by Mindy Klasky
She’d come to the restaurant that night ready to tell Kyle she was done. She wouldn’t be his sunglass muse any longer, wouldn’t support his absurd superstitions. She’d planned to tell him that until he got her off balance with his flattery.
But that wasn’t all. She’d meant to say she wouldn’t keep his money, either. The idea of blackmailing him had come on the spur of the moment, boiling over in her superheated brain after that horrible morning with the banks. It had been a stupid plan—dangerous and cruel—even if it had worked, even if it had solved her immediate problem of the partnership buy-in. She’d tell him the truth about why she’d asked for the money, and then she’d figure out a way to pay him back, dime by dime until she won the UPA case, until she got the bonus she deserved.
But every time she started to say the words out loud, palpitations stole her breath away. Instead, she heard her mother: “We don’t tell anyone about our family problems, Mandy. Child Protective Services could take you away forever.” She heard Alex: “Don’t tell anyone Daddy pawned my bicycle. They’ll laugh at me forever!” Anyone, anyone. Forever, forever. She’d never get away from Warren’s damage. Just thinking about saying the words made the room spin.
So she didn’t talk to Kyle about money.
Instead, she told him what it was like growing up as a freakish girl who loved science and math and couldn’t get enough of chess tournaments. She told him about participating on trivia teams in high school, about winning a state tournament because she’d memorized the digits of pi out to five hundred places.
She listened as he talked about his parents, both still alive in Kansas. One sister was in San Francisco, another in Chicago—he got to see them on road trips, a couple of times a year.
He’d always known he’d play ball, from his earliest days in Little League. She’d set her heart on being a lawyer the first time she watched a courtroom drama on TV, the first time she saw the logic of the evidence transformed into a conviction.
He’d come to Raleigh because the team drafted him. She’d moved to the Research Triangle because she’d carefully mapped out potential clients around the country, companies that would require her undergraduate double-major in mathematics and chemical engineering, her law school degree, her patent bar certification.
He’d buckled down as he hit his journeyman years in the majors, revamping his batting stance, learning to maximize his good instincts. She’d reached her stride in the two years before she became a partner in her firm, mastering the long hours, annealing the mandatory combination of pit-bull and client counselor.
And all that conversation was interspersed with the most amazing meal she’d eaten in Raleigh. The perfect steak was followed by deep, rich coffee, so flavorful she couldn’t believe it was actually decaf. She was still savoring the cup when the proprietor carried in a massive slice of peach pie. The lattice crust was crowned with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and two spoons balanced on the plate.
“I can’t,” she said, as Kyle edged the dessert closer to her.
“Live a little,” he said, a challenge sparking from his eyes. And those three words sent a hot knife through her, melting all her insides as if they were butter.
She wasn’t a naive little girl. She’d felt curls of lust before, sparks of interest as she watched a movie, as she read a book. She’d given in to desire, going home with boys in college, with men she met in law school, through work.
But if those nights were carefree songs, the feeling that sliced through her now was an opera. It stole her breath away, zapped her words to syllables, to meaningless sounds. It made her thighs tremble, and she actually wondered if she could stand up and walk away from the table.
She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t breathe. But she could purse her lips with calculated care. She could dip her spoon into the soft curve of ice cream. She could raise the dessert to her mouth and take her time licking the melted vanilla sauce, lapping it up with all the careful attention of a cat.
She watched Kyle’s eyes go wide.
This was crazy. She was crazy. Sure it was fun teasing him this way, but she needed to be careful. She had to remember that this was the guy she’d blackmailed, the man who could turn her in to the police, who could toss her out on her ass whenever he wanted.
This is the guy who can give me the money for Hunter.
The thought was there, stark and ugly, turning the ice cream to acid at the back of her throat. Even as the words surfaced, she realized she’d known them all along.
Kyle could save her. He could save Hunter. All she had to do was repeat her crime, make her demand, hold Spring Valley over his head again.
Yeah, she’d come to this dinner planning on paying back what she’d already taken from him. But how the hell could she do that with her maxed-out salary? She couldn’t even raise the issue without hyperventilating.
Instead, over the course of dinner, she’d begun to understand what it actually meant to have a major-league salary. Kyle had bought his parents a new home. He’d put one sister through grad school and sent the other on an around-the-world trip while she figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Twenty-five thousand dollars was practically pocket change for him.
We don’t tell anyone about our family problems. Her mother had recited those words like a prayer. That’s what had kept the three of them—Amanda and Laura and Alex—together through the worst of it. Warren had nearly destroyed them, but in the end, they were all still standing.
Doing anything else now—telling an outsider, telling Kyle—why she needed his money would take away the power of all those old struggles. Speaking out loud would erase the bonds her mother had forged. It would invalidate the past. If Amanda displayed her need, she’d be saying that every secret her mother had made them keep had been unnecessary, had hurt more than it had ever helped.
She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t betray who she’d been, who her mother and brother had been. She couldn’t erase everything they’d done to survive. It was easier to demand money than to explain the reason she needed it.
~~~
Jesus Christ. He couldn’t tell what Amanda was thinking. One moment, she was looking up at him through her eyelashes, yanking a chain she had to know was tied directly to his dick. The next, she was swallowing hard, refusing to meet his eyes, twisting her fingers in her lap.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She licked her lips before she raised her chin. Her eyes flashed bright in the dim alcove. “I’m fine. But I’m through with dessert.”
He glanced at the plate between them, at the ice cream melting on her spoon. Something had changed. Something had broken inside her. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere asking questions; he could tell that from the steady way she looked at him.
He’d never passed up a slice of Aunt Mary’s peach pie in his life. But there was a first time for everything.
Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to drag it out by asking for the check, by waiting for Artie to come back, by figuring out something to say while the charge was run up electronically. Cold, hard cash—that’s what he needed now.
He fished out his wallet and dropped the money on the table before he pushed back his chair. He was ready to move behind Amanda, to do the gentlemanly thing, holding her chair and helping her stand, but she was way ahead of him. In fact, she took the lead, striding across the dining room and out the front door. She marched down the porch steps, not wasting any time crossing to her car, an ancient dirt-brown Honda that huddled in the shadows on the very edge of the lot.
He followed, worry tightening his belly. She was fitting her key in the lock by the time he caught up. He put his hand on her shoulder, but he drew back when he felt her flinch.
“Easy,” he breathed as she whirled to face him.
And there it was again, the same vulnerability he’d seen on her face when he’d kissed her outside her apartment building. She looked open, soft, like all her legal training had cr
umbled away. This wasn’t the brainy girl who’d kicked guys’ asses playing chess. This wasn’t the lawyer who could argue rings around opponents in a courtroom.
This was a woman, unsure of herself, uncertain about… something. He started to back off, to let her go, but he saw quick emotions flash across her face. Frustration. Longing. Need.
So he didn’t pull away. Instead, he closed the distance between them.
He had to feel his mouth on hers. After a heartbeat, she responded, relaxing the tight muscles of her neck, opening her lips to give him better access.
His tongue found hers, and he tasted vanilla. The flavor made him a little drunk. He pushed her back against the car, sheltering her neck with the curve of one arm. With his other hand, he traced the row of buttons on her blouse. When she arched toward him, he slipped his hand inside, cupping the warmth of her breast. He felt the hard button of a nipple, pressing, demanding, and he slipped his hand past lace and wire, ready to explode from the heat of her flesh.
She moaned then, a vibrating sound of need that he drank down like the wine she’d nursed through dinner. It wasn’t enough just to kiss her; it wasn’t enough to feel her lips. He traced along the corner of her mouth, tickling her jaw, scraping his beard against her throat as she twisted, as she turned, like she couldn’t get enough of him. He found the soft spot below her ear, the hollow at the edge of her jaw, and he tongued it, hard and demanding.
And she froze.
One moment, she was melting beneath him. The next, she was a statue, every muscle still as stone, hard as ice.
“Amanda,” he murmured, barely moving his lips.
But she turned her head away.
He slipped his fingers from beneath her blouse, and he shifted back half a step back. She straightened, and he let his other arm fall to his side like a dead branch.
“Amanda,” he said again, and this time he let some of his worry fill his voice. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, how he’d fucked this up. She’d been hot, eager, as into all of this as he’d been. Or so he’d thought.
She looked past him, over his shoulder, blinking hard at the warm porch light in the distance. She licked her lips, and she ran one hand through her hair. She reached up to her glasses and tilted them a little, settling them into place on the bridge of her nose.
Whatever else was going on, she wasn’t a coward, because she shifted her gaze then. She looked him directly in the eye. And she said, “Pardon me. That was a mistake. One I won’t make again.”
Her voice was ice. He protested, “It wasn’t—”
“Trust me,” she said. “It was a mistake, because there’s something I didn’t tell you over dinner. And after I say this, you won’t want anything else to do with me.”
“I don’t think that’s poss—”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” she said. “I need it. Three checks, below ten thousand each.”
CHAPTER 4
Amanda fought not to cringe as Kyle said, “What the fuck?”
She raised her chin. “I need the money by Friday.”
“You’re not getting anything by Friday,” he said. He stepped back, shaking his head like she was a crazy woman, like he wanted to cross to the other side of the street, just to get away from her nutso ranting.
But they weren’t standing on a street. They were huddled in a restaurant parking lot, half-hidden in shadows. She was backed up against her car because they’d been making out like horny teenagers. She had to say something, had to do something to regain control over the situation. And she almost regretted her words as she said, “You’ll change your mind, Kyle. Because if I don’t get the money, I’ll send an envelope to the News & Observer. I figure they'll be the most interested in your time at Spring Valley. A perfect story as the team gets closer to the post-season.”
The words made her stomach clench, and she swallowed hard, fighting to keep bile out of her throat. She regretted the vodka she’d drunk before dinner, the wine with her meal. She never should have eaten that steak.
She didn’t deserve steak. She didn’t deserve anything good. She was disgusting, and the things she did were disgusting. Any normal woman would be able to take care of herself, take care of her family. What the hell was wrong with her, that she was threatening an innocent man, just because she needed some help?
Well, he wasn’t innocent. That’s what she tried to tell herself. He’d done bad things and hidden them. He’d made a career out of being harmless, being good; his sterling reputation was the reason he had millions in a bank account.
The amount she asked for was almost literally nothing to him; he could write the checks without blinking.
But that didn’t make blackmail right. The first time, the money she needed for the partnership—she’d demanded it without thinking. He’d handed over the funds so easily that she’d almost made herself believe it didn’t matter. They’d completed a simple commercial transaction—he paid her partnership fee, and she showed up at the ballpark to drop her stupid sunglasses. Quid. Pro. Quo.
That’s why it should have been easy the second time.
But it wasn’t. The look on his face wasn’t easy. The nausea that cramped her stomach wasn’t easy.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she scrambled to unlock the car, to open the door, to slip into the driver’s seat before her knees gave way.
Kyle grabbed at the top of her window. “What the hell are you doing, Amanda?”
And she answered like a lawyer. She made her voice cold, as hard as the glass his fingers were gripping. “What I need to do,” she said. “Twenty-five thousand by Friday, or I go to the press.”
Her lawyer demeanor must have shocked him, because he didn’t keep her from slamming the door closed. He just stood and watched as she gunned the car to life. Peeling out of the parking lot, she couldn’t bring herself to look in the rear-view mirror at the first man whose company she’d enjoyed in years.
~~~
Kyle stretched out on the hotel bed, leaning against a pile of pillows. He’d used the crappy coffee maker in the bathroom to brew a cup of chamomile tea. The last thing he needed was the rotgut coffee they provided with those things. He had to get to sleep some time.
That night’s game against St. Louis had gone well—the Rockets were on a roll, having won eleven out of their last thirteen. Kyle’s own hitting streak continued—he’d gotten on base in the sixth. Sure he’d been stranded, but in the long run, it hadn’t mattered. The team had won, they’d stormed the field, he’d hit the showers, and now he was back in his hotel room. Staring at his phone. Telling himself he was a fucking idiot if he picked the thing up. Worse, if he punched in the ten numbers he already knew by heart.
But he knew damn well it wasn’t caffeine that had kept him awake Monday night. Tuesday or Wednesday, either. Sure, he’d been shocked as hell when Amanda made her demand. He’d thought he was in the clear, having paid her off once. That’s what they’d been eating dinner to celebrate. That’s why he’d asked her out to Artie’s in the first place.
Shit. That was a lie, too. He’d asked her to have dinner with him because he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He couldn’t forget the cool taste of mint as he’d kissed her. He couldn’t stop feeling her fingers tightening on his back, the scrape of her nails through his shirt. He got hard every time he pictured her in that knotted T-shirt, wearing those sexy black glasses.
And now he couldn’t forget the look on her face when she’d frozen beneath him, when she’d dared to meet his eyes and make her demand for another twenty-five thousand dollars.
There’d been defiance there—anyone could see that. She was challenging him, making a demand she clearly expected to fight for.
But there’d been more than that. He knew enough about weakness, about uncertainty, about not trusting himself to make the choice he knew was right. He knew what shame felt like, well enough to recognize it in someone else. Especially when it was coated in desperation. Because that’s exactly what he�
�d felt before he went to Coach, back in college. That was the same toxic stew he’d choked down as he told himself he didn’t need Spring Valley, as he realized he might not live without it.
Amanda Carter wasn’t using. He’d been around enough addicts to recognize the signs. She wasn’t strong-arming him for her next hit, or even to finance a side business in illegal drugs.
But whatever she did need the money for made her feel weak. Unworthy. And that was the look he kept seeing—Amanda haunted, hunted, frantically, desperately alone.
To hell with it. He already knew what his agent would say—call her bluff and turn her in to the authorities. He knew what his counselor would say, way back at Spring Valley—stand up and admit who and what he was and take away her power over him forever. He even knew what he would say, at least what he would have said two weeks ago, before he’d ever seen her in the stands. No woman was going to grab him by the balls, choke off his right to control his own life.
But now he knew her. Part of her, at least. Enough to want to know more. Enough to want to find out why she spent an entire night chatting over dinner without once mentioning her family—parents or siblings or anything more personal than a high school chess tournament.
Cursing himself, he dialed her home phone.
“Hello?”
The one word set his heart to hammering, harder than it had two hours ago in the dugout, when he’d watched Sartain’s hit knock in the winning run. He had to swallow hard, had to snag a deep breath before he could say, “It’s me.”
“Kyle.”
She recognized his voice. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “Were you asleep?” he asked.
She sniffed, a sound that might have been amusement. “Hardly. I’m reading about the metabolic pathway of magnesium in cellular polyphosphates.”
