by Tara Wyatt
MOON SHOT
© 2020 by Tara Wyatt
All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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ISBN 978-1-7771046-5-8
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
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About the Author
One
“Hey, Stone. How would you like a promotion?” Will Grant stood in the doorway of Aerin Stone’s office, a cocky smirk on his face. Normally, even though Will was her boss, she didn’t give him the time of day. After all, she had a bigger, more impressive client roster than he did, brought in more money than any other agent at Grant & Brott Sports Management, and generally called the shots as she saw them and how she liked him.
But today she’d at least give him a few seconds because he’d said the magic word: promotion. Just the sound of it had her sitting up a little straighter in her chair, the contract on her glass desk all but forgotten. But she also knew after working at G&B for the past three years that Grant wouldn’t toss that word her way without some serious stipulations behind it. She plastered a demure smile to her face.
“I’d also like a yacht, a Birkin, and a Bugatti, but I doubt you’re just handing those out either.” She narrowed her eyes at him and folded her hands over the discarded contract. “What do you need?” She knew, better than most, that everything had a price. Nothing in this life was free. Nothing, and Aerin had found that the more she wanted something, the more expensive it was. The greater the cost. And usually, the bigger the risk.
Will grinned at her, and she recognized the gleam in his eye. A lightness that she pegged as excitement fluttered through her chest. They were going hunting, not for prey, but for a client. And if the sparkle in Will’s eyes was any indication, this wasn’t just any old client he was talking about. This was a white whale.
“I need you to sign someone. Today. I don’t want to even tell you how many strings I had to pull to set up this meeting. Hell, I practically had to suck a dick just to get the info.”
She rolled her eyes at the crude innuendo. “Who is it?”
Instead of answering her, he stepped into her office and closed the door behind him. The slim glass panel fell silently into place, sealing their voices away from anyone in the hallway. He dropped into one of the white leather chairs that sat facing her desk.
“I talked to Brott. It took some doing, but if you can make this happen, I got him to agree to starting partnership negotiations.”
Her eyes widened, just for a second. She’d been clamoring for a partnership for a year now, touting her financial track record and fixer reputation. If anyone needed something done, especially something impossible, it fell to Aerin. And she made it happen, every single time.
And now, Will was acting like she should be grateful that he’d broached the subject of partnership in the firm with Adam Brott, the other founding member. As if she hadn’t made this firm into the premier sports agency in Texas. And he hadn’t even told her what he needed yet. Just expected her to ask how high he needed her to jump.
She leaned back in her chair, frustration tempering her earlier excitement. “That’s great. What do you need?” she asked, keeping her voice flat, almost uninterested. She was tired of playing these games with him. She loved her job, but the office politics were wearing so thin they were practically transparent.
And yet, she couldn’t deny that she wanted to see her name on the side of the building. Grant, Brott & Stone had a nice ring to it. Or maybe it should be Grant, Brott & Prescott. She’d always intended to revert to her maiden name after the divorce, but then she’d built such a name for herself as Aerin Stone that any plans to reclaim her former identity had fallen by the wayside.
Will leaned forward and handed her a cheery yellow Post-It note. “This is make or break. Get it done, and we can talk promotion.” He let the other half of that thought hang in the air, a hint of menace disguised as motivation. She hesitated a second, her lips pursed, all the things she wanted to say but wouldn’t backing up in her throat like a traffic jam. After a moment, she took the paper from him, her movements deliberately brusque.
She glanced down, taking in Will’s blocky scrawl. “That’s all you’re giving me?” There was no name, no info about the situation, nothing. Just a time and a place.
Will smirked at her again and she had to claw back the urge to crumple the little piece of paper in her hand and throw it back in his face.
“Think of it as a trial by fire.”
You condescending little shit.
Anger and determination warring for space inside her, she stood and grabbed her phone and her tote bag. The meeting was downtown in half an hour, so she needed to leave now if she wanted to make it on time. She ground her teeth, knowing that the timing was probably another part of Will’s stupid test. She hated that he’d asked her to jump and she was several feet in the air already. Hated that she had to play his game to get what she wanted.
“Fine,” she said, moving around her desk and not waiting for him to say anything else, giving him a look at the expensive red bottoms on her shoes. Sometimes, when she needed the extra push, she imagined that the Louboutin red was blood from a battle, and she was the last one standing. It was gruesome, and probably not terribly healthy, but a fortifying fantasy all the same.
God, it would feel so good to take Will down once she was partner. So, so good.
She made her way to her silver Porsche in the building’s parking garage, put the address she’d been given in to her phone and gunned it up the exit ramp, praying that the traffic gods would be on her side.
The address turned out to be for the W Hotel in downtown Dallas, and even though it was only about six miles from the agency’s office, she’d be cutting it close with rush hour traffic building around her. As she changed lanes on 75 South, she drummed her fingers on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, impatience and irritation flaring through her—at the traffic, at Will and his stupid games, at her inability to do anything but play them. He knew she was the more successful agent, and he couldn’t stand it, and so he took every opportunity he could to remind her of who was in charge.
Exiting the freeway, she wound her way past Dell Park, home of the Dallas Longhorns MLB team and several of her clients. It was quiet now, given that it was February, but within the next six weeks the team would be back in town, along with their uptight manager, Javier Flores. Something inside her warmed, but she shoved it down. No. There’d be no thinking about Javier right now. Or ever, preferably.
The sex dreams were another story, though. Those she had no control over, and so she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about them. Dreams about unraveli
ng that tight control he leashed himself with. Dreams about watching him come undone with her. Because of her. A tingle crept down her spine as she remembered the latest fantasy her subconscious had conjured, of her and Javier trapped in an elevator together.
She slammed on her breaks, coming a little too close for comfort to the car in front of her. Yeah, no. Definitely not going there. Anything Javier-related was nothing but trouble, and she had other things to focus on right now, like signing this mystery client and seeing her name on her agency’s building.
She left her car with the valet, not having time to hunt for a spot, and strode into the hotel’s lobby, her heels clicking in a way that centered her. Nothing like a pair of seven hundred-dollar pumps to make her feel powerful and in control when she had no idea what she was walking into.
The hotel’s lobby was opulent but sleek, illuminated with soft bluish-purple lighting. Slate, wood, and marble dominated the space, simple and clean. She headed for the bank of elevators on the other side of the hulking reception desk, wondering if whoever was waiting for her in room 727 was a big shot, or just playing at being one. Not that it really mattered; she’d treat him like one no matter who he was if it meant signing him.
She took the elevator to the seventh floor and found her way to the room that just might hold her professional future. After a fortifying breath, she squared her shoulders and rapped her knuckles on the door, ready for whatever was waiting for her on the other side.
It swung open, revealing an older man in a Polo shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. “You the agent?” he asked in accented English.
She nodded. “I am. Aerin Stone,” she said, extending her hand. He glanced down at it but didn’t move to shake it. She took it back, not as offended as she used to be at the slight. She was a woman in a world filled with men, each one convinced his dick was the biggest around.
But they were all wrong, because Aerin’s dick was bigger than all of theirs. Every single one. She was the genie who could make anything happen. She was the one pulling the strings and calling the shots. She was the one with the power, who could make teams beg, could make careers, could catapult someone from obscurity to fame.
Already out of patience, she stepped past the Polo-clad man and into the hotel room. A younger man sat in an armchair by the window, a bottle of water in one big hand, his gaze fixed out the window. As she approached, he turned to look at her, and she knew exactly who he was, and what it meant that she was here.
“You’re Santiago Alvarez,” she said, taking the seat across from him without waiting for an invitation. Her brain whirred to life, kicking into high gear. Alvarez was a star catcher and slugger for the Cuban national team. They’d just competed in the World Baseball Classic, several games of which had taken place in Dallas. There had been rumors during the tournament that he’d been planning to defect, and now, sitting across from him in this hotel room, she knew instantly that the rumors were true.
“I am,” he said smoothly, and took a sip of his water. He set the bottle down, then leaned forward and fixed her with his gaze. “I need two things: an agent, and a team to play for.” His English was accented but smooth. “I heard you’re one of the best, especially when it comes to cutting corners and pulling strings.” At that, he gave her a somewhat skeptical once over. She knew what he saw. A pretty, petite blonde wearing a blue sweater, a patterned skirt and heels. What he didn’t know was that her entire outfit was probably worth a couple grand and that she’d made four million dollars just in commission last year.
So, she sat back in her chair and smiled. “I am. And we’re about to have one of the most important conversations of your life.”
At that, he seemed to really take note of her, and he pushed his water aside. “I don’t want little potatoes.”
She shook her head. “It’s small potatoes, and that’s not my game. My game is seven and eight figure deals. I represent players like Hunter Blake, Dylan McCormick. Are they small potatoes to you?”
He shook his head, his gaze approving. “No. They’re not.”
At that, she smiled. “Tell me what you want, and I can make it happen. Just name it. Anything.”
“I want to sign with an MLB team for as much money as you can possibly get me.”
“Then I’m surprised you chose to defect to the United States. It’s harder to establish residency here, and to do it, you have to enter the MLB Draft. Which won’t be happening until June. And you need a visa—a team-sponsored visa—to stay.”
At that, his brow wrinkled. “I see.”
She shook her head, a plan already fully formed in her mind. “So here’s what you’re going to do. We sign a contract today. As soon as we’re done here, I’m going to arrange for someone to drive you to Monterrey. It’s about eight hours south of here, in Mexico. I’ll cover the car, and I’ll find a comfortable place for you to stay. You’re going to defect to Mexico, not here. That way we can bypass the draft and I can have you at the spring training camp of the team of your choice within the next two weeks. Good?”
He nodded, and she could see him looking at her with new eyes. “And then what?”
She shrugged. “Rusney Castillo signed with the Red Sox for $72.5 million. Jose Abreu signed with the White Sox for $68 million. Both defectors. And one of them is my client.” She sat back in her chair, feeling like a fisherman with a bass on the other end of the line. “Tell me what else you want.”
He didn’t hesitate before he spoke. “I want to be the number one catcher on the team. I’m not leaving my family to sit on a bench somewhere. I start or we don’t have a deal.”
She waved a hand as if brushing away a fly. “You start. No problem.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You haven’t even signed me to a team. How can you promise that?”
She smiled and leaned forward. She liked him already. He was driven and ambitious, ready to risk it all for success and a better life. “Because I’m damn good at my job. And when news of your defection breaks, you’re going to be the biggest story in baseball. I know how to use that to get whatever you want. You tell me the team, you tell me the terms, and it’s yours.”
What she didn’t tell him was the reason she was good at her job. She didn’t want her clients to know that working was her entire life. Her identity. The only thing that had seen her through the implosion of her marriage. Her ability to succeed in this arena when she’d failed in so many others—failed marriage, failed attempt to start a family, failed relationship with her parents—had fueled her through some of the hardest years of her life. If she was a phoenix, and her personal life the ashes, her career was the flames. She wouldn’t be who she was without it. She loved it, was good at it, but more than that, she needed it. Desperately.
Alvarez turned to the man in the Polo shirt and said something in Spanish. She knew enough to pick up that they were talking about her, about her plan to send him to Mexico to skirt the draft, her promises. As they spoke, she reached into her tote and pulled out the agency’s standard contract, sliding it, along with a pen, over to him.
Once the conversation had petered out, she smiled at each of them. “So, Santiago. What do you say? Is today the first day of the rest of your life?”
An hour later, she tossed the contract down onto Will’s desk, where it landed with a resounding smack on the glass. Without waiting, she turned to go.
“Looking forward to those partnership talks,” she said, heading for the door.
“Aerin, wait.”
She turned, a mental to-do list already compiling itself in her brain. “What?”
He smiled at her, a different kind of gleam in his eyes. “We need to celebrate this. This is a huge get. Dinner?”
“Never.” She smiled and turned back to the door, this time walking through. As she clicked down the hallway to her office, her phone chimed with a reminder to check in for her flight to LA later that night. Dread pooled in her stomach. Going to Jake Landon and Abby Gossman’s wedding was pretty much
the last thing she wanted to do with her weekend, but it was too late to back out now. Even if she was going alone. Even if she hated weddings.
But Jake was a client, and Aerin was a woman of her word.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Two
Javier Flores pulled his rented SUV into the driveway of the home he’d once shared with his ex-wife in San Diego. It felt like a lifetime ago that he’d lived here; the home didn’t show any traces of the massive changes that had happened over the past five years. The same rosewood tree still stood in the front yard, the brightly colored swing hanging from one of its branches. The same garden still bloomed under the large bay window. The same swinging bench still hung from the front porch ceiling.
It was hard to reconcile so much sameness in the face of how damn different everything was now.
He glanced in the rearview mirror and experienced the same gut punch of love and longing he felt every time he looked at his girls. Twelve-year-old Chloe played on her phone, her attention wholly fixed on whatever was on her screen. Eight-year-old Olive was half asleep, dried chocolate ice cream darkening the corner of her mouth.
It had been a good week. Things were always good when Cara let him spend time with the girls. They’d gone to the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, the beach, and Legoland. They’d eaten Happy Meals and ice cream and tacos and candy. He’d let them stay up past their bedtimes watching Netflix and eating popcorn, not because he was trying to win their affection, but because letting them stay up meant he got more time with them. It always felt like he was trying to cram in months’ worth of fun into the short time he got with them, making it go by in a dizzying whirlwind of fun and sugar.
