Knight Nostalgia: A Knights of the Board Room Anthology(25)
He countered Peter’s lunge, but the big bastard anticipated him. Ben could have broken the head lock, but not without doing damage. With women nearby, they had to be on their best behavior. Plus, Ben wasn’t getting blood on his shirt. Then he cursed as Peter hefted him off his feet, obviously intending to throw him into the bushes edging the perimeter of the patio.
“This shirt is worth your life, asshole,” he protested. Peter scoffed and prepared to toss.
“Hey, hey, hey. Put him down and don’t break him. At least not until we’ve emptied his wallet,” Cassandra said. “Plus, he’ll mangle my rose bushes.”
The women had emerged from the sunroom adjacent to the patio. Cass’s admonition was enough to have Peter change his plan. He dropped Ben onto the black wicker framed sectional sofa, amid a cluster of throw pillows. For form’s sake, Ben managed to plant a side punch into the behemoth’s side on the way down. Peter brushed it off as if a fly had landed on his black National Guard T-shirt. After he helped Ben to his feet and brushed him off with exaggerated movements that had Cass’s lips twitching.
As distractions from blood mayhem went, there were none better than their cherished group of females. Savannah, Cassandra, Dana and Rachel brought a wave of appealing scents and colors with them. Each woman possessed a tempting figure, clad in the way she preferred. Everything from elegant silks to stressed denim, enhanced with the accessories that underscored her unique beauty and confidence.
An elegant, flowing turquoise blouse for Savannah, over a black knit skirt. It was accented with a decorative wide belt that fell diagonally across her hips. As CEO of Tennyson Industries, Matt’s wife was more comfortable with formal styles, even for a shopping expedition. Ben had only seen her in jeans once to date, because she chose slacks when she was going to wear pants, but since the skirts showed off her excellent legs, he had no complaints.
He did have fond memories of those jeans, though. She’d worn them when they’d all volunteered to spend a weekend helping with the spring cleanup of the water areas around New Orleans. All the men had noted she looked damn fine in denim, something Matt took with good grace and only mildly raised hackles.
Dana was in well-fitted black jeans and a spring leaf green sleeveless shirt that showed off her toned arms and fit, compact body. Like her husband, she was a workout freak. However, where Peter was regularly compared to the Hulk, thanks to his physique and presence, his wife was the most petite of all the women, a slim and elegant black woman barely five feet tall.
Her appearance was deceptive. A former Army sergeant, her military career had been ended by an explosion in Iraq that took her sight and initially her hearing, until Peter made sure she had top-of-the-line cochlear implants that improved it exponentially. She now worked as a minister at a church in one of New Orleans’ toughest neighborhoods.
Rachel stood next to her. While the women were all close friends, there was a special bond between Rachel and Dana. Jon’s wife had a lush hourglass figure blessed by a cream-colored cotton shirt with the logo of her yoga studio and flowing teal-colored pants over beaded sandals. Rachel’s golden locks were twisted up on her head in a loose style that had tendrils curling around her lovely face.
Cassandra wore dress jeans with glittering rhinestone and embroidery accents on the front pocket edges. She’d paired them with a pale blue knit shirt that clung to her shapely breasts. Apparently at least four of their number had a thing for blondes. Her thick white-gold hair was clipped back in a tail, a style which showed off her topaz earrings.
Though Ben noted how good she looked, same as the rest of them, when her eyes met his, he also noted the trace of coolness, and how she held his gaze an extra second. A reminder that she had her eye on him and it wasn’t to admire his manly form. It was the current MO for the two of them, a reminder he was still only one bare step off her shit list.
This shopping trip was an unspoken form of reparation, one self-imposed. The rest of the women had gracefully accepted his invitation without drawing direct attention to the reason he felt the desire to do it; however, he was well aware Cassandra didn’t give two shits about his apologies or the gestures to support them. She needed proof of a full behavioral shift.
Because it was her sister he’d treated badly, in an emotional and physical shitstorm he should have been able to control. No matter what the damn therapist he was forcing himself to see said about triggers and resolving past crap.
He didn’t disagree with Cassandra. If anything, sometimes he wondered why she hadn’t already shot him with her Beretta. If he’d been in her designer shoes, he would have, without a second thought.
But she hadn’t, and here he was. He didn’t know if he could give Cassandra proof that he was headed in the right direction, that he could ever be good enough to deserve Marcie, but he’d damn well prove he was trying.
He had to, because Marcie had made her choice, and didn’t give a damn whether he or Cassandra thought it was a good idea or not. And plus…he’d realized he couldn’t walk away from Marcie.
On that thought, he shifted his attention to the final woman in the group, the fourth blonde. The woman who, amid this gorgeous garden of female beauty, caught his attention in a way no other woman ever had. The person who, crazy as it sounded, made him draw a deeper, cleaner and freer breath than he’d known in a really long time. Even as his gaze had passed over the women he’d be escorting on their New Orleans shopping spree, his attention had been on its way to one specific destination. When it found her, he didn’t need to look at anything else.