The Devil in Denim (33 page)

She’d never seen anyone swing into action quite like Alex, Mal, and Lucas. It was closer to planning a war than a business deal. They gathered intelligence, they gathered their forces, and they coordinated campaigns to influence just about everyone who was anyone in MLB. There were meetings and dinners and flights in an endless procession. Pictures of Alex and Maggie kept appearing—no doubt Sutter making sure that people didn’t forget about them—as well as other subtle little slurs against the three men. All of which were slapped down by Alex’s legal team—but rumors traveled faster than the truth these days. In between organizing his little libelous leaks, Sutter made sure the baseball press was well fed with his grand plans for the Saints. Though he stayed resolutely tight-lipped on the subject of whether he’d move the team.

Maggie watched the three of them grow quieter and tenser and more focused and threw her ideas into the mix and did the jobs she was assigned to do. She talked down nervous players and agents and wives. She worked with Tom to remember every last detail about Sutter’s time at the Saints and every last detail about the owners they were targeting. She even pretended not to watch Alex while she did it.

She had to pretend. She couldn’t actually not watch him. It was entirely involuntary the way her eyes sought him out. She’d never thought it was possible to miss someone while actually spending a large percentage of every day with them and actively trying to fool everyone into believing you were in love, but it was.

When they weren’t on show, Alex was perfectly polite to her, his manner unchanged other than the ruthless cessation of anything that could be vaguely considered flirting. No jokes, no killer smiles, no shared grins, no devilish green eyes daring her to take him on.

She’d thought it was what she’d wanted.

But it was killing her.

It was no better in public. Then he turned on the charm, pulled her close, held her hand, and kissed her when he thought kisses were warranted. But there was a wall behind his eyes that she could see, even if everyone else seemed taken in by his performance.

She couldn’t figure out which part was worse. Nor could she figure out any way out of it. Not while they had to beat Will Sutter.

After the long flight back from Kansas City, where they had met with another of the undecided owners, they had returned home discouraged. Lucas had left them at the airport, heading to the hospital and his patients, and Mal had sped off into the night on his motorbike.

Which left her and Alex alone in the car together while the driver ferried them back to Manhattan.

Whatever Will was telling the owners, it seemed to be working.

Alex sat beside her, his legs carefully not touching hers. Of all of them, he looked the least tired, but the line of his body, slumped against the seat of the car, told her he was just as exhausted as she was.

The vote was only four days away. And at this point, Maggie was starting to think they were going to need the help of an actual saint to order them up some divine intervention to have any chance of the deal being approved.

Think
.

Will was obviously doing something right. Turning the owners against Alex. Though they hadn’t yet been able to wrangle what exactly he might be saying out of any of them.

So maybe it was time to stop doing things the sensible business way and try to hit Will right where he was trying to hit them. In his reputation. His credibility.

Will might have private detectives and paparazzi at his beck and call but she had one thing that he didn’t.

She nudged Alex with her knee. “Hey, I have an idea.”

*   *   *

Shelly and Hana came, as she’d requested, armed with laptops and phones.

“What’s this about?” Shelly asked as they set up their gear on Maggie’s dining table.

“Will Sutter,” Maggie said.

“We guessed that much,” Hana said. “What exactly about him?”

“We’ve been working the owners, and we’re close but not over the line yet. It’s way too close to call.”

“I’m not sure how much we can help with that,” Hana said. “Most of us who want to stay in New York have been working on the guys, but these days that doesn’t mean as much as it used to.”

True. Players were supposed to go where they were sent and earn their money, not mess around with the management of the team. “I know. And we appreciate it. But I have another idea.”

“What?” Shelly asked as she typed her password into her laptop. “And what’s your Wi-Fi password?”

“Right now it’s the last four digits of your home phone number and the same from Hana’s cell.”

Shelly shook her head. “You should use symbols and things.”

“We don’t have time for a lecture on Internet security, Shell.” Shelly guarded her laptop and phone as closely as a CIA agent. Which, given the amount of dirt she probably had stored on it, made a lot of sense.

“So what’s the grand plan?” Hana asked.

“I’m going to get Will to drop his bid,” Maggie said.

Both of them stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.

“O-kay,” Hana said slowly. “And while you still have your newfound magic powers, can you make me three inches taller, please?”

Maggie stuck out her tongue at her. “No magic involved. Just a little bit of old-fashioned business hardball.”

“Hardball?” Shelly repeated.

“I’m going to go talk to Mama Sutter,” Maggie said.

Shelly’s brows flew upward, then settled as her expression turned thoughtful. “You’re going to throw yourself on Corinne Sutter’s mercy? You’re a brave woman.”

“Not brave,” Maggie said. “Desperate.”

“What makes you think Will’s mama will side with you?” Hana asked.

“Well, firstly there’s the fact that I always got the feeling she was bored senseless by baseball, though she was, of course, far too polite to ever say so. And secondly, she needs Will to be running their empire now that her husband is dead. I can’t imagine she wants him turning his attention to baseball when he should be making sure she continues to have the lifestyle she’s so used to.”

“Perhaps,” Shelly said. “But the few times I’ve met her, she’s come across as the complete doting mother. Will’s her only child. I doubt she’s told him no many times in his life.”

Maggie nodded. “Maybe. But that’s where you two come in. Will’s been trying to play dirty. He has to be behind all those nasty little stories that have been popping up in the news about Alex and Mal and Lucas, though we haven’t been able to pin him to anything yet.”

“You want us to try and find out who he’s feeding information to or where he’s getting his information from?” Hana asked.

“No. I want you to find out what skeletons are in his closet. Will Sutter is arrogant and just a tad slimy. I’m guessing he’s pushed his luck a bit too far a time or two. I went through his HR records from when he worked for us but there’s nothing. But I can’t believe he’s completely clean. I’m going to go talk to Ally Kaminski—she was head of HR back then—and see if there were ever any complaints, but I need whatever I can get my hands on. Drinking. Drugs. Jaywalking. And, in particular, any evidence that his dad and his doting mama hushed it all up nicely.”

“You want dirt,” Shelly said with a grin.

“I want a little persuasion,” Maggie corrected. “If Mama doesn’t want to listen to reason, then I want to make sure that I’ve got some facts on my side that might persuade her otherwise.”

“Hardball,” Hana said admiringly.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Will is messing with the Saints, and I’ve had about all I can take of people trying to rearrange my life to suit themselves in the last few week. Team Sutter is going down.”

“Well, then,” Shelly said. “Let’s start digging.”

*   *   *

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Alex asked.

Maggie looked down at the boarding pass in her hand. Dallas, Texas. Home of Corinne Sutter. Who had, somewhat to Maggie’s surprise, agreed to a meeting.

Maybe it was a terrible idea. Maybe Mama Sutter would send her home with her tail between her legs. Maggie hoped not. She and Shelly and Hana had worked their butts off for almost twenty-four hours straight. And then she’d dragged Gardner into the mix for the next twenty-four. All that digging had paid off.

This might be their last shot. The vote was still too close to call and Will’s campaign had continued relentlessly over the last two days. So she might as well swing for the fences. “I’m sure. Someone’s gotta run into the burning building, right?”

His hand tightened around hers. “Is that why you’re doing this? To prove something to me?”

“No, I’m doing it to save the Saints, idiot.” She smiled up at him, swallowing against the lump in her throat. Now was not the time to lose her cool. “So smile for the cameras and kiss me good-bye.”

That got her a dimple flash. And another all too short and tantalizing kiss.

She tried not to think about how much she was going to hate it when the press went away and Alex stopped faking it, and headed for the security line.

*   *   *

Mama Sutter didn’t believe in simple living, that much was clear. Maggie stared at a house that was fit for Scarlett O’Hara—huge and white with a colonnaded front porch that possibly would have fit Maggie’s entire apartment underneath it—and took a last moment to go over her plan. She needed her wits about her. Mama might play the perfect groomed and subservient business wife and mother, but Maggie knew that was rarely how things worked. This woman had a network of influence and control that probably covered half the country. Which was exactly why Maggie needed to convince her to get Will to give up on his bid. She only hoped that coming here wasn’t going to backfire.

A young girl with blond hair ruthlessly pulled back into a roll at the back of her head and a conservative gray suit showed her into the house and into a sitting room done in shades of cream and yellow and pale green. Maggie remained on her feet while she waited for Mama to arrive. It didn’t take long. The sound of tapping heels preceded her, as did two Afghan hounds groomed to within an inch of their lives. The dogs sniffed briefly at Maggie and then went and sat on one of the Turkish rugs nearest the window, curling themselves up into large balls, both of them keeping their eyes on the doorway.

Apparently even the dogs behaved themselves properly in Mama’s house. Pity her son didn’t.

Finally the footsteps halted and Mama appeared in the doorway. She was tiny, maybe five foot four in three-inch heels, but she was so well put together in a beautiful pale blue dress and pearls that Maggie started to feel distinctly rumpled.

Eyes the same odd pale blue as Will’s studied her, seemingly cataloguing every wrinkle in her suit and stray hair. “Miss Jameson, welcome to Dallas.”

Maggie fought the urge to curtsy. “Thank you, Mrs. Sutter. And thank you for seeing me.”

“I will confess, I was a little surprised when you called. I understood from William that you had turned down his offer of employment.”

She’d never heard a Texan accent sound quite so cold before. She’d met Corinne a time or two when she’d been a teenager, but she didn’t remember her being this intimidating. Obviously Maggie hadn’t been in her bad books back then. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

“Then perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to what it is you wish to discuss? Won’t you sit? Would you like a drink? Iced tea perhaps?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” Maggie sat in one of the delicate-legged armchairs closest to her, putting her bag at her feet.

Mama gave instructions to the girl in gray and then sat opposite Maggie. She took another moment to look her over. “You look different from your picture in the paper. Different from the last time I saw you too.”

As far as Maggie could remember, she’d been roughly seventeen the last time they’d met.

“Yes, ma’am. That was some time ago.”

“Indeed. And here we are again. But I doubt you came to reminisce, so why don’t you get to the point?” Her tone was sweet but steely.

“All right. I need you to get your son to drop his bid on the Saints.”

One perfectly groomed eyebrow lifted a fraction. “And why would I do that?”

She’d try the polite way first. “Well, ma’am, I can’t see why you’d want Will spending his time on baseball—let alone a team in need of as much time and effort as the Saints—when he has Sutter Corp. to run.”

Corinne inclined her head. “In my experience, dear, men need hobbies.”

“The Saints aren’t a hobby, Mrs. Sutter.” She put some steel of her own into her voice.

“I appreciate you’re upset, Miss Jameson,” Corinne said. “But sometimes in business there are winners and there are losers. You can’t take these things personally.”

Maggie kept her smile polite. “But I do take them personally. When it comes to this particular business at least. The Saints belong in New York, and they belong with owners who care about them, not just someone who wants a hobby. I’m sure you can appreciate that. Your husband and you built quite the empire together. You wouldn’t want to hand it over to someone who didn’t care about it, would you?”

“I’ve handed it over to my son.”

“Your son who’d rather play baseball owner than do what he needs to do to protect your family’s legacy?”

“My son who is a grown man who can make his own decisions. And why you think I can influence him to change his mind is somewhat beyond me.” She smiled. An expression more reminiscent of a snake baring its fangs than any friendly gesture.

“Perhaps I overestimated,” Maggie said. “Which is a pity. Because, I’m afraid, if you don’t—or can’t—change Will’s mind, then I’m going to have to start sharing the truth about him with the rest of the world. Starting with the police and the team owners.”

Corrine’s smile went rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.” Maggie pulled out the folder from her bag, flipped it open. “Because as far as I can tell it was Will’s dad and you who paid for him to get out of trouble all those times. Hush money. Bribes. Call it what you like. It must have been easy the first time, to get a juvenile record sealed, to make sure he still went to a good school. I’m not so sure about the times since.”