Angel in Armani (32 page)
She knew who he was. The other one. She’d met Alex Winters—he of the shirt/blazer/jeans/GQ good looks—when he’d interviewed her for this position. She’d met Lucas Angelo—six foot plus of immaculate suit, gorgeous Italian model face, and divine blue eyes—when she’d been talking to the team doctor about the training plans for her dance squad. But she hadn’t yet met the last of the three men who’d bought the Saints.
Malachi Coulter. She’d wondered about him. A girl would have to be made of stone not to wonder what the last third of the trio might be like when the first two were so delectable. And she’d never claimed to be made of stone. Not in the slightest.
Though the man walking toward her might be. His expression was pretty stony. It didn’t make his face, which was angles and jaw and deep dark eyes, any less appealing. He looked, as her grandma might have said, like a big ol’ parcel of man trouble. Her favorite kind. Or rather, her
former
favorite kind.
Bad boy written all over him.
Pity he was sort of her boss. No. Not a pity. A very good thing. It would help her remember that bad boy was her former preference. Still, regardless of her stance on bosses or bad boys, there was nothing to say she couldn’t enjoy the view. Or the irony of his approach being backed by a song about men who drove you crazy.
She summoned her best knock-’em-dead-in-the-back-stalls smile as he reached her and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Raina Easton, your dance director.”
He didn’t take her hand. She raised an eyebrow. He didn’t change his expression. She sighed and dropped her hand back to her side. “What can I do for you, Mr. Coulter?”
“I didn’t clear anyone for the field this morning.”
Damn. His voice fit the rest of him. It rumbled pleasingly. It made her girl parts want to shake pom poms and she wasn’t a cheerleader. Imagine what it might do if he didn’t sound so pissed.
She squelched the thought. She wasn’t going to imagine any such thing.
“The dance practice schedule was agreed a week ago,” she said, wishing she wasn’t in practice clothes and very flat dance sneakers. With a few inches boost from her favorite heels, he wouldn’t loom over her quite so much.
“You’re supposed to get a security clearance from me before entering the stadium.”
Oh dear. He was going to be one of those. Tall, dark, and grim. Pity. She didn’t do humorless. Life was too short for men who couldn’t make you laugh. And, right now, she didn’t do men at all.
“I’m sorry, nobody told me.” She tried a smile. “I swear we’re not some other team’s troupe sneaking in for illicit practice.” She was tempted to add a line about it being pretty hard to conceal a weapon in a crop top but figured that would be pushing her luck. Besides, if he announced he was going to search anyone, she’d likely be trampled by the dancers behind her stampeding to be first in line.
Mal’s gaze lifted, scanned the women behind her, then returned to her, looking no more pleased than previously. “Other baseball teams don’t have cheerleaders.”
He sounded like he thought that was a very good thing. She wasn’t going to let on that she agreed with him. Alex Winters was paying her a boat-load of money to whip his dancers into a lean, mean cheering machine and she was keeping her opinions about cheerleaders and baseball being sacrilege firmly to herself. She had plans for that boat-load of money. Which meant she also had to make nice to Malachi Coulter. “Dance troupe, not cheerleaders,” she said, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. “Now, we’ve only got another hour of practice. Can we stay or do you need us to leave?” She hit him with another smile.
“You can stay,” he said after a pause where the only noise was the pounding of drums and squealing guitars as the song on the sound system built to a crescendo. “But come and see me when you’re done.”
“Sure,” she said after a little pause of her own. “I look forward to it.” Then she turned back to the dancers so she wouldn’t watch him walk away.
* * *
Two hours later, Raina finished slicking lip gloss on and decided that she needed to stop procrastinating. She’d spent longer than she should showering and changing after the practice session and talking to the women in the squad. She’d only met most of them a week ago at the auditions, and she was still trying to get a feel for their personalities and strengths. They could all dance, she’d put her foot down about that—nixing a couple of the more blond and busty candidates who had looked freaking spectacular but had been less than blessed in the coordination and moving to music with some understanding of the basics of a beat and rhythm department—but just being able to dance wouldn’t necessarily turn them into a team fast enough for her liking.
It took time for personalities to gel and right now it wasn’t helping her cause that the best dancer of them all—the truly stunning green-eyed, dark-haired Ana—was shaping up to be a diva of the pit viper temperament variety.
Still, this was a rush job and she didn’t have time to hire any more dancers, let alone give up one as good as Ana, so she was just going to have to do her best. Think of the very nice chunk of change she would be earning and give up on the idea of spare time for a couple of months.
But none of that changed the fact that she still had to beard the boss man in his den, so to speak. The tall, dark, grumpy, and disturbingly handsome boss man.
No chickening out just because he’d sent her hormones ratcheting into high alert.
Damn it.
He had that bad boy vibe practically radiating for miles around him. There was the slightly too-long hair. The jeans and t-shirt “I don’t care” outfit. Alex Winters had worn jeans and a dark gray blazer when she’d met him, but his jeans had been one hundred percent designer. Whereas she was pretty certain that Malachi Coulter’s were well-worn Levis that had come by their faded patches and mysterious stains honestly.
There was also the tattoo snaking down his arm. She hadn’t let herself focus on the design, only noticing the bold color and geometric black edges before she’d looked away.
And if she had to put money on it, she would have bet a fair portion of her next Saints paycheck that the big black motorcycle she’d spotted in the parking lot earlier belonged to him, too. He was, after all, wearing a well-worn pair of biker boots.
So, the bad boy. Even if he was bad-boy-made-good—after all, he was part owner of a baseball team—he was still a bad boy.
And she’d sworn off bad boys.
Pity.
But necessary for her sanity.
She grabbed her things, stuffed them into her bag, and headed out of the locker room—which she had her suspicions, based on the aroma of fresh paint, hadn’t been a female locker room until shortly before Alex had hired her and held his auditions.
The next week in particular was going to be hell. By taking this job at the last minute, she’d managed to give herself the mother of all scheduling headaches. Her next big-themed review at the club was starting the same weekend as baseball season. Which meant days here on Staten Island making the Fallen Angels—she hadn’t been able to change Alex Winter’s mind about the ridiculousness of that name—baseball’s next big thing in dance troupes and then nights and any other spare seconds rehearsing at Madame R before they opened for the night.
Which left her, as far as she could figure it, maybe six hours a day for sleeping, eating, and basic hygiene.
She was going to need a lot of caffeine. And possibly a clone army.
She reached the reception desk after riding the creaky lift up to the office tower where the Saints’ management and administration operated and smiled. The blond she’d met earlier in the week wasn’t there; instead a woman with shoulder-length, light brown hair and blue eyes was sitting behind the desk. “Hi. Where might I find Malachi Coulter’s office?”
The woman looked up from her computer screen. “Does Mal know what this is about?”
“He asked me to come by,” Raina said. “The name’s Raina Easton.”
Blue eyes lit. “You’re the dance coach? Is that the right word?”
“It’s as good as any,” Raina said. “And yes, guilty as charged.”
“I’ve been hearing all about you,” the woman said. “I’m Sara. Sara Charles. I fly the team’s helicopter.”
“And man reception?”
Sara shrugged. “Just helping out while Letty has her break. Anyway, I’ll let Mal know you’re here.” She picked up the headset on the desk—which gave Raina a lovely view of the sizeable diamond gracing the ring finger of her left hand, a diamond that was an amazing shimmering blue that matched Sara’s eyes—put it on, and touched something on the computer screen in front of her.
“Mal,” Sara said after a moment. “Raina Easton is here to see you. Okay, I’ll send her around.”
She touched the screen again and pulled the headset off with ease. Once again the ring sparked in the light.
“He said to come round. You take this corridor, then the second turn right, and his office is the end of the row.”
“Thanks,” Raina said. “I’d better go or the boss man will be cranky.”
“His bark is worse than his bite,” Sara said.
“Oh I figured that part out,” Raina said. “But he’s still signing the paycheck.”
She smiled a good-bye and headed off in the direction Sara had given. In the minute or two it took to find her way, the nerves returned, a fleet of butterflies apparently trying out their step ball change skills in her stomach.
Malachi Coulter’s bark might be worse than his bite, but she had the feeling she didn’t want to really see him growling.
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to see him in a good mood either. Add a smile to the chiseled lines of that face and a girl might be in serious trouble, anti–bad boy resolutions or not.
The door to the office at the end of the hall was open. She took a breath and stepped into the doorway.
Malachi was sitting at a desk, but his chair was turned to face a bank of monitors showing what she assumed was security footage of the ballpark.
“I thought security offices were down in the basement,” she said. “They always are in the movies.”
The chair swung back around to her. “Ms. Easton. Done with your practice?”
“For now.” She walked into the office, not waiting for his invitation, and put her bag down near the desk. She jerked her chin at the bank of screens, feeling a little bit of tech envy. She had as good security as she could afford at her club, but that was still limited to cameras on the main floor, and a few others covering strategic points in the building and the entrances and exits. The twelve monitors behind Malachi’s desk each showed views from four cameras, and she suspected they rotated through even more than that. “Nice setup.”
His eyebrows rose. “Just the key feeds,” he said. “Our main monitoring room is on one of the lower levels. Close enough to a basement, I guess.”
“I can’t imagine having to run crowd control for a place this size,” Raina said. “Must take a hell of a lot of people.”
“Yes, it does,” Malachi said. He tilted his head at her. “Security isn’t a subject I’d expect a dancer to know a lot about.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I ran away with a rock band when I was a teenager and spent my formative years hanging out with roadies and security teams.”
He shook his head. “According to your background check, you spent your teenage years in a number of different schools around the country until you landed in New York for Juilliard. Where you lasted a year before you started working on Broadway.”
They’d done a background check on her? Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. Alex Winters wasn’t the kind of guy to not obtain all the information he needed. And Malachi didn’t strike her as any more easygoing. “Busted. No rock bands for me. Well, not the kind with arena tours. But dancers spend their lives in theaters and other venues. And these days, those come with security. I pay attention.”
“I guess burlesque clubs come with security, too,” he said.
“Yes, they do,” she said. So he knew about the club. And what she did these days. She waited to see what he said next. A lot of people assumed burlesque meant stripper. Mal said nothing. “But not like this.”
“That might be a good thing,” Mal said. Then he waved a hand at the chair. “Please, sit.”
She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. “So, you asked to see me?” she said as she sank into the chair. The leather was old and soft, and she ran her hand over the arm, appreciating the feel of it. “Is there a problem?”
“Just thought we should get things straight about the security protocol around here.”
“O-kay.” She leaned back in the chair. “I’m sorry, no one told me that I had to do anything about security. I sent my practice schedule to Alex two days ago.”
“It’s probably still sitting in his in-box,” Mal said. “He’s been flying back and forth to Florida every other day with the end of spring training.”
“So, I should send it to you as well?”
He nodded. “Then you’ll be on the books and we can leave passes for you all at the gate for next time.”
She rummaged in her bag for her phone and then found her contacts. Held it out to him. “Fine. Give me your e-mail and we’ll be all set.”
He took the phone, and as his head bent as he typed, his hair fell forward over his face and she had another flash of “Oh Lord, he’s attractive.” In a perfect world he’d be giving her his details for a whole ’nother reason, but this wasn’t a perfect world and she’d learned over the years that men like Mal were among the least perfect things in it.
Damn it.
“There.” He passed the phone back to her and his fingers brushed hers. Brushed and lingered. Just for a second or two. Then she pulled her hand back, resisting the urge to shake her fingers to get rid of the tingle in her skin.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll send you that schedule.”
The Devil in Denim
