Sleeping With the Enemy (21 page)

Mimi snorted. “She claims there’s nothing going on. Of course, McManus hasn’t taken his eyes
off her since she got out of the car, despite the fact one of his players is hunched over on the field.”

“A player’s hurt?” Asia quickly turned to see who might be injured.

Bridgett glanced farther down the sideline. Sure enough, Jay’s stare was fixed on her. He looked imposing behind his
aviator sunglasses, his arms crossed belligerently over his chest. Imposing and sexy as hell, especially
when the breeze ruffled his hair. But she forced her feet to stay put. She needed to stick to her plan to put distance between them. It was the only way she knew how to survive the rest of this weekend.

“That’s just Jervais Stubbing, an offensive lineman,” Asia said with a sigh. “He always tries to dog it in practice the day before a game.”

The shrill sound of a whistle focused their attention
back to the subject they’d come to discuss. “That’s the end of practice. The players will shower here before they get back on the buses for the hotel, so we have about twenty minutes or so to discuss your plans.” Asia directed them to the first row of seats in the stadium. “Let’s go over here.”

“Bridgett!” Brody shouted her name before they’d reached the bleachers.

With a sigh, she turned
to the other two women and excused herself. Brody had been badgering her for three days and there really was no way to put this conversation off any longer.

“We need to talk,” her brother commanded as he stalked toward her. “Privately.” He reached out and shackled her wrist with the extra-long fingers that allowed him to be the premier tight end in the NFL. Right now they were likely bruising
her wrist as he pulled her toward the tunnel leading to the locker room.

“Let go, Brody.” Bridgett tugged to no avail as she tried to keep up with his long strides. “I. Am. Serious. Let me go now or I’ll post those pictures of you wearing Ashley’s tutu when you were four.”

His eyes narrowed to slits as he dragged her into a small office beside the locker room. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“All it takes is one click of a button on my phone,” she said. “Come to think of it, Mimi and Asia would probably be delighted to have that as a distraction to all the other stupid press the team has been getting. Good thing I scanned it in already.”

Brody released her wrist, his face incredulous. “Seriously, when did my sisters all turn into hormonal psychos? You used to be the reasonable
one.” He tossed his helmet on an empty chair. “And don’t
even
get me started on Gwen.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry if Gwen’s marriage crisis means she can’t cater to your every whim right now, little brother, but we all have to grow up sometime.”

“Hey, I can take care of myself. And believe me, I’m all in favor of her divorcing that jerk’s ass. Skip’s lucky I didn’t castrate him after
the way he talked about Shay last year.”

“Okay, well, I’m glad we got that all cleared up.” She started for the door. “Believe it or not, I’m working this weekend and I have more to discuss with Mimi and Asia. Who knows what garbage the blogger is going to feed these protesters next. I’ll see you tomorrow after the game.”

“Whoa!” Brody blocked her path as if she were a defensive lineman
trying to get to the quarterback. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain what the hell is going on between you and McManus.”

“Say the word and I
will
trade his ass to Buffalo, Bridgett.”

She looked past her brother’s shoulder pad to see Jay leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb, his feet crossed at the ankles and each hand tucked beneath the opposite armpit. Brody made a growling
sound and suddenly she was suffocating from the weight of alpha male egos permeating the small room.

“You can
cut
my ass, for all I care,” Brody said, his voice quiet, but lethal. Displaying the fearlessness that made him a Pro Bowl player, he turned and stalked toward the man who held his career in his back pocket. “If you so much as make her sniffle,
your
ass is mine.”

“Brody!” Bridgett
jumped between the two men, placing a staying hand on her brother’s chest while shooting him a quelling look. “Tutu.”

Jay’s only movement was to arch an eyebrow at his star player. Brody huffed but he came to a stop two feet from Jay, leaving Bridgett sandwiched between them. He leveled his trademark baby blue eyes at her. “Tell me he isn’t the one.”

Bridgett’s mind whirred in confusion.
“Isn’t the one what?”

“The guy who broke your heart.”

She sensed Jay stiffen behind her, but she was glad she couldn’t see his face. “I don’t understand, Brody,” she whispered.

“Damn it, Bridgett, that stupid blogger said this relationship between you two goes way back. I want to know if this jerk’s the one who messed you up.”

Her chest ached at the fierceness in her brother’s
eyes and his voice. “Nobody messed me up,” she lied. She couldn’t have this conversation with her brother. She would not have it in front of Jay.

Brody lifted his eyes to the ceiling, mouthing something to the heavens. His expression was a mix of compassion and uncertainty when he looked back down at her. “I may not have a PhD like my wife, but I’m not stupid, Bridge. I see the way you close
up around other couples. I watch you recoil whenever someone brings a baby near you. Sometimes you get that pained look when you’re in a room full of happy people as if their joy is crushing you. I hate that haunted expression you get. Someone let you down, destroyed your faith in love. You said as much last year when I was trying to find my way with Shay.” He gripped her shoulders. “I’d do anything
to take that ache away from you.” Brody’s face hardened as he pinned his gaze over her head. “Anything.”

Bridgett had to work to steady her breathing and keep her tears at bay. She was touched by her brother’s words. All this time, she’d thought him oblivious to anyone other than himself. Or his new wife. A small smile escaped at the thought that perhaps her baby brother had grown up after
all.

The air grew still behind her. The only indication that Jay remained was a tightening of Brody’s jaw. Bridgett didn’t like Jay hearing how vulnerable he’d left her after his desertion in Italy. She needed to get her brother out of there. Lifting her hand from his chest, she cupped his cheek. “Thank you, Brody. But this isn’t what you think.” She tried to muster as much conviction in her
voice as she could. “But I love you for your very spirited protection of me.” She stretched up on
her toes and kissed his cheek. “Get your head back in the game and stop worrying about me. I’m fine.”

Brody hesitated before wrapping his arms around her. “I’m not kidding when I say I’ll kill him,” he whispered.

“I know.”

Her brother savagely eyed the man who was technically his boss
before sliding past him and out the door, his cleats clicking loudly on the cement. The silence he left in his wake was charged as a maelstrom of emotions coursed through Bridgett. When she finally dared look at Jay it was to find him studying her much like one would analyze a puzzle. He hadn’t moved an inch from his original stance, but his contemplative stare was making her uncomfortable.

“I should be getting back to Mimi and Asia,” she said.

“We need to talk,” he commanded at the same time.

Neither one moved. Bridgett didn’t want to talk. Not to this Jay. Her heart ached to speak to the Jay she once knew, but he was long gone, replaced by the über-sexy man who used power and money to get what he wanted. And he wanted her. Correction: He didn’t want all of her. Just her
body. She needed to keep reminding herself that she deserved more than sex.

Thankfully, they were saved by the arrival of Linc. “Boss, I think you should see this.” He shoved his iPad in front of Jay, but Jay kept his eyes fixed on Bridgett. “Boss?”

Jay blinked as if to refocus his vision and his thoughts before glancing down at the iPad.

“Son of a
bitch
!”

“He’s likely set himself up for racketeering charges,” Bridgett practically shouted into her cell phone. “Stuart, I’m going to need a little backup here. We’re getting into uncharted legal territory for me.”

Jay watched as Bridgett paced his office, her cell phone plastered to her ear. She was wearing a dress that hugged every curve and dipped low enough in the back that
he almost got a peek at the dimple just above her nice round ass. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair because if he could see that damn dimple, then every other jerk at the party could, too. All the more reason to keep her locked in here with him. Her high heels sparkled in the light when she pivoted to pace back the other way. Jay took a bracing sip of Scotch, trying to quash the heat that shot
to his crotch at the thought of her wearing nothing but those damn shoes while she straddled him in this very chair.

“Why are you grinning like a fool?”

He roused himself from his fantasy to find Bridgett had finished up her phone call. She’d stopped pacing and was
now standing next to him. Too bad the expression she wore wasn’t one that said “I’m going to rock your world.”

She’d been
on the warpath ever since the latest installment of the
Girlfriends’ Guide to the NFL
dropped onto the Internet this afternoon. Delaney had gone for broke, implying that Jay was involved with organized gambling on NFL games. She’d claimed he’d been sighted in the Wynn—a fact that could be easily substantiated via surveillance cameras—where a known gambling ring was operating. As parting shots
went, it was a doozy. He’d underestimated Delaney’s apparent vendetta and that frustrated him more than having Bridgett strutting her stuff with half of the NFL sponsors two hundred feet away.

“What were you thinking?” she continued. “I told you not to go vigilante on this blogger, but do you listen? No! Now she’s implicated you in something much more difficult to defend against. The commissioner
is apoplectic and threatening to take away your team. As for the media, they’ve descended into a feeding frenzy. Seriously, the women protesting on behalf of the cheerleaders are the least of your worries right now. Yet you’re sitting here coolly. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Jay stood to his full height, adjusting his tuxedo around his very tight boxer briefs, not wanting to let
her know he was anything but cool. “What was your brother talking about earlier today?”

He’d caught her off guard. She blinked those silver eyes a few times, apparently trying to catch up with his quick subject change. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean, counselor.”

Bridgett shifted uneasily on her heels. “He was just being Brody. It doesn’t concern you.”

She crossed
her arms beneath her breasts and once again Jay was glad he had her all to himself. He didn’t want to share her with another man. Ever. But someone had “messed her up” according to her brother and that thought had been consuming him all afternoon, too. Was it the guy she’d sent him
the Dear John letter for? Whoever he was, Brody had better hope he got to him first.

Jay reached out and traced
a finger along the line of her jaw, shifting it up to tangle in the cascade of stones hanging from her ear. “Everything about you concerns me.” It was an admission he didn’t want to make out loud, but the words hit the air before he could stop them.

Bridgett sunk her teeth into her lower lip before jutting her chin up defiantly. “I think it’s best if we keep things professional from here on
out, Jay. I don’t want your mind games getting in the way of my mounting a winning defense for you.”

“I told you not to worry about my defense. It’s all going to work out.”

Her eyes widened as her hands shoved at his chest. “For the love of Pete, this isn’t something you can buy your way out of, Jay. This is serious.”

Jay wrapped his arms around her and did what he’d wanted to do ever
since he’d laid eyes on her in that dress: He crushed her to his body. She inhaled sharply when she came in contact with his arousal. “The only thing serious right now is how soon I can get you out of that dress.”

“Your arrogance really knows no bounds,” she said.

He smiled confidently to himself, though, when she sank farther into his body. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you
actually cared about what happens to me.”

She pulled back, eyeing him in what looked like disbelief. Her lips quivered slightly before she reined her emotions back behind the cool façade she wore for everyone else. “You’re a fool, you know that?”

Bridgett stepped out of his embrace and the inches separating their bodies suddenly felt like a gulf. Jay silently cursed at himself. He was
a fool. A damn fool who, if he wasn’t careful, could lose his heart to this woman a second time. There was a loud knocking on the office door and Bridgett took another giant step back.

Jay moved behind the desk. “The cavalry has finally arrived.”

The door swung open and Linc charged in. “Boss, the FBI is here.” He stepped aside and Jay’s friend from prep school, Matt Kovaluk, strode into
the room.

“You didn’t tell me this shindig was black tie,” Matt said. “I could have come dressed as Bond if you’d given me some warning.” Matt’s eyes darted over to Bridgett and his face relaxed into an appreciative grin. “Damn. And a Bond girl, too. You really have the life, McAnus.”

Linc chuckled at the stupid boyhood nickname that Matt never let him outgrow. Jay leveled a look at his
assistant and Linc’s laugh turned into a cough.

“The commissioner?” Jay directed the question at Linc, but Matt answered for him.

“The director of the field office drew his name. He gets to schmooze with the big celebrities while I get—you.” He shot Bridgett one of his smarmy grins, which never failed to help him score in a bar but was bugging the shit out of Jay right now. “Although I
must say the view in here is much nicer.”

Jay signaled for Linc to close the door behind him on the way out. He didn’t want one of his guests—most of whom had shown up tonight in hopes of getting ringside seats to Jay’s dressing-down by the commissioner—to overhear their conversation.

“Don’t say a word, Jay,” Bridgett said, her lawyerly mask firmly in place. But if he wasn’t mistaken,
her fingers were trembling a bit as she reached for her phone. “If they’re going to question you, I want Stuart on the phone, too.”

“Whoa there, gorgeous.” Matt held up a hand. “The last time I asked this idiot a question, he gave me the wrong answer to a U.S. history test. He actually thought Lewis and Clark were a rock band.” Matt laughed and Jay shook his head.

Bridgett narrowed her
eyes at the FBI agent, but she didn’t loosen her death grip on her phone. “What’s going on here, Jay?”

“Bridgett, allow me to introduce you to Not-So-Very-Special Agent Matt Kovaluk. Matt is with the organized crime unit of the FBI. But not because he deserves to work
in such a prestigious agency. His mommy made them pick him. She’s a federal judge.” Matt’s pretty smile didn’t fade despite
the dig. Jay sighed. “Matt, this is my attorney, Bridgett Janik.”

“She’s your lawyer?” Matt heaved a reverent sigh. “I am seriously on the wrong side of the law.” He stretched his hand out to Bridgett, his green eyes twinkling obnoxiously. “Your client isn’t under any suspicion here. In fact, he’s been doing his civic duty for the past few days. Never mind sanctions. The commissioner will
be forced to name a stadium after him when this is all done.”

Jay walked over to the bar and poured Matt a drink. “Something tells me he won’t like that.”

“Could one of you catch me up here, please?” Bridgett was starting to get that testy look—the one Jay loved to kiss off her lips. But he didn’t dare touch her right now. Not when he felt the line between sex and emotional involvement
was beginning to blur.

Matt took the drink and settled into one of the chairs while Jay leaned a hip on the corner of his desk. He nodded toward the chair beside Matt, but Bridgett shook her head, practically tapping her toe in frustration.

“Jay and the super spy network that he’s cultivated throughout his career just helped us nab a Chinese gambling ring known as Sagittarius X. Interpol
has been trying to take them down for three years,” Matt said as he sipped his Scotch. “It was almost child’s play, it was so easy once you came over from the dark side, Jay.”

Bridgett’s eyebrows went up a hair as she cocked her head. “And just how did he do that?”

“By being a ruthless pain in the ass.” Matt saluted him with his glass. “But you owe me fifty-yard-line seats for the rest
of the season. I told you she wouldn’t take the bait and shut down her blog. Not even for you. Delaney Silverberg seriously has it out for you and Blake Callahan.”

“Delaney?” Bridgett’s arms dropped to her sides. “
Your
Delaney? She’s the blogger?”

Matt snickered. “Technically she was Blake’s Delaney.
But Blue Eyes here had a soft spot for her up until the end. Sucker.”

Jay rubbed at
the back of his neck, trying to make the squeezing stop. He’d really hoped Delaney would make the wise decision. For such an intelligent woman, she wasn’t very smart.

“I’m still not following why Delaney is writing the blog and what it has to do with a gambling ring,” Bridgett said.

“Do you want to do the honors or shall I?” Matt asked.

Shaking his head, Jay looked over at Bridgett,
who was now gripping the back of the chair. “Delaney has always had gambling issues,” he began. “It was the reason she and Blake broke up. She owed a lot of money. I bailed her out with the money I was supposed to pay Vincenzo DiSantis for his pinot grigio formula.”

Bridgett gasped softly and her fingers dug into the chair.

“First mistake,” Matt chimed in sarcastically.

“She has a
brilliant mind for software. Without her McManus Industries wouldn’t be where it is today,” Jay snapped. “I made the money back in less than two years.”

“And you eventually got your winery.” Matt spread his arms wide. “Which produces a very fine pinot grigio, I might add.”

“There are still a few pieces of the story missing,” Bridgett said irritably. “Like how she went from McManus Industries
to a Chinese gambling ring, for instance.”

Jay slammed his drink down on the desk. None of this was his fault. Except for being an idiot and trusting his former roommate to have more sense than she obviously did. “She has an addiction. One she thought she could outsmart, but apparently not. A few years after the company took off, I caught her stealing funds from one of the accounts. She’d
managed to pilfer a little at a time, but by the time I was wise to her she’d socked a million dollars or so away in a Swiss bank account. But instead of using that money to pay off her increasing gambling debts, she stupidly tried to sell some proprietary data of ours to the Chinese. I fired her on the spot.”

“You took the money back from the Swiss bank account,
though, right?” Bridgett didn’t
include the word “chump” at the end of the question, but he heard it loud and clear in her tone.

Matt snickered again and Jay’s hands balled into fists. “No. I didn’t. I wanted her out of my life and that money was an insurance policy against her having to come back around looking for more. It was a pittance compared to what I made from her designs.”

Bridgett shook her head. “So instead
of selling the data to the Chinese, she sold herself instead.”

“She liked to play the indentured servant, but she’s spent the last six years skimming money off the top of their winnings. I kept tabs on the account. The world economy hasn’t been that robust that she’s earned twenty-five million in interest.”

“And now it’s all in the hands of Interpol,” Matt muttered in disgust.

“So
you went to Las Vegas and used that information to suggest she stop blogging?”

Jay wanted to kiss her and her keen mind for catching on so quickly. “Yes.”

“Well, that was an epic failure,” she said caustically, making Jay not so eager to kiss her anymore. “We learned last year when Brody’s trainer was being blackmailed by her to sell out Brody’s secret that she was only blogging to get
back at someone. Now we know that someone was you.”

“And Blake,” Matt chimed in, seeming to enjoy the direction the conversation was going. “She used her ill-gotten gains to finance her gossip purchases.”

Bridgett crossed her arms beneath her breasts again and Jay watched out of the corner of his eye as his friend sat up straighter to enjoy the view. “She clearly didn’t care about money,
as you might have noticed if you’d taken
just one second
to think this through.” Nope, he definitely didn’t want to kiss her now. “A woman scorned isn’t going to be satisfied until she gets even.”

Jay arched an eyebrow at her, challenging her to say more, but her lips formed a harsh line.

“Exactly what I told you, McAnus, but you had to be a softy and give Delaney one more chance.”

Bridgett stiffened at Matt’s words. “One more chance?”

“Yeah, he nearly blew the whole thing by warning her off,” Matt explained. “But it turned out her desire to prove she still had the upper hand was her downfall. Our tech guys put a wormhole in the blog. If we were lucky enough she’d post from the hotel suite. But in her desperation, she did us one better, and used one of the gambling site’s
laptops. Right there in the Honolulu airport. It was awesome. She won’t be blogging again for a very long time.” Matt grinned widely. “The case was broken wide-open on U.S. soil all because Jay was a sucker. I’ve told you not to be so trusting but you never learn, do you?”

Jay’s gut clenched at the haughty look Bridgett was wearing. She thought he was a fool for trusting Delaney, but he’d
been a bigger fool for trusting her. He was actually grateful for Matt’s reminder. “I believe I’ve learned my lesson,” he said, never taking his eyes off Bridgett. “I won’t be giving my trust away freely ever again.” He watched as she swallowed harshly and her stance became brittle.

“So this is it, then,” she said. The implication in her words wasn’t lost on Jay.

“No, there are still some
unresolved issues.”
Like the fact that Jay’s desire for her body hadn’t ebbed in the least
. He was aware that Matt was studying them both carefully, but he didn’t give a shit. Jay still wasn’t ready to let her walk out of his life again.