by Nora Roberts
“I’m going to play again,” Asher responded simply. His scent was reaching out for her, that familiar, somehow heady fragrance that was sweat and victory and sex all tangled together. Beneath the placid expression her thoughts shot off in a tangent.
Nights, afternoons, rainy mornings. He’d shown her everything a man and woman could be together, opened doors she had never realized existed. He had knocked down every guard until he had found her.
Oh God, dear God, she thought frantically. Don’t let him touch me now. Asher linked her fingers together. Though his eyes never left hers, Ty noted the gesture. And recognized it. He smiled.
“In Rome?”
Asher controlled the urge to swallow. “In Rome,” she agreed. “To start. I’ll go in unseeded. It has been three years.”
“How’s your backhand?”
“Good.” Automatically she lifted her chin. “Better than ever.”
Very deliberately Ty circled her arm with his fingers. Asher’s palms became damp. “It was always a surprise,” he commented, “the power in that slender arm. Still lifting weights?”
“Yes.”
His fingers slid down until they circled the inside of her elbow. It gave him bitter pleasure to feel the tiny pulse jump erratically. “So,” he murmured softly, “Lady Wickerton graces the courts again.”
“Ms. Wolfe,” Asher corrected him stiffly. “I’ve taken my maiden name back.”
His glance touched on her ringless hands. “The divorce is final?”
“Quite final. Three months ago.”
“Pity.” His eyes had darkened with anger when he lifted them back to hers. “A title suits you so well. I imagine you fit into an English manor as easily as a piece of Wedgwood. Drawing rooms and butlers,” he murmured, then scanned her face as if he would memorize it all over again. “You have the looks for them.”
“The reporters are waiting for you.” Asher made a move to her left in an attempt to brush by him. Ty’s fingers clamped down.
“Why, Asher?” He’d promised himself if he ever saw her again, he wouldn’t ask. It was a matter of pride. But pride was overwhelmed by temper as the question whipped out, stinging them both. “Why did you leave that way? Why did you run off and marry that damn English jerk without a word to me?”
She didn’t wince at the pressure of his fingers, nor did she make any attempt to pull away. “That’s my business.”
“Your business?” The words were hardly out of her mouth before he grabbed both her arms. “Your business? We’d been together for months, the whole damn circuit that year. One night you’re in my bed, and the next thing I know you’ve run off with some English lord.” His control slipped another notch as he shook her. “I had to find out from my sister. You didn’t even have the decency to dump me in person.”
“Decency?” she tossed back. “I won’t discuss decency with you, Ty.” She swallowed the words, the accusations she’d promised herself never to utter. “I made my choice,” she said levelly, “I don’t have to justify it to you.”
“We were lovers,” he reminded her tightly. “We lived together for nearly six months.”
“I wasn’t the first woman in your bed.”
“You knew that right from the start.”
“Yes, I knew.” She fought the urge to beat at him with the hopeless rage that was building inside her. “I made my choice then, just as I made one later. Now, let me go.”
Her cool, cultured control had always fascinated and infuriated him. Ty knew her, better than anyone, even her own father—certainly better than her ex-husband. Inside, she was jelly, shuddering convulsively, but outwardly she was composed and lightly disdainful. Ty wanted to shake her until she rattled. More, much more, he wanted to taste her again—obliterate three years with one long greedy kiss. Desire and fury hammered at him. He knew that if he gave in to either, he’d never be able to stop. The wound was still raw.
“We’re not finished, Asher.” His grip relaxed. “You still owe me.”
“No.” Defensive, outraged, she jerked free. “No, I don’t owe you anything.”
“Three years,” he answered, and smiled. The smile was the same biting challenge as before. “You owe me three years, and by God, you’re going to pay.”
He unlocked the door and opened it, stepping back so that Asher had no choice but to meet the huddle of reporters head-on.
“Asher, how does it feel to be back in the States?”
“It’s good to be home.”
“What about the rumors that you’re going to play professionally again?”
“I intend to play professionally beginning with the opening of the European circuit in Rome.”
More questions, more answers. The harsh glare of a flash causing light to dance in front of her eyes. The press always terrified her. She could remember her father’s constant instructions: Don’t say any more than absolutely necessary. Don’t let them see what you’re feeling. They’ll devour you.
Churning inside, Asher faced the pack of avid reporters with apparent ease. Her voice was quiet and assured. Her fingers were locked tightly together. With a smile she glanced quickly down the hall, searching for an escape route. Ty leaned negligently against the wall and gave her no assistance.
“Will your father be in Rome to watch you play?”
“Possibly.” An ache, a sadness, carefully concealed.
“Did you divorce Lord Wickerton so you could play again?”
“My divorce has nothing to do with my profession.” A half-truth, a lingering anger, smoothly disguised.
“Are you nervous about facing young rackets like Kingston and old foes like Martinelli?”
“I’m looking forward to it.” A terror, a well of doubt, easily masked.
“Will you and Starbuck pair up again?”
Fury, briefly exposed.
“Starbuck’s a singles player,” she managed after a moment.
“You guys’ll have to keep your eyes open to see if that changes.” With his own brand of nonchalance, Ty slipped an arm around Asher’s rigid shoulders. “There’s no telling what might happen, is there, Asher?”
Her answer was an icy smile. “You’ve always been more unpredictable than I have, Ty.”
He met the smile with one of his own. “Have I?” Leaning down, he brushed her lips lightly. Flashbulbs popped in a blaze of excitement. Even as their lips met, so did their eyes. Hers were twin slits of fury, his grimly laughing and ripe with purpose. Lazily he straightened. “The Face and I have some catching up to do.”
“In Rome?” a reporter cracked.
Ty grinned and quite deliberately drew Asher closer. “That’s where it started.”
Chapter 2
Rome. The Colosseum. The Trevi fountain. The Vatican. Ancient history, tragedy and triumphs. Gladiators and competition. In the Foro Italico the steaming Italian sun beat down on the modern-day competitors just as it had on those of the Empire. To play in this arena was a theatrical experience. It was sun and space. There were lush umbrella pines and massive statues to set the forum apart from any other on the circuit. Beyond the stadium, wooded hills rose from the Tiber. Within its hedge trimmings, ten thousand people could chant, shout and whistle. Italian tennis fans were an emotional, enthusiastic and blatantly patriotic lot. Asher hadn’t forgotten.
Nor had she forgotten that the Foro Italico had been the setting for the two biggest revelations in her life: her consuming love for tennis, her overwhelming love for Ty Starbuck.
She had been seven the first time she had watched her father win the Italian championship in the famed Campo Centrale. Of course she had seen him play before. One of her earliest memories was of watching her tall, tanned father dash around a court in blazing white. Jim Wolfe had been a champion before Asher had been born, and a force to be reckoned with long after.
Her own lessons had begun at the age of three. With her shortened racket she had hit balls to some of the greatest players of her father’s generation. Her looks and he
r poise had made her a pet among the athletes. She grew up finding nothing unusual about seeing her picture in the paper or bouncing on the knee of a Davis Cup champion. Tennis and travel ruled her world. She had napped in the rear of limousines and walked across the pampered grass of Wimbledon. She had curtsied to heads of state and had her cheek pinched by a president. Before she began attending school she had already crossed the Atlantic a half dozen times.
But it had been in Rome, a year after the death of her mother, that Asher Wolfe had found a life’s love and ambition.
Her father had still been wet and glowing from his victory, his white shorts splattered with the red dust of the court, when she had told him she would play in the Campo Centrale one day. And win.
Perhaps it had been a father’s indulgence for his only child, or his ambition. Or perhaps it had been the quietly firm determination he saw in his seven-year-old eyes. But Asher’s journey had begun that day, with her father as her guide and her mentor.
Fourteen years later, after her own defeat in the semifinals, Asher had watched Starbuck’s victory. There had been nothing similar in the style of her father and the style of the new champion. Jim Wolfe had played a meticulous game—cold control with the accent on form. Starbuck played like a fireball—all emotion and muscle. Often, Asher had speculated on what the results would be if the two men were to meet across a net. Where her father brought her pride, Ty brought her excitement. Watching him, she could understand the sense of sexuality onlookers experienced during a bullfight. Indeed, there was a thirst for blood in his style that both alarmed and fascinated.
Ty had pursued her doggedly for months, but she had held him off. His reputation with women, his temper, his flamboyance and nonconformity had both attracted and repulsed her. Though the attraction was strong, and her heart was already lost, Asher had sensibly listened to her head. Until that day in May.
He’d been like a god, a powerful, mythological warrior with a strength and power that even the biased Italian crowd couldn’t resist. Some cheered him; some cheerfully cursed him. He’d given them the sweat they had come to see. And the show.
Ty had taken the championship in seven frenzied sets. That night Asher had given him both her innocence and her love. For the first time in her life she had allowed her heart complete freedom. Like a blossom kept in the sheltered, controlled climate of a hothouse, she took to the sun and storm wildly. Days were steamier and more passionate—nights both turbulent and tender. Then the season had ended.
Now, as Asher practiced in the early morning lull on court five, the memories stirred, sweet and bitter as old wine. Fast rides on back roads, hot beaches, dim hotel rooms, foolish laughter, crazy loving. Betrayal.
“If you dream like that this afternoon, Kingston’s going to wipe you out of the quarterfinals.”
At the admonishment, Asher snapped back. “Sorry.”
“You should be, when an old lady drags herself out of bed at six to hit to you.”
Asher laughed. At thirty-three, Madge Haverbeck was still a force to be reckoned with across a net. Small and stocky, with flyaway brown hair and comfortably attractive features, she looked like an ad for home-baked cookies. She was, in fact, a world-class player with two Wimbledon championships, a decade of other victories that included the Wightman Cup and a wicked forehand smash. For two years Asher had been her doubles partner to their mutual satisfaction and success. Her husband was a sociology professor at Yale whom Madge affectionately termed “The Dean.”
“Maybe you should sit down and have a nice cup of tea,” Asher suggested while tucking her tongue in her cheek. “This game’s rough on middle-aged matrons.”
After saying something short and rude, Madge sent a bullet over the net. Light and agile, Asher sprang after it. Her concentration focused. Her muscles went to work. In the drowsy morning hum the ball thudded on clay and twanged off strings. Madge wasn’t a woman to consider a practice workout incidental. She hustled over the court, driving Asher back to the base line, luring her to the net, hammering at her by mixing her shots while Asher concentrated on adjusting her pace to the slow, frustrating clay.
For a fast, aggressive player, the surface could be deadly. It took strength and endurance rather than speed. Asher thanked the endless hours of weight lifting as she swung the racket again and again. The muscles in the slender arm were firm.
After watching one of Asher’s returns scream past, Madge shifted her racket to her left hand. “You’re pretty sharp for three years off, Face.”
Asher filled her lungs with air. “I’ve kept my hand in.”
Though Madge wondered avidly about Asher’s marriage and years of self-imposed retirement, she knew her former partner too well to question. “Kingston hates to play the net. It’s her biggest weakness.”
“I know.” Asher slipped the spare ball in her pocket. “I’ve studied her. Today she’s going to play my game.”
“She’s better on clay than grass.”
It was a roundabout way of reminding Asher of her own weakness. She gave Madge one of her rare, open smiles. “It won’t matter. Next week I’m playing center court.”
Slipping on a warm-up jacket, Madge gave a hoot of laughter. “Haven’t changed much, have you?”
“Bits and pieces.” Asher dabbed at sweat with her wristband. “What about you? How’re you going to play Fortini?”
“My dear.” Madge fluffed at her hair. “I’ll simply overpower her.”
Asher snorted as they strolled off the court. “You haven’t changed either.”
“If you’d told me you were coming back,” Madge put in, “we’d be playing doubles. Fisher’s good, and I like her, but . . .”
“I couldn’t make the decision until I was sure I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.” Slowly Asher flexed her racket arm. “Three years, Madge. I ache.” She sighed with the admission. “I don’t remember if I ached like this before.”
“We can trade legs anytime you say, Face.”
Remembering, Asher turned with a look of concern. “How’s the knee?”
“Better since the surgery last year.” Madge shrugged. “I can still forecast rain though. Here’s to a sunny season.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
Madge hooked her arm through Asher’s in easy comradeship. “Naturally I expected you to travel six thousand miles to hold my hand.”
“I would have if . . .” Asher trailed off, remembering the state of her marriage at the time of Madge’s surgery.
Recognizing guilt, Madge gave Asher a friendly nudge with her elbow. “It wasn’t as big a deal as the press made out. Of course,” she added with a grin, “I milked it for a lot of sympathy. The Dean brought me breakfast in bed for two months. Bless his heart.”
“Then you came back and demolished Rayski in New York.”
“Yeah.” Madge laughed with pleasure. “I enjoyed that.”
Asher let her gaze wander over the serene arena, quiet but for the thud of balls and the hum of bees. “I have to win this one, Madge. I need it. There’s so much to prove.”
“To whom?”
“Myself first.” Asher moved her shoulders restlessly, shifting her bag to her left hand. “And a few others.”
“Starbuck? No, don’t answer,” Madge continued, seeing Asher’s expression out of the corner of her eye. “It just sort of slipped out.”
“What was between Ty and me was finished three years ago,” Asher stated, deliberately relaxing her muscles.
“Too bad.” Madge weathered Asher’s glare easily. “I like him.”
“Why?”
Stopping, Madge met the direct look. “He’s one of the most alive people I know. Ever since he learned to control his temper, he brings so much emotion to the courts. It’s good for the game. You don’t have a stale tournament when Starbuck’s around. He also brings that same emotion into his friendships.”
“Yes,” Asher agreed. “It can be overwhelming.”
“I didn’t say he
was easy,” Madge countered. “I said I like him. He is exactly who he is. There isn’t a lot of phony business to cut through to get to Starbuck.” Madge squinted up at the sun. “I suppose some of it comes from the fact that we turned pro the same year, did our first circuit together. Anyway, I’ve watched him grow from a cocky kid with a smart mouth to a cocky man who manages to keep that wicked temper just under the surface.”
“You like him for his temper?”
“Partly.” The mild, homey-looking woman smiled. “Starbuck’s just plain strung right, Asher. He’s not a man you can be ambivalent about. You’re either for him or against him.”
It was as much inquiry as statement. Saying nothing, Asher began to walk again. Ambivalence had never entered into her feelings for Ty.
***