Shameless (4 page)

You can thank me for this later,” Alex murmured, grinning at the audience.

“I will
kill
you for this later,” John whispered out the side of his mouth, feeling damned uncomfortable.

“Hey! I had to pull a lot of strings to get us in here.”

“I would’ve settled for a seat in the back.”

“Nope. No men allowed. It was this or nothing.”

John shifted on the wooden stool, hoping his self-consciousness didn’t show. “You don’t feel like the world’s biggest ass up here?”

Alex’s smile was broad as he stared out at the hoards of women staring at them. “Nah. This is great. It’s a single man’s dream, having our pick of these women.”

Not
this
single man’s dream, John thought. The only reason
he
was here was to see Samantha Rossi, aka Sammy Jo, who would be covering this event according to the private investigator.

The Northwest Women’s Extravaganza was an annual event to raise money for local charities. For $100 a ticket, attending women were served lunch by one of Seattle’s premiere restaurants and were treated to an exclusive fashion show. But the biggest draw of the event, apparently, was the chance to “win” a date with the area’s most eligible bachelors.

Thanks to Alex, that short list now included him. Yippee.

“I like women who play a little harder to get,” he muttered. “These women here all seem… a bit desperate.”

Alex smiled a toothy grin. “Desperate has its advantages, John-boy.” On a mission to find a wife, he was tired of the single scene, ready to settle down. John, on the other hand, was satisfactorily single.

He figured he should at least
try
to look like he was happy to be here. It was all for charity. He flashed a brighter smile from his position on stage with the other bachelors and waited his turn to be introduced, all the while scanning the crowd. So far, he hadn’t seen anyone who looked like Samantha Rossi.

The emcee, Adele Bartholomew, had just begun introducing the bachelors, when the double doors at the back of the room opened.

Sammy Jo.

She slipped unobtrusively into the small group of reporters. At least she probably
thought
she was being unobtrusive. She couldn’t be more conspicuous if she were a breadcrumb on an ant hill. Even at this distance, she was striking. Dark hair flowed over her shoulders, and tight black jeans and a red leather blazer covered her womanly curves.

He nudged Alex and nodded toward the back of the room.

“That’s her? Mm, mm, mmm,” Alex said. “You think she’ll recognize you?”

He shook his head. “No way. You remember what I looked like back then, and our names were kept private because of our ages.”

She glanced his way, her gaze continuing past him in bored fashion. Well. He guessed he didn’t have to worry about being recognized.

As a sports reporter for the
Seattle Statesman
, Sam was used to covering stories on local professional teams. She lived for those gritty locker room interviews after the big game. She loved the excitement and raw enthusiasm of high school sports. What she hated — no,
despised
— was fluff feature writing. Exactly the type of story she was covering here.

A few weeks ago she’d asked her editor, Oz, to start assigning her feature stories. Once she got pregnant and had a baby, she wanted a more traditional work schedule. Covering sports had her out nights and weekends, but feature writing would be more nine to five. At the last staff meeting, Oz mentioned he had a story in mind for her. Expecting a killer assignment, she’d been handed this piece of garbage.

Grabbing a notepad and pencil from her purse, she listened as the emcee introduced the men on stage. The seven bachelors included a player from the Mariners, a real estate developer, a guy who’d made a fortune on the Internet, a retired NFL lineman, and a man who owned a chain of health clubs.

The room was packed with thirty tables of ten women — a lot of money at a hundred bucks a pop. Despite the crowd, the stage dominated the room, rising three feet above the floor. Large potted palms marked the two front corners, like sentries standing guard. Seven stools lined across the stage, the bachelor occupants sitting atop it like royalty looking down upon their subjects.

Sam wondered if any of these women had any self-respect. Granted, those men were attractive and it was all for a good cause, but she would rather go dateless for the rest of her life than sit in here like chattel at an auction block, hoping she caught the eye of a prospective buyer.

Unfortunately, she was afraid she
had
caught the eye of one of the men. She adjusted the tag hanging around her neck by a thin black cord identifying her as a member of the press. She needed to make it clear
she
wasn’t ripe for the picking.

Feeling the man’s gaze on her made her uncharacteristically self-conscious. He was the second one from the right. For something to do, she glanced at her notepad. According to her hastily scribbled notes, his name was John Everest and he’d moved here from Los Angeles four years ago. He owned the franchise for a chain of health clubs, among other entrepreneurial endeavors. He was thirty-four years old and — she squinted at her writing to make sure she’d read it correctly. Yes, she’d read it right; he’d already been married and divorced twice. Both times before he turned thirty. Her brow wrinkled in judgment.

A wave of cramps knotted her abdomen, and she pushed back feelings of discouragement. Attempt number six had failed. The countless hours spent pouring over donor catalogs, the time spent being interviewed by sperm bank counselors, the coldly scientific procedures in the sterile doctor’s office… all for nothing.

All she’d wanted to do today was to load up on Motrin, crawl back into bed, and spend the rest of the day stuffing her face with chocolate and zoning out on old movies. But no. She had to spend her afternoon in a stuffy conference room full of desperate women, and with a lothario’s eyes on her.
And
there wasn’t a speck of chocolate in sight. It was enough to make her want to scream.

Rifling through her purse for Motrin, her fingers finally closed around the plastic bottle. She shook a couple of pills into her palm and popped them into her mouth, intending to swallow them dry. The first went down easily, but the second got caught in her throat, causing her to sputter and cough. She covered her mouth with her hand, turning away when she noticed dirty looks from women nearby. A few moments later, after wiping her watery eyes, she found John Everest staring at her again. She wasn’t unused to men looking at her, but this guy was relentless. It was really starting to tick her off.

She scribbled something on her pad, not really writing anything, but wanting to look occupied and like a reporter not a ticket holder. As if drawn like a magnet, her gaze went to Everest again. Good. He no longer paid attention to her, but listened to the emcee. He was a striking man. Broad of shoulder and chest, he filled his dark aqua shirt quite nicely. She was sure his body had a lot of women here drooling in their wine.

But his entire demeanor was just too much for
her
tastes. From his dark blond hair falling over one of his eyes, to the arrogant slant of his brows that put her on guard from the first time she caught him staring at her, he was just the type of man she’d enjoy knocking down a few pegs.

He was probably here to scout out wifey-poo number three. Unfortunately, she knew his kind all too well. Handsome or not, he had to be a jerk.

Adele Bartholomew said something that made the audience laugh — Sam didn’t know what, she hadn’t been paying attention — and suddenly John Everest was looking her right in the eye again. He’d caught her watching him this time. He said something to the gigantic black man to his right, the former football player, and they both looked her way.

Frat boys. She shoved the notebook into her back pocket and lifted the camera from where it dangled against her chest. She’d need her telephoto lens to get good pictures of the men, so she popped one onto the camera and peered through the viewfinder. The image was entirely out of focus. With her right hand, she adjusted the dial around the lens until her subject was focused. That subject curved his mouth into a grin and nodded at her.

She snapped the picture, not letting him ruffle her feathers. Deliberately, she rotated the camera to shoot the other men, trying to make it obvious to Mr. Everest he was merely part of a day’s work.

“Okay, ladies,” Adele said to the audience in a booming voice, “and gentlemen,” she nodded to the group on stage. “Now’s the time you’ve all been waiting for. In just a few more minutes, seven lucky women will be up here on stage with Seattle’s hottest bachelors!”

The audience applauded wildly. Sam wanted to throw up.

Adele started with the first man on the left, the baseball player. He said he wanted to choose his date from the audience rather than pick a name from the hat. Bachelor Number One ended up in the middle of the room where he tapped a pretty redhead on the shoulder. The woman blushed and followed him to the stage.

Sam sensed another cough coming on — one of those pills felt caught in her throat — so she sneaked into the hallway to search for a water fountain.

John watched her leave the room and narrowed his eyes. “I’m choosing her for my date,” he whispered to Alex.

“What? Sammy Jo? You can’t do that, John-boy.”

“Why not?”

“Well, she’s… Sammy Jo. You don’t need to mess with that.”

John kept his gaze on the closed doors. “I just want to see what she’s like, how she is.”

“She looks damn fine to me.”

“You know what I mean.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s your life, man. But personally I think you’re nuts.”

He might be nuts, but he liked how she tried to ignore him, how she busied herself with writing on that notepad or taking pictures whenever she caught him looking at her. She probably thought her actions conveyed total disinterest. But he knew her type: a little bit flashy, a whole lot sexy, and a tease. If she weren’t Sammy Jo, she’d be just
his
type. What would it hurt to get to know her a little?

The double doors opened and she returned to her corner. She’d barely settled herself in when she looked up and met his eyes. This time she didn’t immediately break contact. Instead, she cocked her head and shot him a look that said, “In your dreams, buster.”

“Ouch,” Alex muttered, following John’s gaze. “I think you might have your work cut out for you.”

“Mr. Everest,” said Adele, patting his shoulder. “I believe you told me earlier you wanted to pick from the hat.” The audience cheered.

She held out the hat full of names, but he pushed it away. “I changed my mind, Adele,” he said, staring at Sammy Jo. “I see someone in your audience I’d like to meet.” Alex snickered next to him.

As John approached her, he was struck full force by her beauty. Twenty years ago, she’d been striking. Now she was nothing short of stunning. She had the ultimate bedroom eyes — almond shaped, heavy lidded and a deep passionate brown, tempting him like two pools of warm, melted chocolate. Her olive skin was porcelain smooth with hardly a laugh line, and he knew it would be satiny soft beneath his fingertips were he to touch her. Her full red lips parted as his gaze dropped to her mouth, and although he had no business thinking this way, instinct told him she’d be one hell of a woman to kiss… among other things.