When Max had the choice, he chose to say nothing at all about who he was.
As Dree had discovered to her chagrin, he mused.
It could have been worse.
There was more.
Alfonso continued to watch Dree out of the corner of his eye, and his hands tightened on his legs.
Yes, Dree could distract anyone who liked beautiful women, and Alfonso did. He was just grossly inept at talking to them, no matter how much Max and his other buddies tutored him in the fine arts of flirting and tried to play wingman for him.
The next guy across the room, Isaak, was another exceedingly tall man. He was leaning back in his chair, and his long legs stretched toward the middle of the room, at ease to the point of being too casual. His pale blond hair was rumpled, and his ice-blue eyes missed nothing.
Every time Dree so much as twitched, his glance found her.
Like he was hunting her.
Maxence repressed an inclination to stand between Isaak and Dree.
Isaak said in a deep voice with inflections of French and Russian, “I am another of Maxence’s boarding school classmates, but my degree is in electrical engineering. I have a concentration in medical devices. I am from Nice, France, and I am Isaak Yahontov.”
“Oh, like the vodka?” the Southeast Asian guy to his left asked. Yahontoff Vodka had dethroned Smirnoff’s a decade before as the bestselling vodka in the world.
“Yes,” Isaak said, fixing his icy blue gaze on the man who’d spoken. “Exactly like the vodka, except that we changed the spelling of our name when we moved the distillery to Nice after the Communists destroyed our buildings in Moscow.”
The Communist Revolution and the entire history of the Soviet Union were still sore spots for Isaak’s grandfather, who drank only White Russians because that’s what he was.
In many other contexts, Isaak’s grandfather would be considered a war criminal, which meant Isaak Yahontov was the grandson and heir of a war criminal.
Max didn’t like the way Isaak was looking at Dree. Isaak’s cold eyes looked like he might be a serial killer, even though Isaak had never so much as gotten into a fistfight in thirteen years of boarding school or indulged in anything more violent than light sarcasm.
And yet, Maxence felt as though he could not trust Isaak around Dree.
But Max had to run the meeting. “And Batsa?”
“I am Batsa Tamang,” the Southeast Asian-looking guy said. His hair was cut corporate-short. “I am the translator, and I did not go to boarding school. Who would do that to their kids? I am thirty-two and speak Nepali, Hindi, Tamil, and English. I was raised in Kathmandu until I was ten, and then my parents moved us to Iowa City, Iowa. My bachelor’s degree is in English Literature. I am a registered insurance agent for life, health, auto, boat, and farm. I have business cards if you would like to discuss your insurance needs. I have had my picture taken with George W. Bush, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton when they were campaigning for the Iowa caucuses, like everyone else in the state. I have a wonderful wife whom I married in both a Catholic wedding with a full Mass and a three-day Hindu wedding, and so I am the most thoroughly married man in the world. My dear wife is the love and light of my life. I miss her so much right now. We have five children under eight years old. Three boys, two girls. I can also play the trumpet.”
Dree grinned at Batsa, who smiled back at her and laid five business cards on the coffee table between the couches.
That guy was trouble. Max could sense it. He was practically shoving his phone number at Dree by offering his business cards so freely, probably to send her a dick pic. Any man with so much testosterone that he’d fathered five kids by the time he was thirty-two wasn’t safe around a beautiful woman like Dree.
Max would have to watch him.
The last guy on the trip was sitting over on the other couch, his muscled arms crossed over his chest, watching the others. He wore a black Roman-collared shirt like Maxence that was only a few shades darker than his ebony skin, and one of his iron-gray eyebrows seemed perpetually raised. His accent was American and sardonic, and his voice was sonorous and deep. “My name is Father Booker Jackson, and I am a member of the order of the Society of Jesus, founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534. I was born on the South Side of Chicago sixty-eight winters ago, and I speak with this deep, regal tone because I trained to be an opera singer before I found my true vocation as a Jesuit priest.”
Such a voice might attract Dree. Father Booker was a good-looking man, with high cheekbones, a serious gaze, and silvery, shining hair. If he made a play for Dree, she might go for him. Maxence had never met Father Booker before, but a stated vocation and call to the priesthood didn’t always make a man celibate.
Maxence knew that.
And just because Booker was the priest didn’t mean he was a saint, and just because he was sixty-eight didn’t mean he was dead.
Max would keep an eye on Father Booker as well.
Maxence looked up at Dree, sitting curled up in a chair by the window. “And Miss Andrea Catherine?”
Dree looked up at him, her blue eyes wary. “I’m Andrea Catherine Clark, but I go by Dree. I’m a nurse practitioner from the southwestern US. Nice to meet y’all.”
Isaak perked up, and he glanced at Max, over to Dree, and back to Max. “Wait, the girl is going with us? We get to take a girl this time?”
