It Takes a Rebel. Stephanie Bond

them, Alex rolled her eyes.

      “I’ll never forget that sixty-six-yard touchdown against Tennessee in eighty-four,” Bobby said, stepping back to feign a catch while Alex stared. She could count on her colleagues to overlook Jack Stillman’s exaggerated celebrity and do what was best for the company…couldn’t she?

      To her relief, several other associates entered the room—the public relations director, another sales director, two vice presidents and a couple of marketing assistants—chatting among themselves. She left the introductions to Bobby, who seemed disturbingly chummy with Jack Stillman after only three and a half minutes. The group body language concerned her. The men leaned toward him, hands in pockets, athletically wide-legged—even Rudy Claven, who hadn’t missed being a woman by much, and was teased mercifully by the company softball team for “throwing like a girl.” And the four women in the room seemed to hang on to every detail as Bobby ingratiatingly expanded on Jack’s scoffing I’m-not-a-legend preamble.

      Ugh.

      Alex pretended to mingle as they waited for her father, but instead studied Jack from beneath her lashes, part of her marveling over his physical transformation, all of her wary to the point of nervous tension. He panned his audience to include everyone in a glory-days anecdote he’d probably recounted a thousand times, and his gaze seemed to linger on her longer than necessary.

      Men were like cats, she observed, pretending to study her watch. The more you ignored them, the more they wanted your attention. She forced herself not to listen to Jack Stillman’s words, although his baritone was impossible to shut out. Someone had found a photo of the ’85 UK football team among the cluttered bookshelves, and there he was, Jack pointed out as everyone crowded around, then launched into a story about the fellow who sat next to him. Within seconds, everyone was laughing.

      Oh, brother. Alex took a deep gulp of coffee and scalded her tongue. “Dammit!”

      Her expletive coincided with a lull in the laughter and seemed to reverberate from the dark walls. Everyone turned to stare, including Jack, whose eyes danced with amusement as she ran her tender tongue against the roof of her mouth. She had the strongest urge to stick it out at him.

      “Problem, my dear?” her father asked, strolling into the room with all the casual ease of a man who owned the floors, walls and ceilings. At last everyone fell away from Jack Stillman and headed toward the table, scrupulously avoiding the chair opposite Alex, reserved for her father, of course.

      “No,” she said somewhat thickly, walking around the table. “Allow me to introduce Mr. St—”

      “Jack Stillman,” her father cut in, pumping the visitor’s hand, his broad face creasing in a grin reserved only for the most privileged. “Jack the Attack.”