“I get it,” Jack replied shortly.
Sure you do. “Let’s meet up for dinner later. What time are you free?”
They settled on a time for what would likely be an uncomfortable family dinner. They’d fall into the usual Wyatt routine of Jack and Jenna chattering eagerly like the Bobbsey twins while Gray would awkwardly try to insert himself into the conversation.
The twins had enough manners to make polite inquiries about Gray’s life, but he winced at the lameness of his own inevitable answers.
No girlfriend. I tried, but she turned out to be too perfect and I got bored.
No social life. I don’t know how to make friends.
What’s that? My secretary? Yeah, I mistakenly implied that she humped for money and she now spends every hour of the day pushing my buttons.
Dinner with the family would be only slightly worse than eating alone. Or eating pizza with Sophie.
That had not been his wisest decision. He’d just felt so damn alone. Even Sophie’s constant rambling seemed preferable to the endless solitude. But then she’d started berating herself and he’d lost his temper. He still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that had had him advancing on her like a lion stalking a helpless mouse. For all her damn spunk and spice, there was a big hole where her self-worth should have been.
Despite the fact that Sophie was smart, attractive, and competent, she seemed to think that she was slumming it because she wasn’t a neurosurgeon or quantum physicist. And he’d just been sick of hearing about it. He’d wanted her to feel special. Wanted.
Well, not wanted in the sexual way. Okay, maybe in the sexual way.
But damn, he hadn’t been prepared for her to show up in her tight little yoga pants and all that hair pulled back into a perky ponytail. And the way she’d worried about making sure he’d eaten…
He knew better than to be reeled in. Jessica had pulled a similar stunt by bringing him homemade chicken soup when he was sick, and look how that had turned out. He’d gotten soup, and his partner had gotten into his fiancé’s pants. Oddly, what bugged him most in hindsight was that the blasted soup had tasted like it had come from a can. Homemade, my ass.
Maybe he should call Brynn again. Perhaps he’d been too hasty in ending their relationship before giving it a chance. She was everything he was looking for. Successful, lovely, calm…
No. He was bored just thinking about it. Plus it would mean enduring more Dalton family dinners, and no woman was worth that.
Still…he needed a girlfriend. Someone to talk to. Ian was great, but weekly sessions at the gym with another dude weren’t the same as lingering dinners with a woman.
But finding the right woman had proven a hell of a lot more difficult than any business venture he’d undertaken. He’d given up on dating in Chicago after Jessica, and the Seattle dating pool hadn’t been much better. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for anymore.
Gray did, however, know what he wasn’t looking for. He didn’t want someone too cheerful and talkative. And maybe it was time to try a brunette this time—someone serious and focused. Someone who wouldn’t wear a miniskirt to a business function just to piss him off.
His eyes unwillingly fell on his assistant. Someone not like Sophie.
* * *
“Where’s that cute little Sally?” Alistair Blackwell asked around a mouthful of his third salami panini.
Gray clenched his teeth. The thought of this creep lusting over his assistant was not improving his mood. It was becoming rapidly apparent than Alistair’s only purpose in joining them for the day was free food and getting into Sophie’s pants.
“I believe Ms. Dalton is on her lunch break,” Gray replied coolly.
Actually, Gray had no idea where Sophie was. He hadn’t seen her since he’d requested she call a town car, but he assumed she was off eating a fancy overpriced salad at one of the nearby restaurants with the other office women. He hated to admit it, but he almost wished she were here to work her nauseating female magic on the Blackwells.
As if Sophie had read his thoughts, he heard the sound of familiar female laughter. Finally she was back from her froufrou girly lunch. Really, she couldn’t have waited to do an extended lunch on a day when his personal and professional life weren’t in mayday status?
Slowly his mind registered that he was hearing the laughter of two women. Both sounded familiar.
His spine stiffened in realization. Oh God.
Alistair, completely oblivious to the turmoil running through Gray’s mind, seemed delighted to see not one, but two females approaching through the glass partition.
“Well, well, your pretty Sally has a pretty friend,” he said, all but licking his lips.
“My assistant’s name is Sophie,” Gray ground out. “And that pretty friend you’re ogling is my little sister.”