“Help is good,” their mother went on, motioning for their father to put more sour cream on her stroganoff. “It’s as good a basis for a relationship as anything. Certainly better than these lust-filled hookups”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“that the youth are doing today.” Dax nearly spit out his food in a fit of coughing. If only his mother could have seen him with Amy on the ferry. God, if she could have heard the filthy things he’d said to her, she would ground him, no matter that he was thirty-five.
“How do you know about lust-filled hookups, Mom?” Kat asked, smiling tentatively at him. He smiled back, despite himself. He could never stay mad at her, even when they were kids.
“I read about them in the paper.”
“Anyway,” Kat said, “Dax, I think Mom’s point is that you should give this girl a chance. You’re not getting any younger. You can only be a canoeing, programming, hermit bachelor CEO rich dude for so long.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Dax said. And he did. His family was annoying, but they were his, and he loved them. He just needed to shut this down. This was exactly why they never met any of his girlfriends. They didn’t understand the whole concept of casual dating. His mother would have been appalled, in fact, to hear him outright telling women he went on more than one date with that while he was up for some short-term fun and companionship, they needed to check any ambitions they might have beyond that if they wanted to be with him. “But you’re barking up the wrong tree. Last night was an aberration. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to help. Under normal circumstances, this girl hates me.”
“No!” His mother pressed a hand to her heart. “That’s not possible.”
He and his sister rolled their eyes in stereo.
“It is, Mom,” Kat said. “It totally is.”
He hadn’t disagreed, and he tried to remember that fact as he rounded the corner to the executive suites at Winter Enterprises. Amy hated him. It was possible that because of Saturday night he might have been upgraded from hate to mere disdain. But either way, she wasn’t his biggest fan. And the feeling was mutual. Or it had been, historically. The part where she’d wrapped her legs around him while he devoured her mouth wasn’t really germane to the situation because she’d been reeling from the jilting and probably a little drunk. In other words, not herself. And though he was always up for a little no-strings-attached fun, he wasn’t foolish enough to think a woman who’d just been dumped in such grand fashion could ever come with no strings.
All of which was why he sped up a little as he passed Amy’s office, which was on the way to Jack’s. He didn’t even look in.
“Dax!”
Damn. His heart sped up as if he’d been caught doing something illegal.
He backed up and glanced inside her office. Relief replaced trepidation as he realized Jack and Cassie were there, too.
Amy, looking fresh-faced and pretty and not at all like she’d just been epically and publicly dumped, waved him inside. Maybe he’d been right, and Amy was already over Mason.
“Dax!” Amy said again, waving him inside the office. Obeying her summons, he felt a little like he was walking a gangplank to his doom.
A very stylish doom, he thought, taking in the space that looked like it belonged in the pages of a design magazine. He’d been in her office only once before, and that had been last Saturday afternoon, and he’d been focused on her, weeping and heartbroken, and not on her surroundings. The office felt like her, though, from its huge, teal overdyed Persian rug to the crystal chandelier that hung above her desk. He smiled in spite of himself. An office fit for a Strawberry Girl.
“There you go,” Jack said. “You can take Dax.”
“He can be your knight in shining armor again,” Cassie said, laughing. “You two can bicker through the whole game.”
Amy narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. He’s probably a Yankees fan.”
In addition to being confused about what they were saying, Dax was struck dumb by Amy. She wasn’t sitting behind her desk, and she wasn’t dressed for work. She was sprawled out on a sofa in a small meeting area in a corner of the office, where Jack and Cassie also sat on armchairs. And she was wearing shorts. Short shorts. White short shorts. He also couldn’t help but notice that when you looked close, her eyes were all red and bloodshot. Maybe Cassie had been right after all, and Amy was putting on a brave face.