The Penalty

by Piper Westbrook

  Veronica went about packing her briefcase. Once finished she used the remote to click off the television and faced Waverly. “A guy you were talking to at the party who you have to ask a question tonight? Really, Waverly?” She sighed. “I know you asked Dad to introduce you to Finn Walsh. He’s married—”

  The head coach? Oh, noooooo. “And stop right there. Whatever you’re thinking in that overly analytical brain of yours, just stop. I don’t want the HC’s number.”

  “Then whose? Are you starting up something with a team member? I really hope you’re smarter than this.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m doing.” That was true—what had started last night with Jeremiah had also ended last night. She just needed to make sure he knew that, too. “And what wouldn’t be smart? Starting up with someone on the team, or disappointing our parents?”

  “Both. So if I were you, I wouldn’t consider doing either. Just sisterly advice.” Veronica grabbed the rest of her paperwork and rushed upstairs to lock it away in her home office, then hurried back to the kitchen. “Furthermore, aside from a few contacts I need to reach round the clock, personnel information is stored securely at the office. If you do have a strictly business question for this man, ask him at training camp.”

  “Sure.”

  Car keys in hand, Veronica reminded Waverly of the house’s security code and said, “Get in touch with Aly if you want to call someone. Don’t tell her I told you—she wanted to break the news—but she said a journalist from Sports Illustrated is interested in scheduling a chat with you.”

  Yesterday, before she’d let down her guard for passion, Waverly would’ve jumped for joy to catch the attention of Sports Illustrated. Instead she felt as if she were holding her breath, waiting for Jeremiah Tarantino to make a move against her. If Meg’s theory was correct—and her track record in Las Vegas and D.C. said that she almost always was—then Waverly had walked into a setup.

  A worried look crossed Veronica’s face as she headed out. “I know how you’ve fought to get this far, Waverly. Focus on that. Things are looking up for you.”

  And what went up came down. It was the inevitability of gravity.

  Unless she could be an exception to the rule.

  She needed to locate Jeremiah Tarantino pronto, before training camp, and come to an understanding. Exposing what they’d done last night would benefit neither of them. Maybe Meg was wrong about Jeremiah not having anything to lose.…

  Waverly dug her tablet out of her handbag and settled on the big comfy family room sectional. An internet search produced several photos of Jeremiah Tarantino—mostly shots of him with his older brother, Milo. Side by side, the physical resemblance was shockingly clear. Aside from the fact that Milo was tattooed, wore his hair past his shoulders, and had deeper creases in his face and a slightly crooked nose, he and Jeremiah could be twins.

  Jeremiah had known just what to say to her, known to let her decide for herself whether she’d meet him at his suite or not. Known so very well where to touch her to make her mind melt.

  Could something that had felt so dizzyingly natural really be false—a plot against her? Staring at a picture of the two brothers with an older couple, Meg’s words found their way to her lips. “Were you playing me, Jeremiah?” she whispered. She navigated the webpage to read the article that accompanied the photo. An Italian dark-haired man and a blonde woman—Luca and Anne Tarantino. Jeremiah’s parents.

  She found a crumb on the web trail that led her to where Jeremiah was expected to be two evenings from now. The website for Young Minds, Bright Futures, a charity organization founded to provide scholarships to academically gifted children, listed Jeremiah as one of the prominent people expected to be in attendance.

  “Aren’t you sick of me yet?” Meg greeted when she answered her phone, her dry humor a welcome familiarity.

  “Quite the contrary,” Waverly said, putting the phone on speaker and rereading the online local events calendar. “How about I repay you for that yummy chocolate cheesecake with a pass to the Young Minds, Bright Futures fund-raising gala Thursday night. It’s a charity function for academically gifted kids.”

  “Hmm. How do I feel about hanging with kids who are half my age—or younger—with higher IQs than mine?”

  “Jeremiah is going to be there. And so am I. Veronica refused to give me access to the employee roster, so I couldn’t get his number.”

  “It would’ve been easier if you’d just asked me to get his contact info for you. Phone number, addy, social media profiles.”

  “Meg, none of that secret-agent snooping stuff, okay?”

  Meg sighed, and Waverly glanced toward the phone with a smile. “Why bring me along, then?”

  “Hey, I said you couldn’t snoop around in his background. I didn’t say you couldn’t observe. So what do you say? No matter, I’ll be there and I will get answers.”

  She intended to get to Jeremiah Tarantino before he did something they’d both regret.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Already Jeremiah regretted this. Coming off an early-morning sit-down with the Villains’ head trainer and a full day of prep at the team’s training facility, Desert Luck Center, in Mount Charleston, he’d intended to close himself off to the world for the rest of the night, finalize plans for the Young Minds, Bright Futures fund-raiser tomorrow, put a thick steak on the grill, and review injury reports, progress notes and medical chart copies that had been released to him.

  Then his brother had called, and Jeremiah had changed course. Now his Benz shot through the city streets, blowing past blurs of vehicles and faceless motorists. Nightlife was in full swing—neon lights flashing, casinos bursting with gamblers, tourists and locals meshing on the Strip.

  His destination lay deeper into the desert mountainside.

  Nestled in the Nevada mountains with the lake in the background, his father’s resort neighborhood was a place of pristine palm-tree opulence. What people saw on the outside of Luca Tarantino’s multimillion-dollar stately retreat—with its eight-car garage, which housed his vintage-automobile collection, and its diverse array of shrubbery, which reflected his fiancée’s new hobby as an amateur topiarist—was only a faint mirage compared to what existed inside the twelve-thousand-square-foot property.

  For one thing, despite coexisting in a house spacious enough to get lost in, Jeremiah’s brother and Luca’s fiancée couldn’t seem to avoid getting in each other’s faces. Milo’s girlfriend, a high-maintenance type like Izzie, had dropped him for a New England Patriot less than a month after his NFL career had snapped right along with one of his spinal disks. Milo resented that Luca Tarantino seemed intent on replacing his first wife with a trophy.

  Jeremiah knew his mother had been Luca’s goddess, his advisor and friend, his conscience…his soul. Luca had simply let go of everything, including their two sons, when she died. Their love had been the kind that when it went away, it took his sanity, too.

  Now Luca was nothing more than prime media fodder. The man who’d once been known for his need to win had become a laughingstock, the very definition of a loser. In two years he’d remarried and divorced twice. Both ex-wives had been more interested in using his clout to build their own celebrity and had ravaged his bank accounts during the divorce proceedings, which had been quick but not painless. His current fiancée, Izzie Phillips, didn’t appear to be any different and had been trying to get a cable network to roll out the red carpet for a reality television show about her life as the soon-to-be wife of an NFL team owner.

  But Luca had felt pressured to sell the team, Izzie was getting restless, the entire Tarantino family was on the edge, and Jeremiah was taking the heat.

  Jeremiah’s interest was not just reclaiming ownership of the multimillion-dollar asset the Greers had stolen from the Tarantinos for his brother, who’d saved his ass more times than Jeremiah probably deserved. And it wasn’t just about returning to his father the empire the aging man had built.

  Jeremiah was ou
t to protect Jeremiah. Framed diplomas for his degrees in kinesiology and sports medicine showed a man who looked good on paper but who walked in his brother’s fucking shadow.

  Now the “science nerd with the silver spoon” was in league with the same type of guys who’d tormented him as a kid, but they now respected him and depended on his elite set of skills for their professional and personal survival.

  Now high-caliber women, who’d looked right through him back then, pursued him ferociously. Women like Izzie. And Waverly.

  Milo had taken it upon himself to keep a close watch on their father, and the only way to do it was to live with him. Now more than ever, Luca needed family nearby.

  And Luca, in the center of it all, refused to intervene in his fiancée’s fights with his sons. When he wasn’t out making appearances, showing the world that losing three wives—one to death and two to divorce—and his NFL team hadn’t broken him, he was locked in his rooms alone, showing only the people who truly knew him that all that loss had broken him.

  So it was Jeremiah’s duty to step in, run interference, be the peacemaker whether he wanted to or not.

  Ignoring Milo’s call would’ve only put off the inevitable. He couldn’t cut himself off from his family or dodge their demands. He could only do whatever he could to get them the only tonic that might cure them: the Villains franchise.

  The team was what had defined his father—the possession he’d treasured most. It was Milo’s birthright, which he’d wanted to operate down the line, and his connection to it had been the only light in his world after his injury and his girlfriend’s betrayal. And as for Izzie, the woman swore she could be a wonderful wife to Luca but she’d never been shy about wanting the team back so that she could move forward with her reality TV idea. There could be no show about her life as an NFL team owner’s fiancée/wife because her fiancé no longer owned an NFL team.

  Jeremiah never understood how Luca could sell the team without consulting with his heirs, especially now that the man still hadn’t any plans of what to do with the proceeds.

  It only made sense that he’d been coerced into the deal, that the team had been muscled away from him through threats to hurt him and the people close to him. That was what Luca had told Milo and Jeremiah when they’d first realized the sale was happening, but even when Milo barged ahead ready to fight, Luca hadn’t wanted to talk. Out of pride, out of fear, it didn’t really matter to Jeremiah.

  Corporate bullies were no different than street thugs. Jeremiah had had run-ins with both.

  Which was why he could handle J.T. Greer.

  But can you handle his daughter Waverly?

  Jeremiah shut off the engine and let his gaze sweep the premises of his father’s estate but saw only a vision of Waverly bared to him in red-and-silver lace and chocolate diamonds.

  Cutting things short with her in his hotel suite had been torture but maybe a good thing after all. She hadn’t gone running to Daddy and Mommy to order him off the team. He hadn’t seen her at the training facility today, which was perfectly reasonable since camp hadn’t officially begun yet, but no one he had encountered today had given any indication of knowledge that he’d crossed a line with the big boss’s daughter.

  Could be she wouldn’t talk. Or she was biding her time?

  With a fresh wave of frustration falling over him, Jeremiah strode up to the door and was greeted by the housekeeper, Nadia, whose pinched expression spoke volumes about the storm brewing inside, which he could hear from the doorstep.

  Jeremiah took a fortifying breath and jammed his hands into his pants pockets, moving unhurriedly behind Nadia to a living room the size of a small stadium. Surrounded by Asian-inspired decor were Izzie and his brother, yelling across the room at each other.

  At the sight of Jeremiah, Izzie, in her skintight dress and pearls, with her blond hair twisted neatly, scoffed and brought a wineglass to her lips, retreating to the corner opposite to where Milo stood leaning heavily on the baby grand piano with his hands curled into fists and his face weary. They were like boxers waiting anxiously for the next round to begin.

  “Can’t you fight your own battles?” Izzie said to Milo, ignoring Jeremiah. “Why bring your little brother into this when it has zilch to do with him?”

  Jeremiah kept his expression mild, exchanging a look with Nadia as she slipped away from the action. At six-four he was two inches taller than his brother. Those who didn’t know Jeremiah and Milo had to look hard to find their differences and guess which was the elder brother.

  Both were older in age and experience than Izzie Phillips, who at twenty-nine had been sheltered in a rich girl’s world until her parents had cut her off for behavior that had reflected poorly on her father, a congressman.

  “A producer was here, from some cable network,” Milo told Jeremiah, pulling out the piano bench and lowering onto it.

  “He was my guest! You had no right to throw him out,” Izzie said. “When we get the team back, I want to redecorate for the show. Some of the filming will take place here.”

  “You never had any claim on the Villains,” Jeremiah clarified, striding further into the room, drawing her full attention now. “That needs to always be clear. It’s my father’s team. Milo and I are in line—not you.”

  “It’s not my team anymore.”

  The three of them turned to see Luca in the entryway. His well-cut designer suit couldn’t disguise how truly unwell he was—his gray hair was mussed, his eyes sunken and hollow, and his face gaunt.

  “I’m sorry about that.” This he said to Milo, as he walked over to clasp his shoulder. “It’s gutting you, and I didn’t want that, but it is what it is.”

  God, how Jeremiah hated that phrase. He watched his father clap Milo’s shoulder, watched him apologize with words that wouldn’t help the situation but also with heartfelt sincerity.

  And none of that sincerity was directed at Jeremiah.

  Out the corner of his eye, Jeremiah watched Izzie lower her wineglass and turn slightly toward him with her lips parted in surprise. As if she’d just seen him from a new vantage point.

  “What if you did get the team back, Dad?” Jeremiah asked. “You said you didn’t want to sell but had to because J.T. Greer threatened to have someone come after you.”

  “Getting it back is impossible,” Luca replied, averting his eyes. The thing Jeremiah had respected about his father the most—his ability to always look someone in the eye—was gone.

  “What if it’s not—”

  “I said impossible. Goddamn it, Jeremiah. Can you leave this alone? All of you. Leave it alone.” With that, Luca started out of the living room, but Izzie stopped him, striding with purpose in her revealing dress and high heels.

  “Luca, I won’t let you give up. Now stop wallowing and let’s go out. Or, better yet, let’s stay in and discuss a wedding date, because planning ahead is the best—”

  He shook off her touch, growling, “Go a month without embarrassing me on some fucking gossip site and maybe then we can talk dates.”

  Milo’s posture straightened and Jeremiah looked over in time to see Izzie step back, struck by Luca’s words. Uncharacteristically, this time she didn’t egg him on but gave him the space he needed to stomp out of the living room and probably into the home theater or his private rooms.

  “He’s unhappy,” Izzie said, blinking her crystal-blue eyes.

  “Pushing him into a walk down the aisle won’t make him happy,” Jeremiah replied. Though his father’s insult was uncalled for, Izzie needed to back off …and come to the conclusion that Luca Tarantino wasn’t the man for her.

  Jeremiah and Milo had been trying for months to convince their father to call off the engagement. It was possible that Luca genuinely cared for Izzie, and vice versa, but Jeremiah wasn’t banking on it. What he did know about their relationship disgusted him: Luca had proposed to Izzie because she was withholding sex—holding out for a signed, legal marriage license. Luca wanted to fuck her. She was a
challenge. But not once had he told her that he loved her.

  To some people love didn’t matter, and Izzie wasn’t likely going to let her life pass waiting for it to come along.

  Jeremiah could understand the practicality of that.

  “Fine. I’m going out. But don’t worry—I’ll be back.” Izzie set her wineglass down hard on the nearest table and seemed satisfied when droplets of the liquid sloshed onto the wooden surface. “Boys, it’s been real.”

  Jeremiah waited until Izzie had left the room before he went after his father.

  “Dad—”

  “Let it go, Jeremiah.”

  “I can’t. The Greers didn’t take the team away from only you. They took something that belongs to Milo and me. Didn’t you think about your sons when you were signing those papers?”

  “I had no choice.” Still, Luca couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Telling Milo, telling me, was always a choice. We’re invested in the team, too. You were going to put him in control of operations. That was the plan. For the Villains to stay in the Tarantino family.” Jeremiah reined in his frustration, gentled his tone. “Dad, you weren’t the kind of man who’d give in to anyone’s threats. And you used to give a damn about the team’s stats. For two seasons the Villains failed to make it to play-offs, and not once did you make any personnel changes.”

  “Don’t you criticize my judgment. I had the franchise for seventeen years.”

  “It crashed and burned the last two of those years. And now it’s out of our hands.”

  “That’s how it’s going to stay, Jeremiah.”

  “What about your fiancée? She wants it back.” At Luca’s warning glare Jeremiah pressed on. “If she’s with you only to get a TV show, and you’re with her only to get her pussy, then you both should cut your losses. Marriage isn’t the answer.”

  “You and Milo don’t get to tell me what to do. Let me handle Izzie and my team.”

  “It’s not yours anymore,” Jeremiah said quietly.

  “That’s right, son.” Luca tapped a finger to the center of Jeremiah’s chest. “Remember that.”