Always Right (7 page)

Amanda fought not to cringe as Kyle said, “What the fuck?”

She raised her chin. “I need the money by Friday.”

“You’re not getting anything by Friday,” he said. He stepped back, shaking his head like she was a crazy woman, like he wanted to cross to the other side of the street, just to get away from her nutso ranting.

But they weren’t standing on a street. They were huddled in a restaurant parking lot, half-hidden in shadows. She was backed up against her car because they’d been making out like horny teenagers. She had to say something, had to do something to regain control over the situation. And she almost regretted her words as she said, “You’ll change your mind, Kyle. Because if I don’t get the money, I’ll send an envelope to the
News & Observer
. I figure they'll be the most interested in your time at Spring Valley. A perfect story as the team gets closer to the post-season.”

The words made her stomach clench, and she swallowed hard, fighting to keep bile out of her throat. She regretted the vodka she’d drunk before dinner, the wine with her meal. She never should have eaten that steak.

She didn’t deserve steak. She didn’t deserve anything good. She was disgusting, and the things she
did
were disgusting. Any normal woman would be able to take care of herself, take care of her family. What the hell was wrong with her, that she was threatening an innocent man, just because she needed some help?

Well, he wasn’t innocent. That’s what she tried to tell herself. He’d done bad things and hidden them. He’d made a career out of being harmless, being
good
; his sterling reputation was the reason he had millions in a bank account.

The amount she asked for was almost literally nothing to him; he could write the checks without blinking.

But that didn’t make blackmail right. The first time, the money she needed for the partnership—she’d demanded it without thinking. He’d handed over the funds so easily that she’d almost made herself believe it didn’t matter. They’d completed a simple commercial transaction—he paid her partnership fee, and she showed up at the ballpark to drop her stupid sunglasses. Quid. Pro. Quo.

That’s why it should have been easy the second time.

But it wasn’t. The look on his face wasn’t easy. The nausea that cramped her stomach wasn’t easy.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she scrambled to unlock the car, to open the door, to slip into the driver’s seat before her knees gave way.

Kyle grabbed at the top of her window. “What the hell are you doing, Amanda?”

And she answered like a lawyer. She made her voice cold, as hard as the glass his fingers were gripping. “What I need to do,” she said. “Twenty-five thousand by Friday, or I go to the press.”

Her lawyer demeanor must have shocked him, because he didn’t keep her from slamming the door closed. He just stood and watched as she gunned the car to life. Peeling out of the parking lot, she couldn’t bring herself to look in the rear-view mirror at the first man whose company she’d enjoyed in years.

~~~

Kyle stretched out on the hotel bed, leaning against a pile of pillows. He’d used the crappy coffee maker in the bathroom to brew a cup of chamomile tea. The last thing he needed was the rotgut coffee they provided with those things. He had to get to sleep some time.

That night’s game against St. Louis had gone well—the Rockets were on a roll, having won eleven out of their last thirteen. Kyle’s own hitting streak continued—he’d gotten on base in the sixth. Sure he’d been stranded, but in the long run, it hadn’t mattered. The team had won, they’d stormed the field, he’d hit the showers, and now he was back in his hotel room. Staring at his phone. Telling himself he was a fucking idiot if he picked the thing up. Worse, if he punched in the ten numbers he already knew by heart.

But he knew damn well it wasn’t caffeine that had kept him awake Monday night. Tuesday or Wednesday, either. Sure, he’d been shocked as hell when Amanda made her demand. He’d thought he was in the clear, having paid her off once. That’s what they’d been eating dinner to celebrate. That’s why he’d asked her out to Artie’s in the first place.

Shit. That was a lie, too. He’d asked her to have dinner with him because he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He couldn’t forget the cool taste of mint as he’d kissed her. He couldn’t stop feeling her fingers tightening on his back, the scrape of her nails through his shirt. He got hard every time he pictured her in that knotted T-shirt, wearing those sexy black glasses.

And now he couldn’t forget the look on her face when she’d frozen beneath him, when she’d dared to meet his eyes and make her demand for another twenty-five thousand dollars.

There’d been defiance there—anyone could see that. She was challenging him, making a demand she clearly expected to fight for.

But there’d been more than that. He knew enough about weakness, about uncertainty, about not trusting himself to make the choice he knew was right. He knew what
shame
felt like, well enough to recognize it in someone else. Especially when it was coated in desperation. Because that’s exactly what he’d felt before he went to Coach, back in college. That was the same toxic stew he’d choked down as he told himself he didn’t need Spring Valley, as he realized he might not live without it.

Amanda Carter wasn’t using. He’d been around enough addicts to recognize the signs. She wasn’t strong-arming him for her next hit, or even to finance a side business in illegal drugs.

But whatever she
did
need the money for made her feel weak. Unworthy. And
that
was the look he kept seeing—Amanda haunted, hunted, frantically, desperately alone.

To hell with it. He already knew what his agent would say—call her bluff and turn her in to the authorities. He knew what his counselor would say, way back at Spring Valley—stand up and admit who and what he was and take away her power over him forever. He even knew what
he
would say, at least what he would have said two weeks ago, before he’d ever seen her in the stands. No woman was going to grab him by the balls, choke off his right to control his own life.

But now he knew her. Part of her, at least. Enough to want to know more. Enough to want to find out why she spent an entire night chatting over dinner without once mentioning her family—parents or siblings or anything more personal than a high school chess tournament.

Cursing himself, he dialed her home phone.

“Hello?”

The one word set his heart to hammering, harder than it had two hours ago in the dugout, when he’d watched Sartain’s hit knock in the winning run. He had to swallow hard, had to snag a deep breath before he could say, “It’s me.”

“Kyle.”

She recognized his voice. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “Were you asleep?” he asked.

She sniffed, a sound that might have been amusement. “Hardly. I’m reading about the metabolic pathway of magnesium in cellular polyphosphates.”

“Then I guess you won’t have any trouble sleeping later.”

“Actually, I still have three more articles— Oh. Wait. That was a joke.”

Despite himself, despite the nerves playing hell with his stomach, he shrugged and said, “It was supposed to be.”

There was a long silence, and he could picture her chewing on her lip, pushing her hair back behind her ear. He wondered if she was wearing those glasses, whether she even needed them for reading. Was she sitting at her kitchen table, papers spread out around her? Or maybe she was in bed, leaning back against her pillows. Maybe she was letting her free hand trail down her own stomach, spreading flat against her abs as a lazy heat started to roll over them. He closed his eyes and listened to her breathe.

When she spoke, he could barely make out her words above the thunder of his pulse. “I’m not changing my mind, Kyle.”

That should have been ice water splashed across his lap, bringing down the tent in his boxer briefs. Instead, he made his voice as soft as hers. “You’ll have the checks tomorrow.”

“Then why did you call?” If she hadn’t been whispering, the words would have been a wail. As it was, she was practically moaning. He pictured her with her eyes closed, with her head thrown back, like she was letting him do a hell of a lot more than talk to her across a thousand miles.

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Why had he called?
Because he wanted to hear her voice. Because he wanted to understand more about her. Because he wanted to know who she was, and what the crazy pull was that she had on him—why he couldn’t stop thinking about her when he was awake, why he kept dreaming about her every night he’d been on the road.

“I thought we had a good time at dinner,” he finally said.

“Right.” There was that sniff again. A snort, if she hadn’t been so quiet.

“We did.
I
did. Until…” He purposely trailed off, wondering if she’d finish his sentence. Wondering if she’d let him in.

It took almost a minute, but she finally said, “Until I asked for money.”

“Why do you need it, Amanda?”

He could almost picture her shaking her head. He could imagine the sparks in her eyes as they blazed in determination. “I can’t tell you. It’s not my story to share.”

“But it’s the same reason you needed the hundred grand?”

Another minute. More silence, so thick it seemed like the air around him had turned to stone. But finally she said, “No. I needed the first payment because I’m totally incompetent.”

“I don’t believe that.”

This time she didn’t hesitate. She was more than willing to tell him how stupid she was. How stupid she told herself she was. “I thought I had everything planned. I went to University of Raleigh for college and law school, mostly on scholarship. I’m the first person in my family to get a degree, and I worked for tuition money, for room and board, whatever UR didn’t cover. I tutored in math and science—high school kids whose parents were willing to pay an arm and a leg so they could get into good schools.”

He made one of those small sounds, a hum in the back of his throat that let her know he was listening. She seemed to take heart that he didn’t interrupt her, because she slowed down, choosing her words with greater care.

“I passed the bar exam, and the patent bar too. I got a job at Link Oster, a good job, and I thought everything would be okay.”

Her voice quavered, just a little, on that last word. “But?” he finally prompted.

“But… I have a budget, and I’ve stuck to it. I spent seven years working day and night, on call every single day, and that was good enough for the firm to make me a partner. But I didn’t save enough to buy in. No sane banker would give me a loan because… well, they just won’t. I couldn’t borrow from the partners—they would have questioned if I belonged in the firm at all.”

“So you took the money from me.”

He had to say it because she didn’t, but he thought he’d lost her. This time, he couldn’t hear her breathing. He couldn’t think of the next thing to say, another way to draw her out. But finally, she whispered, “I’ll pay it back. All of it. With interest.”

You don’t have to pay it back
. He almost said that. Almost let her off the hook.

But he couldn’t. She still had the documentation on Spring Valley, papers she could use against him at any time. And he might have a hell of a lot more disposable income than she’d ever dreamed of having, but he shouldn’t be handing it out to strangers. And no matter what his cock kept saying, Amanda Carter
was
a stranger.

Except that wasn’t true.

She was the key to his hitting streak. She was a major reason the Rockets were leading their division. She was the ticket to post-season baseball and to the World Series win he needed.

So instead he said, “You will.” But he added, “After the season ends. After October.”

“All right,” she said. “I promise.”

“And I’ll have the new checks sent to your office by noon tomorrow.”

The new checks. For something she couldn’t tell him about. For something she wouldn’t explain. He
was
a fucking idiot. But he was a fucking idiot without a lead weight in his gut, for the first time in three days.

After that, they didn’t have much left to say. She said she should get back to her article. He said he should get some sleep before the next day’s game.

But long after he hung up, he played the conversation back in his mind. And no matter how many times he thought about what she’d said, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when he’d abandoned his half-assed idea of a phonesex booty call. He couldn’t say exactly when he’d started to care about Amanda Carter.

~~~

Amanda sat at her kitchen table, telling herself to concentrate. She was working. Working hard. She’d spread out medical studies and law review articles. She’d lined up highlighters. She’d sharpened half a dozen pencils, used one of them to pin her hair up off her neck.

But the truth was, she was waiting for her phone to ring.

And when it did, she answered so quickly, her words were almost lost. “Great game!”

“Had to be, after yesterday’s disaster.” Kyle’s voice was easy, relaxed, a far cry from the day before when she’d needed to pull words out of him, syllable by syllable.

“And the hitting streak continues,” she said. “Even though it was a day game. And I was nowhere in sight.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” he said, and she thrilled at his teasing tone. “How many times do I have to tell you? We weren’t—”

“—at Rockets Field. I know.”

It shouldn’t be this easy to talk to the man. Not when she’d been so tongue-tied, just three nights before. Not when it had hurt to carve out the words, to tell him the truth about the mistakes she’d made, how she’d failed to predict her financial needs. At least she’d protected her family’s privacy. She hadn’t divulged her brother’s secrets or her mother’s.

And she’d made it through that horrible conversation. And two more besides—Friday night, late, after the game went into extra innings, when she’d called him to thank him for the checks he’d had delivered to her office. Saturday evening, after the afternoon loss that had put Kyle out of sorts.