Bigger Than Beckham

by V. K. Sykes

  “Oh, dear…I, I’m sorry,” she stammered. “So young?”

  “He committed suicide.”

  His voice was low and flat and his expression rigid, but Martha could read the pain in every hard line of his body. “I’m so very sorry, Tony. Truly I am.”

  He shrugged, his eyes again fixed on his plate. “It happened a long time ago.”

  She suspected it was still brutally fresh for him, though, but it would be the height of cruelty to press for details. Still, she wanted more and more to get to know him, to understand the real man behind the uber-confident façade. “You don’t like talking about your family, do you?”

  “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t hard to pick up on that,” he replied in a self-mocking tone.

  Although she envied his big family, something was clearly wrong in his private world. There seemed to be pain behind every word he spoke.

  “I was an only child,” she said, forcing a smile. “I always envied people with lots of brothers and sisters, but I’m sure those kinds of families carry their own sets of problems.”

  “I know you lost both your parents—your dad just a few months ago,” he said in a much softer voice. “I’m really sorry, Martha. And I should have said that much earlier—as soon as we met, really. Forgive me.”

  He reached a hand across the plastic table cloth and skimmed it over hers. Martha managed to stifle the gasp that rose to her lips, but barely. The grazing touch of his big rough hand and the warmth in his gaze seemed much too intimate for her emotions to handle.

  She gave a casual wave, like a royal goodbye. “Absolutely nothing to forgive, Tony, but I appreciate your saying that.” She had to clear her throat. “Gosh, we’ve started to do a good job depressing each other, haven’t we?” she said with a forced chuckle.

  “Maybe we could talk about politics for a while,” he said. “That’s always good for a laugh or two.”

  His dry tone actually did make her laugh. “Okay, you’re going to think I’m a prying old hag, but I do want to ask you something else. I hope you don’t mind my curiosity.”

  He put his chopsticks down, staring at her in disbelief. “You will never be an old hag, Martha Winston, not if you live to be a hundred twenty. But what exactly are you talking about?”

  Actually, she was curious about a lot of things. Like why he’d reacted so strongly to her questions about his family. Like why he’d never been married, or apparently hadn’t even kept a girlfriend for more than a few months. But she wasn’t going to go anywhere near such dangerous personal territory. Not tonight, anyway.

  “Well, it’s just this,” she said. “Because I’ve been covering sports for years—I won’t say how many, of course—I know an awful lot of former athletes. Guys who retired at the top of their game after making tons of money. Guys a lot like you, Tony.”

  “I’m not hearing a question,” he said as she paused.

  “It’s coming, Mr. Sarcasm,” she shot back. “Okay, then. Guys who do that rarely stay in the game. Oh, they might do a little color commentary on TV or radio for a little while, but the dudes who made the really big bucks want to kick back and enjoy when they’re done playing. They live the high life, and maybe focus on charity work if they get bored,” Martha said, thinking specifically about some tennis stars that virtually disappeared from public view after their retirements. “But you’re not like that at all, Tony. You charged right into a new career the day you hung up your cleats, starting at the bottom by taking over that League One team. And I can’t help wondering what drove you to do that.”

  He didn’t seem all that surprised by what she’d said. He’d probably been asked a similar sort of thing so many times he had an answer down pat.

  Taking a long drink of his beer, Tony’s dark eyes locked on hers again, as if he was in some way assessing her. Martha shifted nervously in her chair. Had she pricked another tender nerve? Maybe it was time to just back off and start acting like a businesswoman instead of slipping back into her natural reporter mode.

  Except she was kidding herself on that one. It wasn’t just her reporter’s instincts that kept prompting her to probe more deeply. It was her rampant curiosity about the private Tony Branch.

  “I get asked that question a sometimes, and I always give the same answer,” he finally said. “I say that I just love football so much that I couldn’t leave it. If I wasn’t a team owner, then I’d be managing or coaching, even if it was a kids’ team back home in Middlesbrough. The game’s in my blood. It’s all I am.”

  He shrugged. “That sort of thing always goes down well with the media and the fans.”

  Okay, his little add-on did get her reporter’s instincts firing on all cylinders. “But that version’s not quite true, is it? Or, at least it’s not the whole truth.”

  He gave her a sly smile, and warning prickles danced along the back of her neck. Darned if she wasn’t beginning to feel like a fish on the end of his line, about to be reeled in.

  “No, it’s not the whole truth,” he said. “And somebody as smart and experienced as you would see through it if I tried to leave it at that.”

  Martha dramatically wiped the back of her hand across her brow. “Whew! Darlin’, where have you been all my life? A world-class jock and soccer titan calling a little old reporter like me smart and experienced?” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and spread her hands in mock supplication. “You can take me right now, Lord.”

  She’d hoped to lighten the mood with her down-home drawl and drama, and it seemed to work. Tony’s smile morphed into something genuine and playful, sending a rush of delicious heat through her body. Hell, the man was so charming he should come with a warning label.

  “Okay, here’s the whole truth,” he said. “I had a great career on the field, no doubt about it. I’d more than achieved all the personal goals I’d set. Most importantly, I’d been fortunate to be able to help my teams win championships in both England and the European Champions League. So, I had nothing left to prove, as far as that went.”

  “But?”

  “But I still didn’t want to quit, because I couldn’t abide the thought of having to sit on my arse watching other lads play when I knew I could still perform at a very high standard. In fact, I thought I could play forever, as long as my legs held up. I could still run, still keep up with the youngsters.”

  Martha nodded eagerly, surprised at how anxious she was to hear the end of his story.

  “But then I tore up my left knee again, and it took a painfully long period of rehab to get back to playing form after surgery. I knew I could still come back, and I worked my ass off. But it didn’t matter to the bosses. They shunted me aside, saying I wasn’t going to be a hundred per cent ever again, so it was time for them to “move on,” as they put it. It was like they’d suddenly forgotten everything I’d done for them all those years. Like it was ancient history, no longer of any significance.”

  “Ungrateful bastards,” she exclaimed. Yes, she knew older players were shunted aside all the time, but she couldn’t help feeling outraged on his behalf.

  He gave her a wry smile. “I have to agree with that assessment, Martha. Look, I’m not going to bore you with chapter and verse, but let’s just say that the ownership and management treated me like a troublesome clod of dirt stuck to their boots. Like I was nothing more than a drag on the team and a drain on their bank account.”

  “They traded you, didn’t they? Before your final season?”

  “Gave me away, more like,” he said with a snort. “And those sodding bastards were no more patient than the others. I told them I just needed a little more time to round back into shape, but…”

  He pressed his lips together, as if he had to throttle the angry words that threatened to emerge.

  “It bloody well sucked,” he finally said with a fair imitation of a casual shrug. “It just wasn’t right to treat a veteran player like that. So that started me down another road. Because I knew in my gut that if I ran a team—if I could mak
e the big decisions—I could do it a damn sight better than those wankers. I’d treat my players right, and they’d play their hearts out for me. And they have.”

  Martha nodded in understanding. “You needed to show those owners how wrong they were, which explains why some of them still don’t like you.”

  “Call it some kind of revenge on my part, I suppose. Or maybe some kind of affirmation.” He chewed that over for a few seconds. “Yeah, I like that better. Affirmation that it didn’t have to be the same stupid old way everyone just accepted as normal. I proved that a player could run a team, and do it a hell of a lot better than a bunch of suits who can never think past the bloody bottom line.”

  She leaned across the table and punched him lightly on his rock-hard shoulder. “Well, you sure have, haven’t you? You should be really proud.”

  He gave her a self-satisfied but genuinely boyish grin, one that said Yep, I did it. When he looked at her like that, she finally thought she saw at least a little part of the real Tony peeking through.

  “I am proud, Martha, but there are a lot of people in the business who still think I’m rubbish. I feel respect and even love from the fans at every single match, and the players play their butts off for me because they feel like I’m still one of them. Hell, I am still one of them where it counts.” He thumped his fist against his heart. “But the old guard of English football? Oh, they loved me as a player, all right—especially when we were winning for England—but they think I’m not good enough to have a place at their sodding table. And they make that known in dozens of ways.”

  “Jerks,” Martha said.

  “Arrogant jerks,” he agreed.

  Martha understood the kind of need Tony had for professional recognition, and she was beginning to suspect it was part of the reason he was so determined to get into American professional soccer. In the States, he could have a new start, leaving the prejudices of his homeland behind.

  “I sure get where you’re coming from. You can imagine what the good old boys over here think of me,” she said. “A woman running a pro sports team. Worse yet, a woman with zero management experience. And even worse than that, a sportswriter, of all things. That particular group of gentlemen—and I use the word loosely—had a pure hissy fit when I took over the club.”

  Tony’s lip lifted in a snarl. “Sod them all, Martha. You’ve earned your way.”

  She almost asked him why, if he really felt that way, would he want to displace the only woman owner in the ASL? That, however, was not a conversation she wanted to have. “But I guess we’re close to stepping into dangerous waters, aren’t we?”

  “Right. No business tonight,” he said, crossing his heart and trying to look solemn. Too bad he just came off looking rakish and utterly…kissable. Yeah, kissable. Not that other thing that would pitch her directly into a deep, dark sea of trouble.

  Way to kid yourself, girlfriend.

  “I’d like to know how you hooked up with Rex Daltry,” she said in a perky voice, trying to distract herself from even more inappropriate mental images of all the fun she could have with Tony. “He sounds like one smart dude from what I’ve read.”

  “Not a dummy like his partner, right?” Tony countered. Fortunately, there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it.

  Martha glared at him in mock outrage. “Believe me, Tony Branch, I don’t think you’re a dummy. If I did, I wouldn’t be scared half to death by you.”

  “Bollocks. You’re not afraid of me,” he scoffed. “Or, at least you shouldn’t be.”

  No, be very afraid, her common sense whispered.

  “So, what about you and Rex?” she said, not pursuing that particular sidetrack. “How did all that happen?”

  Tony gave her a brief but entertaining history about his partner, and what their fruitful business relationship had yielded over the years. Not for the first time, Martha felt a wave of regret that she couldn’t do a feature story on Tony and Rex, and their intriguing careers in soccer.

  “Fascinating story. How did you two actually hook up with each other?” she asked after he left out those details.

  He shrugged. “Chance, really. Through a mutual friend at the time.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, Martha knew the mutual friend had to have been a woman. That piqued her curiosity even more. “And?” she said. “What else?”

  He gave her a sly grin, ruthlessly ignoring her underlying question. “Rex talked me into giving him a job, and I’ve been exploiting him ruthlessly ever since.”

  “I hope you’re joking about that.”

  Tony raised a very Spock-like eyebrow in answer.

  Well, two could play at that game.

  She gave him a sugar-sweet smile. “Would you say you were friends, too? Or does it have to be strictly big boss and obedient minion for you?”

  Now that she’d asked the teasing question, she realized how curious she was to hear the answer. She’d already had trouble with that distinction herself. Certainly with Jane, but also now with Kieran McLeod, who she’d come to regard both as friend and mentor. Some days she found herself even thinking of him as something of a substitute father figure, which was not a good habit to be falling into. Martha knew she had to sink or swim on her own, and not pull anyone else down with her.

  Tony frowned, tapping his chopsticks against the edge of his now-empty plate. “We’re good mates, Rex and me. But in the end, it always has to be about business. He and I both know that, and I just hope to hell it never comes down to having to make a choice.” He lifted a shoulder. “So far, it hasn’t. I credit Rex with that a lot more than I do me.”

  Martha liked that under his sometimes brash demeanor Tony was pretty self-effacing, and easily gave credit where credit was due. And since he was being so open with her…

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I wound up in that position,” she said. “What would you do if it ultimately had to come down to a choice like that?”

  This time both eyebrows went up. “You want me to say that I’d abandon Rex if I had to?” Despite his working class roots, his voice went dark and haughty. “Or maybe that I’d push my own granny off a cliff to get what I wanted? Would that fit your preconceived notions of Tony Branch?”

  Well, kind of, although her ideas about him were evolving minute by minute. She almost said that but stopped herself at the last second. It had been a surprisingly pleasant evening and, like an idiot, she was in the process of wrecking it with so many intrusive questions.

  “I was just curious to know how you would handle it, since I find myself in kind of the same position,” she said in as casual a voice as she could manage. “But forget I asked.”

  He shook his head. “No, be honest, Martha. What you really want to know is how far I’m willing to go to get your team away from you. You might as well just come out with it.”

  Feeling a bit desperate that he’d scored such a close hit, she tried to laugh it off. “We weren’t going to talk about my team, remember?”

  Suddenly, his face transformed again and the rakish, charming Tony was back. “Martha, you’re so right. There’ll be a time and place for that, won’t there? And that being the case, what would you like to do next?”

  * * *

  “Tony, you do realize that I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  She said it in a whisper, since they were surrounded by other people, but Tony heard Martha loud and crystal clear. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the brutally blunt volley, but he was. Enough that he choked on the bourbon he was enjoying at the bar in the Hyatt.

  Martha laughed softly and reached around to pat him gently on the back.

  “Not right now? Or not ever?” he managed to croak after a couple of seconds of gasping.

  After she’d surprisingly accepted his impulsive offer of a nightcap when she drove him to his hotel, he’d felt a glimmer of hope. Well, more than that, since the power of her sweet, almost shy smile had rocketed straight to his groin. She’d been sending him mixed sign
als during dinner, but his dick had been clear and consistent on how it wanted the evening to progress.

  His question must have caught her unawares, because Martha took her sweet time answering as she delicately sipped Scotch and stared straight ahead at the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar. Unfortunately, the lounge was jam-packed, so they’d had to perch on ridiculously uncomfortable stools at the bar instead of at a table where he could have met her gaze directly.

  In that and other ways, a quiet table in a dark corner would have better served his purposes.

  Tony cleared his throat. “Take your time,” he said in a light tone.

  His question put her in a tough spot. If she said “not right now,” it would sound like a virtual promise of a future yes. If she said “never,” it would mean exactly that because he’d let her be from then on. He had no problem at all being aggressive in pursuit of a woman—especially one as eminently fuckable as Martha Winston—but he sure as hell knew how to take no for an answer, too.

  And if she didn’t want to grab onto either of those alternatives, then whatever she said would lead to a discussion, and probably an open door.

  Or, of course, she could just put down her drink and walk away.

  Tony had no patience with that particular thought.

  Martha finally turned to face him. “Let me just say this,” she started in a prim, schoolmarm tone. Then she half-closed her eyelids and whispered the pink tip of her tongue across her glossy lips.

  With that, the erection he’d been fighting to keep at half-mast finally won the day.

  “You know that doing such a thing would be a monumental mistake, Tony.”

  Her words contradicted the silent message of that lush red mouth, a mouth that promised to take him to heaven. Yes, sleeping together might very well be a mistake, but all he could focus on now was the fact that her answer sure as hell didn’t sound like a no.

  Best not to call her attention to that, though. At least not yet.

  “Because it would complicate…things?” he asked, trying to sound like a thoughtful, sensitive guy. He actually did think he was a pretty thoughtful guy, but right now his little head was doing its best to run the show.