Champagne Brunch: The Stiletto Sisters Series by Ainsley Claire (easy readers .txt) 📗

who holds the current record for a fastball in regular play?”

“Nolan Ryan in 1974. I can also give you his stats, if you want.”

“You know his stats?”

“He’s Nolan Ryan. Of course, I know all his statistics. He’s an eight-time All Star player, the fourteenth overall best pitcher with three hundred and twenty-four wins, two hundred and ninety-two losses, and a three point one nine ERA. He struck out five thousand seven hundred and fourteen players, all of which put him in the Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety-nine.”

I hold my breath. I just vomited baseball garbage and statistics all over him. It looks like I’m trying too hard. Not many men want to be shown up in their baseball knowledge by a woman.

But Axel’s face lights up. “I’m thoroughly impressed. Did you and your dad go to a lot of games when you were growing up?”

“My dad is an investment banker. His company has box seats, but we never went. When I was in late elementary school, I was flipping channels and caught the announcers talking about a player’s statistics, and it was like music to my ears. Math has always been easy for me, so once I saw it in action, I was hooked.”

Axel shakes his head. “You’re beautiful and you love baseball.”

I look down at my sneakers and blush. “You’re handsome and you love baseball.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven to me,” he murmurs.

My stomach tightens, and I have to concentrate so I don’t jump him. We pull up at the plane just as Nate and Lilly arrive. When we board, there’s another man already there, sitting front and center with a young woman hanging on him.

Nate kisses me on the cheek. “Mia, great to see you. Axel, welcome.” He turns to the other couple. The man seems to bristle when he sees Axel. “This is Thomas Luck and his girlfriend, Candace Kane. Thomas is Jonas Raymond’s manager.”

“Nice to meet you both.” I smile. Candy Kane? Please tell me her parents weren’t that cruel. That must be her porn star name—you know, her first pet’s name and her mom’s maiden name…

“Thomas, great day for baseball,” Axel says as we move toward two open seats.

The tension is a bit thick, but I see the flight attendant preparing to pass out drinks. Hopefully that will help.

“The team’s public relations group has gotten the word out that Jeremy has been clocking record-breaking fastballs this week,” Nate reports. “And the article in the San Francisco Chronicle hit the AP wire, so there should be a lot of media. The game may even be nationally televised.”

“Oh man, that’s fantastic,” Axel says. “The only thing that might make it better is if Jeremy did this in front of a home crowd, but if he can keep this up, we’ll see it again.”

“I hear he’s icing down a lot and using some serious steroids,” Thomas snarks.

Nate shrugs. “Nothing out of the ordinary. The entire team has been drug tested this week, so if anyone says otherwise to the press, they’ll lose credibility with the Prospectors, and more importantly, with me.”

Thomas turns red. He’s trying to poison the win, and I can tell Nate sees right through him.

Candy turns to me. “Do you work?”

I nod. “I do. I recently started a small company. What about you?”

“Tommy just agreed to let me quit working. I’m so excited. I have an apartment in the Marina, and I’m so happy not to have to get up and do the daily grind, you know?”

“I get it. It’s hard.” I nod and decide to keep the fact that I also live in the Marina to myself. I can’t imagine not going to work. But I do something I love, so it’s not a grind—at least not most days.

“Totally. Plus, it can take all day to look this good, right?” She preens for me.

I smile and take in her appearance. I’m sure she’s right. She’s a pretty girl with an hourglass figure, wearing a seductive dress and four-inch stilettos. Her makeup is heavy but not ostentatious, and her nails are perfect claws painted a shiny red that matches her lips, belt, and shoes. She’s not exactly baseball game ready, but she’s definitely arm candy.

In comparison, I’m in jeans and a Prospectors T-shirt with my hair in a ponytail ready for a baseball cap. Though I am wearing pair of trendy sneakers.

She leans in close. “Plus, it’s nice to have a rich guy paying some of your bills. I mean, if I’d met Nate Lancaster when I was single, I could have had him eating out of my hand.” She smiles.

Nate met his first wife in elementary school, and they were together for over thirty years, if you include all the years they dated, as well as were married, before she was killed. Nate was single for almost three years before he fell for his fiancée. Many women tried, but no one came close to distracting him. And this woman doesn’t hold a candle to Lilly, Nate’s fiancée.

“How do you know his fiancée?” Candy asks.

“I met her through Nate.”

Her eyes grow wide. “How did you—”

“Hey,” Lilly comes up and sits with us. “Are you excited about today?”

I nod. “If Jeremy does this, it’s going to be incredible. I’m so grateful that you guys included Axel and me.”

“You’re the biggest baseball fan Nate knows. He wants to celebrate with you.”

“You know baseball?” Candy asks.

Lilly turns to her. “This girl can recite the statistics of every player and every game going back to the beginning of baseball. Do you like baseball?”

Candy purses her lips like she just took a big bite out of a lemon. “Why would you want to do that when there are so many other things you could learn?”

Lilly’s eyes grow wide. “Maybe,