Page 51 of Ruthless Edge

"I'm fine."

"I'll get you another." He looks at Paige. "You want anything?"

Paige holds up her drink. "I'm great."

He goes. I watch him go, which I have to consciously force myself to look away from.

"You were saying," Paige says.

"I wasn't saying anything."

"You were saying he's complicated."

"He is complicated."

"He just walked past a very attractive woman who had her hand on him to come say hi to you."

"Knox is friendly. He does that with everyone." I look at the ceiling briefly. "It doesn't mean anything."

Knox comes back. He hands me a fresh drink and drops into the arm of the couch nearest my chair like he's been sitting in that spot for years, and it occurs to me that he has a way of making himself comfortable in any configuration, which is either a quality I admire or one I should find more suspicious than I do.

"How's the auction looking?" he asks.

"Good, actually." I hadn’t intended to talk about the auction tonight. I also can’t help talking about the auction because it's the thing I've put the most hours into this semester and I have a lot of thoughts about it. "Dr. Neely loved the format change. The new structure is confirmed."

"Walk me through it."

"Instead of the hockey players, we're auctioning the staff and SAB members surrounding the program. The women. On Friday night." I take a drink. "The winning bidders attend the gala Saturday as their dates. And the hockey players are allowed to bid this year along with the donors. I mean, not that you couldn’t have bid on a date with one of the guys last year, just that hockey players usually don’t bid on each other."

Knox goes very still. "We can bid?"

"You can bid."

Something moves across his face. "That's going to be a problem."

"For who?"

"For everyone who wants to bid on you." He says it simply, like it's just information. "The guys are going to lose their minds over this."

Is that a joke? It sounds like a joke.

I look away. "Hacksack Blues confirmed this week," I say, because I need the conversation to go somewhere practical. "And The Hawthorne came in under budget, so the ballroom is locked as long as we like the venue."

"That's great." He means it. "When do you see it?"

"Friday at one. It's a two-hour drive, so I'll leave by⁠—"

"I'll come."

"That’s not really⁠—"

"It's a site visit. You should have someone with you to take notes."

"I can take my own notes."

"Four hours in a car is a lot alone."

"I drive alone all the time."