Penny grinned, thinking about that last match in Madrid. She’d worked for that win for a very long time. A breakthrough. A crucial step that brought her closer to winning her first Grand Slam.
Stepping out of the car, the sounds of the game she loved filled her ears from over the high fences surrounding the forty-five court complex, the solid thwack of balls hitting racket strings, sharp instruction from coaches, the pounding of feet on the hard courts. Jack went to the trunk to grab his bag, but Penny headed straight in.
She managed only a few steps into the main building, which housed the offices, a few indoor courts and the training rooms when Roy Whitfield caught sight of her.
“Penny Harrison!”
“Hey, Roy.”
He was one of the first people she’d met at OBX four years ago and was a kind face during those intimidating days. None of her grandparents were still alive, but Roy was a pretty decent substitute and he did actually resemble her Gramps, her dad’s dad. With a quarter of African-American blood in their veins, Penny and her brothers had creamy, tan-colored skin and dark hair, but all three shared their green eyes with their mom.
“C’mere and give an old man a hug. Welcome home, girl.” He kissed the top of her head and gave her a final squeeze. “Jack,” he said, nodding at her brother, who had arrived inside.
“I’m glad to be back.”
The air smelled the same, rubber from the soles of all the sneakers and the distinct aroma that popped out of every newly opened can of tennis balls and the sharp scent of floor cleaner. This was home too. OBX was the place that made her dreams a reality.
“Coach asked to see you as soon as you got in,” Roy said, tugging on her dark brown braid and nodding up at her coach’s office.
“I’m not in trouble, am I?” she asked, as she walked to the stairs.
“I wouldn’t call it trouble.” Roy’s eyes twinkled at her, his cheeks wrinkling as he smiled.
“I’m gonna head out, Pen. I’ll see you later. Roy,” Jack said, walking off toward the back exit. After playing tennis at Harvard, Jack helped out with coaching whenever they were back at OBX. He said he did it to keep himself in shape, but Penny figured he just missed playing—she couldn’t imagine giving tennis up cold turkey. This, plus he could check out the young talent coming up.
Penny took the stairs two at a time up to Dom’s office and saw him standing at his window, which overlooked the rest of the facility, and in the distance, the coast with tiny umbrellas dotting the shoreline in various shades of the rainbow.
“Hey, Dom,” she said, drawing him from his reverie and tossing herself into the seat across from his desk.
Dom turned and moved around his desk. “P, welcome back. You ready to go?”
“Yep. Roy said you wanted to see me. What’s up?”
“Just wanted to talk through the training plan leading up to Paris.”
Penny pursed her lips and waited for him to continue. As nice as it was to be home, there were two tournaments between now and the French Open she could be playing in, both of which Zina Lutrova was headlining. It had been Dom’s idea to skip those tournaments in favor of coming back to train.
“I’ve brought in an old friend of mine to be your hitting partner. He’s just getting back into full-time training himself, so it’ll be the perfect fit for the next few weeks.”
Penny raised an eyebrow, but knew better than to question him outright. “Yeah?” she asked simply.
Dom nodded. “Yeah. I want you to focus on your defensive game and building up your endurance. You saw what it was like in Australia this year. Two weeks of tennis is no joke. You can’t fade at the beginning of the second week. You need to be peaking for the semis and finals, not for the round of sixteen.”
“Right,” Penny said, clenching her teeth. She wanted to tell him that endurance or lack thereof had nothing to do with the end of her run at the Australian Open. It was the only time her mental focus had slipped. At the highest levels, the mental game was even more important than physical.
“I am still the world’s number one.” Zina’s Russian accent reverberated through Dom’s office. Penny’s head snapped to the video screen in the corner and everything else flew straight out of her head. It was an interview from the tournament in Rome where Zina was playing this week. “Harrison played a good match, but I did not play my best. It was a fluke,” the young Russian superstar said from the press conference desk.
Dom paused the video as the interview ended. Penny focused on the arrogant smirk Lutrova managed to wear even while discussing a decisive loss at the hands of a player she was supposed to be better than. That expression alone was enough to make her want to grab a racket, fly to Rome, and take Lutrova’s ego down a notch or fifty.
“These next few weeks are critical, P. Zina will be gunning for you in Paris. You’re going to face her down and you’re going to win,” Dom said.
“I’ll be ready.”
“Good. Now go. I’ll be out in a few. I’ve got to pull together the Classic rankings by this afternoon.”
“Ranking day. It’s that time of year again, huh? Feels like yesterday I won my first one.”
“Yeah, well, three years was a good run, P, but looks like we’ll have a new champ this year.”
***
Penny was halfway to her practice court, one of the very few clay courts on campus, before she realized she hadn’t asked Dom who her new hitting partner was. He’d said it was an old friend, but Dom had been in the tennis world for more than twenty years. That didn’t exactly narrow down the field. Whoever it was, they were sure to be pretty damn good. Dom would only let her train with the best.
She opened the gate and dropped her bag against the fence before tilting her head in confusion. There was a man sprawled across the court, eyes closed, face to the sun, completely relaxed, except for his hands, which were firing through the air, drumming along with the music she could hear buzzing through his headphones even from the other side of the court.
“Excuse me,” Penny said sharply. “This court is reserved.” The man didn’t move. He was tall and broad, making the large playing surface seem so much smaller than it actually was.
“Excuse me,” she repeated when he didn’t so much as twitch in response, “this court is…” She trailed off as she approached. Frowning down at the court squatter, she immediately recognized him, especially since the last time she’d seen him he’d been in a similar state, totally relaxed, eyes closed—though he’d been wearing much less clothing.
Alex Russell, the best player in the world—or at least he used to be. Three years before, at the age of seventeen, Alex Russell was the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936 and the youngest man to do it, ever—besting a record set by Boris Becker in 1985 by 211 days. He’d won the career Grand Slam at twenty, and since then, his game had gone to hell. Too much partying and not nearly enough training sent his ranking freefalling from number one in the world down into the mid-twenties, and only that high because of his insane natural talent.
He also held the distinction of being the only thing ever to distract Penny Harrison from tennis.
Penny kicked at the sole of Alex’s sneaker and his eyes flew open. “What are you doing here?”
He pulled the plugs from his ears, the notes even clearer now as a heavy metal song echoed against the court.
“Sorry, what was that, love?” he asked with a wink, his eyes lighting up in recognition and then slipping over her form quickly, his tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip.
The low timbre of his voice sent shivers down her spine and her mind reeling back nearly four months, to the Nike event at the Australian Open she hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place. She was midway through the most important tournament of her life and not in the mood for a party, but Jack insisted it was a chance to mingle with her potential sponsors and get her face out there. Plus, it was all for a good cause as proceeds were going to the fight against pediatric cancer. Jack had p
ulled that last part out of his hat after she flat out refused to go.
Twenty minutes in she’d been ready to go back to the hotel. She’d lost Jack in the crowd and was steadily making her way to the exit when she ran headlong into a chest and narrowly avoided the drink that sloshed out of its accompanying hand.
Penny blinked herself back to the present and looked at the same chest now as Alex stood, running a hand through his sandy hair, his jaw line covered with stubble, just enough to give him an edge. His blue eyes shined down at her.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest. Her throat started to close because she suspected she knew the answer already. He was wearing a white T-shirt, streaked with red clay stains, and dark blue basketball shorts.
“Dom didn’t tell you?”
Penny’s stomach sank. Alex Russell was technically an old friend of Dom’s. When Alex started on tour Dom was finishing up his long career. They’d met up on the court more than once and Dom’s final match—in the second round at the US Open—was against the younger man, who was on his way to his very first championship.
“I’m your new hitting partner or you’re my new hitting partner, whichever you prefer, love.” An easy smile spread across his face.
Penny’s eyes narrowed. That was the same smile he’d bestowed upon her that night in Australia. He’d smiled and asked her to dance.
“You’re training again?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. She shook her head. “No, forget it. I don’t care. This is not happening.”
“And why’s that?” His eyes sparkled. Actually sparkled, like he was some damned cartoon prince in a Disney movie. “I don’t play against has-beens.”
The smile wavered and then disappeared completely. “A has-been?”
“Everyone knows the LTA dropped your sponsorship and your agent left you, but besides that…” She trailed off, her eyes lingering on his knee, an angry-looking scar surrounding the top of the joint. He was recovering from knee surgery and hadn’t played in a tournament since Australia, but she couldn’t bring herself to use that against him. It was every player’s worst fear, an injury that pulled him out of competition, maybe forever. He’d supposedly been laying low in London, rehabbing his knee and what was left of his reputation.
“Besides what?” he asked, forcing the issue. His expression darkened as he stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing against hers.
“Your knee…they said…everyone said that your knee was—”
“You should know better than to listen to everyone.”
Penny swallowed. The implication was obvious. The tour had buzzed incessantly about how they’d left the Nike party together in Australia, but no one knew the truth. The stories ranged from outrageous to obscene, but the reality was even more embarrassing for Penny.
He’d asked her to dance, and staring into those blue eyes and that grin, it had been easy to say yes. They’d danced; their bodies pressed together, the bass of the music pounding through them, his hands trailing paths of fire over her skin and she knew he was feeling what she was, an intense physical connection, burning hot on the dance floor that would become an all-encompassing inferno somewhere more private. His mouth had pressed against her ear, pleading with her to leave with him. Taking a risk for the first time in her life off the tennis court, she agreed and it had been one of the most incredible nights of her life. She’d snuck out the next morning, half out of embarrassment—she wasn’t the kind of girl who did one-night stands—and half because she had a training session. The next night on the news came reports of a motorcycle accident. An Australian supermodel with an insanely high blood alcohol level had been treated for minor injuries and the man people once thought could become the greatest tennis player of all time had his knee torn to shreds.
Penny didn’t care that people saw them leave the party together or that they whispered about it for weeks. She’d brushed off everyone’s questions, even Jack’s. Alex had just given her a ride back to the hotel, she’d said and she was pretty sure Jack had believed her. Rumors and gossip didn’t matter. It stung a little that Alex was with someone else the next night, but what really struck her to the core was that he could’ve just as easily crashed his bike one night earlier with her on the back. She could’ve lost everything, and at the time, the risk hadn’t even crossed her mind. That was the thought she’d taken with her onto the court for her quarterfinal match and that was what distracted her enough to go out in straight sets against a player not fit to carry her racket bag. Then Nike had pulled back their interest, and her reputation on the court—the only reputation that really mattered—was tarnished. She’d been working her way back ever since.
“Grab your racket.” Alex’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“What?” she asked, blinking up at him.
He walked to the bench just off the court and tossed his headphones and iPod into the racket bag sitting atop the bench before pulling out a brand new racket, still covered in the clear protective plastic. The distinctive red W was easily visible against the tightly wound white strings. A Wilson racket, what he’d been playing with since he was a junior, not that Penny would ever admit she knew that.
“Grab. Your. Racket,” he said again.
“Why?” But she knew why and the thought of facing off against him was both exhilarating and terrifying.
“Love, I’ll show you exactly how much of a has-been I’m not. Let’s go. You and me, right now.”
“No.”
“Scared?”
Penny glared at him. He was pushing her buttons, yet her pride won out over the logical part of her mind that told her this was a bad idea.
“Warm up and you serve first.”
The confrontation had her blood pumping. Alex ran in place, swinging his arms around, stretching them over his head and behind his back before going through his serving motion, whipping it through the air. Penny slowly went through her measured stretches starting with her ankles and wrists, then working her way inward. She kept her eyes focused on the clay, allowing each muscle to loosen up before moving on. Finally, she looked up at him. He was waiting at the opposite end of the court, racket in hand, bouncing a ball.
Penny pushed up onto the balls of her feet as she waited for what had once been the world’s best serve to catapult at her, but then fell onto her toes as a looping volley traveled over the net.
She straightened and caught the ball on her racket. “Has your game really regressed to this level? If it has I’m not going to waste my time,” she called out, offended he was going easy on her.
“Alright then. 15-Love.”
Shaking her head over the fact he counted that ridiculous serve as a point, she again bounced on the balls of her feet, preparing to receive a real serve.
He stood up straight and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You sure about this? I figured we’d save it until you improved defensively, like Dom wants.”
Penny’s eyes narrowed. “Just hit the damn ball.”
“Your funeral, love,” he muttered before his body coiled and exploded through the ball.
She got her racket on it, but the combined speed of the ball and the tight strings of her racket sent it sailing long.
“30-Love.”
That was the best serve she’d ever seen. She’d played against men who could hit as hard, but his serve was in another category altogether. A wicked spin combined with the velocity, even with the clay slowing it down a little, made it sheer luck she got her racket on it. Apparently, reports of his knee injury were grossly exaggerated. No one could blast a serve like that on a blown-out knee. Crossing to the other side of her court, she prepared again, taking a step back this time to compensate for velocity. His face was stone, no emotion—all business.
Alex fired another serve out wide, sending her lunging. This time her return landed in play. Her feet caught up underneath her and changed direction, knowing he would counter cross-court.
She hit the ball in s
tride, launching it back across the court. For a split second, she watched the gorgeous backhand fly to the opposite corner for a winner. Then her momentum sent her sprawling into the clay. She rolled over, tucking her shoulder and landing on her back, knocking the breath from her lungs. Penny lay there a moment, gasping at first and then breathing slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth. Everything felt okay, so she rolled onto her side and stood up, brushing the clay from her hands.
Alex was on her side of the net by the time she regained her footing. “Are you all right?” he asked, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other sliding down her side to check for injuries.
A tremor slid through her as his calloused fingertips traced her jawline, tilting her chin upward, forcing her to look at him. She shouldn’t be feeling like this. Her body ignored her mental reprimand and she ever so briefly leaned into the touch. It was just like that night, magnetism unlike anything she’d ever felt before. His eyes left hers and drifted down to her lips. She wet them unconsciously and he sucked in a harsh breath. It was enough to break the spell.
“Don’t touch me.” She pulled away, her skin immediately mourning the warmth of his hand. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Dom will kill me if you get hurt.”
“30-15.” She ignored the pain in her hip—it was just a bruise—hoping to both reassure him and reignite the competition. She wanted to play, even more now than before.
Alex studied her and Penny kept all emotion off her face, not giving away even a hint of discomfort. “30-15,” he agreed, before retreating to his side of the court.
Game. Set. Match. Page 3
