Halftime Husband (Sassy in the City 5)

Teri approached the two. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Eloise, are you ready for us?”

“Of course,” she said, standing up abruptly. Her swift movement backfired when her chair rolled backward and hit Brandon in the leg on his approach. “Oh! Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Macnamara!”

I felt bad for her. She clearly had a crush on North and he had rattled her by being a flirt. Even now, he was staring at her in a way that had to be making her self-conscious.

“No problem. You’re Eloise, correct?” Brandon asked.

She nodded.

“Nice to meet you. Thank you for helping Teri and Dakota with their project.” Brandon gestured to me. “This Dakota, not that Dakota. The pretty one.”

“Hey!” Dak protested. “I don’t think that’s fair. I may have a face only a momma would love, but I have great hair.”

He did. It was long and wavy and a sun-kissed blonde. “You do have better hair than me,” I told him. “I would kill for that kind of volume. But, sorry, I have to say I think I have better legs.”

Dak laughed. He glanced down the length of my body. “I can’t argue with that.” He stuck his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you too.” I shook his hand and gave him a smile. He was lying. He did not have an ugly face. He wasn’t traditionally handsome but he wasn’t hard to look at either. But I could see the type of guy he was. A total player, in every sense.

“Oh, sorry, I would have introduced you, but I thought you knew each other already,” Brandon said.

He didn’t sound like he was thrilled about it either.

“No,” I said, glancing over at him. “We’ve never met.” I gave Dak a smile. “Should we give you a few minutes with Eloise? I’ll go grab a coffee. I don’t want to rush you.”

But he waved my suggestion off. “Oh, no. I don’t have anything important going on here.”

Eloise swallowed hard.

He continued. “I was just bugging Kitty. I’m sure she’s sick of me hanging around her desk.”

What she looked was like she wanted him to take her hard on her desk the way Brandon had me on his.

But I suspected Dak had no clue what his casual flirting was doing to the social media manager. Eloise looked like she needed a cold shower.

“Excellent,” Teri said. “We’ll just steal Eloise then.” She gestured toward the meeting room. “Shall we?”

“Of course.” Eloise grabbed her phone and a notebook and walked quickly toward the meeting room without a word to Dak.

“Are you coming too?” I asked Brandon, when he made no move to join us. He was talking low, behind his hand, to Dak.

Almost like he was saying something he didn’t want me to hear.

“No, I’m good. I’ll let you do your thing,” he said, in a complete one-eighty.

I didn’t like his tone. I had the sneaking suspicion he was annoyed. That somehow he thought Dak was flirting with me. Which he hadn’t been. It had been a friendly exchange, nothing more. Men like Dak were friendly.

“Why on earth does he call you Kitty?” Teri asked Eloise as we entered the meeting room. She closed the glass door behind us.

“Oh. It’s because I like cats.” Eloise gestured to her shirt, which sported two kittens playing with a ball of yarn.

It was a look I could never pull off, but something she managed to look nerdy cute. It fit her.

“Be careful,” Teri said. “He’s a playboy.”

Eloise pursed her lips, but she nodded. “I know. He just likes to flirt. With everyone.”

Now I felt annoyed on her behalf. She was just at work and he was interrupting her to flirt with her? “You can tell him to stop, you know.”