“The money was amazing, but everything else was awful. I did personal security for the wife of an American oil executive. The company had a chemical plant in the middle of nowhere, and all the Americans and their families lived in a compound outside the local town. The houses were big, there was a pool, a community center, a school—sounds great, right? It wasn’t.”
She missed. He picked an angle. “Why not?”
“The whole place was creepy.” He caught her shiver of distaste in the second before he pocketed a ball. “Everyone knew everyone’s business. Half of the husbands were sleeping with the other half’s wives. I spent all my time with this one woman, who was either too smart to say anything about her husband’s blatant cheating or too dumb to notice. Women aren’t allowed to drive there so we were restricted to the compound, and if we left we had to wear hijab.”
She raised her cue to take her turn. “After serving in the Middle East I thought the Sharia stuff wouldn’t bother me, but living like that all the time is a whole other kind of crazy. I don’t know how the women in these Muslim countries—” She stopped, looking up guiltily as she missed her shot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”
“It’s fine,” he said mildly, lining up his cue. “There are over a billion Muslims in the world. We’re not all the same.”
“I know, I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“I have as much in common with a Saudi Arabian Muslim as you do with a Nigerian Christian.” He sank a ball. “If you are Christian, that is.”
“Only by default. I haven’t been to church in about fifteen years.”
He sent his fifth ball into a pocket. “My point is, sharing a basic religious categorization with someone doesn’t make me empathetic to their way of life. I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia, but I can’t imagine anywhere with state-sanctioned beheadings is a particularly nice place to live.”
“It’s not. What’s Sweden like?”
He missed, moved aside for her turn. “It’s amazing. Beautiful, safe, good mix of historic and modern. I’m from Gothenburg, which is a university town, so there’s always something going on. Sweden’s expensive, though.”
“And cold?” She pocketed a ball, moved to aim for another.
“I grew up with the weather so I don’t feel it, but it’s cold compared to Atlanta.”
She missed, straightened. “I grew up in Jasper, about fifty miles north of the city. I can’t remember the last time I saw snow. A Swedish winter would probably kill me.”
“You’d be fine. Couple pints of Falcon, hot plate of reindeer meat and you won’t even notice the weather.”
“I would be so up for eating reindeer meat.” She grinned at him across the table as he took his shot, sinking another ball. She had a pretty smile, and it lit up her face in a way its forced, professional equivalent didn’t.
He gave her a quick onceover before focusing on his last ball. She was too tall for him, too likely to match his height in heels. He liked soft and curvy—she was flat and lean. He dated only super-smart, super-successful women, and he doubted Kate had a college degree.
So why did bright white heat pulse deep within his rib cage every time he looked at her?
He sank his final ball, took aim to hit the eight, then changed his mind.
“Have you ever been to a Skyline match?”
She shook her head, then nodded toward the table. “Your turn.”
“I know.” He propped the cue on the floor. “We’re playing Tucson on Saturday. Want to come?”
“Me? Why?” Surprise brightened her eyes and warmed her expression before she resettled into her typically cool composure. “I mean, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied smoothly, enjoying her momentary bewilderment. “I’ll courier the tickets to your office tomorrow.”
“Tickets?” she echoed, emphasizing the plural.
“Bring a friend.”
Then he angled his cue on the green felt and leaned down, ending the conversation. He looked at the eight ball, squinted at the distance beyond it, but in his mind he saw Kate, eyes crinkled in laughter and then wide with shock.
He didn’t like her. He couldn’t like her. There was nothing about her to like.
Except her laugh. And her smile. And her refusal to take him seriously. And her honesty. And her endearing curiosity about his home country. And, and, and.
And she was being paid to be nice to him, to sweeten him up, to open the door for her employer to provide exclusive security services to Atlanta Skyline.
He would do well to remember that.
He drew his arm back and snapped his shot. The eight ball spun, rolled, and dropped into a corner pocket with a satisfying thunk.
He stood, met her gaze. Didn’t smile.
“I win.”
Chapter 4
“How does this work?” Kate glanced between her ticket and the map showing the various entrances to King Stadium, home of Atlanta Skyline. “This has north, south, east, and west, but our tickets say EB 44. Is that east?”
“No idea. Let’s ask.” Jared indicated a customer-services desk beside the box office. They walked that way together, and she hustled to keep up with her colleague’s long stride.
“We’re lost,” she told the woman behind the Plexiglas screen. “Can you tell us how to get to these seats?”
The woman examined the tickets, then broke into a smile. “You’re in an Executive Box. You can use the VIP entrance by the south gate. Enjoy the match.”
“Wow, VIP,” Jared remarked as they made their way to the gate. “You sure do set the first-date bar high, Mitchell.”
“Funny,” she replied, deadpan. She hadn’t made too many friends in the few months since she’d moved to Atlanta, so she’d asked one of the Area Managers from Peak Tactical to join her for the Saturday-afternoon match. Jared was a former security guard who’d been promoted into an operations-management role, and he was one of the few men in the company who’d been friendly to her from day one. They were of a similar age, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he would read some romantic intent into her invitation.
Now his flirtation got heavier by the hour. She was embarrassed by her utter failure to see this coming and unsure why it was such a turnoff. He was funny, reasonably attractive, a big muscly country boy who should’ve been right up her alley.
But she kept thinking about that arrogant, uptight, Swedish-Turkish-Muslim nerd who’d beaten her at pool.
No one beat her at pool. She’d never imagined losing could be so sexy.
“Sweet, check this out.” Jared recaptured her attention as they took an elevator up to the VIP tier. They walked through the hushed, carpeted hall until they found a door labeled forty-four. A printed sign hung beneath the number: Reserved—Özkan Terim.
“What did you say this guy’s name was?” Jared squinted at the sheet.
“I think his full name is pronounced Erz-kan, but everyone calls him Oz.”
“If you say so.” He pushed open the door and she followed him inside.
“My God, this is…uh, hi.” Kate processed only a glimpse of the plush suite—mini fridge full of drinks, several bottles chilling in a bucket, hot and cold buffet lined up on a ledge against the back wall—before her gaze came to rest on the three men lounging in front of the sliding door that overlooked the pitch.
“Hi,” one of them replied, rising and extending his hand.