Interception (The New York Nighthawks 2)

I stopped jumping altogether and busied myself by wiping down and taking a long drink from my water bottle.

“Ember is awesome,” Prentice told him. “You’ll love her.”

Not if I have any-fucking-thing to say about it.

The voice in my head was immediately confronted by another, asking what the fuck I intended to do about it, and if the answer was nothing, then to shut the fuck up.

“Have you ever been to Daniel?”

Whoa. Daniel was a Michelin-starred French restaurant on the Upper East Side. Jordan was pulling out the big guns to impress my—Ember.

Do I really have to say it? Yeah. Still an asshole.

“No,” Prentice answered. “But I’ve heard it’s amazing. In fact, Naomi will be jealous. She’s been after me to take her there. But I want to check with her doctor about what she can eat off their menu beforehand.”

I choked back a laugh, earning myself a scowl from my brother-in-law. Nothing got my sister fired up faster than when her overprotective husband became overbearing and told her what she couldn’t do or eat. Luckily, I was just the brother, so when the hormones kicked in and she started to cry, I made sure to be gone.

Jordan looked back and forth between us curiously, but neither of us volunteered an explanation, so he returned to the topic of his blind date. “I’ll let you know how it is. I’m meeting her there at seven.”

He’s not picking her up? Asshole.

“I wanted to pick her up, but she has class until just before our reservation.”

I gritted my teeth in frustration. Why did he have to be such a good guy? It would have been so much easier to stop the date by beating the shit out of him.

Stop the date?

“Actually, I’m hoping if things go well tonight, she’ll agree to be my date to the Spring Ball next month.”

My hands balled into fists at my side as I held in a growl. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center held a fundraiser gala every year, and most of the team usually attended. I hated the idea of Ember dressing up for Jordan and spending the night on his arm—or worse, in them.

But even more than that, Naomi once mentioned that Ember’s little brother, Dennis, had died from cancer when he was ten. If anyone was going to take her to something so meaningful, it was damn well going to be me.

Stop the date.

Yeah, I was officially done with this bullshit. No more fighting myself, no more denying what I really wanted. It was time to go get my girl and make her mine. I wanted it all with her. Marriage, babies, grandkids, and growing old together.

My intention had been to wait for Ember outside the entrance to Daniel, but then it occurred to me that she might make a bit of a scene. After all, we’d been at each other’s throats since we met. It was bound to take a hell of a lot of convincing for her to agree to let me inside her tonight.

I needed a quick getaway and to catch her far enough from the restaurant to make sure Jordan never saw her coming—something he would never, ever see. I wasn’t sure if she’d walk down Park or Lex from the subway stop, so I double-parked in front of Mayfair House on Park—hoping the cops had already done their rounds in this area for a couple of hours—then I walked around the corner to stand by the entrance to the restaurant. The outside seating was blocked from the sidewalk by tall, pink wooden walls, so I stepped into the shadows right inside, bumping into an empty table.

The host was a young kid, and he waited expectantly for me to approach him. When he realized I wasn’t coming in to eat, he lifted his chin haughtily and opened his mouth to say something.

“Before you speak and say something that will more than likely piss me off, how about I just pay for a table, and you pretend I’m not here?”

The kid took a second to decide, but I could tell he was going to be difficult, so I stepped closer to the podium. When the lamp light shined onto my face, his eyes went wide, and his jaw literally dropped.

“You–you’re–holy shit–you’re Nixon Scott!”

“Keep your voice down,” I growled. I didn’t need him bringing my celebrity status to the attention of the other patrons. That would blow any chance I had at going unrecognized.

“I’m Kirk,” the host introduced himself. He bent down and retrieved a menu from beneath the podium and handed it to me with a pen. “If you sign this, you can hang out for however long you want.”

Being a famous football player had its perks, and while they sometimes came in very handy, I didn’t abuse them. So I happily signed the menu, then handed the kid a wad of cash. “For dinner,” I told him. He sputtered and tried to hand the money back, but I’d already walked over to the table closest to the sidewalk and leaned against it.