Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars #6)(28)

She’d scored a field goal with that one. Annabelle had no depth of experience, only enthusiasm.

Portia pushed aside her tray, although she’d only nibbled at the corner of a honeydew cube. “Is there something we’re not providing that makes you feel the need to expose my candidates to an outsider? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the tiniest bit threatened, especially since I offered to sit in on these initial interviews myself.”

“Don’t worry about it. Annabelle lacks the killer instinct. She liked Melanie better than she liked her own candidate. She tried to talk me into seeing her again.”

That caught her by surprise. “Really? Well …Ms.Granger is an odd little duck, isn’t she?”

It must have been the engine noise because, for a moment, he thought she said “odd little f*ck,” and he was hit with a vision of Annabelle naked. The notion took him aback. Annabelle amused him, but she didn’t turn him on. Not really. Maybe he’d thought about her sexually a couple of times, and he’d made a couple of smarmy references to fluster her. But nothing serious. Just messing around.

The plane hit an air pocket, and he pulled his mind from the bedroom back to business. “I don’t expect you to be comfortable with this, but as I said last night, the process will go smoother if Annabelle’s there for all the introductions.”

The fire in her eyes told him exactly what she was thinking, but she was too much of a pro to lose her cool. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

“She’s a tadpole, Portia, not a shark. The women relax with her, and I can get a clearer picture of who they are in a shorter period of time.”

“I see. Well, I’ve been doing this for a lot more years than she has. I’m sure I could expedite these interviews better than—”

“Portia, you couldn’t be nonthreatening if you tried, and I mean that as the highest form of compliment. I told you from the beginning that I intended to make this easy on myself. It turns out that Annabelle’s the key, and nobody’s more surprised about that than I am.”

She retrenched, but she wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t entirely blame her. If somebody poached on his territory, he’d have come out swinging, too. “All right, Heath,” she said. “If this is what you need, then I’ll make sure it works.”

“Exactly what I want to hear.”

The flight attendant took their trays, and he pulled out his copy of the Sports Lawyers Journal. But the article on tort liability and fan violence didn’t hold his attention. Despite his best efforts to keep it simple, his hunt for a wife was growing more complicated by the day.



I like her,” Heath said to Annabelle on the following Monday evening as Rachel left Sienna’s. “She’s fun. I had a good time.”

“Me, too,” Annabelle said, even though that was hardly the point. But the introduction had gone better than she’d dared hope, with lots of laughter and lively conversation. The three of them had shared their food prejudices (Heath wouldn’t touch an organ meat, Rachel hated olives, and Annabelle couldn’t stomach anchovies). They told embarrassing stories from their high school years and debated the merits of the Coen brothers’ movies. (Thumbs-up from Heath, thumbs-down from Rachel and Annabelle.) Heath didn’t seem to mind that Rachel wasn’t a knockout on the order of Gwen Phelps. She had both the polish and the brains he was looking for, and there were no cell phone interruptions. Annabelle allowed the twenty minutes to expand to forty.

“Good work, Tinker Bell.” He drew out his BlackBerry and typed a memo to himself. “I’ll call her tomorrow and ask her out.”

“Really? That’s great.” She felt a little queasy.

He looked up from the BlackBerry. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“You have a funny expression.”

She pulled herself back together. She was a professional now, and she could handle this. “I’m just imagining the newspaper interviews I’ll give after Perfect for You hits the Fortune Five Hundred.”

“Nothing’s more inspiring than a girl with a dream.” He returned the BlackBerry to his pocket and withdrew his well-stuffed money clip. She frowned. He frowned back. “Now what?”

“Don’t you have a nice, discreet credit card tucked away somewhere?”

“In my business, it’s all about the flash.” He flashed a hundred-dollar bill and tossed it on the table.

“I’m only mentioning it because, as I think I told you, image consultation is part of my business.” She hesitated, knowing she had to tread carefully. “For some women…women of a certain upbringing…obvious displays of wealth can be a little off-putting.”

“Believe me, they’re not off-putting to twenty-one-year-old kids who’ve grown up with food stamps.”

“I see your point, but—”

“Got it. Money clip for business, credit card for courtship.” He slipped the object under discussion back into his pocket.

She’d basically accused him of vulgarity, but instead of being offended, he seemed to have filed the information away as dispassionately as if she’d given him tomorrow’s weather report. She considered his flawless table manners, the way he dressed, his knowledge of food and wine. Clearly these things had all been part of his curriculum, right along with torts and constitutional law. Exactly who was Heath Champion, and why was she beginning to like him so much?