Angel in Armani (12 page)

But that was in the A-Star, and this was a whole new helicopter. She’d need to show him where everything went. She bit her lip, hand on the edge of the door. She hadn’t thought about how she’d have to stand here and watch him walk that goddamned master-of-the-universe stupidly sexy walk toward her.

But she did. And the gloomy day meant hiding behind sunglasses was out. So she steeled her spine and her face and pretended that she didn’t care in the slightest that Lucas Angelo was striding toward her dressed in yet another perfectly cut suit.

She couldn’t tell from this distance if it was very dark gray or maybe very dark blue, but his tie was mostly silver with blue and yellow stripes.

Which were the colors of the New York Saints. Another thing she’d spent several hours studying last night after she’d accepted Lucas’s offer. Given herself a crash course in the history of what seemed to be the worst team in Major League Baseball and the three men who’d just bought the franchise.

It was intriguing, really. Lucas was—other than in bed—a study in control. A surgeon. She was fairly sure that only people who were very fond of being able to order the world around them became surgeons. And yet here he was, taking on what had to be a terrible bet. A team that hadn’t won a World Series in so long that it was ridiculous. A team with serious financial woes.

Why? It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of him. Which made her stupid heart give the tiniest of hopeful bumps as she watched him close the distance between them.

For one long moment their eyes locked. Then her nerve broke and she turned back to the helo for a moment, fussing with the handle on the door for no reason before she got brave enough to turn back.

And there he was. Just a foot or so away. Close enough to touch. Definitely close enough that a hint of that spicy Lucas scent hit her even through the smell of fuel and machine that surrounded her.

“Sara,” he said. “Sorry I’m a little late.” He smiled down at her, blue eyes warm.

Too warm. Too close. She felt her face go hot. His smile widened.

She tried to remember what he’d said. Something about being late? He was maybe two minutes past when he’d said he’d arrive. They had plenty of time to get to JFK.

“It’s no problem, Dr. Angelo,” she said.

“It’s Lucas,” he said. “I think we left Dr. Angelo back in the Hamptons.”

Crap. He’d brought it up. Why oh why had he brought that up? Her face went from hot to supernova, and she looked down at her shoes for a moment.

“So how do you like my ballpark?” Lucas asked.

Change of subject. Thank God. She risked looking up again. His expression had eased to something less intense. Still gorgeous but manageable. “Well, I haven’t really seen a lot of it yet. But it seems nice.”

Lucas grinned. “That was diplomatic of you.”

She smiled ruefully. Deacon Field might be a Staten Island icon but it wasn’t going to win any awards for architectural splendor.

“Is that supposed to be a halo?” she asked, pointing at the strange silver glass structure that was built into the angled roof of the office tower spiking above the stadium.

Lucas shook his head. “Apparently so. Butt-ugly, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen,” she admitted.

“If I had my way, we’d tear it down and rebuild,” Lucas said. “But that’s not in the budget just yet. Besides which, the fans would probably picket us.”

“People like it?”

“People like history,” he said. “That halo is older than either of us.”

She looked up at it. Squinted sideways.

Tried to see the big silver ring as something more than a blight on the landscape. It didn’t magically become more attractive. She shrugged. “To each their own.”

“Baseball fans are sentimental. And superstitious. The Saints need all the good luck they can get, so we can’t go messing with our good-luck symbols.”

“That’s a good-luck symbol?” she asked. “Maybe that’s your problem. Anyway, aren’t the Saints like the worst team in the league?”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about baseball.” He slapped a hand against his chest, looking mock-wounded “But the one thing you do know is that my team is terrible?”

“I did grow up on the island,” she said. “I might not pay attention to that, but it’s pretty hard to miss the mass depression of the entire male population at the end of the season.”

Lucas looked skyward, muttering something. Suddenly he looked very Italian.

“Are you telling me they aren’t the worst team in the league?” she asked, half teasing. If he couldn’t joke about his team and take a bit of ribbing, it was best to know now. For one thing it would make it easier to forget about him. She liked her men to have a healthy sense of the ridiculous to go along with a healthy ego.

And for another, it was going to stop her shoving her foot in her mouth if he was touchy about it. Not that being touchy about the Saints seemed sensible. He was going to give himself a nervous breakdown owning the Saints, if their reputation was true and he was too set on being a winner or something. Evan had been big on winning. Even mini golf and supposedly friendly Frisbee in the park turned into a contest with Evan. And Kane had been another competitive flyboy, with an extra dose of high-octane army testosterone. She was over men who needed to win at all costs.

She held her breath as Lucas studied her a moment, blue eyes unreadable.

“We finished seventh in the American League last year,” he said eventually.

“Is that good?”

He groaned theatrically. “You really don’t know anything about baseball, do you? Seventh means we didn’t make the play-offs, but it’s also not dead last.”

“Well, that’s something.” She reached out and held out her hand for his bag. “Not last is good.”

“Of course,” Lucas said with a grin, “if you look at our average performance over the history of the team, we are definitely the worst team in baseball.”

“Which begs the question of why you’d want to buy this team?” Sara said. She waved a hand at the stadium. “I mean, this is kind of sweet and all. But don’t you want to win?”

His smile turned rueful. “To tell the truth, I’m still not entirely sure how Alex talked us into it. I think he put something in the bourbon that night. But no, it’s not about winning. It’s about being part of something that I’ve always loved. I’ve been a Saints fan my whole life.”

“But you grew up in Manhattan,” Sara said. Manhattan and the Hamptons and all the other playgrounds of the rich and privileged. “Why pick the Saints?”

He shrugged a shoulder and said, “Trying to explain that is like trying to explain why you fell in love with someone. My dad kind of followed the Yankees. But the first proper game of baseball I ever went to was the Saints versus the Red Sox and I just kind of … fell. I liked their spirit.” Another shrug. “Or maybe it was the fact that their mascot is an angel.”

“Why Dr. Angelo. That’s very sentimental of you,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “Not logical. It horrified my dad. Still horrifies my whole family really.” He nodded toward the helo. “Shall we?”

Apparently they were done with chatting for now. Which was good. The more she talked to the man, the more she remembered what she’d liked about him back in that hotel room.

“I’ll show you where to put your bags,” she said. There. Pretend he was just another customer.

Thankfully he didn’t call her on it but listened attentively as she showed him where to put his stuff and how to use the headset and adjust the seat. Then she left him to settle himself and climbed up into the pilot’s seat to ready for takeoff, running through her mental list of checks and tasks while trying not to notice the very familiar scent of Lucas Angelo that had spread through the helo way too quickly.

Ignore it
.

Focus on the flight
. She started the helo and wasted no time getting them into the air and pointing the helo toward JFK.

As her ears filled with the steady familiar noises of flight, she couldn’t help the happiness that swept through her. In the air again. At last.

For this, she would put up with Lucas Angelo and whatever else the universe decided to throw at her. She allowed herself to revel in it for a minute or two, and happily Lucas stayed silent. She assumed he had his nose buried in his laptop as usual. Which meant it should be safe to sneak a look.

Just one.

After all, it was her responsibility to ensure her passenger was comfortable. And she was determined to be hands-off with Lucas from here on in—but that didn’t mean she had to completely deprive herself, did it?

But when she twisted her head to check on him, she found herself caught in the spotlight of those brilliant blue eyes. He lifted one eyebrow at her. She turned back, cheeks heating.

“Did you want to ask me something?” Lucas’s voice came over the headset.

She shook her head.

“My mother always says it’s not polite not to look at someone when you’re talking to them.”

“Your mom isn’t flying a helicopter,” Sara said. “Besides, I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Oh, just admiring the scenery, then?” Amusement was clear in his voice.

“I was making sure my passenger was all right.”

“I see.” He paused. “You know, I could come up and sit beside you.”

Panic flared. She might have thrown sanity to the wind by taking this job but she had retained enough common sense to know that she needed to keep some space between them if she was going to keep her distance from Lucas. She glanced at the empty second pilot’s chair beside her. “Nope. It’s not safe for you to move around while we’re in the air.” She worked the controls a little, just to make the helo bobble a bit. “And see, it’s a bit bumpy. You stay where you are.”

“Okay. As long as you tell me something.”

She gritted her teeth. “What?”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Wake him up…? It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Then her cheeks got hotter. Her stomach tightened and something lower down throbbed as suddenly the helo felt full of tiger all over again. She swallowed.
Play dumb, Sara
. “Wake you up?”

“Back in the Hamptons.” His voice sounded lower. “Why didn’t you wake me up and ask for some help?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d let me take the car,” she said. “Why would you? You had to get back to the city and let’s face it, I’m just the girl you slept with because you were stuck in a dodgy motel during a storm.”

“As I recall, I slept with you because you made a pass.” His voice was definitely lower.

She didn’t know if that was a bad or good thing.
Do not turn around and look at him
. It was bad enough that she could feel him sitting there behind her. Feel him as clearly as though he were pressed against her. “Blame the beer.”

“Do you often make passes at men after one and a half warm beers?” He sounded curious.

Only when they look like you
. She swallowed again, tried to ignore the tingle on the back of her neck. He was watching her. She knew it. But she wasn’t going to turn around. “No.”

“Then let’s be honest and chalk it up to mutual attraction.”

Mutual? Her mouth dried. “I—”

“Which brings me back to my question. Why didn’t you wake me up? I had a damned good time.” His voice roughened, and she had to suck in a breath as it sent a shiver fluttering down her spine. “I’m pretty sure you did, too. So why wouldn’t you ask me to help you?”

Because if I woke you up, I wouldn’t have been able to leave?
Nope. Wasn’t going to say that. “I like to solve my own problems.”

“Car theft was easier than asking someone to help out? Isn’t that taking independence a little bit too far?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I was worried about the helo.”

“Helo trumps guy?”

“Helo trumps one-night stand that was a bad idea.”

“A bad idea? It felt pretty good to me.” There was that low hot tone in his voice again.

There were so many reasons. “You were a customer. I don’t get involved with customers.” There, that was the simplest explanation.

“I don’t usually sleep with my chopper pilots, so we’re even on that score.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re the one who can afford to charter helicopters and I’m not.”

“I’m a bad idea because I have money?”

“No. You’re a bad idea because—” She waved a hand in the air, frustrated, trying to work out the diplomatic way to get him to end this conversation. “Because we’re different.” She looked down at her instruments, calculating the flight time left. Too long to just stay silent the whole time.

And then there was the flight to Florida and another helicopter flight before she’d be able to get away from him. Maybe she wouldn’t be sitting with him on the plane, though. That would be something. But it didn’t really matter. She was going to be spending enough time with Lucas over the next few months that they might as well get this sorted out now.

He needed to understand that there would be no more sex. No matter how much heat might spark between them.

“Different seemed to work okay in that motel room,” Lucas said, breaking the silence.

“That motel room wasn’t reality.”

“It felt real to me.”

Her stomach twisted, warming as she remembered just how it had felt. And tasted and sounded.
God
. Was she ever going to be able to forget? “It was just for one night. That’s all it was ever going to be. So please, can’t you just let it go?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t been able to forget what it felt like when I was inside you,” he growled.

Her hand jerked on the controls and the helo tilted. Much like her world just had. She righted the helo easily enough but she couldn’t do the same to her pulse.

“Well, try harder.” She was amazed she could still speak with an ocean of lust flooding through her.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t sleep with clients and I definitely don’t sleep with men who are, for all practical purposes, my boss.”

“Why?”

“Do I really need to explain that to you? Workplace relationships are bad news. I prefer nonfraternization.” And not just with employers. Lucas Angelo was out of her league. All the great sex in the world wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between them. And she’d learned the hard way what happened when people from her world tangled with the very rich when Jamie had died.