or another. I get the concept that your people are aggressive and tend to piss around each other to mark their territories, but this, I don’t think this has anything to do with that.”
Ricks had looked doubtful. He would and Gia knew it. For all his support and encouragement giving his blessing to the board and the owners at wanting her for the GM position, Ricks was still somewhat of a good ole boy. He still had his doubts.
“So, what was this about?”
That was something Gia didn’t have to guess at. “Loyalty,” she told him, and Ricks made a promise that he’d let her unearth the Fort Knox level secrecy that seemed to permeate every pro field. Players tended to police themselves. Gia had witnessed that herself. She guessed that’s what was happening with her players.
Didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to do some sorting herself, though.
“How mad is he?” Kai asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Mad…enough,” she told him, her gaze dropping to his fingers when he gripped that pendant again. It seemed he used it as some sort of talisman—a token that fed him strength when he needed it most.
Gia understood. Luka had been that for her once.
Hell, she thought, banishing the thought of him before it became too clear. This wasn’t the time and certainly not the company for jaunts down memory lane.
“Do you drink, Mr. Pukui?”
He sat up straight, dropping his hand to his lap. “Are you…asking me if I was drunk when I…”
“No,” Gia said, pushing back from her desk. She slipped behind his chair, closing her door and walked to the window, pulling out a bottle of Four Roses Single Barrel Expressions and two Waterford crystal tumblers. “I meant, are you thirsty?”
She poured two fingers in each tumbler and offered one to Kai. He was wary, as though he might be worried that she was testing him, but still took the glass, waiting until she sat behind her desk again and sipped from her drink before he would have any for himself.
Kai watched Gia, keeping his expression neutral, but his eyes communicative. There was a spark behind the gleam in each flicker Gia spotted, some curiosity that had him drinking faster than her, like he had a hundred questions for her, but wouldn’t ask her a thing until he knew he wouldn’t be punished for it.
“So,” Gia started, leaning back in her chair, the warm buzz from her bourbon like electricity fueling her insides. “I take it from your silence and the multiple rescheduling requests Cat has been fielding from everyone’s management that no one is going to tell me a damn thing about what happened on that field.”
Kai started to take another drink, but stopped at his mouth, his lips parting as though he’d only just realized postponing this meeting was an option. Gia smiled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You really do have the worst management. Take my advice and ask Wilson if his agent is looking for new clients.”
He slouched in his chair, two fingers moving over his forehead before he rested his half-empty drink on his knee. “Ricks…wasn’t the only one who was mad, was he?” Kai looked at her through his fingers, dropping his hand when Gia stared at him but didn’t answer.
Instead, she took a longer drink, her focus on his face before she set her tumbler on her desk and leaned forward, folding her fingers together. “I have some guesses.” Kai copied her, resting his drink on the corner of Gia’s desk and leaned forward, moving to lean his elbows on his knees. The black pendant swung from his neck, but Gia ignored it, keeping her attention on Kai’s face and those round, bottomless eyes.
“I’ve been in this business a long time, Mr. Pukui. I know Hanson’s type. Mocking Reese, trying to distract her from her job, trying to humiliate me by spreading rumors.” Gia laughed when Kai’s face tightened. “People like Hanson have to make everyone else around them small because they don’t feel good enough, strong enough. And when it comes to women doing a job they think should only be for a man? Well, they will likely never let up. To them, women like Reese, even like me, are a threat because they are stuck in a box they don’t want to ever be out of.”
Gia polished off her drink, carrying the tumbler to her makeshift bar by her bookshelf, refilling her glass. “That box is awfully small and confining and it’s been