Playing Hard

by Melanie Scott

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll be forced to conclude that you’re really in no condition to make sensible decisions. Or go on second dates.”

  “Third dates.”

  “Don’t quibble over numbers with an economist,” she said mock-sternly. He was paler now, she thought, than he’d been when she arrived, his olive skin looking gray and washed out. “Call the nurse and I’ll think about what you’re … proposing.”

  “That hardly seems fair,” he said. “I’m the wounded one here. You’re meant to minister to me.”

  “Well, I might if this was the eighteenth century,” she said, suppressing a smile. “And I did bring you gummy bears.”

  “If this was the eighteenth century, I’d be demanding that Finn hand you over to me in retribution for his wrongs,” Oliver said. His eyes had gone intent again.

  A chill stole over her. Retribution? Was he serious? Or was he flirting as a distraction from his pain again? “I’m pretty sure he would have to be an actual relative to hand me over,” she said, trying to keep the conversation light. “And those stories never end well.”

  Oliver shrugged. “You’re reading the wrong stories. The ones I read involved the maiden falling in love with the vengeful knight.”

  “I wouldn’t have picked you for a romance novel fan.”

  “Maggie used to read them by the bucketload when she was younger. In between baseball statistics anyway. I wanted to see what the attraction was so I swiped one. Then I discovered they had sex in them. At seventeen, that was pretty compelling.” He grinned then, and she felt her stomach curl.

  “You’ve been with the Saints since you were seventeen?”

  “Yes. But you’re changing the subject, Amelia.”

  “You’re the one who’s changed the subject. We were talking about the fact that you need drugs.”

  “Who needs drugs?” asked a female voice from the door. Amelia jumped, startled. She turned and saw Maggie Winters—Finn had introduced them very briefly at the party—standing in the doorway.

  “Oliver’s hand is hurting and he’s being stubborn,” Amelia said.

  “He does that,” Maggie said with a nod. She hovered in the doorway, looking over at Oliver with a questioning expression. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” Amelia said. She bent down and retrieved her purse. “I was just leaving. It’s late.” Seize the opportunity for retreat while it presented itself. Before Oliver Shields and his pirate charm could talk her into something crazy. “Enjoy the gummy bears, Oliver,” she said and headed for the door. Maggie stepped back to let her go, watching her with an oddly curious smile.

  * * *

  Oliver watched Amelia practically bolt out the door and bit back the desire to shout fuck again. He’d almost pinned her down. But now she was gone. And he was suddenly painfully aware that his hand hurt like hell. He set his teeth, looking at the clock on the wall. He’d told himself it would be at least four hours before he asked for something. He wasn’t quite there yet.

  “So, who was that?” Maggie asked, walking into the room.

  “You don’t know her?”

  “Should I?”

  “Her name’s Amelia Graham. She’s one of Castro’s friends. His sister’s best friend or something.”

  “Amelia?” Her brow crinkled for a moment. “Was she at the party? I think Finn introduced me to someone at some point.”

  “It’s not like you to forget a name.”

  “There were over two hundred people at that party, Ollie.”

  “Finn calls her Milly.”

  “Oh? And what do you call her?” Maggie asked. Amusement danced in her eyes. It was the first time he’d seen her looking happy since he’d woken up in the hospital. But he wasn’t about to try to explain his strange fascination with Amelia to Maggie.

  “Nothing. I met her at the party. We talked for a couple of minutes but that was it.”

  “Yet she’s bringing you gummy bears in the hospital?” Maggie asked skeptically.

  “Finn told her about the accident. I think she was just being nice.” That sounded unconvincing even to him.

  Maggie shrugged out of her coat. “I see. And has her niceness rubbed off on Finn? Has he come to see you yet? Or even called?”

  He shook his head.

  Maggie sighed. “He should. I’m going to get Dan to talk to him.”

  “Don’t push it, Maggie. The kid needs to figure out how to do the decent thing himself. Or decide if he’s going to be an asshole his entire life.”

  “The kid is nearly twenty-six,” she pointed out.

  “He’s still a kid, though.” Amelia’s kid brother, kind of. If he was going to try to get to know her, then he was going to have to find a way to get along with Finn.

  “Yeah, well, if he doesn’t want to find himself traded again, he better start growing up.”

  Her expression had turned fierce. Maggie had grown up with the Saints; her dad had owned the team before Alex, Mal, and Lucas. Now she worked as Alex’s right-hand woman. She didn’t like players who caused problems. Which Finn did. Ollie got the feeling that Finn might just have stepped over a line with Maggie. Not a good idea.

  “You have the play-offs to focus on. Finn can wait.”

  Maggie looked suddenly stricken. “I hate that you don’t get to play.” Her hand curled around his left hand. His good hand.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  She looked away. Looked down. Swallowed. “I shouldn’t have asked you to drive him home.”

  Her voice sounded one step away from tears. Christ. He didn’t need Maggie crying over him.

  “I didn’t have to say yes,” he said. “It was an accident, Mags. Nothing you or I can do about it.” He squeezed her hand then let go. “Now, how about you see if you can find out when Lucas is going to let me out of this place?”

  * * *

  “Got a minute?”

  Amelia looked up from the currency outlook report in her hand and manufactured a smile. Her boss, Daniel Carling, wasn’t the type to come to his underlings’ offices very often. “Of course,” she said, rising a little in her chair. “Do you want me to come to your office?”

  He waved a hand, the gesture a little too magnanimous to be casual. “No, we can do it here.”

  She sat back in her chair, stomach rolling. Do it? What on earth did he want? “If that suits you.” She waited for him to settle himself in the chair opposite her. Her office was tiny but it was still an office. One she’d worked hard for since she’d joined Pullman five years ago.

  “How was your meeting earlier?” Daniel asked.

  She blinked. “The one for the Australasian currency model?”

  He nodded, one hand straying to the immaculate French cuff of his shirt. “That’s the one.”

  “It was good,” she said briskly. “The IT guys are confident they’ve fixed the critical bugs so now they’re just fine-tuning the logic and then we can start testing it with real data.”

  “Did they give you an ETA?”

  “End of the month.”

  “You think they’ll meet that target?”

  “I’m cautiously optimistic.” She ventured a smile. “They’ve been good at hitting milestones so far.”

  “Good.” His impeccable British accent, as usual, gave no clue as to what he might be thinking or feeling. If he had feelings. Daniel Carling made blizzards seem warm. He was good at his job but not someone who believed in being friends with his coworkers. “How long have you worked here now, Amelia?”

  “Five years,” she said, knowing full well he knew the answer to the question. Daniel had joined the bank only a year ago, taking over from her old boss when he’d jumped ship to a rival firm. Iceman or not, he understood economics and so far hadn’t tried to micromanage the team of economists she worked in. But he had put each of them through a series of seemingly casual lunches with him when he’d first arrived, grilling them not so subtly about their job histories and more.
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br />   “That’s a long time,” he said.

  It was, in a way. But she liked working for Pullman. The money was good, and they’d made it through the global financial crisis less battered than many other banks, so she was happy to stay for now. She waited as Daniel studied her with ice-gray eyes that matched the silver starting to show in his hair and the polished cuff links at his wrist. He took cool, calm, and collected to an art form. But she had gotten somewhat used to his act over the last year. He didn’t completely intimidate her anymore.

  “Are you still interested in working in one of the overseas offices?” he said eventually.

  Yes! She almost shouted the word but that was hardly the impression she was hoping to give. She took a breath, tried to sound calm. “If an opportunity came up that was suitable for me,” she said, “then, yes, I’m interested.” Pullman had offices in Hong Kong, Saigon, and Sydney. She’d wanted to travel for as long as she could remember, but apart from one distinctly shoestring-budget trip to Mexico one spring break, she’d never left the United States.

  “Good to know,” Daniel said.

  Amelia studied him. He didn’t know how she’d grown up. How tight things had been after her dad had left. Her mom couldn’t afford fancy vacations when Amelia had been little, and then she’d gotten sick. Expensive sick. Breast cancer. Complications. Years and years of not enough money and too many bills. It had only been the kindness of the Castros—who’d insisted Amelia live with them when her mom had been in the hospital, who’d given them the garage apartment at their house when there’d been no rent money, and who’d given her mom work when she’d been well enough to work—that had kept them from complete disaster. Not to mention what Finn had—

  No. She pushed the memories away. She had to focus on Daniel. On her goals. On what she’d been slaving for since she’d left college. She’d paid off the small student loans she’d incurred despite her scholarships and she’d saved enough for a deposit to help her mom buy a tiny apartment. Between all of that, the New York cost of living, and buying the kinds of clothes she was expected to wear for work, there’d been no money or time for travel.

  One day. One day she’d visit all the places she’d read about and seen on TV. Until then, she would stick to her plan. She’d given herself six years on Wall Street to make sure she’d built a nest egg, taken care of her mom, and added some weight to her résumé. If she couldn’t get a transfer with Pullman by then, she was going to woman up and apply for jobs in London or Hong Kong or Australia. Anywhere that wasn’t the United States.

  She’d been here just on five years but so far an opening hadn’t come up. Not one that they seemed to think she was qualified for anyway. There had been a few in the first two years she’d worked there, but she’d been told she was too junior. Then there’d been belt-tightening post-GFC. Then Daniel had taken over the department. Daniel who was clearly in it to climb higher up the ladder in the finance world himself and didn’t seem all that interested in what his team wanted.

  “Has an opportunity come up?” she asked.

  He toyed with his cuff, straightening the silver link a fraction of an inch before he unleashed his chilly smile. “Perhaps. I heard a rumor that Hong Kong may have something soon. So I was just checking in.”

  She didn’t believe that for a minute. Daniel did nothing casually. Time to check the internal vacancy ads on the intranet. And put some feelers out to the Pullman grapevine. “Well, I’m definitely interested if there is something.”

  He nodded. “We’ll see. I will add that getting this model live before the end of the month wouldn’t hurt your chances should something become available. You most likely wouldn’t be the only person under consideration.”

  So, screw up this project and she was out of luck? That she could believe. Daniel liked healthy competition among his staff. “I won’t let you down. Was there anything else you needed from me?” Hopefully not. She had more than enough work to keep her busy late into the evening. Later than she’d been planning, probably. Because now she had to go over the project plan and see if there was any way she could compress the time frame. Hong Kong. It was what she’d always wanted. She couldn’t mess this up.

  “No, I’ll leave you to it,” Daniel said. He stood and smoothed down his jacket before leaving the office without another word. Which left Amelia none the wiser about what was going on. Was there really a new project somewhere that she hadn’t yet heard about? Something hush-hush? She needed time to check in with the office grapevine.

  But first the currency model. Daniel had been clear enough. She needed to deliver on this project or even if there was a new project, she wouldn’t be considered. Time to knuckle down. If she worked all weekend—Crap. She’d forgotten the Saints game on Saturday. She couldn’t not go, but the game would eat up an entire night. Even part of the afternoon if the Castros invited her to have dinner before the game. Which they usually did when they were in town.

  She couldn’t say no to them. Besides which, she wanted to see them and Em. Em had seemed calmer when Amelia had Skyped her last night to give her the latest update on Finn, but who knew how long that would last? Particularly if she was in the middle of a case. When Em was in court, she worked like a dog. Made Amelia’s hours look positively part-time. Unfortunately it also turned her into Em-the-lawyer who could get very cranky. Amelia should send her another court-day care package. Cookies and chocolate and her favorite gin.

  Gin. That sounded good. An icy gin and tonic and bad movies with her best friend. It had been far too long since they’d hung out. Someone really needed to invent a way to move Chicago closer to New York. Skype was a godsend but it wasn’t the same as giggling together in person.

  Maybe she should just try to convince Em that she really needed to come to one of Finn’s games so they could do that.

  She sighed. The reality was, she didn’t have time for talking Em into anything just now. She needed to get her work done. If there was any possibility of an overseas assignment, then she was going to make sure Daniel Carling thought she was the best thing to happen to economics since the invention of international trade.

  Which meant no more time trying to fix things she really couldn’t fix. She needed to just put her head down and work.

  The first half an hour was a struggle as her brain kept insisting on trying to decipher if there were any hidden meanings in what Daniel had said, but eventually she got back in the zone. Let herself get lost in the numbers for a while. Numbers were easy. They behaved, for the most part, logically.

  They were soothing.

  So soothing, in fact, that they sucked her in as usual to the point that she jumped when her office phone rang. She gave herself a mental eye roll and then hit the speakerphone button.

  “Amelia Graham.”

  “Hello, Amelia.”

  If she’d been actually holding the phone she would have dropped it. The voice was instantly recognizable. Oliver Shields. What the hell was he doing calling her?

  “Who is this?” she asked, trying to play it cool.

  “Why, Amelia, have you forgotten me already? After you flirted shamelessly over gummy bears?” Oliver asked.

  “I did not flirt shamelessly.” She tried to sound indignant rather than embarrassed. Because there’d been at least a hint of flirting. The way Oliver’s voice rumbled over the phone did distracting things to her nervous system, which made her want to flirt a little more. “How did you get this number?”

  “You told me where you worked,” Oliver said. “I used the magic of the phone directory and called the switchboard.”

  She couldn’t help feeling pleased. He’d looked her up. She grinned to herself and then shook her head. She was getting carried away. “Is there something I can do for you, Oliver?”

  He laughed. Was it wrong that she was already way too fond of the sound of his laugh?

  “Now that, Ms. Graham, comes under the category of leading questions.”

  He sounded more himself than he had
last night. Well, more like the guy that she’d met in the bar. She’d only talked to the man twice, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t have a large sample to go on. “No, it comes under the category of polite inquiry. Did you call for an update on how the yuan is performing against the yen?”

  “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “I’m calling to let you know I’m out of gummy bears.”

  Her smile widened. Now, there was a flimsy pretense for calling her if ever she’d heard one. Oliver Shields was making up excuses to talk to her. That information made her both happy and nervous. “You’re in a hospital, Oliver, I’m sure they sell gummy bears in the gift shop. And you must have at least twenty-two nurses willing to do your bidding.”

  “Ah, but I’m not in the hospital anymore,” he said.

  “You’re not?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised, Amelia.”

  “But you only had surgery a few days ago.”

  “Yes, and my doctor is happy with my progress, so he kicked me out.”

  She wondered if that was true. Or if Oliver had found a way to convince everyone to let him leave the hospital earlier than he should. But Lucas Angelo was a surgeon. He wouldn’t let one of his star players leave before it was safe to do so.

  “So where are you?”

  “At my apartment. Gummy-bear-less.” He put on such a sad voice for the last part of the sentence that she laughed despite herself.

  “They just let you go home alone? No nurse or housekeeper to help you out?”

  “The nurse left an hour ago with everyone else. He’s supposed to come back later. My housekeeper doesn’t come every day.”

  “I’m sure there are places that would deliver gummy bears to you,” she said, trying not to feel sorry for him. She remembered the first few days home after she’d busted her arm. She’d been exhausted from not sleeping well, and every simple task seemed to take three times longer than it should. And hers had been her left arm. Not her dominant hand with a bonus injured ankle.

  “They might get the wrong kind,” Oliver said. “Plus they aren’t you.”

  Her breath left in a rush. She’d been ready to find another excuse but it was hard to resist Oliver Shields saying “they aren’t you” in that voice. Something about it curled around the logical parts of her brain and arrowed straight for the parts that wanted. Wanted him. Against all her better judgment and all the complications that would come with him.