by Joanne Rock
“I won’t pretend to know anything about sports, but I’m sure that sucks.” Lainie wondered if he realized he had the Hacky Sack strangled in a death grip.
“And that was just the start of my year. Speaking of which, where did you hide that flask?”
Lainie debated the wisdom of spending any more time in his company. She felt more than a little vulnerable out here with all her usual boundaries thrown aside. The bourbon singing in her veins kept telling her she deserved some company, but her better judgment knew she couldn’t afford any hot and heavy interlude when she was still on the rebound.
Maybe as long as she didn’t allow herself to get sucked in by those dark, brooding eyes, she’d be okay.
“I don’t mind sharing my stash, Cesare.” She reached for the flask and handed it over with a flourish. Bourbon loosening her tongue, she couldn’t help drawing boundaries early on. “But consider yourself forewarned—just because we share a drink doesn’t mean I’m going home with you.”
NOTHING LIKE COMING STRAIGHT to the point.
But then, in the weeks that he’d been watching Lainie Reynolds, Nico had learned a man needed an iron-fortified ego to withstand the likes of the Club Paradise CEO.
The shrewd Miami attorney-turned-businesswoman had a reputation for plowing through obstacles, focusing on her goals with single-minded determination. They called her the “Diva” behind her back, but anyone who wanted to do business with her tended to call her ma’am.
Luckily for Nico, the required hearty ego didn’t present a problem. A damn good thing since he wanted Lainie. Badly.
“I appreciate the heads up on the sleeping arrangements. Or lack thereof.” He took the proffered container, holding her gaze as his fingers grazed hers. She had damn warm fingers for a cool, remote diva. “I trust you’ll let me know if you change your mind on that?”
As someone who held the record for most shutouts in a hockey season in the NHL, he wasn’t used to being refused. Not that he’d ever been the kind of guy to pursue women for sport, but normally if he was interested, so was the female in question. Even now that his career as a star goalie was in the toilet, he still attracted plenty of recognition. Attention. Women.
Except for this one.
“You’ll definitely be the first to know.” She retracted her fingers, seeming to retreat from him mentally, too. But then, he’d known from the start she was having a bad day since he’d followed her all the way from the resort late this afternoon.
He’d been on the property to oversee a few things for his sister since she’d taken off to Europe with her new boyfriend. Giselle had left her position as executive chef, carefully hiring her replacement before she went overseas, but she’d wanted to be sure the woman’s adjustment went smoothly, given that Lainie Reynolds was a notoriously tough boss.
Nico had meant to get around to checking on the club, but he’d had five other things to do at the club and he’d gotten distracted when he’d spotted Lainie storming out of the hotel shortly after six o’clock—early in the day for a big-time workaholic. He’d followed her on instinct.
With medium height and a fairly average female build, there was nothing physically tangible he could point to about Lainie Reynolds that had captured his attention. But there was something about the force of her personality that came through in her ramrod-straight posture and her smooth, efficient way of moving. Shoulder-length blond hair grazed a white linen jacket that looked as if it wouldn’t dare wrinkle while she wore it. Her short white skirt was pencil slim and showed off legs that hadn’t seen much sun despite the relentless Florida weather.
He didn’t know her well, but she’d snagged his eye last month when she’d joined forces with his sister to put Lainie’s embezzling ex-husband behind bars. Nico had arrived on the scene to find Ms. Corporate Lainie decked out in full ass-kicking regalia, from steel-toed boots to eye-popping leather pants that had invaded his dreams ever since. He’d be hard-pressed ever to look at Ms. Corporate in the same way again.
Too bad she’d barely taken note of him. Then or now.
But if Nico had anything to say about it, that was all about to change.
2
“GO ON, SLICK. Do your worst.” She gestured to the flask he still held in his hand. “I’ve already had my share for today.”
Nico took a deep breath and called himself back from fantasies about this woman. If he wanted a shot with her, he needed to be on his toes. As he’d followed her up Ocean Drive today, walking a half block behind her, he’d slowly formulated a plan. He had two more months in the off-season to get his life in order and figure out if he wanted to keep the coaching gig he hated. Until then, he’d further his sister’s interests at Club Paradise while furthering his own very personal interest in Ms. Lainie Reynolds.
“You can’t be done. You took what—two sips? What kind of enabler would I be if I let you off the hook with that?” He took a swig and nearly fried his throat. “Jesus, woman, what have you got in here?” His words croaked with the firepower of her beverage of choice.
She didn’t smile, but he could see the hint of humor in her eyes. He’d been watching her on and off at Club Paradise over the last few weeks. In that time, Nico had never caught Lainie in a full-out grin.
“It’s homemade Kentucky bourbon.” She came damn close to smiling when he coughed. “I know it’s not exactly smooth, but it’s—sentimental.”
“No way in hell you’re a Kentucky girl.” His reaction leaped out of his mouth before he had a chance to weigh the pros and cons. A frequent, unhappy affliction of his since childhood.
“I may be a big-shot Miami businesswoman, but everyone has a past.” All traces of smiles and shared humor disappeared as she looked out to sea. The sunset painted the water warm pinks and oranges, giving the whole beach a surreal glow. Even Lainie’s shoulder-length blond hair was tinged strawberry.
“What were you saying about yours, Cesare?” she prodded. “You lost your spot on the hockey team and then what?”
He’d been hoping for commiseration, not interrogation. But he had the feeling that if he wanted to keep his place next to her, he needed to put himself out there.
“I’ll spill the whole sordid story if you share the bourbon and whatever’s got you down today.”
“You go crazy with the bourbon.” She waved him on with a hurry-up gesture. “I know it well enough to respect it.”
“Hey, I’ve had a shit year, too.” He took another, more careful sip of the bourbon. This time he could better taste the appeal. It wasn’t smooth, but there was a hell of a kick. “I’m not above a little comfort where I can find it.” He peered across the bench at her again. “And you did make it clear I wouldn’t be finding it with you tonight, correct?”
One side of her mouth hitched up. Not a smile. More like a wry smirk. Still, he counted it as progress.
“Correct.” She eyed him as he leaned his head back against the bench. “But if we were to debate who deserves comfort of any kind here, I think I’ve still got you beat.”
“Ah, but you haven’t heard my story yet. The gut-wrenching drama of professional sports, complete with passion, fame, heartbreak… It’s practically a prime-time special in the making.” He didn’t want to push too hard, but he didn’t want her to leave now that they were finally talking. He’d been waiting for weeks to get this close to her. Failure was not an option. He hadn’t been interested in the chase since Ashley booted him out after his career ended. For the first time since then his hormones were on full alert.
And yeah, maybe after watching his career go up in smoke and his love life land in the crapper, he liked the idea of slaying some dragons for a lady. In spite of her tough exterior, he could see Lainie had more than a few shadowy demons lurking in her eyes right now.
“Then bring it on, superstar. Your story and the bourbon.” She gestured for her flask with an impatient waggle of her fingers. Her nails gleamed with dark copper polish, each one as long and perfectly shaped as the
next. “If we’re serious about drowning our sorrows, I’d better have a few more sips. I’ve never been the sort of woman to do anything by half measures.”
He handed over the flask. “Damn but you’re scary. No wonder Giselle spent all year hiding from you.”
“Is that right?” Her eyebrows rose as if she was enjoying a compliment. She stole a sip of her backwoods brew without a wince. “It’s a skill carefully cultivated by ambulance chasers. I’m not in that business any longer, but you know what they say about old habits. However, we are not talking about me tonight.”
Yet.
Nico wasn’t about to let her off the hook without finding out more about her, but he’d honor the deal they’d made.
“Okay, chapter one—my hamstring shreds in a combination of old muscle problems and a skate blade to the back of my thigh. I’m out of the game for good.”
“Just like that?” She crossed her legs, distracting him with the shifting of slim thighs against her short white skirt. “No second opinions from other doctors?”
“Actually, this is after ten different opinions from hapless doctors who are thanked by me raging and shaking my fist. I guess I omitted the part where I act like a two-year-old and endear myself to no one.” Nico watched as she smoothed the hemline of her already straight skirt. Memories of her in tight black leather blared into his brain, the same mental pictures that had haunted him ever since the night she and Giselle told Robert Flynn where to get off.
Nico had been getting off on the memory for weeks.
“Didn’t you have a contract?” Her question forced him to blink away the black leather.
“Absolutely. But in my egomania at the time, I signed a one-year deal knowing I’d have a monster season of career highs and then I’d be in a position to sign a longer deal for more money.” Stupid, selfish move, but then he’d always been the kind of guy to go for it all and put himself on the line. If he hadn’t been thinking about having a record-breaking deal quoted on ESPN, he would have just gone for the very reasonable long-term option the Panthers had offered him. He’d chosen to gamble.
“So you’re bummed because after years of living on the big-league paycheck, you’re back to nothing once your contract year is up.” She took another sip and passed the bottle back. When he set his Hacky Sack down to take the flask, she nodded at his new toy. “May I?”
“Sure.” He couldn’t picture her playing Hacky Sack but he handed it over. “Only I wasn’t upset about the money so much as the lost glory. Hockey is—was—my whole life. You remember Field of Dreams and how the people in the movie were so nuts for baseball?” He waited for her nod. “That’s how I am about hockey. It’s—it was—a way of life.”
Pointing one of her perfectly painted fingernails at him, she stared him down. “I hope you’ve already talked to a financial planner.”
Bad enough he was spilling his guts, he’d be damned if he would take financial advice, too. He made a noncommittal shrug.
“Okay. After six years in corporate law, I had to at least warn you. Chapter two?” She squeezed the Hacky Sack between her fingers the same way that he liked to when he wasn’t kicking the hell out of the thing.
Distracted by her hands, he was surprised when she handed the beanbag back to him.
“Chapter two?” She prodded like an impatient trial lawyer nudging the witness.
Nico wondered if she would be that aggressive in bed. And if he’d ever have a chance to find out for himself.
“Chapter two finds me without a job, which quickly leads to my girlfriend walking out.”
“She sure wasn’t much of a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t discover until too late that groupies are only interested in the fame and the paycheck.” Although Ashley had done a hell of a job convincing him they wanted the same things in life—kids, family, roots. He’d laid his heart on the line for her, too, only to have it booted back to him. “To be fair, though, I guess I’d always been pretty interested in the fame and the paycheck, too.”
“And not to stick up for this piranha of a girlfriend, but is there any chance you were just flat out bad company once your luck changed?” She recrossed her legs in the other direction, calling his attention to the lean thighs that he’d been dreaming about for weeks. “Sometimes people can turn superornery when the rug has been pulled out from under them.”
“I’m positive I acted like a complete bastard at times, but I thought our relationship was more grounded than that.” Ashley leaving him had been a second slap in the face—no, make that a third—after his injury and his career ending.
“You think maybe you could work things out now that you’ve leveled out? Assuming you have?”
Yeah, sure he was level. Most of the time. “Nope. She’s dating my replacement on the team.”
“Ouch.”
“Apparently my judgment sucks.”
“So does mine.” She lifted the flask to toast him. “Looks like we have something in common.”
If he’d had a drink of his own, Nico would have chugged long and thoroughly to that notion. He promised himself it would be the first of many things they had in common.
As it stood, he settled for watching Lainie’s lips mold around the top of the bourbon bottle and imaginining what they’d feel like wrapped around him. Soon.
“Cheers to common ground. Now it’s your turn for some storytelling.”
LAINIE BLINKED and the movement seemed to take forever.
She struggled to haul her eyelids back up, eager to feast her gaze on the tall, dark and delectable Nico Cesare again.
“Lainie?” He even sounded gorgeous.
“Hmm?” As she licked her lips and tasted the bourbon her grandfather had given her as a going-away present when she left Kentucky, Lainie remembered she was already getting drunk tonight. Bad enough she’d let naughty Nico talk her into wallowing in her sorrows, leading to the pleasant numbing effects of alcohol. She definitely couldn’t indulge in sex with a stranger.
“Are you okay?” His voice was all concern and deep male bass.
She could eat him up with a spoon if the timing had been different. If she hadn’t been confronted with her own failure on page one of the Herald today.
“I’m fine.” She passed him the bottle back and let her eyes linger on those well-muscled arms of his. Without her permission her gaze fell to his chest. His muscular thighs. “Too fine, in fact. I don’t think I’d better have any more.”
“You want to start walking back toward the hotel while I coerce your story out of you?” He looked around the beach. “We’re a long way from Club Paradise up here.”
Lainie bit back the first thought in her head—that they should get a room at the nearest hotel instead. She never knew bourbon was an aphrodisiac.
“Good idea.” Rising carefully to make sure she didn’t fall over when she stood, Lainie handed him the newspaper she’d been holding. “And if you want my story, all you need to do is read today’s paper.”
Without sparing it a glance, he shot the newspaper into a waste can at the end of the bench. “That’s your ex-husband’s story—a guy who didn’t know how to hold on to a good thing.” His dark eyes latched onto hers in the twilight. “I want to know what’s bothering you enough to make you come out here all by yourself and drink some sentimental concoction that could peel the paint off your nails. You don’t really miss that guy, do you?”
Somehow seeing the paper in the trash made her feel marginally better.
“Of course I don’t miss him.” She did miss the idea of being married even though she’d never admit it. There was a certain respectability that came with marriage. And comfort.
“I just hate that I’m going to cringe for the rest of my life whenever I have to talk about my ex-husband, the convicted criminal.” She tried to shrug it off as if it was no big deal. Obviously she didn’t want to get into the whys and wherefores of how her marriage weighed on her like a giant red F—a grade she’d always feared but never
actually received in school. She’d never fully shaken her backwoods roots. The sense of being watched and judged followed her around even now.
She swayed on her feet a little as she put her leather sandals back on. Nico’s arm snaked around her waist to steady her. Of course, having him stand that close to her did little to stabilize her. If anything, she only felt more light-headed.
“The guy’s a professional scammer who sucked in thousands of investors all over the state. It only makes sense he’d be damn good at putting on a front and making you believe whatever he wanted you to believe.”
“So all that stuff Robert spouted about love and happily ever after was just for show? Gee, Nico, you’re really cheering me up.” She finally managed to jam both of her feet into her sandals, then she edged out of his grip to test her balance.
Still standing.
Still standing.
Falling!
Strong arms gripped her waist and steadied her spine. She found herself plastered against the wall of muscle that served as Nico’s chest and, oh my, wasn’t that nice.
Her linen suit jacket had edged open just enough to stay out of the way. Only his cotton T-shirt and her silk tank top separated them. Okay, technically she had a bra on under there, too, but she’d been wearing skimpy French lingerie all year in an effort to reawaken her hormones and affirm her sense that, damn it, yes, she was still an attractive woman even if her idiot ex-husband ran around with perky-breasted bimbos. Well, except for Giselle, who was definitely perky but not a bimbo.
But the gossamer-thin silk of her bra wasn’t exactly a barrier between her and Nico’s hot bod. If anything, the made-for-pleasure garment only inspired sexy fantasies about her clothes melting away so this god of a man could see how good she looked in imported un-dies.