Completely. He nodded curtly at her.
For a second, he hoped she might kiss him.
But she kept her arms glued to her sides. “Sleep, Brody. You look like hell.”
Yeah, and I feel like hell, too.
He’d lost races scores of times before, he thought, leaning against the bench seat and watching her as she maneuvered his motor home down the twisting exit. He knew how to accept defeat. He was lucky one of his first coaches had taught him early on that it was as important to know how to lose as it was to know how to win.
Not that he ever played to lose. He always raced to win. He always assumed he was going to win—right up until the moment his time flashed across the scoreboard. But if he didn’t win, then he aimed to do better the next time. Because there was always the next race. Always the final season standings.
Great racers aren’t affected by what other people think of them.
Another piece of wisdom from that same old coach. They didn’t make coaches like him anymore.
He shrugged. So he’d lost this contest with Amanda. Move on, there would be another, more important contest ahead: this Sunday at Alto Baglio. That was where he should concentrate his focus.
He leaned back, silent, as she slowly wheeled his creaking RV down the narrow mountain road. He watched, muscles tensed, as she downshifted to avoid skidding in the snow.
Not bad. “Have you driven in the Alps before?” he asked.
“Yes. With my mother.” But before he could process her answer, she muttered, “Go to sleep, Brody.”
Just as well. He didn’t need to learn more about Amanda. What he needed was to erase her from his mind.
Gradually, his clenched fists relaxed. Amanda turned the RV onto the main highway without any problem. A Range Rover roared past them, but she didn’t lose her cool. She simply pulled to the right in order to let the jackass pass safely.
Smooth driving. She knew what she was doing.
She’s MacArthur Jensen’s daughter, his inner voice told him. She doesn’t need you to rescue her from anything.
Letting out his breath, he lay down on his bed. He was tired, and it didn’t take long for his eyes to drift closed. The motor home puttered along as evenly as if it were Jean-Claude or Franz driving him through the treacherous mountain passes, ferrying him from one World Cup mountain course to another.
Still, I wish she could go with me to Alto Baglio.
It was the last thought he had before dropping into a deep sleep.
AMANDA WAS ACTUALLY SURPRISED that Brody hadn’t fought her desire to drive. She couldn’t help thinking about her father. He never tolerated anyone else driving while he was in the car. He also never let Amanda’s mother make her own choices. In this situation, he would either have ignored her, leaving her to Marco and the drop-off at the rental car office, or he would have thrown her luggage into the RV and told her to stop acting like such a baby.
Her chest ached. Despite the silent treatment from her father these past months, she could still hear his voice in her head. Even after all her small successes and her increasing independence, he still weighed heavily on her life.
She blinked and focused on following the snowy ruts left in the road from an earlier vehicle. The snow was falling faster and faster. Her spine stiffened as she kept her senses on alert. She monitored the shadows on the sides of the road for deer and other wildlife that might suddenly dart in front of her headlights, causing her hands to jerk on the steering wheel, a reaction that could prove deadly.
She glanced at the rearview mirror, watching for hotdogging drivers while she kept a steady foot on the gas pedal. Not too slow and certainly not too fast. Just enough power to the engine to urge it up the steep slope, but not so little power they would stall out.
She checked the gas gauge: full. Excellent. Brody had cultivated a top-notch team. All the equipment worked efficiently, even in the ancient motor home. The GPS was set up, the lights glowing from the palm-sized device attached to the dashboard, showing the route she needed to follow. The headlights were strong, too. The beams shone steadily on the falling snow, the flakes as big as euro coins.
Was it her imagination or was the snow falling harder? There had to be over three inches now. Maybe four?
Her phone buzzed, playing the low tune she used to alert herself to her boss’s calls. She glanced at the clock on the dash. Ten o’clock. That was four o’clock New York time.
On a Sunday? But of course. The management team was meeting with the cost-cutting consultants. It was layoff time, and this was a test. For all Amanda knew, the editorial team was discussing her contributions and reviewing her résumé round-robin style. Heck, they probably had her on speakerphone.
No matter the weather conditions, she needed to take this call. Her heart pounding, she eased the vehicle to a stop and picked up the call. “Amanda Jensen here.”
BRODY WOKE. SOMETHING FELT different. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but he smelled perfume in the darkness and it came to him. Amanda. RV. She’s leaving.
He sat up and realized the motor home had stopped moving. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he peered through the window.
She was standing outside in the rapid snowfall, talking on her cell phone. One hand was pressed to her forehead and she was listening intently, as if to the announcement of impending doom. Something wasn’t going well.
On a hunch, he turned on his own phone. Immediately it rang, a low chirp that reminded him of a nagging bird.
He rolled over and wearily held the receiver to his ear. “What, Harrison?”
“Dammit, Brody, where the hell have you been?”
“Out of reception,” he said.
“Yeah, well now that you’re in reception, answer this question—do you know who she is?”
“Who who is?” He gazed at Amanda outside, pacing up and down beside the van. She looked as if she was arguing.
“That reporter,” Harrison spat out. “Do you have any idea?”
Yeah, she was MacArthur Jensen’s daughter. Got it. She was also a beautiful woman he was leaving in a few hours because he couldn’t risk having her in his life, that’s who she was. “I’m not in the mood for this,” he warned. Because he really wasn’t.
“MacArthur Jensen called me. He says you’re to stay away from her.”
“Yeah, I already got the message.”
“Have you? Because it gets worse, Brody.”
“How can it possibly get worse?”
“Does this sound familiar? Last year, Amanda Jensen wrote an article about the cover-up scandal of positive steroid tests in baseball. Did you know that?”
Brody’s blood went cold.
“She’s an investigative reporter,” Harrison said. “And she specializes in smear-jobs.”
He hadn’t seen this coming. Not at all.
“Brody, are you there?”
“You’re wrong. She hates sports and is more interested in city corruption.”
“The truth hurts, Brody, doesn’t it?” Harrison’s voice crackled over the phone. “She writes whatever her editors tell her to write. Whatever will sell them magazines. Whatever will give her a juicy byline.”
“Sounds like a woman after your own heart, Harrison. The art of the deal, and all that.”
The muffled sounds of swearing came through Brody’s phone. “Just tell me you’re not with her now.”
“I’m not with her now.”
“Dammit, Brody, I talked with your team. They saw her go into your motor home with you. Tell me you sent her on her way.”
He looked into the wintry night and saw Amanda. She’s gone, he thought. We’re leaving. We can’t be together.
I want to be together.
That was his body talking. His body betraying him.
“What does it matter?” he said tiredly. “It’s done. Her piece is filed. She won’t be interviewing me anymore.”
“You couldn’t have foreseen this,” Harrison said wearily.
> “Foreseen what?”
“She’s going to dig and dig, and she won’t stop digging.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Listen to me!” Harrison’s voice was shrill with fear, which wasn’t like him. In his years, he’d been around, he’d seen everything. “You don’t think she’ll uncover your secret, Brody? You don’t think she’ll blame you for testing positive on those steroid tests?”
His heart stopped beating in his chest. Harrison never said that aloud. The thought was always there, just below the surface, but they had an unspoken agreement that they would never mention it.
He held his head, which suddenly throbbed. First MacArthur threatening him, and now this? He looked out the windshield just as Amanda punched her phone off. The headlights of the RV illuminated her back, tense and shaking. The snowflakes clung to her wool jacket.
“What are you saying, Harrison, they want her to write more about me?” He felt tired and sick. Not even being in his own bed in his own motor home on his way to the race he’d dreamed about for the past two years could make him feel better.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Harrison said, “it’s what the money is saying. Paradigm wants her to feature you for a longer piece, and Xerxes Energy Drink is beside themselves with joy because they want inroads into the U.S. market.”
“Tell them no,” he said flatly. “No more interviews.”
“I told them yes, Brody. I had to.”
“Forget it. We’ll get the money elsewhere.”
“We don’t have money!” Harrison yelled. “We can’t even make payroll!”
What? His hand shook. “You never told me this.”
“That’s because up until now, your job was to ski. But things have changed because you’ve changed them. You got yourself involved in the business end.”
“That wasn’t my intent.”
“What’s the matter?” Harrison laughed sharply. “Don’t you want to spend another two days with your lady reporter? Because it’s beginning to look like that’s all you care about.”
“Is that so? Then maybe I should be looking for another agent.”
“Show me you still care about the integrity of your record and I’ll pretend you never said that to me.”
“I made the mistake and I’m working to fix it,” Brody said through clenched teeth.
“No one will forgive you for your mistake, and that’s why you need to make sure it never gets out. Think of the baseball players who regret saying anything to her about their mistakes.”
“I said I’ll fix it.”
“If it gets out, there is no fixing it. Period. Don’t you get it, there is no forgiveness in sport, Brody. Do you see what you’re risking?”
His hand shook on the phone. Uncontrollably, like a spasm.
“Brody?”
He sucked in his breath. He’d never had a panic attack before, but he was pretty sure he was experiencing one now.
“Don’t say a word to her until I get there,” Harrison said. “Do you hear me, Brody?”
He had to get up. He had to get out of here. “I won’t tell her anything.”
CHAPTER TEN
AMANDA LAUGHED HOARSELY as she shoved her phone into her pocket. Earlier, she’d wished that she and Brody could stay together for a few more days.
While the snow had been falling she’d daydreamed about being kidnapped by pirates and left on a deserted Caribbean island, just the two of them. Now, she had her wish. Except, as in all tales with genies and Ali Baba, the wish had been twisted until the result was the worst thing that could have happened to her.
We want you to stay in Europe with Brody Jones for two more days. All expenses paid.
It was heaven, and it was hell. The expense-account, holed-up-in-a-hotel-room-with-him part would be heaven. The fighting-with-him-to-get-the-story part would be hell.
Not to mention, she’d already slept with him. Her journalism advisor—God rest his soul—would be rolling in his grave. “Journalism has ethics.” Yeah, and sleeping with a future interview subject was pretty much near the top of the list of no-nos.
She paced in the drifting, ankle-high snow. On Amanda’s first day of work at Paradigm, Chelsea had been very clear about her own ethics and those of the magazine.
“Look, hon,” Chelsea had explained in her Brooklyn-tough accent, “reporters have been schtupping their subjects since the beginning of time. I myself have been known to indulge. So believe me when I say that the key is to always act like a grownup and a professional—and to keep your extracurricular activities to yourself. In short, don’t be stupid and announce to anyone what you’re doing. For God’s sake, if you want to work here, keep it to yourself. Do you got that?”
Loud and clear, Amanda had thought. The funny thing was, at the time, Chelsea’s speech had mortified her. Never could she have imagined sleeping with an interviewee. She’d actually shuddered at the thought.
And now? Amanda laughed aloud. She really was getting New York City–jaded, because she had no regrets about having slept with Brody. None.
Instead, she’d attempted what would have been inconceivable to her before now: she’d tried to talk Chelsea out of assigning her the story of the year.
“Why me?” she’d asked her editor. “And why us? This story doesn’t fit our demographic. We’re not a sports magazine. Our readers won’t care about a skier.”
“But they care about scandal. And celebrity. And sex appeal. And your profile, Amanda, touched on all these things. The team has talked it over and we agree. He’s hiding something. Some reason he’s come back to compete, something that drives him, something about his past, and he doesn’t want anyone to know what it is. You’re just the person to find it. All the skills are there, the connections are there, and he seems to trust you. Look how he opened up to you! Amanda, don’t you see how the stars are aligned?”
Amanda threw back her head. There were no stars in this sky. She didn’t believe in stars, or in planets, or in alignments.
No, through long, hard battle, she believed in herself. And the great irony was, she’d been duped by her own ambition. If she’d let the profile be the puff piece it was meant to be—if she hadn’t written such an intriguing piece, hinting at the chaos and angst beneath the surface of his celebrity—then Chelsea and the rest of them wouldn’t be interested in Brody Jones’s deep, dark secrets.
Way to go, Amanda.
She turned and saw Brody standing in the glow from the headlights, his arms crossed, his head tilted toward her, and through no will of her own, her heart leaped. The man was heart-stopping, six feet plus of pure sex appeal. His body called to her, no matter where they were or what emotions flowed between them.
Even when they’d sworn to leave each other in the morning.
What’s stopping you, anyway? the devil in her whispered. Why not shack up with him for two days, enjoy an all-expenses-paid fantasy in a love nest in the mountains, and then write some garbage for Chelsea. Make stuff up. And never mind the ethics of it, because Chelsea herself said that you shouldn’t.
Right. As if Amanda could do that. As much as she was itching to pull Brody to her and beg him to hold her in his arms again, she couldn’t. He was hot and he turned her gooey inside, but she needed her job. His job wasn’t more important than her job. He wasn’t more important than her. She couldn’t pull punches with her career just because she had enjoyed the inexplicable connection with him. She hadn’t given in with her profile and she couldn’t give in now. If anything, this article had to be more seriously and objectively written than her profile had been. And he wasn’t going to like it. He was going to push back as hard as he could.
Yes, maybe this assignment was about power. Maybe Brody would always be more powerful than her. But after she’d picked up the pieces when her mother had fallen apart, Amanda had learned her lesson well.
Don’t let yourself be in the position of weakness. Never, ever, ever.
She stood tall, wa
tching her breath make puffs of steam in the cold mountain air. With resolve, she clicked open her phone one more time. The reception was waning and she had one slim bar of power. They were heading farther from civilization, farther into the uninhabited, wild reaches of the mountains, so it was now or never.
Chelsea picked up her call on the first ring. “You’ve made up your mind? Because if you don’t do this, Amanda, I need to tell you that I can’t save your job from being cut—”
“I want a promotion,” Amanda said firmly into the phone. “To staff reporter. I want on the masthead. And I want a contract for three solid years.”
She held her breath, counting on Chelsea’s pride at having already sold her story idea to the rest of the team. And there were precedents for such a contract at Paradigm. For someone her age it was rare, but maybe that was because older people were better at playing hardball. Well, she’d learned a lot already. Power isn’t given. Power is taken.
“I’m proud of you, Amanda,” Chelsea cooed.
Amanda eyed Brody, standing silently beside the RV, listening to her end of the conversation. It was nice Chelsea was proud of her, because Brody looked as cold as stone. Obviously, Harrison had informed him about his participation in the matter.
She turned away, shaking. “Is that a yes or a no?” she asked Chelsea.
“We discussed this,” Chelsea answered. “I was just waiting to see what you came up with.”
“You know what I’m capable of.” I get you the truth, she added silently.
Chelsea gave a low laugh. “It’s a yes. But for a two-year contract, not three.”
Amanda had been aiming for one year. Her heart pounded furiously. I won. I really did it this time. “Fine. You’ll get your story.”
Brody made a small noise beside her. Yeah, hon, I share your pain, she thought.
“Five thousand words,” Chelsea insisted.
Wow, a long piece. “Right. Five thousand words.”
“With photos.”
Oh, God. No way was she repeating that aloud.
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