Kick It Up

by Carol Ericson

  Maybe that exterior he reinforced and polished every day worked too well if his own family members felt they couldn’t approach him. Is that how Jessica felt too? She said she wanted to tell him about her father owning the Waves and her plan to use Simon to get back at him, but she never found the right moment. Is it because he never gave her the right moment?

  Seems he had to work on more than his soccer skills.

  He jogged to catch up with Ajani and Taye, heading into the building.

  Ajani said, “So do you think Roger Brett called this little shindig to announce his ownership of the Waves?”

  “Seems like it.” Taye pushed the door open and held it open for his teammates. “But something’s up. My agent’s been trying to reach Peter Casellas all week, and he’s not returning his calls.”

  “You think Casellas is out?” Ivo brought up the rear.

  “Maybe.” Taye shrugged.

  Simon’s gut rolled. If Brett bought out Casellas, Simon might not have a choice of whether or not to get down to business.

  The players shuffled into the clubhouse, admiring the glittering bar, the brass railings, the leather banquettes, and the photos of themselves adorning the walls.

  The new chefs cooked up an array of dishes to tempt even the most dedicated athlete, but Simon dropped a few shrimp on a small plate, grabbed a bottled water and a table near the front of the room.

  Plates loaded with food, the other players took their seats around Simon and stuffed their faces. Even after missing several practices, for which he’d been fined, and showing up to some in less than stellar condition, Simon hadn’t lost the goodwill of his teammates. They still gravitated toward him, encouraged him to tell stories, laughed at his jokes.

  But they didn’t ask his advice any more. They didn’t request he run plays with them. In short, he still had their goodwill, but he didn’t have their respect. Could he earn it back?

  The side door of the clubhouse swung open and Franco walked in followed by Roger Brett and...Jessica.

  What the bloody hell was she doing here? And wearing a suit?

  Her gaze scanned the room and locked onto his. She mouthed something to him, but he couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. It couldn’t be good.

  He lifted his shoulder, and she rolled her eyes. Then she held her hand to her ear, splaying her thumb and pinky fingers like she was on the phone. She tried to call him? He shook his head, and then noticed several pairs of eyes watching their exchange.

  He drew a line across his throat with his index finger, and her eyes widened, obviously taking it as a threat. He just wanted to end the exchange and waved his hands, but she’d already looked away. Great, she thought he wanted to kill her. His stomach tossed around those few shrimp, and he took a gulp of water. Now why would she assume that?

  Franco tapped his knife against a glass. “We called this meeting today to introduce the new owners of the Waves. I know a lot of you already figured out from the charity event last month that Roger Brett, owner of the Quakes and the Condors, was the silent partner, JB

  Enterprises, the corporation Roger formed with his wife, Joanna.”

  Franco said new owners. Owners with an s. Where’s Casellas? Roger and Joanna owned the Waves? Why is Jessica here? Simon took a deep breath, folded his hands around his water bottle, and waited.

  Franco continued. “Roger kept quiet so he could work some deals without the glare of publicity. Of course, one of those deals was the acquisition of this land to build this state-of-the-art soccer venue.”

  He paused and the players clapped politely.

  “But now that the stadium is finished and Roger has made uh...other acquisitions, he’s ready to go public. I’ll let him take it from here. Roger?”

  Brett stepped forward, running a hand over his silver hair. Why did rich punters’ hair always turn silver instead of that iron gray Dad had?

  “It’s true that JB Enterprises has been co-owner of the Waves with Peter Casellas for over two years now. Pete helped me with this stadium and with a hundred other details. I couldn’t have done it without him. But Pete’s going back to what he does best...making money, and I’m carrying on with the team. But I’m not going it alone.

  Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my partner in the Waves and your new boss, my daughter, Jessica Jones Brett.”

  Simon gripped the edge of his seat until he noticed everyone around him clapping, so he mechanically joined in. God, she’d almost sucked him in again. All that blather about wanting him to do well with the Waves and trying his hardest served her purposes. Daddy gave her a new toy to play with, and she wanted to prove she could handle the responsibility...for about three weeks.

  Then she’d go back to her meaningless, superficial life, and he had no intention of following her.

  ***

  Jessica swallowed as her gaze, darting around the room of faces, landed on Simon’s for a moment. He clapped with all the rest, but his tight jaw and thin lips signaled danger. The announcement had pissed him off.

  She’d tried to call him, but he never answered his home phone or his cell. Once she decided to accept Dad’s challenge and run with it, she wanted to come clean with Simon. No more games...except maybe a hand of strip poker.

  The next half hour passed in a fog as she ate and mingled with the players. Like a complicated dance, every time she got close to Simon, he switched groups to keep just out of her reach.

  Dad drew her into a long conversation with Franco about setting up exhibition games for next year, and when she emerged Simon had disappeared from the room.

  “I gotta go.” She shoved her plate into Franco’s hand, grabbed her purse, and flew out the side door of the club.

  The men’s bathroom came up on the right side of the hallway, and she banged through the swinging door.

  “Simon,” she called, her voice echoing in the bathroom.

  “What the hell?” One of the players twisted his head over his shoulder as he stood before a urinal.

  “Is Simon in here?” She pushed against the stall doors, which swung open.

  “No, he left. Are you going to be one of those annoying female owners who thinks she’s one of the guys?” She smacked his backside before rushing out the door, her heels clipping on the tile. “Of course not.” She ran down the empty hallway, and then kicked off her heels and ran faster. She shoved through the door leading to the players’ parking area and heard the unmistakable growl of the Ferrari’s engine. The red car rolled up to the parking arm, and Jessica tore across the parking lot, the asphalt grating against her bare feet.

  Unless Simon planned to blow through this parking arm too, he’d have to stop to get his parking card and insert it in the slot.

  As his arm extended to the side, white card between his fingers, she grasped the door handle of the car. He jerked his head around.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing?” Damn, he’d locked the car. Good thing he had the top down. She hiked up her skirt and vaulted over the door, her butt hitting the arm rest.

  “We have to talk.” She rubbed her hip and settled into the seat.

  “What do we have to talk about, Boss. You even appropriated my nickname. I’ll start calling you The Boss now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the only Boss in this car.”

  “Don’t try to butter me up. You’re sneaky and devious.”

  “Maybe I’m a little sneaky, but I’m not devious.” She had to banish the image playing through her mind of buttering up his body if she hoped to prevail in this encounter.

  He jabbed the card in the slot, and the arm rose. “I suppose you’re not going to willing get out of my car, are you?”

  “Nope.” She grabbed the arm rest and planted her feet against the floor just to make it clear she’d put up a fight if he tried to eject her.

  Instead he punched the accelerator, and the car jerked forward. She let out a long breath. Step one accomplished.

  “You knew all al
ong, didn’t you?” Simon’s lips twisted into a sneer. “All that bullshit on the phone about wanting me to do well and encouraging me to give up the partying—

  you said those things to benefit yourself as the new coowner of the Waves.”

  “I swear, Simon, when I left you those messages I didn’t know about my father’s plans. He told me last night, and I’ve been trying to call you all day to tell you.”

  “Bollocks. You tried to tell me this morning because you knew I’d find out at the meeting today anyway.” knew I’d find out at the meeting today anyway.”

  “That’s not true. I found out after I left those messages.” She nibbled on her bottom lip, drawing her brows together.

  What could she do to convince him? She snapped her fingers. “R.C. Ask my brother. He was there last night when they broke the news to me.”

  Simon gripped the steering wheel and took a corner way too fast. “You’re a user. You found out Daddy got you the job with CSM and got you the job as my personal assistant, with orders to keep me home at nights. So to get back at him for getting you a job, you mess with me, encouraging me to live it up.”

  “Oh please. Like you needed any encouragement.

  What did you tell me when you landed at LAX? You wanted to make a splash. Image mattered more than anything. You even whined that there weren’t enough freakin’ paparazzi at the airport to greet you. I didn’t twist your arm, Simon, so I figured we both got what we wanted. But you’re right. I should’ve told you.”

  “Okay, I concede that point. I did want to create a sensation.” He pounded the steering wheel with his palms.

  “But I don’t like being manipulated. I don’t like being used, and you used me for the most childish of reasons—to get revenge on Mommy and Daddy. Grow up, Jessica. Can’t you see how lucky you are?”

  The fuse met the gun powder. “Lucky? Is it lucky to have parents who want to control your life? Who push you onto the stage for beauty pageants because Mom has dreams that you’ll be a super model like her? Who choose your activities and your schools for you? And not content your activities and your schools for you? And not content just to choose these activities for you, they make sure you succeed by greasing the right palms and making the right donations.”

  Tears blinded her eyes and muddled her thinking. “My parents never allowed me to achieve anything on my own.

  They even took away the one chance I had to accomplish something by myself.”

  “When you got the job at CSM?”

  “No, when they took away my baby.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Simon gulped and jerked the steering wheel to avoid slamming into the back of the car in front of him. Despite the breeze blowing his hair back, a trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face.

  “Y-you had a baby?” His gaze slid sideways to Jessica, tears dripping off her chin, arms folded.

  “No, that’s the problem.” She dashed the tears from her cheeks and wiped her hands on her crumpled skirt. “I never had the baby.”

  “How could your parents take away a baby you never had?”

  She sniffled, and his gut twisted while he pulled across three lanes of traffic to the curb. “Did your parents force you to have an abortion?”

  “No.” Her chin dropped to her chest. “I didn’t intend to tell you about this. I’ve never told anyone except my best friend.”

  He waited, his fingers tapping the console, inches from her hand smeared with black streaks from her eye makeup.

  He rubbed one of the smudges with his thumb.

  “You have to tell me now. You can’t leave me in the dark. Pretend I’m your best friend.”

  “I got pregnant when I was sixteen.” She clutched her hands in her lap. “I finally got the nerve to tell my parents, but it happened to be on the weekend of the final riding competition of the season.”

  “I gather being grandparents didn’t fit your parents’

  ordered world.”

  “No.” She shot him a grateful glance, one corner of her tremulous lips upturned. “After they laid into me for being careless and irresponsible, they told me to get rid of it.”

  “And you didn’t want to?

  “I’d thought about it and figured I would have the baby and put him or her up for adoption. I felt good about my decision. I thought for once I could take responsibility for my actions and do the right thing.”

  “You told them you planned to give up the baby and that wasn’t good enough?”

  “No.” She shook her head, and her hair slipped over her shoulder, shielding her face. “They didn’t want a pregnant sixteen year old daughter around. B-but I stood my ground...on that. I refused to get an abortion, and told them I could stay with my grandmother in Florida. I even figured that out, knowing my parents wouldn’t want a constant reminder that I’d shattered their perfect lives.” He wanted to wrap his arm around her and draw her against his shoulder, smooth her hair back from her tearstained face, protect her. But she had to get through this on her own right now.

  “That scheme didn’t thrill them either, but they agreed to talk about it after I competed in the show.” His jaw dropped. “Your parents wanted their pregnant daughter to go ahead with a riding competition?” He saw this one barreling down the track like a freight train, and he held his breath waiting for Jessica’s explosion.

  “Not just a riding competition, a jumping competition.”

  “So you competed.”

  She whipped around to face him, raking her hands through her hair. “I thought if I did what they asked and proved to be the daughter they wanted, they’d let me follow through with my plan.”

  “What happened?”

  “I jumped.” Jessica dragged in a breath and dug her fists into the seat on either side of her. “The confrontation with my parents had upset me, distracted me. My horse, Huckleberry, sensed it and absorbed my tension. By the time we got to the last jump, he’d had it. He tripped and threw me. Thank God Huckleberry was okay and me too, but...”

  “You had a miscarriage.” He wanted to take her hands, but she wedged them beneath her thighs, hunching her shoulders forward.

  “Yeah, I did, and you know the worst part? They were happy about it. My mother was relieved, and my father saw it as just another problem solved.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessica.” He rubbed the back of his hand along her cheek. Did she know he meant he was sorry, not only about her miscarriage, but calling her rebellion against her parents immature? Should he make that clear or keep his mouth shut?

  “I lied.” She folded her arms across her stomach. “That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is that I keep trying to blame my parents, but it was my fault.”

  “That’s daft. They forced you to compete, and you had an accident. How is that your fault?”

  “How can someone force you into a riding competition? They didn’t hold a gun to my head. I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to them, even though I knew it was wrong. I’ve never been strong enough. You’re right, Simon. All I can do is strike back at them with childish, ineffectual gestures.”

  He chewed on the inside of his cheek, feeling inadequate. Even after growing up with three sisters, he didn’t trust that Jessica would welcome the words frothing at his lips. She had to stop trying to strike back at them altogether. If he suggested that would she view him as insensitive? He cleared his throat.

  “Could you please take me back to the stadium so I can get my car, Simon? I’m sorry I laid all this on you. I didn’t plan to tell you. I didn’t want to use the pity card to explain my actions toward you.”

  He started the car and veered back into traffic. They drove in silence to the glittering new stadium, and he idled next to Jessica’s SUV.

  “Jessica, I believe you. I believe that you just found out about co-owning the Waves and tried to tell me. And you’re right. You didn’t trick me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I’m responsible for my own actions. Everyone is.” Her brows drew together
and she nodded as she slipped out of his car.

  He followed her out of the parking lot, cursing himself.

  Brilliant statement. Who was he to hand out pop psychology advice? Dr. Phil? She’d just ripped her chest open to reveal a festering wound in her heart, and he tells her everyone’s responsible for their own actions. Idiot. He should’ve grabbed her and planted a big wet one on her luscious lips. No, she probably would’ve interpreted that as his attempt to solve everything with sex, which looked pretty good about now.

  He sighed. Three sisters and not one bloody user manual included.

  By the time he banged through his front door, he was ready for one of Milla’s home-cooked meals, a night in front of the telly, and blissful sleep.

  “Gemma?” He jogged upstairs and peeked into her room. Her rumpled bed was empty, and her closet gaped open. She must’ve recovered from her hangover. He hoped that recovery didn’t include the hair of the dog. That never worked.

  He returned downstairs to the kitchen and rummaged in the freezer, grabbing a container of shepherd’s pie. So much for the high-protein diet—he needed comfort food.

  He left the freezer bag on the counter to thaw out and punched in the code for his voicemail. He sank onto the sofa, leaning his head back against the cushion. Jessica had left six messages, explaining in the last one that her father signed fifty-one percent of the Waves over to her. He didn’t need to call R.C. to check out her story.

  Jessica wasn’t the only one trying to reach him. He shot forward as he listened to Evan’s message.

  “Simon, Evan here. Glad to see you’re keeping a high profile. That can only work to your advantage, especially now. Officials from the UEFA contacted me. They want to have a meeting with you at my office this week. Let me know what works for you, that is, if you can tear yourself away from the Davis twins.”

  Simon frowned and dropped the phone. The Union of European Football Associations didn’t have any jurisdiction over Major League Soccer. Why the hell did they want to meet with him?