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The girls laughed, and Brooke made her way around the table. Back when we were a couple, PDA had been off the table. She had always been too shy and worried about people seeing us. Not like this.
I pulled her chair out for her, my fingertips grazing her shoulders as I pushed the chair back in, sending a pulse through my body. I’d felt it when we hugged, too, but had dismissed the feeling as shock. This time, I wasn’t so sure what it was.
Leah made her way back to the kitchen, so I turned my focus onto Liam.
“So,” I said to him, taking my seat. “I take it you’re not much of a drinker?”
He chuckled. “Alcohol tends to metabolize quickly in my system because I work out a lot.”
Of course you do.
“His gym routine is nuts,” Brooke said, looking at him fondly. “I swear, he works as hard at the gym as he does in the office.”
“You’re one to talk,” Liam said, taking his seat. He turned to me, adding, “Brooke is up at 5:30 a.m. to hit the gym, gets to the office by 7:00 a.m., and usually stays just as late as me. She’s a machine.”
“Who’s a machine?” Lillian asked as she, Robert, and Leah entered with hands full of food in serving dishes.
“Brooke,” Liam answered. “She’s absolutely incredible at her job. Since she started, our media pick-ups have increased by sixty-two percent. Grey Industries’ brand health scores are through the roof, and that’s all because of our improved public perception, thanks to Brooke. I don’t know how she does it.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s incredible.”
Brooke’s cheeks turned pink, and it was the first time I’d seen her look sheepish all night. From the moment I’d first laid eyes on her, save for the second of shock she’d registered upon seeing me, she’d seemed poised and self-assured.
It was a new Brooke; grown-up, confident, and sexy as hell.
CHAPTER3
Brooke
NOW
“I was sonervous walking into Liam’s office that first time,” I said after taking a sip of my wine. We were at least forty-five minutes into dinner, and Leah and Mr. and Mrs. Grey had asked me a ton of questions, including the one I was currently in the middle of answering: How had Liam and I met?
I took a breath to continue, very aware of Alex’s gaze, which had barely left the side of my head since we’d started eating. I guess it was understandable, his being interested in my life now, and soon enough, it would be him on the hot seat.
“Liam needed an urgent press release to announce the acquisition of Sky Corp and worried that the media would scoop him,” I continued. “So, I walked in there and got right to work. We had the release out the door within thirty minutes, and no one else beat us to reporting the news.”
“She was remarkable,” Liam said.
“We made a good team,” I countered.
He reached over from across the table and waited for my hand. When I obliged and slipped my hand into his, he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Anyway,” I said, “that’s how we first met.”
Those were the high-level details, anyway. I wasn’t about to tell my dinner companions that, from the second I walked into Liam’s office and saw those gorgeous blue eyes, the words “Mr. Grey will see you now”had popped into my head. The quote from the very steamy movie elicited some dirty thoughts on my part. Liam’s looks and charm would have been impossible to ignore, even if his wealth and CEO status weren’t similar to the movie.
It had been different, I remember thinking, from when I had seen Alex the first time.
“Anyway, that’s enough about me,” I said, resisting the urge to walk down memory lane in my head. “Leah, how did you meet Alex?”
Leah waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s such a boring story. We brought in his firm to do some work. Our previous accountant had made a mess of things, and Alex and I spent months trying to sort out the mess.” She smiled at him. “Some very late nights at the office.”
Ugh.I officially regretted the question at her subtle, playful innuendo, especially when Alex’s eyes lit up with mischief. The way he looked at her was something special—full of warmth, joy, passion, and admiration. I don’t think he’d ever looked at me that way—so intently that his feelings were written on his face for all to see.
“I have a better question,” Leah continued. “How didyouand Alex meet?”
Oh, fuck.I got a one-question break and was already back on the hot seat with a level-one-thousand scorcher of a question. This hardly seemed fair.
