“No one’s interested and you’re wrong, Waverly. All the shit that happened on the field—it’s not on me. I swear that to you. I don’t have a candy arm. I’m good, all right, and what I want is a chance to prove it under new leadership.”
“So you’re blaming your poor performance on the old administration? You’re blameless?”
Aly’s big gray eyes darted back and forth between them, as if glued to a tennis match.
“Not blameless,” he admitted. “I made a few fucked-up decisions, didn’t trust my gut. But I was a marked man, Waverly, and I do have talent.”
“Simon,” Waverly said carefully, firmly, “we have our quarterback.”
With a glare, he turned and walked off, Aly following, determined to ensure the man who called their father a “stubborn bastard” found his way off the section of the premises that had been reserved for the Villains’ party.
Waverly slipped back into the crowd again to find her father and notify him of the incident. Anyone who thought she’d landed any of her training jobs through nepotism was dead wrong.
Some called her parents’ methods tough love; they called it teaching her responsibility and good common sense. Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t run to them for consolation when life didn’t turn out as she hoped.
“Dad,” she said, reaching up to tap J.T. on the shoulder. Outfitted in a charcoal suit, her father was big and bald and still radiated the powerful energy of a man who harvested physical and mental strength. Though he no longer competed as a bodybuilder, focusing instead on philanthropy, global investing and his glorious success as a shareholder of a billion-dollar power company, he made it an obsession to stay in top form. “Simon Smith was here. He had a few words for me, but he’s gone now.”
J.T. assessed her with a level stare. His irises were the same piercing shade as Aly’s, though his never gave an indication of what he was thinking. Like many of the men roaming this party tonight, he was no gentle giant. “What kind of words?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” With that, Waverly turned on her heel. What she wanted was to fill a plate, park it at a table and eat. No, first she wanted to say to her father, “See, I can handle things on my own!” and then eat.
“Waverly!”
“Hey, Meg. Having a good time?”
Her friend wiggled her brows suggestively. “Not nearly as good as you’re about to have, apparently. I should revoke your best-friend privileges for not dishing about your hookup on Flamingo Road. You let me think that guy from the Rio just licked it and quit it.”
Confused, Waverly said, “That’s the truth. We didn’t—” she dropped her voice “—finish fucking. I didn’t even give him my number, so it’s not like he’s going to text me for a midnight screw.”
“So if he was so wrong for you, why’d you invite him to your team’s party?”
“What?”
“Waverly, I saw him with my own eyes. In fact—” Meg took Waverly by the shoulders, turned her and then gestured to one of the buffet tables, where a man stood talking to a server “—there he is.”
Waverly’s mouth dropped open, and a wave of heat touched her from scalp to toes at the visceral memory of being draped over him. “How in the hell—”
“Wait, you didn’t invite him here?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Then he—he followed you?”
“Why do you sound so freaked out?”
“Because guys who meet random women and then follow them without their knowledge are more often than not a little unhinged.”
“Once a Fed, always a Fed.” Waverly patted Meg’s arm, then turned again and kept the man in her sights. “I think I’ll go over to see if you’re right.”
◆◆◆
“I feel like there’s a target on my back,” Jeremiah muttered to the server who stood at a buffet table pretending to arrange a silver tray of napkins that had been artfully folded into cranes.
“Don’t.” Vicky’s was a refreshingly friendly face to see. At least the Greers had the sense not to jettison the company that had catered the Villains’ parties to perfection when the Tarantinos had owned the team. “Simon Smith was booted out. People will be too busy gossiping about him to notice there’s a double agent among them.”
“Double agent? How about a man who’s just trying to keep his job?”
And get the team back under Tarantino ownership. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been invited to the Villains’ party. What he hadn’t been invited to do was dig around for any information that would help secure his spot on the team.
He had only one person to look out for: himself.
Jeremiah whistled at the turnout. He’d give the new team owners credit: they sure as hell knew how to throw a classy party. What his father’s fiancée, Izzie, wouldn’t give to be on the guest list.
“Word is Simon lured two of the owners’ daughters behind the stage. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with a broken kneecap for pulling that!”
Jeremiah homed in on J.T. Greer. A cluster of tree-sized players surrounded him. Nearly hidden in the bunch was a slender woman whose body language screamed approachable and untouchable simultaneously.
“Not the GM,” Vicky said. “She’s been glued to her parents all night.”
“Who’s talking business?” He’d milled around, eavesdropped here and there, but hadn’t overheard anything substantial.
“A couple guys from offense aren’t looking forward to ice baths at camp. Omar Beckham isn’t so bulky this season, but that’s just my observation,” she said meaningfully.
Beckham’s contract with Las Vegas had sparked a firestorm several weeks ago, since no team wanted to touch him after his last season with the Chargers had ended with a row of suspensions topped with a steroid scandal.
“Oh,” Vicky added, “the head coach was in a private conversation with one of Greer’s daughter, that trainer they hired. I couldn’t glean much, though, since she snagged a carrot off my tray and sent me about my business.”
On the drive over from the Rio, Jeremiah had kept the satellite radio tuned to sports, regretting not catching up on Villains news sooner. He’d caught snatches of reports sharing the same information—all three Greer daughters were somewhere on the team’s payroll now.
And according to one blurb from the local sports radio station, the new hire was ready to get her hooks into the league’s head-injury research.
His research. Hell, he had a right to take exception to a newcomer’s plan to out-and-out bulldoze her way onto his family’s team, into his work role and into the research—and probably the promotion—he was in line for.
If Jeremiah could get his father to care about the franchise again, the man would realize that his formerly prized possession was drastically changing. Everyone was dispensable, including Jeremiah.
Jeremiah personally didn’t care who formed the team so long as he or she knew what the hell they were doing. Not that his opinion was welcome to interlopers who had money to spend and power to spare.
“Vicky—”
“Shh! I need this job, so if anybody asks, you don’t know me and I didn’t tell you anything other than what’s in the meatballs,” Vicky muttered as she discreetly moved farther down the buffet table, straightening platters and bowls along the way.
A hand snaked up his arm, curved over his shoulder. “Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah slowly turned. Was he going to be “booted” off the premises, too? He leveled his gaze at the woman behind him.
Earlier he’d been ready to skip this party to be one-on-one with her. Then she’d walked out of his suite, leaving him on fire with want. Now she was close enough to kiss again and with that quirky smile was playing roulette with his restraint.
“Waverly.”
“I—I can’t believe you’re here.” A pause. “Um…why are you here?”
He could ask her the same question. Had she seen him get into his Benz and followed him here? But why go to the trouble? She’d
been the one to shut down what he’d hoped would be a night of naked acrobatics.
“Can’t resist a good party,” he said carefully. “You?”
“I couldn’t have missed this even if I’d wanted to. Obligation and all that. Confused?” She went on after he brought his brows together in a frown. “This is my party. Well, my family and my team’s.”
What?
“Waverly,” he said, his mind rushing to put it all together, knowing he wouldn’t like what he came up with.
The female assistant athletic trainer whose name was all over the media, the woman who people called a jockette, was Waverly Greer, the sexpot who not even two hours ago had been open to his mouth …down to a silver scrap of underwear and a red bra.
Villains colors.
Worse, the second he’d turned and recognized her, he’d wanted to touch her again. But back at the Rio she’d clearly prioritized her commitment to what he now knew was this team and her family over him. That much was clear. So he had to do the same and put himself and his agenda over the sizzle of desire that he knew logically was nothing but biology and physics and chemistry. And designed to drive a man out of his fucking mind.
“Waverly Greer,” he said, letting the syllables caress his tongue, “since we’re doing the whole reality thing now, you should know I’m Jeremiah Tarantino.”
Suddenly she looked as shattered as he’d felt when she’d sashayed out of his suite.
And something about being the one to cause that expression to cross her face felt wrong.
Man, oh, man. This wasn’t going to be easy.
But the line was drawn now, and they were on opposing sides.
Game on.
CHAPTER FOUR
A hookup—make that a hot, brain-scrambling, unfinished one—wasn’t supposed to be trouble. If done right. Waverly had apparently made a misstep…because she’d lost control with Jeremiah Tarantino. A teammate. The former owner’s son.
A man who was the kind of trouble that would make an ordinary woman itch to be wrong. Waverly couldn’t afford this level of wrong. Nor could she find her voice even moments after Jeremiah said, “You should know I’m Jeremiah Tarantino.”
He reached out as if to touch her. Instantly a sharp memory flashed of him tugging her dress until it slipped over her shoulders and down to the floor. Edging back before he could make contact, she said, “This is crazy.”
“You said that if it was meant to happen, we’d see each other again.” Now he was tossing her words back to her, as if this were funny.
“That was before I realized you’re on my team.” At that, his gaze seemed to chill, and that hard look in his eyes was instantly familiar. She conjured an image of the sexy Italian football player she’d glimpsed on ESPN. “Before I knew that you’re Milo Tarantino’s brother. I wasn’t thinking. I lost track of—”
Jeremiah shook his head, flattening his lips in contemplation. Private knowledge of what those lips could do sent a shiver through her. “No, Waverly. You lost control. You liked it,” he objected quietly, casually moving in closer. “I liked it.”
“It was a mistake.” And it wasn’t fair that he could look so unruffled, cool and composed when she knew panic was written all over her. “Jeremiah, we need to talk about this. It’s no one’s business but ours.”
“A conversation between two people on my payroll is always my business,” a man cut in.
Her father’s voice was an injection of fear directly into her veins. He folded his hands over her shoulders and gave a little shake like when she’d been a child in need of care and consolation and all he could provide was a brisk shake and advice that she toughen up.
Waverly watched Jeremiah move his gaze from her to her father. Something in his face hardened for an instant.
Don’t, she silently repeated. Don’t exploit the fact that I screwed up.
Jeremiah glanced at her again and said to J.T., “We were referring to the media. The employee roster, from the players to the front office, is the team’s business, and not the media’s.”
If not for J.T.’s steadying hands on her shoulders, Waverly might have dropped to the floor in relief. But that strange look on Jeremiah’s face told her she wasn’t completely out of the woods. They still needed that talk. Immediately.
“Damn right,” J.T. said. “Glad you recognize that, Tarantino. Enjoy the party.”
Clearly dismissed, Jeremiah stepped away. Waverly’s eyes followed him until she blinked and lost him in the crowd.
“And you…” J.T. gave Waverly a single firm clap between the shoulder blades “…don’t look so nervous.”
I chose the wrong man again, Dad. You and Mom were right. And if he talks, my career’s as good as destroyed. Isn’t that something to be nervous about?
When her father strode off, she searched the Bellagio’s ballroom for Jeremiah but had no luck in finding him again. That he could drop the bomb on her that he was on the training staff—that they were colleagues!—and then disappear from the party left her brain tangled and her heart in a panic.
Eventually her mother drew her aside. “Waverly, is there something you haven’t told us about your little discussion with Simon Smith earlier?”
Joan’s voice may have been lullaby gentle, soothing, but it—and her face—were absent of anything but mild curiosity glazed with irritation. Concerned for her daughter she was not.
This time Waverly was glad, because otherwise her parents would relentlessly dig until they got what they wanted. That was how they operated when it came to capturing something in their sights—information they wouldn’t ordinarily be privy to…an NFL team that had solidly sat in one man’s possession since the establishment of the Las Vegas Villains seventeen years ago…an impossible-to-get lakefront home that was currently being renovated and prepped for an HGTV show about luxury properties.
Fortunately, no one but Meg had really witnessed Waverly and Jeremiah together—had seen the familiar way she’d curled her fingers around his shoulder, feeling solid muscle and the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt.
At least when J.T. had walked up on them, they hadn’t been touching.
“Mom, if you want a detailed recap about the altercation with Simon, ask Aly. She was there, too.”
“Interestingly, you and Aly have a history of coloring the truth. And not using the brains God gave you. You both should’ve called security on him straightaway.”
“Have you told Aly this, or am I supposed to pass this life lesson along?” Waverly ignored her mother’s chilling look. “Well?”
Joan smoothed Waverly’s hair, grooming her not in a motherly gesture but only because she wasn’t photo perfect in this moment. “I’d love to give your sister an earful about her irresponsible choices, but I can’t find her.”
Because Aly’s smarter than you give her credit for. “Mom, please don’t worry about Simon Smith.”
“I’m worried about you. As your mother and your employer, I need to remind you that your place on this team is unique. You’re a statement for women in pro sports. I want you to treasure that and keep in mind that your decisions don’t affect only you.”
Waverly never asked to be anyone’s shining example. She asked for a chance to prove her talents as a capable athletic trainer, but that hung in the balance all because she’d lost control with a man who’d now seemed to have vanished from the team’s party.
“Everyone’s watching, Waverly. You can’t risk making a mistake.”
No kidding, she thought as Joan sauntered off, all poise and pride and perfection.
Waverly was too gritty, too mistake prone, too real to be any of those things.
◆◆◆
“No one accidentally fucks a coworker.”
Waverly’s ballet flats scraped the pavement as she abruptly stopped in front of the entrance to the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and discreetly glanced around to gauge whether any passersby had overheard Meg’s declaration.
Muddled after realizing Jerem
iah’s identity, she’d gone through the motions for the rest of last night and had lain awake through most of the early-morning hours until she could slip out of the villa for a hard run in scenic Mount Charleston without being subjected to a Greer-style inquisition.
But by the close of the night, when Waverly, out of desperation to leave her family behind, had claimed fatigue, her sister Aly had zeroed in on her and lightly commented, “You say you’re all tuckered out but you seem wide-awake to me.”
At least Waverly had effectively avoided Veronica, the woman who was happily “the most stable of the Greer daughters”—until her recent split with a music mogul—and now owned prime Las Vegas real estate thanks to her generous divorce settlement. This morning Veronica had sent her a “What the hell?” text because they’d agreed to meet at Veronica’s place for a five a.m. eight-mile run together, and Waverly had taken off at four. When afternoon had rolled around and Meg had called saying she’d left the Las Vegas field office for the day and was up for some shopping, Waverly had leaped at the chance to vent about her latest Waverly Slipup.
“Correction—it wasn’t really sex.”
“Could you identify his dick in a lineup?”
“Yes.”
“Could he identify your vaginal secretions in a taste test?”
“Oh, my God, I’m done talking to you.”
“Answer the question.”
“Probably.”
“Waverly, that was sex. Penetration doesn’t matter jack shit and you know it.”
Waverly let her friend precede her into the crowded world of expensive upmarket finery. Over a hundred stores rolled out before her in gilded extravagance, and though she usually considered herself a marathon shopper, her zest for it had taken a hit. She was nervous—no, terrified—about repercussions. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake like this? An office romance that was a baaaad idea?”
“Dozens,” Meg admitted with a wanton little grin, pausing outside of Marc Jacobs. Still in her work outfit, a perfectly pressed dark pantsuit—and red-soled high heels—she appeared the picture of control and composure. But over the course of their friendship Waverly had learned that Meg Reyes was a die-hard risk taker on and off the clock. “They were unwise, fun, and very deliberate. Never accidental.”
The Penalty Page 4