Summer Heat (The Storm Inside #5)

by Alexis Anne

  We were escorted to a private room in the back. I was surprised to see that the room was much smaller than I expected. Normally at these dinners it was anywhere from seventy-five to two hundred guests, depending on the affair. This was fifty tops.

  I quickly counted the seats. Thirty. Only thirty seats. This was very exclusive. How had we managed to score tickets to this? Off the wait list? It didn’t add up.

  “Well isn’t this cozy?” Carrie purred as we were directed to two seats near the podium. The room was designed for ambiance. The lights cast a warm glow across the ceiling and walls, while candles lit the tables. Everything was done in shades of white, even the flower arrangements. Crystal and silver glinted from the table settings, even the chairs. It was beautiful enough to be an intimate wedding.

  And yet, this was not a wedding. Odd.

  I recognized a handful of people, including the woman who took a seat beside me. “Constance?”

  She smiled. “June. So good to see you. Are you excited to hear the speech tonight?”

  I nodded, feigning any knowledge of the event. “I didn’t realize Marie had sent anyone to the conference.” Or why. Why on earth would an agent be at a medical conference? Even a sports medicine conference?

  She shrugged. “We keep up with all the aspects affecting our clients, including what may benefit them when their careers end. Besides, this one is practically family.”

  Family? The way she said it . . . I gave up pretending I had any clue what was going on. “What do you mean?”

  She blinked at me a few times, then her eyebrows rose. “Do you know who founded Aim For Athletics?”

  I glanced behind her as someone else strode into the room and suddenly, shockingly, everything made perfect sense. Roman stood in front of a swarm of eager guests, shaking hands. Time seemed to come to a complete stop as he glanced up, directly at me. Almost as if he knew exactly where to find me. He smiled, locking me in his gaze for several eternal beats. In those few seconds I felt a lot of things. Panic. Arousal. Uneasiness. But mostly? I felt proud.

  Aim For Athletics was his baby. The brainchild of our fevered nights alone. Somewhere between the incredible sex and the goodbyes, we made time for hours of conversation. Our hopes and dreams came out in those whispered confessions.

  This was his.

  “My dad lost himself when he was injured, and I’ve seen it a dozen times since. There is nothing out there to transition career athletes into something productive. Think of how much talent, money, and life is wasted by letting these athletes self-destruct. They think they’ve become useless because the one and only thing they’ve been trained to do is over. But they aren’t useless, they just have to be shown the way.”

  “Is that who I think it is,” Carrie whispered in my ear.

  “Yes.” I didn’t move.

  She cleared her throat. “You’re staring, just so you know.”

  And I couldn’t stop. I studied him as he made his way around the room, shaking hands and smiling. He was happy. Genuinely happy in a way I’d never seen but always hoped for him. Tonight’s suit was black with a white dress shirt and dark red tie. It accentuated his coloring nicely. His thick, dark hair was impeccably groomed. But as always, it wasn’t the sexy way he filled out his clothes that did me in, it was the eyes. Warm, welcoming, and taking everything in as he smiled and chatted with every single person in the room.

  Until he came to me.

  Well, first he went to Carrie.

  “Thank you so much for coming tonight. I hope to be working closely with you in the future,” he said. “I hear you are the best orthopedic surgeon in sports.”

  Carrie gave him a long once over in a way that made the jealous part of me sit up and take notice, but then she smiled and it was all business. She wasn’t checking him out, she was trying to figure out what was going on.

  “You’ve done your research since we last met,” she beamed.

  He kept his eyes on her as if she were the only person in the world that mattered. That was what he did. He always made people feel important—as if they had his whole focus. “Oh no. I’ve had you on my radar for months. AAR is looking for the best. Your name has been at the top of our list since we formed a list of surgeons to pursue for the slot.”

  “Is that so?” she drawled. “Why haven’t you contacted me?”

  He held out his hand to the table. “I’m wooing you. And I wanted to introduce you to our concept slowly.”

  Carrie arched an eyebrow. “Wooing me, or her?” She turned to me. “Because let’s just put all our cards on the table right now. You two have some serious history and there is no way this invite was accidental.”

  Roman glanced at me. “Your invitation was very much intentional. I wanted you both here for the same reason. I think Aim For Athletics is something special. I want both of you to be involved whether it is as an employee, a member of our board, or simply a friend of the foundation. You are both talented, well connected women with similar goals.”

  “And you have the hots for each other.”

  I touched her bare arm. “That’s enough.”

  “You’re right,” Roman said at the same time. “There is absolutely a second reason I invited you. I’m not afraid to admit that.”

  My jaw fell open.

  Carrie grinned. “You’re not into the subtle thing, are you?”

  “This isn’t romantic.” He locked his eyes on mine, speaking directly to me. “This is my olive branch of friendship. We proved once that we could bury the past and live in the present. Let’s do it again.”

  Again.

  The first time led directly to the kind of intimate friendship that ended with us naked. Which, I was quite sure, was exactly what he meant under all that fancy talk.

  “Won’t the two of you being in the same room be headline news tomorrow,” Carrie asked.

  “No,” Roman said smoothly. “No press. This is a private event.”

  Not that it had ever stopped the rumor mill from churning in the past. All it ever took was one member from each family being in the same zip code and it was the top story on ESPN. There was an ESPN film on the Real Story Behind the Most Famous Feud in Baseball. We weren’t throwing around buzzwords or making up stories. These were the actual words associated with our lives.

  “Interesting,” Carrie murmured.

  He smiled. “Can’t blame a guy for taking advantage of a situation he can control to see a woman he shouldn’t.”

  Then Roman turned his attention on me and it almost knocked me on my ass. There it was again. That look. My look.

  “We are working toward the same goal after all,” he said smoothly. “The health of athletes?”

  I nodded because words had ceased to form in my mouth. I had to concentrate, but I eventually found my tongue. “Exactly.”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He nodded first to me, never once letting go of my gaze, sinking inside me until we were connected on a fundamental, physical level. I could feel him even though he was a foot away. I remembered exactly how it felt to have his hard, sculpted body pressed up against mine. What he smelled like. How it felt to have his arms around me, holding me up when I lost my balance and was consumed by my need for him.

  The moment his back was turned Carrie leaned into me. “Do you want to leave?”

  I shook my head. “Oh no. I want to see this.”

  Carrie chuckled. “Yeah you do.”

  13

  “T his year we are opening two facilities. One in San Diego and another in St. Pete. Each facility will be specially designed to rehabilitate the athlete physically, but more importantly, counsel them on the path ahead.”

  Roman spoke at length, going into every detail of his organization, but I was only half-listening. Mostly I was lost in my own head, wondering what his life had looked like since college.

  I knew parts. After college he and Wes both went to the Braves. Wes filled in for the catcher who’d been injured and would be out for most of the
season while Roman fulfilled his father’s dreams of having a son play third base in Major League Baseball.

  It lasted approximately three weeks.

  A throw in to home plate went wrong. He tore his rotator cuff. Some men came back from those, there were amazing surgeries these days, but not Roman. I didn’t know if the tear was so bad that it wouldn’t have been worth the pain and heartache, or if he’d deliberately chosen to end his career.

  If I’d called or emailed maybe I’d have those answers. But I didn’t. I’d stayed away despite knowing that this would have shattered his world.

  I leaned over to Constance. “Do you know how his arm is these days?”

  She frowned, then realization dawned. “Oh, his injury? I have no idea. I’ve never seen him favor it.”

  I whispered my thanks and tried to pay attention to the rest of his speech.

  “When my father was injured I was still very young,” Roman continued. “I grew up watching him manage that transition from career athlete to someone who had no purpose. You could say I became fascinated by ‘the after.’ What do athletes do with all that training and expertise once their days on the field are over? It wasn’t until my own injury that my fascination turned to action. At twenty-three I was entirely too young to retire but also too old to leave behind so much experience. That’s when I remembered a conversation I had with a friend. She suggested that athletes could use a facility such as the one we’ve created at Aim For Athletics.”

  My cheeks burned but I couldn’t look away.

  “She?” Carrie whispered in my ear. “Gee, I wonder who that insightful young woman might be?”

  I pushed her face away. She licked my palm. I wiped it absently on my napkin.

  “This friend and I had watched people close to us self-destruct after injury. With the talent and resources available to athletes this should never happen. Our goal, with your help, is to provide the path to turn injury into a new beginning. Our athletes have the potential to be great community leaders, mentors, and coaches. They can be anything.” He turned and caught my eye, giving me a soft smile.

  He did it.

  He did it.

  He took that idea and he turned it into something magical. No, better than magic. He turned it into something real.

  After the speech the crowd broke out into groups. We mingled and talked the future of sports medicine for a good hour before people started to leave. I waited. Carrie noticed.

  “Just remember the code word.”

  “Excuse me?” I said looking up from my phone.

  She tapped the screen with her manicured nail. “Text me if you need me.”

  She was abandoning me to my enemy. She was a good friend. “Where are you off to?”

  She shrugged. “I’m here to have fun and you are here for something else. Reconciliation maybe? So instead of being a third wheel at a party I was most definitely not invited to, I’m going to go gamble and have a fabulous time. If you need me, I’ll only be a few minutes away.” She held my gaze, saying all the things with her eyes that she wasn’t saying with her words. Namely that she had my back, no matter what.

  “Thank you.”

  “No thanks needed. Women need to stick together, especially in sports, and you have it extra bad having grown up with it. I do not envy you, whatever friendship this is you are attempting with Roman.”

  He looked good. Why did he have to look so good? That suit was essentially foreplay. The way it accentuated his broad shoulders and physical perfection . . . at least what I imagined was still perfection based on the way he moved with such fluid strength. His face had matured and what had already been a drop-dead gorgeous smile was now down right devastating.

  I swallowed down a shudder as I realized I was imagining what he would look like in a dimly lit room as he smiled up at me lazily with no clothes on.

  The smart move would be to leave—to go back to my hotel room, slip into my sweats, pile my hair up on my head, and watch Game of Thrones on my iPad—but I wasn’t feeling smart. Nope. I was feeling dangerous. I should probably blame watching too much Game of Thrones for that.

  So instead of turning around and leaving, I waited. I sat at a corner table and savored the glass of wine I’d forgotten to drink with dinner, contemplating what it was I was doing.

  Roman extended an olive branch. I was simply accepting it, right? That’s why this evening felt incomplete. Well, that and the entire Aim For Athletics bombshell.

  Okay, so maybe we had more than a few things to discuss.

  “Waiting for me?” Roman’s familiar voice rolled over me.

  I froze. This was it. Go time. I was alone in a freaking cocktail dress with the one guy on the entire planet who made my knees weak. And he was rocking a suit. This would be a piece of cake.

  I practically rolled my eyes at my own internal dialogue. “I thought we should talk.” I looked up at him and held my breath. Yep. He was just as sexy as he had been two hours ago.

  He held out his hands to the chair opposite mine. “Mind if I sit for this? I have a feeling I’ll need the support.”

  “I’m not dangerous, Roman.”

  He paused—not even blinking, not even breathing—as he stared right into my eyes. “You are the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, June.”

  All the blood drained from my head down into my toes. It was all there. The crackle of electricity between us, the current of attraction, the need to reach out and touch. “Sit,” I croaked.

  I almost didn’t care that he could hear how much he affected me. Almost. I didn’t like giving up my power—and knowing I’d just given him some helped pull my emotions back into check.

  “Give it to me,” he said, waving his hands.

  He hadn’t changed at all. Straight to the point. No beating around the bush.

  I loved that he hadn’t changed.

  “How about I start with an apology? I’m sorry I snapped at you when we spoke at the stadium. I was shocked and took it out on you.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. I blindsided you. You could have cold-cocked me and I wouldn’t think anything of it.”

  He was being entirely too nice. “You’re confusing me with my sister. Eve’s the hotheaded one with a fist.”

  The corner of his lip quirked up and that look of mischief I loved so much flickered in his eyes for a moment. “Now, according to St. James lore, that simply isn’t true. All the Daniels’ have a wild, angry streak.”

  “No, no. You’re confused. It’s the St. James that punch first, ask questions later.” We’d spent hours laughing at the stories—in bed, naked of course—at the legends that had become a living, breathing thing to our fathers.

  “You’re always so calm and collected,” he said quietly. “I knew the minute you raised your voice that I’d done the wrong thing.”

  My heart thumped in my chest. As much as I wanted to keep my nerves under control they were unraveling. “Why did you call me in to look at Wes?”

  He was nervous. I could tell by the way he fidgeted with the tea light and the white tablecloth. “Honestly? I’d been trying to find a way to run into you for weeks, but how do you randomly call up the woman you hurt and ask for a date? There isn’t a Hallmark card for that.”

  The air around us suddenly became heavy as his words sank into my skin and the meaning behind them clicked. “You wanted to ask me out? Why?”

  “Because you are the only woman I want to date.” He shifted forward, leaning onto his forearms so that his face came over the table. The candle cast his skin in a flickering golden glow that would have been romantic if I weren’t scared out of my mind by what he was going to say next. “My life fell apart after you left. I let my father push me around until I was so miserable I didn’t feel much like living, which is pretty fucked up when you’ve just signed a multimillion-dollar contract to play Major League Baseball. I had everything, June. I had fame, a career I was damn good at, friends, and more money than I’d ever need . . . and I was mis
erable.”

  “I know.” It took all my energy to force those two little words out.

  Roman had been unhappy when I knew him in college. It was clear he was living for his father and no one else. I’d begged and pleaded with him to stop listening to George, and he had a few times. A few glorious times I got to see the man Roman could be.

  The man he’d finally become, if I wasn’t mistaken. This version of Roman was so happy and at ease with himself. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

  “Getting hurt was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said with a little shrug of his shoulders. “I got to start over.”

  Sitting across from Roman felt a little like dying. I hurt. I hurt everywhere, but mostly inside where I always imagined my soul was. It was this weirdly sharp ache that nothing could alleviate—like a broken bone or one of those insanely high fevers that takes over and all you can do is lay in bed writhing until it’s over. Breathing hurt, which didn’t seem like something that should happen to such a necessary process, but it did. I wanted desperately to touch him and get lost inside his kiss and every moment I resisted only made the pain worse.

  “I was never on the right path, June. I was destined to self-destruct. It’s the only way out of a situation like that.”

  I wasn’t so sure self-destruction was necessary. Roman was stronger than he knew. “I agree you weren’t on the right path—not entirely—but you were an amazingly gifted ball player.”

  His cheeks reddened a little and he looked away. “I miss it. I really do. But at least I’m still part of the industry, even if it is off the field.” He looked back at me with a forced smile on his lips. “They say everything worth having comes with a sacrifice. That was an easy one to pay.”

  “And this way you get to use your degree.” I was reaching for something happier but somehow this didn’t feel right.

  “I do enjoy the intellectual aspects of the job. Yes.”

  “But?”

  His eyes twinkled. “There are no stadiums filled with fans cheering my name. No clay under my fingernails. No more uniforms in my closet.”