Hustlers by Claire Chilton Page B

I didn’t call Meyer,” Jimmy muttered.
    “If you had called in Meyer, I’d have killed you myself! Enough from both of you, we’re not discussing this. Not now, not ever!” Her father flashed a look at them both that demanded silence.

E llie shifted uncomfortably in the black cocktail dress she wore. She glanced down at her rhinestone sandals and wobbled on the heels for a moment.
Who can walk in this crap?
    “Stop fidgeting,” her father said. “You look beautiful.”
    She peered at her father with narrowed eyes, who appeared at ease in his fitted tux, but then he wasn’t wearing ridiculous heels. “These things make me useless. I can’t even run in them.”
    “You don’t need to run anywhere tonight. You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself.” He nodded at the busy ballroom surrounding them. “You wanted to feel like a girl, right?”
    She grabbed a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and then downed it in one swig. After a long conversation with her father and Jimmy, she’d finally managed to explain that she was a girl, and girls needed to do things that weren’t high-risk jobs sometimes. “This really isn’t what I had in mind. I was thinking rock concerts or going on a date. This isn’t my kinda place.”
    He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m guessing Oxford isn’t your kind of place either.”
    She glanced up as applause broke out around the room, smiling at the stage as the Special Forces team were awarded medals by the people they had rescued from Starling’s human trafficking ring. It had taken the SAS and the police in multiple countries working together to hunt down the captives and bring them home. Starling and his son had been thrown in jail for it.
    “I don’t know what you mean,” Ellie said with as much innocence as she could muster.
    “Apparently, the course you were supposed to go on filled up really quickly, and unfortunately someone else got your place there. I don’t suppose you and Jimmy know anything about that?”
    She flashed her dad a grin. “I have no idea how that happened.”
    “I bet you don’t,” he muttered.
    She peered at her feet. It was cheating. She’d lost the bet. She wasn’t good enough to manage anything, especially not a job with her father, but she really didn’t want to go to university. She loved her life with her father and Jimmy.
    She glanced at him. “I know I failed, but that’s the last time it happens.” She narrowed her eyes with determination. “I’m never dating again. Nothing is going to get in my way. I mean it dad, I…” She trailed off as a tall man with dark hair strolled past them. He was a couple of years older than she was. His handsome face and big brown eyes caused her skin to tingle. Like a magnet, she was drawn to him. He winked at her as he passed by, and she found herself admiring his broad shoulders as he walked away.
    She jumped when her father laughed. “Sure you will. You did okay on that last job, kiddo. You adapted and dealt with an unplanned situation. It wasn’t the date that got you into trouble. You didn’t do your research. Dating is fine. Just make sure that the person you choose is good enough for you.”
    “No, I’m not dating ever again, unless it’s that guy.” She nodded at the dark-haired man who had stopped a few feet away from them. She tilted her head to the side as she studied his muscular body.
    Her father laughed again. “That’s not the kind of research I mean.”
    “Mr. Hawkins! How wonderful to see you here,” an older woman cried as she hurried across the dance floor toward the man that Ellie had begun to think of as Mr. Nice-Ass in her mind.
    She frowned and glanced at her father when he gripped her arm.
    “We need to get going,” he said as he guided her toward the exit.
    “Aren’t we sticking around for the end of the awards thing?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the tall, dark stranger.
    “What, and leave Jimmy all alone? Lord knows what