“They did,” Slade said. “Back when he was in his prime. But his shitty career took a backseat to his playboy ways. His stats have taken a downward trend for the past five years. Rumor was he was tryin’ to get traded.”
Reese could feel Brantley’s eyes on him, so he did his best to explain. “Starting quarterback for the New York Surge.”
“Football,” Brantley nodded. “Got it.”
“Yep,” Becs continued. “And they say it’s been a storybook romance between him and Saoirse. They dated for three weeks before he popped the question. They’re supposed to be getting married in ten days.”
“I heard he was a hothead with a superiority complex,” Atticus added.
“I don’t think you’re off on that,” Becs said. “There’s been plenty of media coverage about their fights.”
“Thought you said it was a storybook romance?” Reese asked Becs.
“Is there really any such thing?” she countered with a shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know. When I hear Kavanagh, she’s not the first one I think of.”
“Well, I think yours is a storybook romance, boss,” Slade drawled.
“If the storybook’s a crime novel, maybe,” Atticus added.
Brantley flipped them off even as his other hand brushed Reese’s knee.
Reese couldn’t help but grin.
***
“How goes it?”
JJ looked up from her computer screen and pursed her lips at Baz. “It goes.”
“Feeling better?”
She nodded. She’d been grumpy when she woke up this morning, having been jarred awake by the ringing of her cell phone. For the most part, she was a morning person, so it didn’t surprise her that Baz had noticed. She probably could’ve apologized for it, but there was a good chance it would happen again in a day or two. The last thing she wanted was to make him think she could change her mood on a whim. It wasn’t happening, so why bother?
“You get the info Brantley asked for?”
“And then some.” She exhaled heavily and leaned back in her chair, drumming her fingers on the desktop. “To say the Kavanaghs are high profile would be an understatement. I kicked off a program to pull some images from the internet, using one I found on the company website. I think it blew up my program. There are probably more pictures of this girl than … than I have no idea.”
“As my dad likes to say, a shit-ton, huh?”
“Exactly.” JJ grinned, recalling the last conversation she’d had with Wesley Buchanan.
They’d gone to dinner with Baz’s parents the weekend before last, and when JJ got to the restaurant, she hadn’t been surprised to see not only Aretha, Baz’s stepmother, but also Baz’s mother, Julie. Since Julie and Wes learned she was pregnant, they always seemed to be together. How Aretha could stand it was anyone’s guess. She was Wes’s sixth wife, and JJ hated to say it, but she was starting to believe there was only one woman Wes would ever truly love, and that was Jules. Not that their relationship was any of her business, but she wouldn’t deny that she was expecting them to get back together at some point.
As for the conversation, Wes’s use of shit-ton had been in reference to the amount of diapers they were going to go through when the peanut was born.
Baz moved closer, so JJ clicked the mouse to bring up the picture of Saoirse Kavanagh.
“She’s gorgeous,” JJ noted, staring at the black-haired woman with light green eyes. Her face was absolute perfection, not a blemish or wrinkle in sight. And it was that way in every photo, so she knew it wasn’t photoshopped.
“That’show you spell her name?” Baz leaned closer. “Holy shit.”
JJ laughed. “That’swhat you got from that picture?”
He pointed at the name as though that explained everything. And in a way, it did. JJ had thought the same thing when she saw the name for the first time. She never would’ve gotten the phonetics correct if Z hadn’t said it first. To get ser-shuh from a word with that many vowels was beyond her abilities.
“She’s got three older brothers,” JJ informed him, flipping through the other photos she had open. “I was wrong earlier when I said Ronan was the oldest. Callum is. He’s thirty-three. He’s got the most responsibility at the company, and from what I can tell, all work and no play makes Callum a dull boy.” She flipped to the next photo. “And then there’s Ronan, he’s thirty-one. Recently divorced, he’s back on the dating scene, and the New York nightlife is his playground.” She tapped the mouse. “And last but not least is Liam. He turned thirty earlier this year, and while he’s dedicated to learning the ropes at Kavanagh Holdings, he’s trying to break a record for dating as many supermodels as humanly possible. Sometimes more than one at a time.”
Baz’s eyebrows inched upward.
