by V. K. Sykes
“It’s the product of a decent public school education, my crude friend. And a precursor to polite discourse, which has always been something of an alien concept to you.”
Tony laughed. “Mutts like me don’t much worry about such niceties.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Rex said sarcastically.
“Well, I called Martha Winston just now.”
“And?” Rex’s voice displayed no enthusiasm.
“And nothing. The woman basically told me to sod off. She not interested in selling.”
“Interesting. In that case, I have to say she’s got her head stuck firmly in the sand. But you’re not taking it personally, are you?”
This was far from the first time he and Rex had faced a setback together. Tony hated rejection, and hated it ten times over if he sensed the person was being dismissive of him. Whenever that happened, he simply redoubled his determination. “Hell, I even offered to fly over there to meet her, but she didn’t show a whit of interest. She even had the gall to tell me she’ll keep my number on file.”
Rex gave an amused snort. “She might want to program it into her phone, since she’s going to need it. And sooner rather than later, I should think.”
Or not. Rex hadn’t heard the depth of resolve in Martha Winston’s voice. Tony thought he’d caught a tiny bit of a waver early in the conversation, but by the end she’d pulled it firmly together. She’d meant what she said.
“You’re going to tell me we should just sit back and let it fall apart around her,” Tony said. “But what if somebody else jumps in? I don’t want to take that chance, Rex. This looks like the best opportunity we’ve got to break into America. We can’t sit on our arses let it slip away.”
“Understood. Look, Tony, don’t fret too much about it. I’ll keep on top of the situation. Our man on the ground there is really very good. If anything breaks, we’ll know right away.”
Tony slammed on his brakes as a furniture delivery van jerked to a sudden stop in front of him. He barely missed plowing into the van’s high fender. “Wanker!” he shouted, laying on the horn.
Rex chuckled. “That’s a fine way to talk to your friend.”
“Not you, the idiot in front of me.” Tony sucked in a deep breath. “You’re right. I’ve got to put the daft woman out of my mind. For now.”
“That’s the ticket. Why don’t you take the afternoon off. Go play a round of golf, or something. Enjoy yourself, and don’t waste another thought on Martha Winston.”
“Easy for you to say,” Tony muttered before he hung up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Martha stared at her uncle across the cluttered expanse of her mahogany desk. Before she’d even finished telling Geoffrey about Branch’s phone call, he’d jumped up from his chair and stomped to the window, fists clenched and chin jutted out in almost comical fashion. For a moment, she thought he might even punch the plate glass and get himself a broken hand. But then, red-faced, he’d whipped back around as fast as his big bulk would let him.
“You wouldn’t even meet with the man? Tony Branch says he wants to make you an offer, and you goddamn won’t even talk to him? Have you entirely lost your mind?”
Martha repressed the urge to wince. “If you must bellow, please save it for another time and place. Jane and the others don’t need to hear us scrabbling away.”
She’d expected Geoffrey’s explosive reaction. Earlier that morning, she’d briefly considered withholding Branch’s call from him. But she’d quickly dismissed the thought. Her uncle was a minority shareholder, and she had a duty to treat him as she would anyone else holding those rights. And he was family, after all, at least in name.
“Whatever,” her uncle grumbled. He flopped back down into the chair facing her. “But I simply do not understand why you’re being so idiotically hard-headed.”
“It’s unwise to get yourself so worked up, Geoffrey,” she said. “One heart attack is more than enough, isn’t it?” Her uncle regularly claimed he was dieting and exercising, but never lost an ounce of weight as was evidenced by the way the buttonholes of his powder blue dress shirt gaped open to reveal the white of his underwear. Martha had even offered to exercise with him, but he’d turned her down flat.
“Thank you for your concern, but let’s stick to business, shall we?” he said in a thoroughly grumpy voice. “You’re not keen to sell, but what would be the harm in listening to what Branch has to say? The man’s one of the most successful football men in the history of the sport. What if he were to make us an offer we couldn’t refuse?”
She shook her head. “I doubt there is such a thing, Geoffrey. And the reason I didn’t agree to meet him was that I’m not about to waste a busy man’s time. What would be the point of his flying all the way over here just to hear me say no again? You know I won’t change my mind.”
Her uncle’s lips thinned as he gripped the wooden arms of the faded wingback chair with whitening fingers. “You’d rather see the team go bankrupt than give up control. That’s about the size of it, isn’t it? But what about me? Do you ever think about my situation, darling?”
She flinched at his utterly insincere term of endearment. “Oh, Geoffrey, you know I do.”
As much as she hated his carping and second-guessing he was her uncle, and her father wouldn’t have wanted him to fall into an even deeper financial hole. A series of misguided real estate ventures had decimated the money her father had given Geoffrey after he sold the family business. Unrepentant gambling had only added to his problems. Martha didn’t have a handle on the full extent of her uncle’s financial troubles, but knew he was deeply in debt. It didn’t take a psychic to see that dollar signs had flashed before his eyes as soon as she told him about Branch’s call.
“We’re not bankrupt,” Martha said with a placating smile. “And it’s not about control. But, yes, of course I think about your situation. I wish every single day that I could buy out your share, but you know I can’t afford to.”
Maybe someday, but other than her share of the team, all the assets she had to her name were the house on the St. John’s River, the old family home in Georgia, now rented long-term, her mortgaged condo in Philadelphia, and her three-year old Audi sedan. Geoffrey was looking for a whole lot more than the worth of all those assets combined.
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Right,” he said sarcastically.
Irritated, Martha fixed him with a cool stare. “You know all this has to stay between us, right? We don’t need the media latching onto some story about Tony Branch coming after the team. Especially not before we meet with the bank.”
Geoffrey hauled himself up, buttoning the jacket of his rumpled gray suit then shooting his cuffs. “Ah, yes. I mustn’t forget to bring along a beggar’s cup. We’ll surely need one.”
Sometimes, her uncle’s flair for the dramatic made her want to reach for a bottle of aspirin. Or bourbon. “I mean it, Geoffrey.”
He gave her a grim smile as he opened the door. “You really should do something about those trust issues, darling.”
* * *
Tony eyed the call display on his mobile and jabbed the talk button. “Jesus. What now, Rex? Can’t a man have a pint in peace?”
His golf buddies laughed and tossed off a few rude remarks about his relationship with Rex, which Tony ignored. He’d lost count of the number of rounds that had appeared on their table since he and his friends had finished dinner two hours ago. At least the beer seemed to have taken the edge off his aggravation over the call with Martha Winston.
“You sound well over the legal limit,” Rex said. “Tell me you’re not going to drive home in that state.”
“I’m not going to drive home in this state. But didn’t you have a date tonight? Some model you were taking to dinner at Harry’s Bar?”
“Indeed. But I just slipped away so I could give you some important information. Now, if you’re too busy raising a glass with your drunken mates to talk to me, I can—”
&nbs
p; Tony switched the phone to his other ear and turned his back on his noisy friends. “Remember, you were the one who told me to get away from it all today, mate. Play a round and have a few pints with the lads. But I’m all ears now.”
“Maybe you’d prefer to call me back when you have some privacy?”
“Unless we’ll be discussing international arms smuggling, I’d say we get on with it.”
Rex chuckled. “Suit yourself. As I was leaving the office, Geoffrey Winston called from Florida.”
“Hold on, Rex.” Tony stood up and excused himself, then strode out the front door of the club lounge and down toward the practice green. A cold breeze riffled his lightweight golf sweater, but he hardly felt it. “What did Winston want?”
“Basically, to be our spy, if you can believe it. He wanted you to know he’s advised his niece that she should consider selling the team, and that he doesn’t approve of her resistance to listening to our offer. Mr. Winston appears to be extremely motivated, and he’s prepared to work with us to make the sale happen. Whatever it takes was the phrase he used, I believe.”
Tony let out a low whistle. “Work with us? What the bloody hell does that mean? He only owns twenty percent of the team, and I gather he has no clout with Martha. He’s an insignificant part of this, isn’t he?”
“That’s true except for the part about him being insignificant. The man says he’s prepared to provide us with inside information, Tony. Fully detailed financial data, insight into insider discussions, and so on—whatever we want.”
Tony gripped his mobile tightly. “You mean he’s prepared to go behind Martha’s back, screwing her over to help us pry the team loose from her.”
“That’s certainly one way to put it. Look, Tony, I didn’t encourage him. I just said I’d discuss it with you, and that we’d consider his proposal.”
“Okay, we’ve discussed it and I’ve considered it,” Tony growled, anger clawing at his gut. “Call him back and tell him to shove his so-called offer up his traitorous arse.”
Rex sighed loudly. “I don’t much like the prospect of working with him either, but perhaps it would be best to think about it overnight. We can talk again in the morning. I don’t have to tell you how helpful it could be to have a man on the inside if we’re really going to do this.”
Tony paced right around the broad practice green, now long deserted. He stopped and turned, staring blindly back at the glaring lights of the clubhouse. Normally, he had few scruples about using an insider to leak information to him. It happened all the time in business. The world was awash in sleazebags that would sell out their company for money, or as a means to otherwise advance their interests. But he didn’t have to think about this one. He wanted nothing to do with a man who could screw over his own kin. His bloody brother’s daughter, for God’s sake.
Besides, he’d already come up with an alternative plan to convince Martha to sell. While it might well end up with him getting into bed with someone, that someone sure as hell wasn’t going to be Martha’s backstabbing uncle.
“Sure,” Tony said, “but we both know that kind of thing can just as easily backfire. I have a feeling Geoffrey Winston’s about as subtle as a Liverpool home crowd. And the minute Martha caught wind of that kind of treachery she’d never speak to me again.”
“I don’t disagree. But since you’re still bound and determined to get that team, do you have a better idea?”
“I think I do,” Tony said, impatiently raking a hand back through his hair after a gust of wind blew it into his eyes. “Get out your passport, mate. We’re flying to Jacksonville tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Martha elbowed open the heavy wooden door and dropped her keys into a metal dish replete with forlorn mates to various locks scattered about the vast house and attached garage. Kicking off her heels, she headed straight to the kitchen. As it had since the day her father entered the hospital for the last time, the house breathed a cool, quiet emptiness. Full of heavy furniture and gloomy art, it spoke of his loneliness after the death of his beloved wife, and of his profound bereavement.
Since moving to Jacksonville to be with him during his last weeks, Martha had parked herself in her old room—the one she’d used during her frequent visits. Technically, while she owned the property now, she still felt like a squatter. The big, Spanish-style house in the fashionable San Marco district had never felt like home to her and never would. Home was her cozy, high-rise condo in Philadelphia’s Society Hill.
And before that, the red brick colonial near Marvel, Georgia where Martha had spent her childhood and teenage years. Her mother was buried on the grounds of that estate, having been mowed down by a drunk driver at only fifty-five. Her dad had almost succumbed to the weight of his grief after Mama’s death, and Martha figured he’d battled his depression only because he had a fifteen year old daughter to care for. Somehow, they’d managed to survive and go on, but it hadn’t been easy.
Years later, her father moved to Jacksonville after buying his soccer team—the one thing in his life other than Martha that gave him real joy—and bought this formal, cold house. If she decided to stay—a prospect shrinking by the day—she would sell the house and buy a condo near her office downtown, close to the river. Daddy’s team had brought her to Florida, and it was the only thing that would keep her there. She’d vowed to fight to keep the Thunder going but she wasn’t delusional. The odds were stacked against her.
Grabbing a Rolling Rock from the fridge, she popped the top and drank straight from the bottle, leaning against the high granite counter that was intended to serve as a breakfast bar.
Tony Branch.
She hadn’t been able to get the blasted man off her mind all day. The southerner in her regretted that she’d been so coolly brusque with him. At the same time, her girly side chastised her for dismissing the opportunity of seeing the man again. Just a few minutes on the phone had forcefully reminded her of the impact of their brief meeting in London.
Truth time. She wanted to see him again. She could admit that to herself, but she was only too aware of how dangerous it would be. Probably even too dangerous for her to handle in these circumstances. She had a hunch—no, a certainty—that Tony Branch could be utterly persuasive in person, and she didn’t want to be persuaded by him. Couldn’t afford to be. She had a promise to keep, and she couldn’t take a chance that her thoughts and her stupid, sex-starved body might betray her into an irreversible mistake.
She headed up the wide staircase to her second floor bedroom, the one place in the house where she could escape its pervasive gloom. The spacious room, painted in bright pink with glossy white trim, overlooked the St. John’s River, a still swath of azure over two miles wide at that point of its meandering trajectory northward to the Atlantic. Basketball and golf trophies from her high school and college career remained pristine in glass-fronted cabinets her father had built specifically to house her memorabilia. A formal portrait of Martha and her mother by a famous Atlanta artist hung on the opposite wall. Only eight at the time, she had already nearly matched her mother in height. A gangly, wafer-thin blond girl with blunt-cut hair stared back at her as she took in the portrait. Folks had always said she looked just like her mother, but every time Martha gazed at the picture, she saw only an ugly duckling beside the exquisitely beautiful, almost regal, Catherine Bowles Winston.
Mama had been as beautiful on the inside as she had been on the outside, and not a day went by that Martha didn’t think of her with both love and regret that she’d been taken so soon.
She quickly shucked out of her crisp poplin dress and stepped into a pair of jeans. After rummaging through the stack of tee shirts in her bureau, she opted for a pink Ralph Lauren that almost matched the color of the room, figuring the bright color might help cheer her up. Then she shoved her feet into a pair of flip-flops and headed out to the spacious balcony off her room. She’d chill for maybe an hour, letting the beautiful view of the river sink into her, then order some
pad Thai from a nearby hole-in-the wall restaurant she had on speed-dial.
Martha had one foot through the sliding door when her cell phone began to play a little jazz riff reminiscent of Herbie Hancock. If it had been any other sound, she’d have let it keep ringing. But it was her editor’s ring tone. She’d never ducked a call from him yet and wasn’t about to start now. For all he’d done for her over the years, she owed Martin James a thousand graces.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Papa Bear?” she drawled. “I haven’t heard from the canniest and handsomest editor in the United States of America in, well, practically forever.”
Martin chuckled. “Sunshine, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who can lie with such perfect sincerity.”
Martin James was on the wrong side of sixty and suffering from an expanding belly and gimpy knees, but he’d once been killer handsome. And during her time at the Post, Martha had learned to play him like a perfectly-tuned cello. “Nonsense, Martin. You know what I always say—if I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”
“If that were true, they’d have buried you long before puberty,” James said dryly. “So how’s it going, sweetpea? I see your boys aren’t exactly burning up the league, are they? I’m real sorry about that.”
Martha shook her head. Her editor wouldn’t shed a single tear if her team tumbled into sports oblivion tomorrow. He’d like nothing better than to get his favorite writer back full-time, a fact he’d made plain long before she’d even cleared out her desk at the paper. He’d been furious when she’d left, labeling her takeover of the Thunder as not just quixotic but downright insane.
“Stinking up the league, more like,” she said with a sigh. “Actually, I’ve been giving some serious thought to suiting up myself. I couldn’t be much worse than some of those guys. And at least I’d be a novelty. I’d work for beer money, too.”