The Striker's Chance (2 page)

Holly spread her palms on the table’s glossy surface and gritted her teeth against her rising temper. If this arrogant has-been thought he could walk all over her, he was dead wrong. She might be a born-and-bred Southerner who’d never lived in a big city like London, but she’d handled plenty of celebrities with bigger egos and fatter wallets than his. Hadn’t he ever heard of NASCAR?

“You
will
be there,” she told him sternly. “You will be on time. You will wear a suit. You will shake hands and make polite conversation. You won’t drink too much. And unless you want to play out the rest of your career on some third-tier backwater team in Mongolia, you need to spend the next few weeks doing exactly what I say.”

“I suppose I don’t get a vote in any of this?” he shot back. “After all, it’s only my life we’re talking about.”

She shrugged. “Your life is your life. If you want to go out and party, or drink until dawn, or, I don’t know, give out fake names when you’re trying to pick up women—”

His eyes narrowed dangerously at her last point.

“—then that’s your prerogative. Just keep it out of the press. Your private affairs are your own. Your public image, however, is my responsibility.”

They lapsed into a tense silence. Kepler’s stare was still full of simmering fury, but it had also taken on a calculating air that filled Holly with anxiety. Had she played the wrong card with her bad-cop routine? Maybe he would’ve responded better to handholding and flattery. What if he decided to deliberately sabotage the campaign? What if he didn’t behave at the banquet? What if he didn’t show up at all?

“I think we can leave it there.” Sven’s gruff voice interrupted her escalating panic. “Thanks for these,” he said, flapping the strategy documents as he rounded the table on the way to the door, with Kepler close at his heels. “We’ll see you tonight.”

Kepler halted in front of her just as she reached her feet. He stood uncomfortably close—so close she could make out the sandy stubble covering his square jaw and smell the clean cotton of his T-shirt. Although she’d never considered herself short at five foot five, she had to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes, which were full of bitter accusation.

“I don’t think we’re going to get along very well,” he murmured. “Do you?”

His gaze flicked briefly to her lips, then back to meet her eyes. An almost imperceptible movement, but it knocked the air out of her lungs as though she’d fallen flat on her back.

Two minutes ago she wished she’d never heard of Kepler de Klerk. Now she was yearning for him to kiss her with an absurd, unforgivable desperation.

He arched one brow expectantly, waiting for an answer. She had to root through the haze of desire clouding her mind to remember the question.

“I hope we will,” she managed eventually. “I would like us to be partners in this.”

His mouth curved into a skeptical smirk. He seemed about to speak when Sven called his name from the doorway.

“Let’s go,” the manager commanded. “Lots to do today.”

“On my way.” Kepler gave Holly a look that vowed to finish with her later, and then followed his manager out of the room.

Left alone with piles of unread documents, her every professional instinct screaming to the contrary, she hoped he’d keep that promise.

Chapter Two

Kepler tugged at the starched collar of his shirt, wondering if he could find a way to subtly loosen the tie that was feeling more and more like a noose as the night wore on. He’d spent years dutifully schmoozing his way through networking events, but that hadn’t made them any easier.

The dessert plates that lined the long dining table were nearly empty. Soon it would be time for after-dinner coffee and mingling. It would be torturous, but at least he could stand up and move around. He hated being trapped in one place, unable to escape the tedious conversations of the people next to him.

His gaze wandered to where Holly sat for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. Her smile was bright and effortless as she listened attentively to her neighbor, her cheeks slightly flushed in the too-warm room.

She could certainly hold her own in this crowd of powerful businessmen. After her initial sigh of relief that he’d turned up in a suit, she’d spent the rest of the cocktail hour expertly guiding him from one key shareholder to another, always knowing exactly when to fall back and let them chat, and then reappearing at his elbow with a smooth excuse to move on to the next person as the conversation began to lag.

As much as he resented her high-handedness when it came to his public image, he had to give credit where it was due. She knew what she was doing.

Holly turned and caught his eye, and he suddenly realized that his lips had curved into an affectionate smile. He neutralized his expression as much as he could. Her brow creased, and she returned to her discussion.

His gaze dropped to the safety of the tabletop, and he studied the flowered pattern that edged his dessert plate.

She had been on his mind all afternoon and not in the way he expected. He didn’t stew over their confrontation, in fact he fully accepted the logic of her strategy—although he wouldn’t admit that to her any time soon. Instead his thoughts had lingered on their first meeting in the park, and what she’d asked.

Have you ever been in love?

He couldn’t shake the honesty and openness in her inquiry from his memory. It was a strange question, yet in the moment it had seemed natural. Even inevitable.

He stole another glance at where she sat several places down. She gave him the disconcerting sense of needing an answer, without knowing the question, as if he was stumbling through a dream trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t fully understand.

Well, he intended to find out.

“Kepler?”

He snapped back to reality at the sound of his name. The diner to his left was Alan Brady, the chairman of the board, and the old man’s shrewd, beady eyes were focused on him.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

Alan followed the direction of Kepler’s stare and, having found its source, gave him a knowing nod. “Our Miss Taylor is a beauty, I’ll give you that. A bit opinionated for my taste, but you’re still young. You can find a way to shut her up long enough to get what you want.”

As if Alan’s turn of phrase wouldn’t have been enough to set his pulse racing in anger, he coupled it with a conspiratorial wink that turned Kepler’s stomach. His hands tightened into fists under the table.

“As I was saying,” Alan continued, forking a final bite of cheesecake, “we’re all eager to see you in action on the field. How’s the leg doing? The medic tells us you should be fit for purpose.”

Like a car given the all clear by the mechanic. “What can I say,” he replied, deciding to give Alan exactly what he deserved. “Some days are better than others. But I had multiple fractures, and my leg will never really be the same.” He shrugged. “I’m thirty years old now. Past my prime. One more injury and my career’s over. I’m lucky Discovery was still happy to sign me, because I really need the medical coverage.”

Alan’s fork was suspended halfway to his mouth, which hung open in shock. Kepler had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. He could practically see the calculations churning away in Alan’s mind—how many tickets would he have to sell to pay for major orthopedic surgery?

“Oh, don’t listen to him, Alan.” Holly appeared at the chairman’s side and slid a reassuring hand on his shoulder while she shot Kepler a warning glare. “He’s just teasing you. His sense of humor can be a little...dark.”

Alan’s gaze bounced between them, but after a second he visibly relaxed and gave Kepler a light punch on the arm.

“You really had me going there,” Alan said with a wheezing laugh. “Past your prime—good one.”

Kepler’s responding smile was tight, bordering on a smirk.

Around the room people were standing up from their places as a waiter deposited a final plate of cookies and pastries on the coffee—and tea-laden table on the opposite wall.

“I hope your new player has kept you laughing,” Holly said, and Alan nodded vigorously, although Kepler couldn’t recall a single humorous moment in their preceding discussions. “If you’ll excuse us, there are a few more people who’d like to meet him.”

Kepler rose from his seat and followed her across the room, grateful to be liberated from his three-course prison.

She led them to a quiet corner and then spun to face him.

“Please tell me you didn’t spend the entire meal antagonizing the chairman of the board.” Her eyes flashed with annoyance even as she offered a charming smile to anyone who passed by.

“Be careful around him.” Kepler recalled Alan’s version of relationship advice. “He’s not a nice man.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course he isn’t. You don’t make the kind of money he’s got by being nice.”

“Too bad he can’t buy himself some respect for women. He’s a womanizer and a creep. Stay away from him.”

That got her attention. She stopped scanning the crowd over his shoulder and looked at him squarely. “What did he say?”

Kepler took in her soft, peach complexion, her rosy lips, the way her sapphire-blue eyes blazed from her heart-shaped face. The thought of Alan Brady ogling her without her knowing, of him touching her—of anyone touching her—made his jaw tighten with fresh anger. He had to draw a deep, slow breath to calm himself before he spoke.

“Nothing,” he said finally. “Don’t worry about it.”

Holly regarded him quizzically as she adjusted the clip holding her chestnut-brown hair, clearly unsatisfied with his answer but probably debating whether this was a subject worth pursuing. As she let her arms drop back to her sides, a lock of hair fell free and hung loose from her temple.

Kepler couldn’t help himself. On an impulse so far beyond his control he barely saw it coming, he reached out and tucked the stray strands behind her ear.

Only the faintest of touches, but the rush of lust that sent him rocking back on his heels was as strong as if they’d just broken a long, tongue-tying kiss.

From the way Holly took a startled, stumbling step backward, he knew she’d felt it too.

She put one hand on the wainscoting as if to brace herself, and he fought an almost overwhelming urge to sweep her into the safety of his arms and whisk her away from the prying, meddling eyes that filled the room. Instead he laid his hand on her upper arm, but she flinched from his touch like a timid fawn.

“Kepler,” she began, her eyes wide and shining, but his teammate appeared at her side before she could finish her sentence.

“Are you okay, Holly? You look really pale. Can I get you a chair?”

Tyson Daniels was a sweet and earnest young African-American forward whose athletic prowess had taken him from his mother’s dilapidated house in inner city Baltimore to the penthouse apartment he’d recently bought in Charlotte, yet he remained full of humility and gratitude. So far Tyson was one of Kepler’s favorite people at Discovery, but at that moment he could’ve happily wrung the kid’s neck.

“I just felt a little faint for a second. Too much wine.” She smiled at Tyson, and Kepler felt an irrational pang of jealousy. Tyson was at least seven years younger than Holly, plus he’d been dating his high school sweetheart for almost a decade—but that didn’t lessen Kepler’s possessive instinct.

He took a step forward, but Holly’s warning gaze stopped him in his tracks.

“I think I will sit down for a bit,” she told his teammate. “Would you mind introducing Kepler to the woman from city hall? I don’t think they’ve met yet.”

Tyson’s face lit up at the opportunity to be helpful. “It’d be my pleasure. Come on, Kep, I’ll take you over to her.”

He allowed himself to be led by the younger man, but he watched over his shoulder as Holly crossed to a chair and flopped into it, her back to him. Within seconds she was engaged in conversation, the strand of hair he’d tucked into place escaping from behind her ear and swinging as she nodded.

Tyson guided him toward a woman who probably wasn’t nearly as old as her excessive makeup and helmetlike hair made her look. She shot him what he assumed was her best come-hither look, and he was overcome with weariness.

Kepler glanced in Holly’s direction again, absurdly hoping that a last glimpse of her face might put to rest the unsettling, shaky sensation presently making its way through his chest and across his limbs.

He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so protective of her, so concerned with how other people conducted themselves with her. After all, they hadn’t even known each other twenty-four hours yet.

Still, he’d seen something in her expression when his hand brushed her cheek that he couldn’t quite place yet couldn’t ignore. Was it the vulnerability behind all the professional confidence? The playfulness that peeked out from beneath her no-nonsense attitude?

Or was it the capacity for a passion so fiery it practically burned through her stern, stuffy façade?

One thing was for sure: he wouldn’t be satisfied until he found out.

Tyson had reached their target and was shaking her hand. She smiled, and he had her full attention. Perfect.

Kepler made an abrupt turn and slipped out of the room, the carpeted hallway outside cool and quiet after the din of the banquet. He loosened his tie, undid the top button of his collar and breathed a heady sigh of relief.

A waiter came through the doorway behind him carrying a tray of used coffee cups.

“Excuse me.” Kepler stopped him in his progress toward the elevator. “Where’s the bar?”

* * *

“What an idiot.” Holly slapped the newspaper down on the kitchen table. “What an absolute moron.”

Kristin Russell, Holly’s best friend since college, hiked her six-month-old daughter higher on her hip and glanced at the paper.

“That’s him, huh?”

Holly nodded miserably. “The one and only.”

A Saturday morning custom, she had cut across three front yards to join Kristin’s young family for brunch. Buying her small but well-kept two-bedroom house had been one of Holly’s proudest adult achievements, and when the Russells wound up purchasing a house on the same street, she thought she couldn’t get luckier.

But at that moment, with less than eight hours before Charlotte Discovery’s lauded new striker would be taking the field for the first time, she wasn’t feeling quite so fortunate.

The gossip page of the
Charlotte Recorder
announced
Down In One: De Klerk Scores with Tequila
in unforgiving bold type beneath a grainy photograph showing Kepler with his head thrown back, tilting a shot glass into his mouth.

The article went on to introduce the team’s latest signing by recalling some of Kepler’s more colorful moments in Europe, dwelling with particular detail on a barroom brawl almost ten years earlier in Spain. They’d included a photo of him standing on the field in uniform, his young face marred by a black eye.

The
Recorder
spotted de Klerk glugging booze in one of Charlotte’s upscale nightspots
,
suggesting that while he may have left the high-stakes European leagues behind
,
he’s brought his debauched London lifestyle with him
, the text declared.
Struggling Discovery had to reach deep into the coffers to pay for the South African striker
,
and in anticipation of his debut this afternoon the question remains:
Will his shots on goal be as accurate as his shots of tequila?

Holly put her head in her hands as all the pleasure of her weekly breakfast with Kristin and her husband, Rick, drained out of her, stress and anxiety swelling up to take its place.

She hadn’t spoken to Kepler since he’d snuck out of the banquet three days earlier. At first she’d been furious at his disappearance, but ultimately resisted the urge to march over to his hotel room and give him a piece of her mind. A decision grounded more in her fear of interrupting him midromp with some pliable undergraduate he’d picked up over a post-dinner beer than any professional judgment. She’d seen firsthand what little invitation was required for him to approach a woman and had no doubt he’d already begun sampling Charlotte’s female offerings.

That she felt more strongly about Kepler’s romantic liaisons than she did his covert departure was alarming and undoubtedly influenced her reluctance to contact him. She’d justified her silence by reasoning that she shouldn’t breathe down his neck and that he’d be more compliant if he felt she trusted him.

However, her reaction to the photo in the paper told her that not only had she dropped the ball as his PR manager, these three days out of touch hadn’t lessened her inappropriate interest in his personal life. The article certainly angered her from a PR perspective, but even stronger was her irrational jealousy that he’d been having fun without her.

“It seems a little unfair to me.” Kristin jerked Holly out of her reverie. “The guy went out and had a few drinks—so what?”

“He didn’t run out on his tab, or get into a fight, or drive drunk,” Rick contributed from his place by the stove, where he was flipping slices of French toast in a pan. “It’s a mean-spirited piece, for sure, but it doesn’t actually accuse him of anything.”

Holly shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. It’s unlikely people will bother to read the text, let alone put effort into thinking it through between the lines. All of those wholesome, family-friendly sound bites I’ve been pushing to the news outlets have no impact compared to a huge photo and the word
tequila.
” She sighed. “Even if they do read the article, they won’t get past the tales of mischief the writer has been sure to put at the front.”