Bigger Than Beckham (11 page)

Right now, capitulating to Tony Branch and
running back to her old life couldn’t have been more tempting.

And like a song stuck in a repeating loop,
she couldn’t help wondering what her father would do in this
situation. Would he be able to find a way to save the team, a way
she hadn’t yet been able to discern? What would he think of how she
was trying to carry out his wishes? Would he even regret leaving
the team in her hands after all?

All useless questions, really, but that
didn’t stop them coming at her like high, rolling surf, tossing her
up and down and barring her from moving forward.

And
damn
Tony Branch for bringing it
all to a head, and for causing her to doubt herself. The sexy
British bad boy had offered her an easy way out, no question. All
she had to do was say yes and the team’s future would be secured.
Her staff—some, anyway—would hold onto their good jobs, the fans
and the media would no doubt be thrilled, and her uncle would be
dancing in the streets. As for her, she could hustle her butt back
to Philly with a boatload of dough, and say goodbye forever to a
town that was starting to make her feel like a failure.

Branch had asked if she thought he was a
lunatic, but Martha was beginning to think she was the nut
case.

Frustrated and angry, she resisted the urge
to refill her wine glass and drown her sorrows. Why did she even
care what Tony Branch thought of her? She certainly didn’t owe him
any explanations. And while his tenacity was almost flattering, she
resented that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Would he have
treated her father with such arrogance, or any other male team
owner, for that matter?

Actually, he probably would have, and that
thought—coupled with the image of his uber-confident
attitude—pulled a reluctant smile to her lips.

Determined to shake off her grim mood and get
something to eat, she was hauling her sorry ass off the couch when
the doorbell chimed, startlingly loud in the cool silence of the
house. Sighing, she set her wine glass down on the end table and
headed to the door, expecting to politely chase away some earnest
guy who wanted to sell her gutter helmets or let him power-wash her
house. Other than the food delivery men, those were about the only
people who ever rang her bell, which only served to illustrate the
current state of her social life.

When she peered through the spyhole in the
sturdy oak door, she jumped back as if someone had poked her in the
eye with a stick. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she let out in a
squeaky, convent girl gasp.

Tony Branch was standing out there on her
stoop, and he was holding the biggest batch of pink roses she’d
ever seen. He’d looked directly at the spyhole and plastered an
ear-splitting grin onto his devil-face, obviously anticipating her
reaction.

And the pink roses—how the
hell
did
Branch know her favorite flower and favorite color?

Jane
.

The traitor! She’d obviously been bowled over
by Branch, and the sexy snake must have charmed her into giving him
Martha’s damned address, too. The minute she got into the office
she was going to—

“Martha, I know you’re home,” Branch called
through the door. “Your car is in the driveway, love. I’ll just
leave the flowers here, if you insist, but it really would be nice
to see you again. And I promise I won’t say a word about buying the
Thunder. Scout’s honor.”

Martha thunked her forehead lightly against
the door, trying to ignore the quivery feeling in her thighs. She’d
immediately flushed from head to toe, which told her everything she
needed to know about her instinctive physical reaction to the man.
That was a weakness she could not afford.

“I upset you today, I’m afraid,” he continued
in a coaxing voice. “I want to try to make up for it. I was hoping
you’d let me take you out to dinner.”

She peeked out the spyhole again. Branch was
looking both soulful and charmingly sheepish, which was a hell of a
trick. Martha was convinced he did it deliberately, certain she
would be peering out at him intently.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Giving in to the inevitable, she cracked the
door open and stuck out her hand quickly as if to snatch the roses
from him. Surprised, he took a half step back. She snickered as she
finally swung the door open. “Gotcha,” she crowed, mustering up a
carefree air.

Branch snorted, and then swept her a deep bow
before handing her the roses. “It’s delightful to see you again,
Martha,” he purred in his delicious Brit growl. “You are utterly
gorgeous.”

“And you are so full of it, Branch,” she
retorted, rolling her eyes.

Gorgeous? Hell, she was still wearing the
sweat pants and tee shirt she’d thrown on when she got home. But
then she realized just how tight that particular tee shirt was, and
how his gaze was currently arrested at her boob level. Flushing,
she pressed the bouquet against her chest.

“Well, I suppose you might as well come in,”
she said. “I’m not normally this rude, but you bring out the worst
in me, it seems.”

“You must not like surprises,” Branch said.
“You reacted the same way this afternoon, but I decided I had to
take the risk of incurring your wrath once again.”

Refusing to rise to that bait, Martha waved
him in, giving him the once over as she did. He had on the same
outfit as a few hours earlier, except for sunglasses that he now
took off and slid into an inside pocket of his jacket.

He smiled. “I’m an impulsive man—at least in
some ways. And I do enjoy taking risks.”

“Really? I never would have guessed.” She
glanced out to where a taxi was parked in front of her walkway. “I
presume that’s yours, but why is he still sitting there?”

“Ah, I asked him to wait. He can drive us to
dinner whenever you’re ready.”

“That confident, are you?” She shook her head
in disbelief. Branch was right—she didn’t much like surprises, but
she should have anticipated a bold move like this. The guy just
didn’t take no for an answer.

She stared at him, trying to make up her
mind. He simply shoved his hands in his pockets and waited her out,
looking totally easy and totally at home.

Oh, what the hell.

It wasn’t like she had anything else to do,
and she was getting pretty darn sick of her own company. “Go pay
him off and save a few bucks, Branch. I’ll drive us.”

His brows lifted, but he had the brains not
to argue, heading silently out to the curb to pay off the cab. When
he returned, Martha led him into the kitchen. “I gather you like
bourbon,” she said.

“God bless Kentucky,” he said, glancing
around at the big, light-filled room. He focused on the back wall
that was mostly windows with a patio door leading out to a garden
that sloped down to the river. Her father had rarely cooked, but he
liked to have friends over for barbecues and the occasional
spaghetti dinner, so he’d had a state of the art kitchen installed
when he bought the house.

“Nice place,” Branch commented as she
rummaged around in the cabinets for a vase big enough to hold two
dozen roses.

“Thanks. It was my daddy’s.” She pointed to
the glass-fronted cabinet next to the fridge. “There are some
tumblers in there. Pour us a couple of shots, if you wouldn’t mind.
And there’s ice in the freezer if you want it.” She located a tall,
sturdy glass vase and carried it over to the French-style butcher’s
block in the middle of the room.

“I gather you take yours neat,” he said as he
retrieved the glasses.

“Hell, yes.” She struggled a moment with the
cellophane on the flowers, but managed to get it off without making
too much of a mess. “By the way,” she said as she started to
arrange the roses, “what did you promise Jane to get her to cough
up the dope about the kind of flowers I like? Not to mention my
damn address.”

“Don’t blame that lovely girl,” Branch said,
handing her a glass. “We do our research thoroughly. I have no
doubt Jane is as loyal and discreet as she is hospitable.” He
finished up with an utterly charming smile.

Martha narrowed her eyes at him, afraid to
think what else his research on her might have revealed. Silently,
she led him into the living room and firmly pointed him to a
silk-covered wingback chair, well away from the couch where she
settled in, and tucked her legs underneath her. Despite the fact
that she actually
did
want to have dinner with him, every
instinct in her body screamed at her to tread ever so
carefully.

“Research, huh? I’d call that a little
alarming, Branch. Sounds damn intrusive to me.”

“Martha, if you don’t start calling me Tony,
I’m going to have to bash my head through that big picture window
over there. And as for alarming…please. There’s more spying going
on in the corporate world these days than there ever was in the
Cold War.”

“I suppose,” she said reluctantly after
slugging back a hefty swallow of bourbon. “That doesn’t make it
right, though.”

He tilted his head and studied her, his dark
eyes probing. She had the feeling he was adept at reading people,
research or not.

“Point taken,” he finally said. “Where would
you like to go for dinner? I’m partial to Indian food, which I fear
might be a stretch for this town. But I can eat anything as long as
it’s not still moving.”

“Didn’t your spies tell you what I like?” she
teased, giving him a saucy smile.
Time to take back some
control.

“You really want to go there, do you?” He
shot her a sly grin. “Okay, let’s see. Your favorite food is
Italian, and your restaurant of choice is Genotti’s, but that’s in
south Philadelphia so it’s a little far for an evening outing.
Though I’ll look forward to doing it another time.”

She jerked upright on the couch. He even knew
her favorite restaurant? “Okay, this is starting to creep me out.
Dare I ask what the hell else you’ve dug up about me?”

Tony lifted his hands in an open gesture.
“It’s all harmless stuff, Martha, I promise. Besides, you’re
something of a public figure because of the team, and you’ve gained
some celebrity through your writing career, too. You know there’s
been a fair amount of coverage in the gossip rags and
newspapers.”

Martha couldn’t really argue with that. Aside
from her professional standing, she’d garnered some media attention
simply through a few of the men she’d dated over the years. During
her affair with baseball superstar Nate Carter, for example, they’d
been hounded off and on by various paparazzi. And then there was
the short fling with the Symphony’s first violinist, which landed
her in the gossip column a couple of times.

“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted,
feeling a little better.

His warm, reassuring smile had a pool of
warmth gathering in her lower body. Lord, the man was lethal, a
fact she could never let herself forget.

“I haven’t thanked you for the flowers, I’m
afraid,” she said politely. “I’m sorry about that.”

“My pleasure. Beautiful flowers for an
incredibly beautiful woman.” He raised his glass to her.

His over-the-top compliment made her laugh.
“You’re a real smooth talker for a jock. And it doesn’t take any
research to know
your
reputation on the social scene.”

He quirked a lip before he answered. “Ah, you
wound me, Martha,” he said in a sardonic tone. “But think about it.
How much of what the gossip columns have written about you is true?
Five per cent?”

Martha tilted her head as she pondered the
question for a moment. “More than that, I suppose, but I’m just a
lowly scribe, not a soccer mogul and one of the most eligible
bachelors in England.”

Tony shrugged away her comparison. “Most of
that stuff is pure bullshit. Some freelancer snaps a photo of me
standing beside a woman I barely know, and the next thing I’m
reading in some tabloid that we’re an item. And then a week after
that we’re apparently throwing things at each other in a restaurant
and calling it quits, according to
confidential
sources.
”

Martha grimaced, knowing it was probably all
true. “Sadly, a lot of people are stupid and gullible. Those kinds
of rags will always thrive, while quality journalism is more and
more on the ropes.”

“A sad reality indeed, but succinctly and
nicely put, as one would expect from a fine lady scribe.”

She rounded her eyes, deciding to give a
little of his own back to him. It was like poking a stick at a
sleeping alligator, but she couldn’t seem to resist. “If you don’t
mind my saying so, you speak awfully well for a working class lad
from a tough part of Middlesbrough,” she said in a sugar-sweet
voice.

His gaze turned sullen and smoky. A look like
that shouldn’t be sexy, but it was—insanely so. Or maybe she was
just a complete moron.

“Just because I quit school at seventeen to
play professional football doesn’t mean I’m some yob. I read books,
Martha,” he growled.

She held up a hand defensively. “I was just
yanking your chain a bit. No offense intended.”

One corner of his mouth—and it was a very
nice
mouth—twisted a bit. “None taken.” There was a hint of
apology in his voice. “I suppose I react that way because I still
get looked down on in certain quarters.”

Martha raised a brow. “Quarters? Which
quarters? You’re a freaking superstar.”

He shrugged. “You know. Quarters where they
love you as long as you’re running your arse off on the pitch and
heading balls into the net. But God help you if you don’t know your
place.”

“Some people still resent your success as a
team owner?” She shook her head. “That’s nuts.”

He shrugged again, like it didn’t matter a
bit. But she suspected it mattered a lot.

“Ordinary Joes think it’s great. They like
the fact that one of them made it to the top.” His mouth flattened
a bit. “Or almost to the top, anyway. But, sure, there’s a lot of
resentment out there. And I can be a bit rough around the edges at
times.”