Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Kennedy made a sound of irritation. “It’s not a basketball, man.”
“Oh, spoiler alert,” Matt said, snapping his fingers as though just remembering something to tell Jack. “Kennedy doesn’t like when people touch his stuff.”
“He never did,” Jack said, dropping into a chair and putting his hands behind his head. “Which one of you wants to tell me what the deal is with Kate?”
Kennedy tensed slightly, because he knew his brother. He knew that tone. “What about her?”
Jack shrugged. “She’s cute. Like a little tiger cub.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Kennedy said.
“Actually,” Matt said, “I think Kate would sort of love the comparison. A predatory cat? She’d be all over that. Or not,” he muttered when Kennedy gave him a shut the fuck up look.
“She’s my assistant. Leave her alone.”
“She’s our assistant,” Matt corrected. “And she’s single.”
Kennedy gave his friend a look of irritation. “Jesus, Cannon, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Not really. And I’m just saying, I saw them talking. They had chemistry.”
Kennedy stared hard first at Matt, then at Jack. “It’s Kate. She’s off-limits.”
“But she’s not married. Is she straight?” he asked, glancing at Matt for confirmation.
Matt nodded, and Jack spread his hands to the sides. “Well, then. Nothing off-limits about that.”
“We made a pact,” Kennedy said, leaning forward. “Kate’s off-limits.”
“Who made the pact?” Jack asked.
“Cannon, Ian, and me.”
“So not me,” Jack said with irritating patience. “Right?”
“Sounds right,” Matt chimed in.
Five minutes ago, Kennedy had been thrilled to see his brother. Jack did most of his business overseas, so Kennedy rarely saw him outside of holidays and occasional visits. He’d been even more thrilled to hear Jack was moving back to New York, and he was glad, truly. And yet . . .
Kennedy had seen what Matt had seen. More than that, he’d heard Kate’s laugh. Kate had a sense of humor, but it was more of a facetious, witty humor, not a giggling humor.
But she’d been giggling at Jack.
Of course she was. That’s what Jack did. He charmed the crap out of women. Easily. John, too, though his other brother had been decidedly less easygoing since his divorce last year. Hell, even Fitz, who’d always been a straight-up geek, had come out of his awkward years with more girlfriends in a month than Kennedy had in a year.
But Fitz and John weren’t here. They weren’t sniffing around Kate.
“Can you just . . . not?” Kennedy said, rubbing his forehead.
“Can I not what?”
“That thing. Where you make every woman in your current zip code revolve around you.”
“What are you worried about?” Jack said, stretching his legs out in front of him, crossing his hands over his trim stomach. “It’s not like I was flirting with your girl.”
Like hell you weren’t.
It took Kennedy an embarrassingly long moment to realize that Jack meant Claudia. Claudia was his girl. Not Kate.
“Besides, you’re not exactly a repellent monk,” Jack was saying. “For reasons I’ve never been able to quite grasp, women seem to flock to your brooding Heathcliff routine just as much as they do my Leo thing.”
Kennedy scratched his temple. His brother wasn’t entirely wrong. Kennedy had never struggled for female attention. He was fit, not awful to look at, and had more money, quite honestly, than he knew what to do with. And while his tastes tended toward classic, bordering even on old-fashioned, to his brother’s point, women had always seemed to like that, too.
Most women. Not all. Definitely not Kate, who had called him stodgy once or twice to his face. Kate, who apparently preferred Jack’s easy grins and lame Titanic references.
Kennedy looked at Matt for help and saw his friend was watching him carefully. Then Matt turned to Jack. “Look, for what it’s worth, if you mess with Kate, I’ll join Kennedy here in kicking your ass.”
Jack held up his hands, palms out. “I get it. I promise not to drag her to my lair or whatever the hell it is you two seem to think it is I do to women. Good?”
Matt shrugged, and Kennedy forced himself to let the issue drop, if for nothing else than his own peace of mind.
To be fair, his brother was a good guy. Yeah, Jack had a larger than usual string of broken hearts behind him, but Kennedy also knew Jack never intentionally led women on. The guy didn’t have the settle-down itch, and he let women know it up front.
Plus, Kate was too smart to fall for a guy who had short-term written all over him. The woman went to visit her parents in Jersey every other weekend and had a half dozen photos of her niece and nephew on her desk. Surely, she had intentions of settling down—
Kennedy frowned a little at the thought. Kate didn’t seem to date much, but then again, Kennedy wasn’t entirely sure he would know if she did. Matt and Ian always seemed to be the ones who knew those details about Kate, not him.