“Okay, this is a little weird…. What were you even doing back here, Martha?”
“Exploring.”
Charlotte stepped around her sister to see Dex Harper waiting with his arms loose at his sides. Under direct orders, the new general manager—her sister Danica, who’d shot up the ladder as a talent-scout-turned-corporate-attorney—had relieved him of his QB duties with the Slayers and he’d taken the news very badly, very publicly. Notorious as the “blue-eyed badass” off the field, he’d racked up numerous fines over his four seasons with Las Vegas.
“Charlotte, I’m Dex Har—”
“I know who you are, Dex. What I don’t know is what you think I can do for you. The GM and the owners’ decision about your relationship with the team is final.”
“It wasn’t final when Marshall and Temperance turned your application down twice,” Dex volleyed back, his eyes pleading. “That’s what ESPN and Fox and every-damn-body is talking about tonight.”
“I won’t discuss my career with you.”
“Look, Charlotte, your father’s a stubborn bastard—”
“Hey!” Martha piped up.
“—but he can bend. Hear me out.”
“As if I can give you a place on this team? Four seasons, Dex. Four to show you were worth what the previous front office spent on you, and you choked halfway through. All that talent and where’d it go?”
Dex glowered, but she wasn’t close to backing down. “All of a sudden you got yourself a candy arm. Your on-field decisions, the incomplete passes? Laughable. My parents both want this team to be a contender, and you’re not the quarterback to see us to that. The people who let you go believe you’re too much of a liability.”
“And your kicker, TreShawn Dibbs, isn’t? He’s a goddamn—” Dex exhaled harshly through his nostrils. “He’s a train wreck, and the GM opened the gate to him.”
“Dibbs’s hiring has nothing to do with me. I’m one of the people who’ll work to keep him healthy, that’s all. You should be consulting with your agent to sign with another team—”
“No one’s interested and you’re wrong, Charlotte. All the crap that happened on the field—it’s not on me. I swear that to you. I don’t have a candy arm. I’m good, all right, and what I want is a chance to prove it under new leadership.”
“So you’re blaming your poor performance on the old administration? You’re blameless?”
Martha’s eyes darted back and forth between them, as if glued to a tennis match.
“Not blameless,” he admitted. “I made a few effed-up decisions, didn’t trust my gut. But I was a marked man, Charlotte, and I do have talent.”
“Dex,” Charlotte said carefully, firmly, “we have our quarterback.”
With a glare, Harper turned and walked off, Martha following, determined to ensure the man who called their father a “stubborn bastard” found his way off the section of the premises that had been reserved for the Slayers’ party.
Charlotte slipped back into the crowd again to find her father and notify him of the incident. Anyone who thought she’d landed any of her training jobs through nepotism was dead wrong. Her parents didn’t approve of her dive into the front lines of male-dominated sports, and just like when she was a child who disobeyed their instructions, she had to deal with the consequences of her actions without them being her safety net. She’d learned that when a few boys on the high school football team had purposely plowed into her, fracturing her arm. In response, her parents had simply sat in the hospital waiting room while her arm was set in a cast, then asked whether she wanted to quit the team or not. She hadn’t quit but had endured. So much so that she’d mastered the art of enduring.
Some called her parents’ methods tough love; they called it teaching her responsibility and good common sense. Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t run to them for consolation when life didn’t pan out as she hoped.
“Pop,” she said, reaching up to tap Marshall on the shoulder. Outfitted in a gray Gucci Signoria suit, her father was big and bald and still radiated the powerful energy of a man who harvested physical and mental strength. Though he no longer competed as a bodybuilder, focusing instead on philanthropy, global investing and his glorious success as a shareholder of a billion-dollar power company, he made it an obsession to stay in top form. “Dex Harper was here. He had a few words for me, but he’s gone now.”
Marshall assessed her with a level stare. A shade or two darker than his deep brown skin tone, his irises gave no indication of what he was thinking. Like many of the men roaming this party tonight, he was no gentle giant. “What kind of words?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” With that, Charlotte turned on her heel. What she wanted was to fill a plate, park it at a table and eat. No, first she wanted to say to her father, “See, I can hold my own!” and then eat.
“Charlotte!”
“Yo, Joey. Having a good time?”
Her friend wiggled her brows suggestively. “Not nearly as good as you’re about to have, apparently. I should revoke your best-friend privileges for not dishing about your fling on Flamingo Road. You let me think nothing happened with you and that guy from the Rio.”
Confused, Charlotte said, “That’s the truth. We didn’t—” she dropped her voice “—have sex.”
Not completely, anyway.
“So if he was so wrong for you and not the guy you want an affair with, why’d you invite him to your team’s party?”
“What?”
“Lottie, the jig is up! I saw him with my own eyes. In fact—” Joey took Charlotte by the shoulders, turned her and then gestured to one of the buffet tables, where a man stood talking to a server “—there he is.”
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open, and a wave of heat touched her from scalp to toes at the visceral memory of being draped over him. “How in the world—”
“Wait, you didn’t invite him here?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Then he—he followed you?”
“Why do you sound so freaked out?”
“Because guys who meet random women and then follow them without their knowledge are more often than not a little unhinged.”
“Once a Fed, always a Fed.” Charlotte patted Joey’s arm, then turned again and kept the man in her sights. “I think I’ll go over to see if you’re right.”
*
“I feel like there’s a target on my back,” Nate muttered to the server who stood at a buffet table pretending to arrange a silver tray of napkins that had been artfully folded into cranes.
“Don’t.” Vicky’s white grin contrasted with her deep brown skin, and she was a refreshingly friendly face to see. At least the Blues had the sense not to jettison the catering company that had catered the Slayers’ parties to perfection when the Francos had owned the team. “Dex Harper was booted out. People will be too busy gossiping about him to notice there’s a double agent among them.”
“Double agent? How about a man who’s just trying to keep his job?”
And get the team back under Franco ownership. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been invited to the Slayers’ party. What he hadn’t been invited to do was dig around for any information that would help secure his spot on the team.
He had only one person to look out for: himself.
Nate whistled at the turnout. He’d give the new team owners credit: they sure as hell knew how to throw a classy party. What his father’s fiancée, Bindi, wouldn’t give to be on the guest list.
“Word is Dex lured two of the owners’ daughters behind the stage. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with a broken kneecap for pulling that!”
Nate homed in on Marshall Blue. A cluster of tree-sized players surrounded him. Nearly hidden in the bunch was a slender woman whose body language screamed approachable and untouchable simultaneously.
“Not the GM,” Vicky said. “She’s been glued to her folks all night.”
“Who’s talking business?” He’d milled around, eavesdropped he
re and there, but hadn’t overheard anything substantial.
“A couple guys from offense aren’t looking forward to ice baths at camp. TreShawn Dibbs isn’t so bulky this season, but that’s just my observation,” she said meaningfully.
Dibbs’s contract with Las Vegas had sparked a firestorm several weeks ago, since no team wanted to touch him after his last season with the Chargers had ended with a row of suspensions topped with a steroid scandal.
“Oh,” Vicky added, “the head coach was in a real private conversation with Blue’s girl Charlotte, that trainer they hired. I couldn’t glean much, though, since she snagged a carrot off my tray and sent me about my business.”
On the drive over from the Rio, Nate had kept the satellite radio tuned to sports, regretting not catching up on Slayers news sooner. He’d caught snatches of reports sharing the same information—all three Blue daughters were somewhere on the team’s payroll now.
And according to one blurb from the local sports-radio station, this Charlotte Blue woman was ready to get her hooks into the league’s head-injury research.
His research. Hell, he had a right to take exception to a newcomer’s plan to out-and-out bulldoze her way onto his family’s team, into his work role and into the research—and probably the promotion—he was in line for.
If Nate could get his father to care about the franchise again, the man would realize that his formerly prized possession was drastically changing. Everyone was dispensable, including Nate.
Nate personally didn’t care who formed the team so long as he or she knew what the hell they were doing. Not that his opinion was welcome to interlopers who had money to spend and power to spare.
“Vicky—”
“Shh! I need this job, so if anybody asks, you don’t know me and I didn’t tell you anything other than what’s in the meatballs,” Vicky muttered as she discreetly moved farther down the buffet table, straightening platters and bowls along the way.
A hand snaked up his arm, curved over his shoulder. “Nate?”
Be cool. Nate repeated it over and over in his head as he slowly turned. Was he going to be “booted” off the premises, too, just like Dex Harper? He leveled his gaze at the woman behind him.
Earlier he’d been ready to skip this party to be one-on-one with her. Then she’d walked out of his suite, leaving him on fire with want. Now she was close enough to kiss again and with that quirky smile was playing roulette with his restraint.
“Lottie.”
“I—I can’t believe you’re here.” A pause. “Um…why are you here?”
He could ask her the same question. Had she seen him get into his Benz and followed him here? But why go to the trouble? She’d been the one to shut down what he’d hoped would be a night of naughty acrobatics.
“Can’t resist a good party,” he said carefully. “You?”
“I couldn’t have missed this even if I’d wanted to. Obligation and all that. Confused?” She went on after he brought his brows together in a frown. “See, this is my party. Well, my family and my team’s.”
Say what?
“Lottie,” he said, his mind rushing to put it all together, knowing he wouldn’t like what he came up with.
The female assistant athletic trainer whose name was all over the media, the woman who people called a jockette, was Charlotte Blue, the sexpot who not even two hours ago had been curled on top of him in his suite at the Rio…down to a silver scrap of underwear and a red bra.
Slayers colors.
Worse, the second he’d turned and recognized her, he’d wanted to touch her again. But back at the Rio she’d clearly prioritized her commitment to what he now knew was this team and her family over him. That much was clear. So he had to do the same and put himself and his agenda over the sizzle of desire that he knew logically was nothing but biology and physics and chemistry. And designed to drive a man out of his ever-loving mind.
“Charlotte Blue,” he said, letting the syllables caress his tongue, “since we’re doing the whole reality thing now, you should know I’m Nate Franco.”
Suddenly she looked as shattered as he’d felt when she’d sashayed out of his suite.
And something about being the one to cause that expression to cross her face felt wrong.
Man, oh, man. This wasn’t going to be easy.
But the line was drawn now, and they were on opposing sides.
Game on.
Chapter 4
A fling—make that a hot, brain-scrambling, unfinished one—wasn’t supposed to be trouble. If done right. Charlotte had apparently made a misstep…because she’d lost control with Nate Franco. A teammate. The former owner’s son.
A man who was the kind of trouble that would make an ordinary woman itch to be wrong. Charlotte couldn’t afford this level of wrong. Nor could she find her voice even moments after Nate said, “You should know I’m Nate Franco.”
He reached out as if to touch her sleeves. Instantly a sharp memory flashed of him tugging those sleeves until her dress slipped over her shoulders and down to the floor. Edging back before he could make contact, she said, “This is crazy.”
“And not meant to be? You said that if it was meant to happen, we’d see one another again.” Now he was tossing her words back to her, as if this were funny.
“That was before I realized you’re on my team.” At that, his gaze seemed to chill, and that hard look in his eyes was instantly familiar. She conjured an image of the man she’d glimpsed on ESPN. “Before I knew that you’re Santino Franco’s brother. I wasn’t thinking. I lost track of—”
Nate shook his head, flattening his lips in contemplation. Private knowledge of what those lips could do sent a shiver through her. “No, Charlotte. You lost control. You liked it,” he objected quietly, casually moving in closer. “I liked it.”
“It was a mistake.” And it wasn’t fair that he could look so unruffled, cool and composed when she knew panic was written all over her. “Nate, we need to talk about this. It’s no one’s business but ours.”
“A conversation between two people on my payroll is always my business,” a man cut in.
Her father’s voice was an injection of fear directly into her veins. He folded his hands over her shoulders and gave a little shake like when she’d been a child in need of care and consolation and all he could provide was a brisk shake and advice that she toughen up.
Charlotte watched Nate move his gaze from her to her father. Something in his face hardened for an instant.
Don’t, she silently repeated. Don’t exploit the fact that I messed up.
Nate glanced at her again and said to Marshall, “We were referring to the media. The employee roster, from the players to the front office, is the team’s business, and not the media’s.”
If not for Marshall’s steadying hands on her shoulders, Charlotte might have dropped to the floor in relief. But that strange look on Nate’s face told her she wasn’t completely out of the woods. They still needed that talk. Immediately.
“Damn right,” Marshall said. “Glad you recognize that, Franco. Enjoy the party.”
Clearly dismissed, Nate stepped away. Charlotte’s eyes followed him until she blinked and lost him in the crowd.
“And you…” Marshall gave Charlotte a single firm clap between the shoulder blades “…don’t look so nervous.”
I chose the wrong man again, Pop. You and Ma were right. And if he talks, my career’s as good as destroyed. Isn’t that something to be nervous about?
When her father strode off, she searched the Bellagio’s ballroom for Nate but had no luck in finding him again. That he could drop the bomb on her that he was on the training staff—that they were colleagues!—and then disappear from the party left her brain tangled and her heart in a panic.
Eventually her mother drew her aside. “Charlotte, is there something you haven’t told us about your little discussion with Dex Harper earlier?”
Tem’s voice may have been lullaby gentle, soothing, b
ut it—and her face—were absent of anything but mild curiosity glazed with irritation. Concerned for her daughter she was not.
This time Charlotte was glad, because otherwise her parents would relentlessly dig until they got what they wanted. That was how they operated when it came to capturing something in their sights—information they wouldn’t ordinarily be privy to…an NFL team that had solidly sat in the same man’s possession since the establishment of the Las Vegas Slayers seventeen years ago…an impossible-to-get lakefront home that was currently being renovated and prepped for an HGTV Million Dollar Rooms segment.
Fortunately, no one but Joey had really witnessed Charlotte and Nate together—had seen the familiar way she’d curled her fingers around his shoulder, feeling solid muscle and the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt.
At least when Marshall had walked up on them, they hadn’t been touching.
“Ma, if you want a moment-by-moment recap about the altercation with Dex, ask Martha. She was there, too.”
“Interestingly, you and Martha have a history of coloring the truth. And not using the brains God gave you. You both should’ve called security on him straightaway.”
“Have you told Martha this, or am I supposed to pass this life lesson along?” Charlotte ignored her mother’s chilling look. “Well?”
Tem smoothed Charlotte’s hair, grooming her not in a motherly gesture but only because she wasn’t photo perfect in this moment. “I’d love to give your sister an earful about her irresponsible choices, but I can’t find her.”
Because Martha’s smarter than you give her credit for. “Ma, please don’t worry about Dex Harper.”
“I’m worried about you. As your mother and your employer, I need to remind you that your place on this team is unique. You’re a pioneer for women of color in professional sports now. I want you to treasure that and keep in mind that your decisions don’t affect only you.”
Charlotte never asked to be anyone’s shining example—a part of her parents’ “statement.” She asked for a chance to prove her talents as a capable athletic trainer, but that hung in the balance all because she’d lost control with a man who’d now seemed to have vanished from the team’s party.
Night Games Page 4
