arrive precisely at nine, or the whole surprise will be ruined. You know how much I have riding on this. She hates me and I need this party to win her over. I think she resents me for scheduling the wedding so close to her birthday. Oh, please.” Huge tears rolled down her cheeks. She let out a choking sob.
Noah intensified his hand patting. The tightness in his stomach rolled into a knot. What was it about a woman’s tears that made him go all soft inside? Damn it, he’d never been able to say no to a female in need. “Who has to get where?”
“S-S-Sabrina.” Mona sniffed. “She has to get to her surprise birthday p-party.”
“Sabrina?” Noah asked, unable to place the name.
“C-Cliff’s sister.”
Noah glanced at Cliff where he stood rigid and sullen. He’d mentioned a sister when they’d been at Auburn five years ago, but Noah had never met her.
“That’s it? That’s what all these waterworks are about?” Women were such emotional creatures. He swung his gaze from Mona’s tear-streaked face to Cliff’s stony expression. “You just need someone to play chauffeur?”
“It would mean the world to me to win her over. I think this might do it.” Tears still glistened in Mona’s eyes as she stared up at him, but a grateful glow lit their blue depths. “You can’t let on about the party.”
She let go of his arm to move beside Cliff. “Cliff will help you work out the details.” She tilted her face up to her fiancé. “Okay?”
“No.” His voice had lost some of its earlier vehemence.
Her fingertips traced his cheek. She brushed her body against his. “For me?”
He shut his eyes for a moment, then scooped his arm around her in surrender. “I really don’t like this.”
With a happy squeal, she threw her arms around him. “I love you. They’ll be in a public place. Then we’ll all be there to chaperone. It’ll be fine.”
She placed a fat kiss on his lips, then broke away to find her purse, her tears reduced to an occasional sniffle. “I’ve got to go see about the flowers for the wedding. You explain to Noah.” She swept from the room.
Noah turned to Cliff with a grin. Now that the disturbance had passed, the tension in him eased. “That’s showing her.”
Cliff shook his shaggy head. “You have no idea.” He turned to stalk back to his desk. He lifted a legal pad, then slammed it onto the blotter. “I’d never agree to this if it wasn’t a last resort.”
“It’s six o’clock. Time for a shot.” Noah ignored Cliff’s comment and brought the conversation back to his original purpose for coming to Cliff’s office. He moved to a cabinet behind the desk and lifted two shot glasses from a shelf.
The six o’clock shot was a ritual they’d started during their college sophomore year. It was a time-honored tradition Noah had inherited from his father, who’d adopted the custom after a week in Mexico with his college buddies. During that trip, his dad had developed a lasting taste for José Cuervo tequila, and now it was the only brand used for the ritual.
Noah handed Cliff one of the glasses. Cliff set it on the desk, then retrieved a bottle from a low drawer. He splashed golden liquid into the two glasses.
“Thanks.” Noah raised his glass in a toast, while Cliff followed suit. “Here’s to work. Here’s to pleasure. Foster both in equal measure.”
Noah tossed back the drink in one gulp. He set down the empty glass, then paced to the far window to look out over Atlanta’s downtown skyline. The sun slanted low, casting long shadows across the rooftops. Six floors below, a long line of cars snaked through the street.
He turned back to Cliff. “So, I finally get to meet your sister.”
Scowling, Cliff stabbed his finger across the room at him. “Get her to her surprise party, but keep your hands to yourself! She’s a nice girl.”
Annoyed, Noah narrowed his eyes. “What are you all tense about? I haven’t got any designs on your sister. I’ve never even met her, I might add, which seems a little strange. I can see when we were at Auburn, but we worked together here for years before I moved to Denver. I’ve been back all these weeks, she lives in Atlanta, and I still haven’t met her. Why not?”
Cliff gaped at him. “I just told you. She’s a nice girl. I didn’t want her exposed to your…your personal habits. Believe me, I’ve tried everyone for this party. No one else is available.”
“Personal habits? I was thinking along the lines of a simple introduction, not a roommate situation.” Noah tilted his head, his aggravation with Cliff growing. “What’s wrong with my personal habits?”
With a sound of exasperation, Cliff gestured with his hand. “Blondes on Monday, brunettes on Thursday and redheads for the weekend. Sabrina’s not like that. She’s the romantic type, believes in love and happily-ever-after. I don’t want you corrupting her.”
Noah scowled. “I resent that. Just because I enjoy women doesn’t mean I’d pounce on your sister.” He twisted the blind pull. Atlanta’s skyline disappeared.
“Just get her to the party, none of your funny business or…or you and I are gonna go at it!”
“Go at it?” Noah chuckled. He had a hard time taking Cliff seriously with his hair mimicking electrotherapy. “You’re making too much of this. I can control myself. Besides, I haven’t said I’d do it.”
“Of course you’ll do it. You have to. And you will control yourself.” He blew out a breath. “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I’ve got that trip to Boca for the Shoreland quarterly portfolio review.
“You heard Mona. She hired caterers. She’s going all out. For some reason she has the silly idea that Sabrina doesn’t like her.”
All this to please a woman. Cliff had lost it. Noah squeezed his eyes shut. At the age of thirty, he’d learned the hard way there was no pleasing women—at least not in that sense.
Two years ago, he’d left his partnership with Cliff to follow Rebecca to Colorado. He’d given her everything—his time, his money, even offered her his name. Thank God she’d refused the last. No matter what he offered, it hadn’t been enough. He’d left that relationship without any illusions. It had almost cost him his career.
Cliff would have to learn that lesson for himself, but how could Noah get out of pinch-hitting for his partner?
He turned to Cliff. “You can take your sister to her party. I’ll go to Boca for you. Old lady Shoreland likes me.”
“No way. Her granddaughter’s visiting with her fiancé, not that that would stop you.”
“Wait a minute. I am not the sleaze you make me out to be. I’ve never stolen another man’s woman.”
“No, you’ve never had to. For some reason women flock to you. It’s disgusting.”
With a grunt, Noah moved to the desk. “Not all of them.”
“Oh?”
