Bigger Than Beckham (23 page)

Was it shame that had stopped her? Shame that
she’d so readily scampered off to the bedroom with a man who was
determined to pull the rug—however threadbare it might be—from
under her feet?

Maybe, but Martha judged it was more likely
simple doubt about what it all meant, and the implications for her
and for the team’s future. She was grimly determined
not
to
inquire too deeply into that subject. Not now, anyway. Now, she was
going to try as hard as she could to enjoy some long-overdue fun,
however difficult that might turn out to be. Though she thought
Jane would understand that, her pangs of uncertainty, especially in
light of the Thunder’s financial situation, made her decide to keep
her own counsel on the subject at least until after London.

For now, Martha thought it best to keep what
had happened between her and Tony off the record for as long as she
possibly could.

Martha gazed down through the private jet’s
small window, blinking to focus her weary eyes. As London’s majesty
revealed itself through the broken cloud cover, her nerves jangled
with a combination of eager anticipation and something close to
dread.

A few minutes ago the pilot had announced
that Tony’s timeshare jet was on its final approach into London
City Airport, which she knew was somewhere on the Thames east of
the city center. Despite the fluttery sensation in her stomach, she
couldn’t hold back a grin when they passed directly over the Houses
of Parliament and Big Ben.

She glanced to the right to meet Tony’s gaze.
His eyes tracked her every move, and he sported an entirely
self-satisfied smile. Actually, smug was more like it. No doubt he
could tell from her goofy expression and by the way her eyes had
been glued to the landscape below that she was excited out of her
sleep-deprived mind. Despite her trepidation about what was to come
tonight, her return to London thrilled her.

For an hour after they left Jacksonville
early that morning, she and Tony had chatted about places to visit
and the latest hot restaurants, carefully avoiding any mention of
the Thunder. Soon enough, Tony had moved to the rear of the
luxurious cabin to sit across a small table from Rex. The two men
had quickly become locked in animated discussions about their
English teams. Bored after a short time with the in-flight
entertainment, Martha had pulled out her notebook and begun to
sketch out some notes for her meeting with Colton that evening—not
that it would be the beginning of an actual interview since she
hadn’t even made up her mind that she was going to take the
assignment.

No, this was a more of an exploration aimed
at helping her come to a decision. She had to be prepared for
various scenarios that could play out, and she needed to think all
of them through because that was the only way she knew how to
operate as a reporter. Winging it was for fresh out of journalism
school hotshots with more fire in their bellies than sense in their
heads.

Her phone call to Colton the previous
afternoon had unfolded with less angst than she’d anticipated.
She’d obviously caught him a bit off-guard, though his imbalance
was only momentary and he quickly made it clear he was delighted
she’d be coming to London to meet him. But when he insisted on
taking her to dinner on Friday evening after her plane arrived,
Martha had tried to demur. Saying she’d be exhausted from the long
flight, she suggested meeting the following morning, perhaps for
breakfast. She hadn’t yet confessed to Tony that she had an
ulterior motive for letting him whisk her off to London, and she
knew he’d be less than thrilled at the prospect of her spending the
evening of their arrival with a notorious bad boy like Colton
Butler. In fact, there was a very strong likelihood that he’d be
royally pissed.

But Colton had told her he’d was going to
spend the weekend in Scotland working on his game, so unless she
wanted to meet him up there—and he had no problem with that
option—their get-together would have to be on Friday evening.
Seeing no other choice, Martha had reluctantly agreed. Now, she was
still waiting anxiously for the right moment to break the news to
Tony. It obviously didn’t mean she wouldn’t spend the night with
him—in fact, she had every intention of doing exactly that. But the
romantic evening he’d likely been planning would be torched when
she finally owned up to what she’d done.

“We passed Fenton Park on your side a minute
or two ago,” Tony said. “Did you spot it?”

Martha hadn’t even thought to try to pick out
the west-end stadium in the sprawl of the metropolis. “Sorry, no.
But there’s St. Paul’s ahead.” She gestured to her left. “And
there’s the Tower of London, too.”

Tony chuckled, making her think she must
sound like a rookie tourist even though she’d been to London close
to a dozen times, mostly on assignment.

“No matter. You’ll see Fenton up close
tomorrow,” he said. “I told Rex to make sure you and I have the
suite all to ourselves.” He gave her a sly wink. “I doubt anything
could ever top the evening in your suite, but I think we should
give it a good go, don’t you?”

Lord have mercy!

As the image of the two of them doing it all
over her stadium suite—like they hadn’t had sex in a decade—came
back to her, Martha’s body temperature rose a few degrees and a
flush travelled up her neck to her face. She was way too young to
be getting hot flashes, she figured, so it had to be all Tony’s
doing.

“Did I shock you?” he said, leaning toward
her. “I was only pulling your leg, you know.” He gave her a
smoldering look that made her really start to sweat. “Well, sort
of, anyway,” he finished with a sensual purr.

This is getting ridiculous.
She was
acting like a schoolgirl on a first date with the high school
quarterback.

Martha grabbed a firm hold of her wayward
libido. “You certainly did shock me, mister. I expect to be wined,
dined and thoroughly pampered on this little excursion, not shagged
on some lumpy sofa above a soccer pitch.” She tried to level him
with a firm, headmistress glare, but ended up smiling at him
instead.

Apparently biting back a laugh, Tony schooled
his features into a serious gaze. “Oh, wined and dined and pampered
you’ll surely be, love. We’ll head to my place first, of course,
and get settled in and grab a quick shower. Then I thought we’d
have drinks at the Savoy, followed by dinner—”

“Oh, crap,” Martha blurted, interrupting him
because it was clear she’d run out of time. “Tony, I’m afraid I
have a confession to make.”

His brow furrowed. “A confession?”

The engines changed pitch again at that
moment and Martha realized that they were gliding toward an
imminent touch-down. Instinctively, she gripped the armrests of her
seat and braced for the plane’s impact with the runway. She’d
always been a bit nervous about landings, and even the smooth
descent of the Falcon hadn’t eliminated her nerves. Fortunately,
the wheels hit the surface with a barely perceptible bounce, and
she gave a grateful mental high-five to the pilots.

As the plane slowed in its roll toward the
end of the runway, the flight attendant unbuckled, rose and pulled
back the curtain that separated the galley from the cabin. Then she
headed past Martha and straight to the back of the plane,
presumably for some final clean-up. After the attendant passed,
Martha turned to face Tony who was still gazing at her in obvious
puzzlement.

“I have a little story I need to tell you,”
she said, after peeling her fingers from their death grip on the
armrests.

Tony shifted, leaning toward her, his jaw
tight. “I’m listening.”

She gave him a bare-bones summary of her
calls with Martin James and told him about the dilemma she faced
over accepting or declining an assignment to write a high-profile
feature that could possibly take her journalism career to another
level. His brows arched a few times during her brief monologue and
Martha thought he actually looked rather pleased. She sensed from
his reaction that he was inferring that it meant she was looking at
her future in terms of journalism rather than in continuing her
ownership of a losing soccer squad.

“Why are you calling that a confession?” he
said as the plane continued to hold at the entrance to a taxiway,
waiting for another small aircraft to crawl by.

“I was getting to that,” she said, trying not
to sound too tense or apologetic. “I’ve come to London mainly to be
with you, of course, Tony. But it’s not the only reason.” Oh, God,
she hated the way that had sounded. “What I mean is, I decided I
could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, since I was
already going to be here with you.”

That sounded better. At least it didn’t put
out the erroneous impression that Tony might be second in
importance to her journalistic mission.

Tony simply nodded, his expression almost
blank. As the plane got rolling again, Martha sucked it up and told
him what the assignment was, the name of the man she needed to talk
to, and why she had to spend the evening with Colton Butler instead
of him.

As soon as Colton’s name left her lips,
Tony’s hands tightened into fists and his cheekbones flushed the
color of brick. “You’re having dinner with sodding Colton Butler?”
he snarled. “Martha, please tell me you’re having me on.” He looked
angry enough to put his fist through the seat in front of him.

Martha gaped at him, stunned. Of course he’d
be unhappy about her blowing him off for dinner, but he seemed way
more steamed about
who
she was having dinner with than the
fact that she was temporarily standing him up. She didn’t
understand that, and she didn’t appreciate either his tone or his
bristling posture.

She returned Tony’s hostile gaze with an
implacable one of her own. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I
really am. It was cowardly of me, and I feel terrible about
disappointing you. But surely I don’t have to apologize for
scheduling a business dinner that’s going to help me make a big
career decision,” she said, keeping her voice firm but still
pleasant.

Tony closed his eyes for a couple of moments,
clearly gathering himself. When he met her gaze again, the fury in
his eyes had abated. “Martha, listen. Yes, I wish you’d told me
earlier, and I’m disappointed that we won’t have a celebratory
dinner on your arrival on my home ground. It isn’t the way I wanted
us to kick off a great weekend. But I get it. This story is
obviously important to you, and if you say you’ve got to have a
meeting about it tonight, then you’ve got to have a meeting about
it tonight.”

Martha tried not to make it too obvious how
desperately relieved she felt. But she did give him a grateful
smile. “Thank you for being so understanding, Tony.”

He didn’t return her smile. In fact, his jaw
was every bit as tight as it had been, and his mouth was still a
grim line. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway?

“But, Jesus, Martha,” he said, “we’re talking
about Colton Butler. And that’s where my understanding comes
crashing to a full, hard stop. The man’s a bastard—a bloody abusive
bastard with the morals of a rutting baboon.”

Martha’s mouth went dry, making her have to
swallow twice before she could answer him. “My God, Tony, I’ve
known Colton Butler for quite a while. And, yes, he’s far from
being a prince among men. But I didn’t think he was quite Satan,
either. So, exactly what the hell are you talking about?”

The jet braked to a smooth stop and the pilot
shut the engines down. It threw the passenger cabin into near
silence. The flight attendant hurried back through and Martha heard
Rex stand up.

Tony jerked his head away and reached for his
seatbelt. “We’ll continue this at my place,” he said gruffly. “In
private.”

* * *

Martha and Tony had barely exchanged a word
on the limo ride into the city, first dropping Rex off at his flat
in South Kensington and then fighting through the dense, rush hour
traffic to Tony’s home in St. John’s Wood, the lovely neighborhood
above Regent’s Park. Both Tony and Rex had made a point of looking
engrossed in whatever was on the screens of their smartphones,
while Martha simply took in the sights of the city she loved, her
mind still analyzing Tony’s vitriolic screed against Colton.

The morals of a rutting baboon? She kind of
got that part, though she’d never have thought such a thing about
Colton until the scandal broke. The Colton Butler she’d met years
ago had for sure been something of a freewheeling stud, but a few
years back he’d married a sweet young British stage actress and
they’d appeared to the world to be a darling, happy couple. Last
year, though, Colton had done his best to top Tiger Woods, and not
in terms of the golf legend’s on-course exploits, either. No,
Colton had been caught in a cell phone shot with his pants down,
literally, and that sickeningly indiscreet shagging of a New York
party girl had quickly proven to be just the beginning of a series
of revelations of tawdry liaisons that stretched around the globe
from California to France to Singapore. Coming not all that long
after Tiger’s humiliation, Colton’s horror show had thrown
professional golf into turmoil once again.