevator had overdone it on her perfume—Chanel No. 5.
I returned her smile before waving goodbye to Becka behind the desk.
CHAPTER30
Evan
It had beenthree weeks since Alexa and had erased fake from our vocabulary, and as good as things had gone between us so far, I had still had a problem to solve.
When I’d tried to think of anyone better to talk through my options with than Martin Graff, I’d come up empty. They all knew someone in my family or Alexa’s, and a leak would be catastrophic. He was the only one I felt was insulated enough from all the players.
That’s why I found myself walking into the Golden Nugget again. Martin and I had brainstormed plenty of hard problems in the past and this was a thorny one. I didn’t know how to tell my girl about the past help I’d provided her without her blowing up on me.
Martin stood and waved me over to the corner table.
This was my first time back with Martin, or anybody else, in this or any other girl-hunting environment. Instead of feeling at ease, it seemed foreign to me.
The Golden Nugget was considered up scale by many, but seemed seedier than I remembered. Most of my memories of this place were in an alcohol induced haze that must have made it seem brighter and cleaner than it looked tonight.
Two girls at the bar watched me as I crossed the room toward Martin’s table. I didn’t encourage them with a smile.
Martin had a girl sitting with him, which was par for the course for him. Since we’d hung out together some, he’d dated a number of women I’d broken up with.
“I’ll catch up with ya later,” he told the girl as I arrived.
She stood with a less than pleased look on her face. “But—”
Martin wasn’t having it. “I said later. I have business to conduct.”
I knew that tone, I’d used it plenty of times myself.
She gave me the once over before leaving.
“I'm glad you called,” Martin said as he pointed at the chair across from him. “It's been too long since we did this.”
“I felt I should cool it for a while after the last time. Dad and all,” I explained. Our last time had been the night the fountain incident. I wasn’t sure if Martin was the right one to talk to about this, but I knew nobody in my family was and he’d offered to talk.
“Since we’re away from the prying eyes at work maybe we can get back to Northern Aerospace. I’ve got this problem.”
I held up my hand to stop him. “I told you, I’m staying out of that. You’ll do fine.”
He’d twice mentioned that after he flew out to Chicago to meet with them things had gone chilly with their chairman and he’d wanted advice, which I’d declined once already. If he was pushing again, maybe the deal was teetering.
He looked around the room. “There are no prying eyes here.” Somehow he thought that getting caught was the issue.
“My dad would fire me if I had anything more to do with acquisitions. It’s your baby now.”
His brows rose noticeably. “No shit?”
I nodded. “No shit. He’s serious about it.”
“Maybe he’s losing a step. He had conversation with me last week about something he thought I’d said that I hadn’t. I didn’t push it because I didn’t want to embarrass him.”
I wasn’t involving myself in any gossip related to Dad.
