Jack glanced at his face, his hand, and then back at his face. “No,” he agreed but made no move to take his hand.
Ashamed, Freddie lowered it. “I’m Frederic Cravitz.”
“He knows that,” Temple said, looking at his colleague with irritation. Apparently, he was surprised that he was such an asshole, which Penny didn’t understand at all since he had beenone the last time they met. “Freddie, we’re going out with the others. Do you want to come?”
Lyle’s assistant looked at Penny and opened his mouth but apparently didn’t know what to say. It was written all over his face that he wanted to go, since he wasn’t often asked.
“You should go,” she said instinctively, even if it meant she would have to eat alone. It didn’t appear that her presence was wanted. The other players who were conspicuously avoiding her gaze stood behind Temple, but that was okay. Surely, they didn’t want the owners…
“Clark is coming, too,” Matt announced, flanking Jack on the other side. “So?”
Penny pursed her lips. Of course. Perhaps it was a guys’ night out. They were probably going to a strip club. They were that unimaginative.
Her gaze wandered to Jack again, almost expecting him to avert his eyes. Instead, he met her gaze with slightly narrowed eyes and his brow forming a line. She would have given her father’s fortune to know what he was thinking.
Chapter Twelve
What the hell did Penny want with that clown?
The thought was still on Jack’s mind when he returned to the hotel two hours later. He hadn’t been in the mood for the strip club that Leon had recommended.
Freddie Cravitz was the biggest nerd on earth, and insecure, to boot. That much had become clear to him during the last hundred and twenty minutes. The guy was so incredibly nice that Jack couldn’t even hate him, which was annoying because he had prepared himself for that when he noticed him right away at the table with Penny. He couldn’t help it. She was a damn magnet that he couldn’t resist. He heard her voice, her laugh, her sigh…and his eyes had found her.
Oh God, he was obsessed, wasn’t he?
And not with hockey, but with a woman! That was more than worrying.
Frowning, Jack raised his eyes and stared into the mirrored elevator wall. Perplexed, he blinked and leaned forward, shocked to see that his cheeks had turned pink. Oh, shit, he wasn’t obsessed. It was much worse. He had a crush. On his boss.
“Fuck,” he whispered, rubbing his face.
This was bad, very, very bad. The last time he had a crush on a groupie who collected jersey numbers was when he was twenty-one. But he had been young and stupid and starved for affection. He had just received his first check and his siblings weren’t speaking to him, so he had confused sex with love and…well. He had gotten over it quickly. He wasn’t that young anymore and he certainly wasn’t stupid — but shit, he wanted Penny.
“Fuck,” he repeated softly.
The elevator stopped and he got out. Nervously, he undid the top button of his shirt, the collar of which had grown uncomfortably tight in the last few seconds, and stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn’t alone in the hallway.
In front of him was an alpaca, an alpaca that was inserting a bill into the snack machine before pulling out a pack of M&M’s.
He blinked several times and tilted his head in confusion. Okay, if you looked more closely, it was a human. It was Penny, to be exact. But she was wearing white wool pajamas with hundreds of alpacas or llamas printed on them with a matching hood on her head complete with fluffy ears.
She looked like she had escaped a zoo. And before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “Cute.”
Penny flinched and turned in shock. Her gaze found his face and her cheeks reddened so quickly that Jack grew dizzy watching it.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, shocked. “I thought you were all getting drunk in some strip club? It’s ten o’clock! You shouldn’t be back yet. No one should be back yet.”
Jack suppressed a grin and tilted his head to the other side before slowly inspecting her outfit, only to see the color of her cheeks turn from raspberry red to a dark crimson. “Is that why you dared to step out into the hallway in the form of your favorite animal?”
She narrowed her eyes and glanced briefly at the pack of M&M’s in her hand, perhaps gauging how much it would hurt if she threw it at him. Finally, she replied in a deliberately cool tone, “Don’t be silly, my favorite animal is a boa constrictor. I often think about strangling people!” She looked meaningfully at his neck.
He chuckled softly. “Do you often daydream about killing people?”
“Oh, more and more often these last few weeks. And you still haven’t told me why you’re back! Why aren’t you pressing your face into Candy or Tiffany or Strawberry’s cleavage? They must miss you.”
“Jealous?”
She snorted. “Of a boa constrictor, yes. Because if I were one, you would no longer be standing there with that stupid grin on your face, avoiding my question.”
