The Man With The Money

by Arlene James

  That thought surprised him. All their children. Yes, he wanted more children. How he got them didn’t matter a whit to him. Perhaps Charly couldn’t have any. Perhaps that’s why she and David Bellamy had never had any together, why she was so desperate to adopt Ponce. It didn’t matter. Nothing would stand in the way of their happiness. He simply wouldn’t allow it. He was D. K. Rudell, after all. That thought brought him up short.

  Somehow he had to find a way to tell Charly. He couldn’t let her go on thinking he was Darren Rudd, and yet it would take just the right words to explain it to her. Perhaps he’d best win over Ponce first, then confess all. How upset could she be? Darren Rudd was obviously no pauper, but D. K. Rudell was one of the wealthiest men in Texas. Surely that counted for something. Pushing that thought aside, he concentrated on finding a way to win Ponce’s trust and affection—and the hand of the woman he loved.

  Chapter Seven

  The limo dropped him within feet of his private elevator. He thanked Pat, dropped a twenty through the window of the long, sleek car, although he already paid the fellow a handsome monthly salary, and strolled toward the elevator, humming even as he glanced about to be sure no one lay in wait. He safely reached the elevator, but the door did not open when it should have. Puzzled, Darren tried again. When he had no luck this time, he activated the intercom.

  “Security.”

  “Hi.” Turning, Darren waved to the tiny camera mounted high in one corner of the elevator nook. “Access pad isn’t working down here. I can’t get the elevator door to open.”

  “I’ll bypass the system, Mr. Rudell, and open it for you,” came the smooth, impersonal voice from the speaker grate in the front panel of the elevator bank. “It’ll take a few minutes, sir.”

  “No problem. But send someone down here to check this out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Darren slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, patiently waiting for the local access bypass to work. Two seconds later Tawny slunk around the corner.

  “Oh, no,” Darren said, yanking his hands free, “I’m not doing this.” He started toward the stairway, but Tawny got to the door before him and put her back to it.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to me!” she threatened in a low, feral voice.

  “You have nothing to say that I want to hear,” Darren told her flatly, turning toward the parking garage. Tawny zipped in front of him and lifted both arms to block his way.

  “You owe me, dammit!”

  Now that was too much. “Owe you?” he scoffed. “For what? Letting you live here free for more than a year?”

  “I paid my rent on my back, and you know it!” she screamed.

  Darren shook his head, gaping. “You value your services much too highly.” With that, he punched the intercom button.

  “Security.”

  “Never mind the bypass. I’ll take the front elevator.”

  “It won’t take long now, sir,” came the puzzled reply.

  “Too long, present company considered,” Darren muttered and turned away, prepared to push past Tawny. To his surprise she stepped aside and folded her arms. He walked past her determinedly, but no sooner had he rounded the corner than he was snagged by the arm forcefully enough to spin him partway around.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Tawny snarled, pushing her face up next to his. “I’m warning you, Darren. I’ve waited a long time for a setup like this, and I’m not walking away empty-handed.”

  Darren jerked his arm free of her grasp and stepped back. “You are some piece of work. You planned this whole thing, didn’t you, from the start? You set out to seduce me, and I was all too happy to let you do it. Then you got yourself thrown out by your roommate, probably thinking I’d let you move in with me.”

  She didn’t even try to deny it, just lifted her chin smugly. “It would have been so much simpler if you’d just taken me home with you, but no, you had to go the honorable route, setting me up in an apartment instead. Does it make you feel like some kind of god, throwing around your money and playing hard to get?”

  “Impossible to get, you mean,” Darren corrected. “You must have thought for sure that you could pull me back into your bed once you were living in the same building. Well, you severely overestimated your allure. Your living here just gave me the excuse I needed to move on, a very convenient excuse, I might add. Saved me the trouble of having to explain how very little you actually meant to me.”

  She slapped him. Darren’s head snapped to the side. He clamped his jaw, the muscles working as he ground his teeth, hands balling into fists. After a moment, however, he reined in his anger.

  “All right, I deserved that, but that’s the end of it, Tawny. You’ve got forty-eight hours,” he said, looking her squarely in the eyes. “If you’re not gone by then, I’m calling my attorney.”

  “You do that,” Tawny sneered, “then you get out your checkbook.”

  “Why should I? I owe you nothing,” he stated flatly.

  “You can afford it.”

  “And that’s reason enough in your mind?” He shook his head. “I really thought you had more self-respect than this, Tawny.”

  “You think I care about that?” she sneered. “All I care about is the money, so save your psychoanalysis, and get it through your head that if you want me out of your life, you’re going to have pay and pay big time.”

  “You were never in my life, Tawny.”

  She folded her arms beneath her impressive bust and tossed back her mane of hair. “Nevertheless, you’ll pay,” she said smugly. “You could’ve played and paid, but, no, you’re too good for that. Still, you’re going to pay through the nose. I’ll see to it.”

  He didn’t dignify the threat with a reply, just turned and walked away, preferring to hike out of the garage and around to the front of the building and the elevators in the lobby there than spend one more moment in her company. He couldn’t know that once he was out of sight she would rip the front of her blouse, muss her hair, rub red spots on her neck, put on a terrified expression and stumble back into camera view, sobbing.

  Darren smiled and waved as he walked onto the field. Surprised, Charly whistled the action to a stop, picked up the ball to prevent any unsupervised tussling over it, and strolled toward him. The day had turned warm, and the man wore a pair of shorts really well, darn him. Her insides tightened at the sight of those long, muscular thighs. Nevertheless, she didn’t spare breath for greetings.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean?” he returned innocently.

  “I thought we had an understanding.”

  “We did. We do.”

  “But you said if one of us had to give up the team, it would be you.”

  “If,” he pointed out succinctly. Then very quietly he asked, “Are you making me give up the team, Charly?”

  “No, I’m not making you. I just thought—”

  Darren’s shifting gaze warned her that she was no longer able to speak freely. Smiling broadly, he went down on one knee and reached out to tousle a small head. “Hi, Ponce. How ya doin’? You were looking good out there just now. I’m proud of you. In fact, I think you’re ready to start learning how to dribble the ball. What do you say to that?”

  Ponce looked up at Charly, shrugged and said, “’Kay.”

  “Great. Then why don’t I take you and Kental down to the other end of the field to work on our dribbling skills while your mom drills the rest of the team. How would that be?” He looked up at Charly then and said, “I mean, if it’s all right with you.”

  Charly bit her lip. Obviously, while he was not ready to give up the team entirely, he was trying to stay away from her as she’d asked. She looked at Ponce, who stood staring solemnly up at her, waiting for her decision along with Darren. If she said no, who would teach Ponce and Kental to dribble, whatever that was, and how would she explain the decision? Finally she nodded at Darren. “Sounds fine.” She turned
and waved at Kental, calling out, “Kental, you come over here and work with Ponce and Coach Darren.”

  Darren rose as the boy trotted over. Then without another word for Charly, he positioned himself between the two boys, placed a hand on each of their backs and moved them toward the opposite end of the field, saying, “We’ll need a ball. I’ll demonstrate the technique, then you two can try it.”

  “I’ll get us a ball,” Kental volunteered, running toward the sideline.

  “We’ll meet you at the other end,” Darren called. Charly could hear him speaking to Ponce as they walked away side by side. “Now, don’t worry if you don’t get the technique right away. It just takes practice.”

  Ponce nodded, and Darren reached down quite naturally to take his small hand in his own much larger one. Charly turned away quickly, her heart in her throat.

  Half an hour later they went into a fifteen-minute scrimmage, with Kental and Ponce on opposite sides so both groups had an equal chance of scoring. Kental had a strong leg and loved to boot the ball, but Ponce carefully practiced what Darren had taught him, moving the ball down the field by lightly kicking it back and forth between his feet. He concentrated so hard, looking down at his feet and the ball, that he ran into a couple of kids, but he was obviously getting the hang of it. Darren shouted encouragement from the sidelines.

  “That’s it, Ponce! Watch where you’re going. Look at the goal. That’s it! Line it up. Line it up. Shoot! Shoot!”

  After carefully positioning the ball, Ponce shot it at the goal. It bounced off the upright. Kental promptly booted it into the net, completely forgetting that it wasn’t his goal. Charly briefly closed her eyes. Darren covered his mouth with his hand, cleared his throat, then called out, “Okay, good work, both of you. Ponce, next time don’t take the ball in quite so close. Kental remember that for today your goal and Ponce’s aren’t the same.” He clapped his hands. “Take it in from the sideline, Sarah.”

  Charly had the whistle between her teeth, ready to call a halt to practice when Ponce finally managed to line up the ball again and take his shot on goal. It soared right past Tulia’s head and glanced off her upraised hand, landing harmlessly outside the net. Nevertheless, Darren leaped up and punched the air, yelling, “Yes!” He glanced at Charly and exclaimed, “Dang, that kid’s good!” Then, as if realizing he might be showing bias, he turned back toward the field, clapped his hands together and called out, “Great move, Tulia! Good work, everyone!”

  Kental ran up and grabbed the ball, dropped it on the ground and began practicing the technique Darren had tried to teach him and Ponce. He kept kicking it too hard, but even after Charly whistled practice to an end, he continued working on the movement. Ponce began trying to demonstrate the technique for the other boy, and Darren jogged out on the field to offer some expert instruction. Charly sent off the rest of the kids with hugs and pats, then gathered up the equipment and loaded it into the trunk of her car while keeping an eye on the activity continuing on the field.

  Darren used a good deal of positive reinforcement, and Kental’s technique was definitely improving, as was Ponce’s. Finally Kental’s father honked the horn of his minivan, and Darren sent the boy off the field. He spoke a moment longer to Ponce, then gathered him in for a quick hug before jogging off toward his vehicle with a wave in Charly’s direction. Ponce watched until Darren got into his car and Charly called to him.

  “Ready to go?”

  Ponce parked the ball on his hip and ran toward her. “Kental likes to kick it far,” he announced, “Oh, boy, he can kick it a long way more than me! But Coach Darren says you gots to play smart and dribbleding is a smart way even if I didn’t score.”

  “Scoring doesn’t count in practice, anyway,” she reminded. “What counts in practice is learning, and you sure learned something new today.”

  “Yeah,” Ponce agreed, smiling ear-to-ear. “Coach Darren says I’m the best dribbleder.”

  “You sure are,” she told him, wishing she could hug Darren Rudd.

  With the parade on Saturday morning, Charly felt it necessary to call Darren and inquire how he meant to pull the float.

  “Not to worry,” he said, “I’ve taken care of it.”

  “Oh. All right. I…I mean, I was sure that you would.”

  “But you had to check,” he said. “I understand.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you then.”

  “I’ll be there,” he assured her, “but I’ll keep my distance.”

  “I’m not worried,” she told him lightly.

  “Good,” he replied just as lightly. “Well, see ya.”

  “See ya.”

  She hung up feeling as if she’d been rushed off the line. But then, that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Maybe wanted wasn’t the right word, but it was necessary, expected—except that it rather unexpectedly rankled.

  It rankled again when Darren showed up on Saturday morning driving a brand-new, Comet-yellow SUV with dealer tags still attached. For one insane moment she thought he might have had it specially painted to match the team colors, but then she remembered that yellow was a popular color on this particular make and model. Still, she couldn’t help feeling that he had gone too far this time.

  “Please tell me you didn’t buy this just to pull our float!”

  “Of course not,” he replied, laughing. “I borrowed it from a friend.”

  “What friend would loan you a brand-new SUV?” she demanded skeptically.

  He leaned a hip against the grill and said, “The dealer, actually. It makes for good PR, you know.”

  Charly felt downright stupid. “Oh.”

  “If I was going to buy an SUV,” he told her, pushing away from the vehicle to walk around back where the trailer waited to be hooked up, “I’d buy a much larger one, something I could get at least half the team in. And I’d buy blue, not yellow.”

  She followed. The man was speaking to her, after all, but when he turned, grinned and parked his hands on his hips, she backed up again, shaking her head. “You didn’t.”

  “Unfortunately I can’t get the thing for nearly a month. That particular color of blue was harder to come by than I realized.”

  “Darren!” she scolded.

  “It was time to trade, anyway,” he told her matter-of-factly. “You should’ve seen my bud’s face when I told him I was going the SUV route, though.” He chuckled.

  She could only shake her head. “Guess you’ve been driving the luxury sedan for a while.”

  “Actually, it was the sports car I traded. I don’t think you’ve ever seen it. Haven’t driven it much lately.”

  “How many cars do you own?” she asked.

  “Uh, just three. Well, five, but my mom and sister drive a couple of them.”

  Just three. Well, five. At least one of them in a team color. And at least one of them a limo. Shaking her head, she just turned and walked away. He provided cars for his mom and sister. He spent money like water and could apparently afford it. He sponsored and coached Little League soccer, spent countless hours gluing crepe paper to cardboard. He loved and praised and really taught those kids. He cooked, for pity’s sake. And he curled her toes. This was the man she was doing her best to drive away. Surely she was out of her mind.

  Ponce scored the winning goal in that afternoon’s game. The whole team was highly pumped after the parade, and Darren drove straight to the soccer field with the float still in tow. By the time they got on the field, no team in their group could have beaten them. It wasn’t pretty. In point of fact, it was downright hilarious at times. Ponce was so intent on his “dribbleding” that he fairly mesmerized the other team, who at one point just stopped and stood aside to watch him shuttle the ball down the field by bouncing it off one foot and then the other, a microstep at a time. When he finally got it to the goal, his shot went about three yards wide. The next one, however, couldn’t have been executed with more precision. The other team got one shot, straight at Tulia’s chest. Both teams spent
the rest of the time bumping into one another, kicking themselves flat onto their backs, and one little boy—thankfully on the other team—grabbed his crotch and ran off the field loudly proclaiming that he had to go wee-wee.

  By the time it was over, Charly was as exhausted as if she’d played every moment herself. Darren grabbed several of the kids in a group hug and whirled them around in celebration. Then he hoisted Ponce onto his shoulders and proclaimed him a “shooting star.” Afterward Darren said he’d take the trailer to the limo lot, strip it and return the SUV to the dealer. Several of the parents offered to drop by to help him tear down the float, and Darren gladly accepted, but when Charly said she’d drop Ponce at her grandmother’s and come over to help, he told her that there was no need.

  “We can manage,” he said with a dismissive smile. Then he turned to Ponce. “Hey, buddy, if your mom doesn’t mind, I’m thinking we might get in a little extra practice, you and me and Kental and Calvin. What do you think? Want to stop by your neighborhood park for a couple hours on Sunday afternoon?”

  Ponce shrugged and looked at his mother, but Charly wasn’t fooled. She saw the eagerness in his eyes. Kental and Calvin, who had overheard, were already pressing their parents for permission.

  “I’ll pick them up if it’s okay,” Darren announced.

  “You sure you don’t mind?” Calvin’s mom asked Darren.

  “No, I’d like to.”

  “Well, all right then.”

  “Pick you up about one,” Darren said to Kental and Calvin, “and have you home by three-thirty.” He glanced up at their parents, adding, “If that’s okay.”

  “Maybe I’ll come along,” Kental’s dad, Lawton, suggested.

  “Hey, that’d be great,” Darren said heartily. “We’ll make it a guy thing.”