“A player, a coach, anyone.”
Danica shot up. “Is that out there? Did anyone say I was dating someone from the team? Because I’m absolutely not. As the general manager I can’t even fantasize about getting personal with someone I have professional power over. And the bigger problem—Ma and Pop would freak the f—”
“Thought so,” Charlotte mumbled. But she wasn’t the general manager, and her incident with Nate Franco had been a case of unknown identity. An honest mistake. Surely the front office and the league would understand that, if the details came tumbling forth? She and Nate knew exactly what had transpired—and Joey knew what Charlotte had told her.
Suppose everything were out in the open. Even if conflicted, Danica would simply do as their parents requested and fire Charlotte. Charlotte would love Danica for eternity, but nothing stood in her way of making their parents happy. It was what she did best.
If Marshall and Tem let it slide—which they most certainly would not—then media pressure, frequently an unstoppable force, would likely compel the league to interfere. Only in special circumstances did the National Football League grant a team true autonomy.
A sex scandal like this would only underscore the opposition’s point that professional men’s football was no place for a woman. The stance was sexist and in no way progressive, but clever-minded people had ways of twisting an honest mistake into a sordid scandal.
“Charlotte, why these questions? It’s all a little random. What are you getting at?”
She barely heard her sister, preoccupied with the files in her hands. Did Danica keep a full employee roster on hand in her minioffice? Only one way to find out. Nonchalantly, she put the active roster file at the bottom of the stack she was holding and scanned the label of the next one.
“I’ll take those,” Danica said, her pitch a bit high as she reached for the stack. When Charlotte held on a moment longer than she should have, her sister yanked the folders away and snapped, “What are you doing?”
“Um…I was talking to someone at the party last night and have a question for him.” She was dancing on thin ice now, telling sorta-truths to her sister, who had the power to fire her. “I didn’t get his phone number.”
Nate had wanted to exchange phone numbers, but she’d refused….
“This question of yours. Is it about business?”
“Absolutely.” If Danica considered her older sister’s career business. “I really need to get that number tonight—to ask him that question.”
Danica went about packing her briefcase. Once finished she used the remote to click off the television and faced Charlotte. “A guy you were talking to at the party who you have to ask a question tonight? Really, Charlotte?” She sighed. “I know you asked Pop to introduce you to Kip Claussen. He’s married—”
The head coach? Oh, noooooo. “And stop right there. Whatever you’re thinking in that overly analytical brain of yours, just stop. I don’t want the HC’s number.”
“Then whose? Are you starting up something with a team member? I really hope you’re smarter than this.”
“No, that’s not what I’m doing.” That was true—what had started last night with Nate had also ended last night. She just needed to make sure he knew that, too. “And what wouldn’t be smart? Me starting up with someone on the team, or me disappointing Ma and Pop?”
“Both. So if I were you, I wouldn’t consider doing either. Just sisterly advice.” Danica grabbed the rest of her paperwork and rushed upstairs to lock it away in her home office, then hurried back to the kitchen. “Furthermore, aside from a few folks I need to reach round the clock, personnel contact information is stored securely at the office. If you do have a strictly business question for this man, ask him at training camp.”
“Sure.”
Car keys in hand, Danica reminded Charlotte what the house’s security code was and said, “Get in touch with Martha if you want to call someone. Don’t tell her I told you—she wanted to break the news—but she said a journalist from Sports Illustrated is interested in scheduling a chat with you.”
Yesterday, before she’d let down her guard for passion, Charlotte would’ve jumped for joy to catch the attention of Sports Illustrated. Instead she felt as if she were holding her breath, waiting for Nate Franco to make a move against her. If Joey’s theory was correct—and her track record in Las Vegas and D.C. said that she almost always was—then Charlotte had walked into a setup.
A worried look crossed Danica’s face as she headed out. “I know how you’ve fought to get this far, Charlotte. Focus on that. Things are looking up for you.”
And what went up came down.
Unless she could be an exception to the rule.
She needed to locate Nate Franco pronto, before training camp, and come to an understanding. Exposing what they’d done last night would benefit neither of them. Maybe Joey was wrong about Nate not having anything to lose….
Charlotte dug her tablet out of her handbag and settled on the big comfy family-room sectional. A Google Images search produced several photos of Nate Franco—mostly shots of him with his older brother, Santino. Side by side, the physical resemblance was shockingly clear. Aside from the fact that Santino was tattooed, wore his hair past his shoulders and had deeper creases in his face and a slightly crooked nose, he and Nate could be twins.
Nate had known just what to say to her, known to let her decide for herself whether she’d meet him at his suite or not. Known so very well where to touch her to make her mind melt.
Could something that had felt so dizzyingly natural really be false—a plot against her? Staring at a picture of the two brothers with an older couple, Joey’s words found their way to her lips. “Were you playing me, Nate?” she whispered. She navigated the webpage to read the article that accompanied the photo. An Italian man and African-American woman—Alessandro and Gloria Franco. Nate’s parents.
She found a crumb on the web trail that led her to where Nate was expected to be two evenings from now. The website for Young Minds, Bright Futures, a charity organization founded to provide scholarships to academically gifted children, listed Nate as one of the prominent people expected to be in attendance.
“Aren’t you sick of me yet?” Joey greeted when she answered her phone, her dry humor a welcome familiarity.
“Quite the contrary,” Charlotte said, putting the phone on speaker and rereading the online local events calendar. “How about I repay you for that yummy Godiva chocolate cheesecake with a pass to the Young Minds, Bright Futures fund-raising gala Thursday night. It’s a charity function for academically gifted kids.”
“Hmm. How do I feel about hanging with kids who are half my age—or younger—with bigger IQs than mine?”
“Nate is going to be there. And so am I. Danica refused to give me access to the employee roster, so I couldn’t get his number.”
“It would’ve been easier if you’d just asked me to get the dude’s digits for you.”
“Jo, none of that secret-agent snooping stuff, okay?”
Joey sighed, and Charlotte glanced toward the phone with a smile. “Why bring me along, then?”
“Hey, I said you couldn’t snoop around in his background. I didn’t say you couldn’t observe. So what do you say? No matter, I’ll be there and I will get answers.”
She intended to get to Nate Franco before he did something they’d both regret.
Chapter 5
Already Nate regretted this. Coming off an early-morning sit-down with the Slayers’ head trainer and a full day of prep at the team’s training facility, Desert Luck Center, in Mount Charleston, he’d intended to close himself off to the world for the rest of the night, finalize plans for the Young Minds, Bright Futures fund-raiser tomorrow, put a thick steak on the grill, and review injury reports, progress notes and medical chart copies that had been released to him.
Then his brother had called, and Nate had changed course. Now his Benz shot thro
ugh the city streets, blowing past blurs of vehicles and faceless motorists. Nightlife was in full swing—neon lights flashing, casinos bursting with gamblers, tourists and locals meshing on the Strip.
His destination lay deeper into the desert mountainside. As traffic thinned, he eased his foot off the gas pedal in spite of an intensifying mix of stress and anger that was encouraging him to stomp the accelerator in order to get to his family’s Lake Las Vegas estate—and leave again—as speedily as his car could take him.
Calming down took some effort. The crisp jazzy music coming from the car’s radio helped. Leisurely now, he held to the road’s dips and curves until he reached the outer edges of Vegas. Nestled in the Nevada mountains with the lake in the background, his father’s resort neighborhood was a place of pristine palm-tree opulence. What people saw on the outside of Al Franco’s multimillion-dollar stately retreat—with its eight-car garage, which housed his vintage-automobile collection, and its diverse array of shrubbery, which reflected his fiancée’s new hobby as an amateur topiarist—was only a faint mirage compared to what existed inside the twelve-thousand-square-foot property.
For one thing, despite coexisting in a house spacious enough to get lost in, Nate’s brother and Al’s fiancée couldn’t seem to avoid getting in each other’s faces. Santino’s girlfriend, a high-maintenance type like Bindi, had dropped him for a New England Patriot less than a month after his NFL career had snapped right along with one of his spinal disks. Santino resented that Alessandro Franco seemed intent on replacing his first wife with a trophy.
Nate knew his mother had been Al’s goddess, his advisor and friend, his conscience…his soul. Al had simply let go of everything, including their two sons, when she died three years ago. Their love had been the kind that when it went away, it took his sanity, too.
Now Al was nothing more than prime media fodder. The man who’d once been known for his need to win had become a laughingstock, the very definition of a loser. In two years he’d remarried and divorced twice. Both ex-wives had been more interested in using his clout to build their own celebrity and had ravaged his bank accounts during the divorce proceedings, which had been quick but not painless. His current fiancée, Bindi, didn’t appear to be any different and had been trying to get a cable network to roll out the red carpet for a reality television show about her life as the soon-to-be wife of an NFL team owner.
But Al had felt pressured to sell the team, Bindi was getting restless, the entire Franco bunch was out of whack and Nate was taking the heat.
Nate’s interest was not just reclaiming ownership of the multimillion-dollar asset the Blues had stolen from the Francos for his brother, who’d saved his ass more times than Nate probably deserved. And it wasn’t just about returning to his father what the aging man had built and what had mattered more to him than even his own children, though he’d never let anyone call him on that fact.
Nate was out to protect Nate. Framed diplomas for his degrees in kinesiology and sports medicine, certifications and that glorious PFATS award he’d been humbled to receive back when each new accomplishment was something to be treasured and not coolly tallied up like just another stepping-stone to ultimate success showed a man who looked good on paper but who walked in his brother’s shadow. They didn’t reveal all the close calls he’d faced growing up and how his brother—and luck—had helped him step out of one life to become the man he was today.
Every merit badge he’d earned—whether science-fair ribbon or medical fellowship or the NFL internship that had opened the door to professional sports training—was another piece of armor, shielding him from the sting of his unrealized dream of making his father proud. He’d gotten an education, all right, but all the hell he’d faced as a boy who was more nerd than jock had taught him how life, and the streets, worked.
Now the “science nerd with the silver spoon” was in league with the same type of guys who’d tormented him back in the day, but they now respected him and depended on his elite set of skills for their professional and personal survival.
Now high-caliber women, who’d looked right through him back then, pursued him ferociously. Women like Bindi. And Charlotte.
Nate could go days without seeing Bindi. He had a place in Vegas and could book a suite virtually anywhere when the mood struck him if he wanted to disconnect himself from his family.
Common sense said Santino and Bindi ought not live together—even in a house that had more bedrooms than humans had fingers. When it came to stubbornness, they rivaled each other, and neither would concede to the other by moving out. Santino had taken it upon himself to keep a close watch on their father, and the only way to do it was to live with him. Now more than ever, Al needed family nearby.
And Al, in the center of it all, refused to intervene. When he wasn’t out and about, making appearances, showing the world that losing three wives—one to death and two to divorce—and his NFL team hadn’t broken him, he was locked in his rooms alone, showing only the people who truly knew him that all that loss had broken him.
So it was Nate’s duty to step in, run interference, be the peacemaker whether he wanted to or not.
Ignoring Santino’s call would’ve only put off the inevitable. He couldn’t cut himself off from his family or dodge their demands. He could only do whatever he could to get them the only tonic that might cure them: the Slayers franchise.
The team was what had defined his father—the possession he’d treasured most. It was Santino’s birthright, which he’d wanted to operate down the line, and his connection to it had been the only light in his world after his injury and his girlfriend’s betrayal. And as for Bindi, the woman swore up and down that she could be a wonderful wife to Al but she’d never been shy about wanting the team back so that she could move forward with her reality TV idea. There could be no show about her life as an NFL team owner’s fiancée/wife, because her fiancé no longer owned an NFL team.
Instead, Al had given up his team for a generous fortune that he appeared to be just sitting on. No investments, no purchases…and even Bindi hadn’t gotten more trinkets or pampering out of the transaction.
Nate never understood how Al could sell the team without consulting with his heirs, especially now that the man still hadn’t any plans of what to do with the proceeds.
It only made sense that he’d been coerced into the deal, that the team had been muscled away from him through threats to hurt him and the people close to him. That was what Al had told Santino and Nate when they’d first realized the sale was happening, but even when Santino barged ahead ready to fight, Al hadn’t wanted to talk. Out of pride, out of fear, it didn’t really matter to Nate.
Corporate bullies were no different than thugs on the street. Nate had had run-ins with both.
Which was why he could handle Marshall Blue.
But can you handle his daughter Charlotte?
Nate shut off the engine and let his gaze sweep the premises of his father’s estate but saw only a vision of Lottie—Charlotte—bared to him in red-and-silver lace and chocolate diamonds.
Cutting things short with her in his hotel suite had been torture but maybe a good thing after all. She hadn’t gone running to Daddy and Mama to order him off the team. He hadn’t seen her at the training facility today, which was perfectly reasonable since camp hadn’t officially begun yet, but no one he had encountered today had given any indication of knowledge that he’d crossed a line with the big boss’s daughter.
Could be she wouldn’t talk. Or she was biding her time?
With a fresh wave of frustrat
ion falling over him, Nate strode up to the door and was greeted by the housekeeper, Nadia, whose pinched expression spoke volumes about the storm brewing inside, which he could hear from the doorstep.
Nate took a fortifying breath and jammed his hands into his pants pockets, moving unhurriedly behind Nadia to a living room the size of a small stadium. Surrounded by Asian-inspired decor were Bindi and his brother, yelling across the room at one another.
At the sight of Nate, Bindi, in her tight-as-a-glove dress and pearls, with her blond hair twisted neatly, scoffed and brought a wineglass to her lips, retreating to the corner opposite to where Santino stood leaning heavily on the baby grand piano with his hands curled into fists and his face weary. They were like boxers waiting anxiously for the next round to begin.
“Can’t you fight your own battles?” Bindi said to Santino, ignoring Nate. “Why bring your little brother into this when it has zilch to do with him?”
Nate kept his expression mild, exchanging a look with Nadia as she slipped away from the action. At six-four he was two inches taller than his brother and not quite as compact. Those who didn’t know Nate and Santino had to look hard to find their differences and guess which was the elder brother.
Both were older in age and experience than Bindi Paxton, who at twenty-nine had been sheltered in a rich girl’s world until her parents had cut her off for behavior that had reflected poorly on her father, a disgraced congressman.
“A producer was here, from some cable network,” Santino told Nate, pulling out the piano bench and lowering onto it.
“He was my guest! You had no right to throw him out,” Bindi said. “When we get the team back, I want to redecorate for the show. Some of the filming will take place here.”
“You never had any claim on the Slayers,” Nate clarified, striding farther into the room, drawing her full attention now. “That needs to always be clear. It’s my father’s team. Santino and I are in line—not you.”
Night Games Page 6
