“Did I mention how hot he was? And he wasn’t really an asshole until our parents showed up. Just bossy as hell, which, to be honest, kind of worked in the bedroom.”
Eva chuckles and her eyes get a far away look that has us all staring at her.
“Something you’d like to share?” I ask, thankful to divert the conversation away from me and Danny.
“Uh, no.”
“Oh, come on,” Jules says to Eva. “You’re still newlyweds. You should be having good sex all the time. The rest of us are.”
“Except me,” I say, because me being the single one is kind of a running joke.
“You just said you had the best sex of your life in Bermuda,” Audrey reminds me.
“Which is why it sucks that it can’t happen again.” I tuck a strand of my hair behind my ears. “Not that I even know how to find this mystery man.”
My friends start throwing out suggestions, and I just laugh. I already know that the only way I’m going to find out any more information about him is if I ask my mom a few questions—which my pride and my sense of self-preservation will not allow me to do.
“You think I didn’t already think of all those things? Honestly, it’s best if I just put him out of my mind.”
“Put who out of your mind?” Luke’s voice comes from behind me, and we all turn to find him standing in the entryway in his sweaty workout clothes. I notice how they cling to his muscles, and even though Luke is bulkier than Danny, it still makes me think of my stepbrother’s muscular frame.
“No one,” I say quickly, because I have no desire for Luke to know about my dalliance with my stepbrother.
Then I pick up my phone and shoot a text off to Eva, Lauren, Audrey, and Jules, reminding them not to share these details with their significant others. Especially now that I’m working for the team part-time, I don’t need to be known as “that PR girl who slept with her stepbrother.”
Idrag my ass into the Rebels’ practice facility, where their corporate offices are, bright and early the next morning. I’ve got my second coffee of the day in my hand, and I’m hoping the caffeine hits my bloodstream soon. I stayed up way too late last night, doing exactly the kind of internet research I promised myself I wouldn’t do.
But searching through everything I could find about Max online still didn’t reveal anything about his stepson’s identity. Who doesn’t have some sort of a digital footprint these days? Is Danny really just that private?
I’m so busy wondering about this that I almost run right into Lauren walking down the hallway with Tucker Hartmann. I’ve never met him in person, but I know he’s the CEO of the Boston Rebels.
Lauren introduces us, and because my brain is only half functioning at this early hour and I can’t think of anything to say, I blurt out, “You’re Luke’s brother.”
“You know Luke?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, suddenly uneasy about the role I played helping to fabricate a believable backstory for Luke and Eva’s sudden marriage earlier this summer. “I’m really good friends with Eva.”
“Morgan is good friends withallof us,” Lauren says, and it comes out like a warning.
I take a gulp of my coffee, praying that it helps jolt me awake so I can figure out what’s going on here. I hate mornings so much.
In response, Tucker laughs and says, “Noted.”
Lauren looks over at me and says, “Like all the Hartmann men, Tucker’s a perpetual flirt.”
I have heard this reputation repeatedly, but since Luke’s the only Hartmann I’ve met, and I’ve only ever seen him have eyes for Eva, I’ve never seen it in action.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Tucker says. “Luke hasn’t flirted with anyone but Eva in years.”
The Hartmanns own the team, and it’s hard to imagine their patriarch, Frank Hartmann, being a flirt. His bushy white mustache and round pink cheeks give him a jolly old grandpa aura, but who knows what he was like in his younger years.
But Tucker, standing here in his stylish suit, his brown hair fashionably messy and a devilish grin on his face? Yeah, I can picture him being a flirt quite easily.
“Why do you look like you’re only half awake?” Lauren asks me when I don’t respond. She puts her hand on my back and guides me down the hall as she and Tucker continue walking.
I groan. “It’s not even 9 a.m. yet. Being at work this early should be criminal.”
Lauren laughs and tells me I’ve worked from home for too long. She, on the other hand, has worked here for the past two years—first in their marketing department before being promoted to the Director of Marketing—after years of being a stay-at-home mom to her twin girls.
