Winning Ace: A Winning Ace Novel (Book 1)

by Tracie Delaney

  “Smelling your hair,” he said with a half-embarrassed grin.

  “Urgh, it must stink after being crammed under that hat all morning.”

  “It’s intoxicating actually.”

  Cash helped her out of the car. Her gait was gangly, like a foal trying to stand for the first time, and he suppressed a smile. “You’re going to ache later.”

  “I know,” she groaned.

  She leaned on Cash as he inserted the key in the door. He’d pushed it open when a slight movement to his left caught his eye. He turned around, and his hands automatically balled into fists.

  “What are hell are you doing here?” he said to Kinga in an icy tone that even he hadn’t heard before. He automatically pushed Natalia behind him.

  “Can we talk?”

  “No, we can’t fucking talk.” He turned to Natalia, whose face registered shock. “Go inside, baby. Why don’t you take a bath?”

  “Are you going to be okay?” she asked him. He knew she meant Is Kinga going to be okay?

  He nodded and urged her through the door. “Yes. Go on now. I’ll be in shortly.” She hesitated, so he gave her a gentle nudge. “Go, Natalia, please.”

  She nodded and entered the house but not before she’d given him a worried glance over her shoulder.

  He pulled the door shut and turned back to Kinga. “I’ll be changing the code to the gates, just so you know.”

  Kinga lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry, Cash, but I had to come. I wanted you to know that I’m getting help. I was obsessed with you. I know that now.”

  “Good for you,” he bit out. “But if you’re looking for validation and forgiveness, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

  She raised her chin, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and if it were anyone else, he’d feel a tinge of empathy. But Kinga had used up her supply.

  “I was hoping… maybe once I’ve got the help I need to sort through my feelings that we might work together again.”

  Cash choked out a bitter laugh. “Are you fucking crazy? No, strike that. You clearly are.” He took one step closer and loomed over Kinga. “Get off my property. Every second I waste talking to you is a second I’m not spending with my girlfriend.”

  The change in Kinga’s expression almost gave him whiplash. She sneered, her lip curling upwards, and the laugh that erupted out of her held nothing but sourness.

  “Girlfriend? It’s you that’s crazy. You’ll wake up soon and wonder what the hell you saw in her.”

  Hate coursed through his veins. He stuffed his hands deep in the pockets of his coat because if he didn’t, he worried about what he would do—and what he was capable of doing.

  “Now we see the real Kinga.” He loomed over her. “If you’re not off my property in five fucking minutes, I’ll call the police and have you escorted off.”

  He spun around and pushed the door open, slamming it behind him. He watched through the window as Kinga stood rooted to the spot, and then her shoulders sagged. She trudged down the path and, eventually, disappeared from sight.

  Cash slumped against the door. Natalia was right—Kinga had an illness—but that didn’t stop him hating her with everything he had. He’d spent years with that woman and never noticed the sickness inside.

  He heard a noise and glanced up the stairs. Natalia hadn’t changed out of her riding gear.

  “Hey,” he said. “I thought you were taking a bath.”

  “It’s running,” she said as he jogged upstairs to join her. “Has Kinga gone?”

  He nodded while tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Yes. For good this time.”

  And he meant it. Kinga was in the past. Natalia was his future.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Tally leaned her head on Cash’s shoulder, a horrible sense of foreboding hanging over her. They had to leave for the airport in an hour, and she didn’t want to go. After the wonderful weekend they’d shared, to think of another long week without him was torturous. She couldn’t even imagine how bad it was going to be when he set off for the States in eight days. One more weekend together, and then she wouldn’t see him for four weeks.

  Once again, she wondered if she’d made a huge mistake turning Cash down when he’d asked her to move in. At least then they would have been able to travel together. True to his word, he hadn’t mentioned it. Not once. And she couldn’t quieten the thought that he’d changed his mind. Even if he hadn’t, was she ready to give up a career she’d spent years building for a man she’d been dating a few short weeks?

  Yes, shouted the voice in her head.

  God, the inner turmoil was exhausting.

  “You’re very quiet.” Cash’s fingertips floated down her bare arm, goose bumps springing up in reaction to his touch.

  “Am I? Sorry.”

  “Want to talk?”

  A long sigh drifted out of her. She was on the edge of tears, and to stop them spilling over, she clenched her hands, her nails digging painfully into her palms. “I don’t want to go.”

  Cash lay down on the sofa and drew her on top of him. He brushed away a single tear that had spilled onto her cheek. “I don’t want you to go either. I keep telling myself it’ll soon be Friday, but it doesn’t help.”

  She rested her head on his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat soothing the ache deep inside her. “Is your offer still open?”

  His hand stilled on her back. “To move in?”

  “Yes.”

  He lifted her head and studied her, his eyes searching her face. “You were adamant that it was too soon a week ago. What’s changed?”

  “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.”

  Cash chuckled. “You’re living up to the female stereotype there, sweetness.”

  She leaned up on her forearms. The depth of emotion gazing back at her made a huge lump swell in her throat, and she suddenly had difficulty swallowing.

  “Here’s another stereotype for you: a woman is allowed to change her mind.”

  Cash twisted a lock of her hair through his fingers. “How about this? Go home. Talk to Emmalee and Pete and anyone else whose opinion you value. Ask them what they think, and try to listen if their thinking doesn’t align with where your head’s at. Then when you come back next weekend, we can have a proper discussion.”

  At his rejection, her eyes began to burn with restrained tears. She sat up and scrambled to her feet. She’d expected him to be thrilled she’d come around to the idea of moving in so quickly, but instead, he was trying to dissuade her, to slow her up. To make her reconsider.

  “Natalia.”

  She kept her back to him. “What?”

  He came and stood in front of her. He grazed her cheek tenderly with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She gave him a half-smile. “I’m just going to get my case.”

  She jogged upstairs. Five minutes earlier, she’d have given anything to stay. Now she couldn’t wait to leave. She hauled her case off the bed and extended the handle. When she turned around, Cash was blocking the doorway, arms folded, ankles crossed.

  “Talk to me.”

  She shook her head and tried to brush past him. Cash put his arm out. “We’re going nowhere until you tell me what on earth’s the matter.”

  “I told you—nothing.”

  “Fucking hell, Natalia.” Cash slammed the palm of his hand against the wall, and she jumped. “You are one frustrating woman. Is this because I’m giving you the space to make the right decision?”

  She flashed him a sullen look. “Is that how you’re justifying it?”

  “Justifying what?”

  “Changing your mind.”

  “I haven’t changed my fucking mind. But your about-face has come from nowhere. You tell me your job at the paper means everything, and yet now you’re saying you’d give it up like that.” Cash snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Try and see this from my point of view. I’d have you move in tomorrow, but you have to be sure it’s the rig
ht decision. I’m trying to do the right thing. The unselfish thing.” He smirked. “Me being unselfish. Imagine that.”

  She grimaced. God, she was an idiot. Her face heated with embarrassment. “Good job at least one of us is an adult,” she muttered.

  Cash laughed. “Somewhere, Brad’s head is exploding at me being called an adult.” He held his arms out, and she went willingly into them. He kissed the top of her head. “Promise me you’ll think about this properly. It’s a massive step, and I’m well aware you’re the one making all the sacrifices.”

  She nodded against his chest. “I promise.”

  Cash picked up her suitcase. She glanced around his bedroom suite and must have looked so sad because he cupped her face and kissed her lightly. “Soon be Friday.”

  “Liar,” she said.

  She was quiet on the drive to the airport. A couple of times, she spotted Cash glancing her way, but Tally kept her gaze firmly out of the window as pain clawed at her insides. She didn’t know how she was going to leave him behind.

  Cash pulled into the drop-off area outside Departures and cut the engine. “Sure you don’t want me to fly back with you?”

  She shook her head. “It will make it harder at the other end. Plus, you hate flying.”

  “I’d fly anywhere if it meant I could be with you.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tucking into his hair. “I know you would. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”

  The words were out before she could stop them. She held her breath, wondering if Cash would notice and, if he did, whether he’d comment. He blinked two or three times in quick succession then hit her with a blazing smile that had her insides turning upside down.

  “What other things do you love about me?”

  She blew out the breath she’d been holding. Instinct told her Cash wasn’t yet ready to hear she was in love with him. When she finally did tell him, she wanted to be sure he felt the same way. And at the moment, she was far from sure.

  “Fishing for compliments? What would your legion of female admirers think of you, Mr Gallagher?”

  “That I’d been snagged. Hook, line, and sinker.”

  A warm, fuzzy feeling spread to her arms and legs, and her skin prickled. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was damned close, the second time he’d been that close to admitting his feelings. And right now, she’d take that. She leaned in for a kiss. Cash’s warm lips closed over hers, and she soon forgot where they were until a car sounded its horn.

  “You’d better go,” she said, trying to pull away. “You’re holding up the traffic.”

  “As if I care,” Cash said, refusing to let her go. He kissed her again, but when the guy behind leaned on his horn for the second time, Cash blew out a terse breath and cursed. When he climbed out of the car, he made a rude hand gesture to the guy, who was waiting to pull into their space, and lifted her suitcase out of the boot. “Call me when you get home.”

  “I will.” She pecked him on the cheek and walked away. She knew without turning around that he’d be watching her, but she couldn’t look back. If she did, there was no way she’d find the strength to leave.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Em scooped the last of the salsa onto a tortilla chip. “I’ve really missed this, babes. It seems like ages since we had girl time, and soon, you won’t be here to do it with.”

  Tally lay down on the sofa and put her feet in Em’s lap. Although she’d promised Cash she’d talk to Pete before making a decision, one brief chat with Em on Sunday night had sealed it. “I’ve missed it too. You’ll come to visit lots, won’t you?”

  “Just try and keep me away. When are you talking to Pete?”

  She groaned. “I’m putting that off as long as I can. I feel bad, you know. He’s put so much personal time into helping me build the beginnings of a career. It feels like I’m throwing it back in his face.”

  “It’s not wasted, Tal. You can freelance. Loads do.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I think Pete had bigger plans for me.”

  Em shrugged. “It’s your life. It’s what you want that matters, and you want a life with Cash. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I’m such a cliché, Em. Career all the way, until some guy comes along and I turn into a woman from the fifties.”

  “Hardly. Writing’s in your blood. I can’t see you joining the Women’s Institute and holding coffee mornings for vacuous housewives whose conversation consists of who managed to make the lightest choux pastry last week.”

  Tally laughed. “Me either.”

  “You need to think differently about your career, that’s all. You always wanted to write a novel someday. Why not do a biography on Cash?”

  “You’re joking,” Tally scoffed. “He’s bad enough about keeping up with the interviews he’s contractually obliged to do, let alone spending hours and hours in interviews with me. He’s one of the most private people I’ve ever met.”

  With secrets he refuses to share.

  “So write about the circuit. What it’s like for the families. How hard the players work. You could do a real behind-the-scenes exposé.”

  Tally brushed off the niggling doubt about Cash’s secrets and pondered Em’s idea. It wasn’t a bad one. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  “You should. And you need to speak to Pete before the weekend, especially if that’s when you’re planning to tell Cash you’ll move in.”

  She nodded, dreading telling Pete, certain he would be furious. He still didn’t like Cash very much, and he’d think she was throwing her career away on a guy who might lose interest any minute. But she knew Cash. He might not have said he loved her in so many words, but he’d done everything else except that.

  “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Nausea churned in her stomach as she waited for Pete to finish his meeting. When she’d asked for some time in his diary that morning, he’d given her a hard look as though he already knew what was coming, which of course he couldn’t possibly. She’d gone over what to say a hundred times in her mind but still wasn’t sure exactly how to begin.

  Pete’s office door opened, and the guy he’d been meeting with walked out. Pete appeared at the door and crooked his finger at her.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered under her breath. Her nerves were frayed as she walked the seventeen steps from her desk to Pete’s office. The last time she’d been this anxious was when she was trying to persuade him to let her go to the Dorchester, back when knowing Cash had been nothing but a fantasy.

  She sat down and crossed her legs then uncrossed them again.

  “Whatever it is you’ve got to tell me, spit it out, Tally, before you have a heart attack.”

  “Pete, I… I don’t know where to start.”

  “Are you pregnant?” he asked, his voice soft and warm.

  “Jesus, no! Of course not. What do you take me for?”

  “Well, that’s something at least. Not that I wouldn’t want that for you one day, but you’ve got a whole career to build. There’s plenty of time for family. Need to win that Pulitzer Prize first,” he said with a grin.

  She covered her face with her hands. This was so much worse than she’d imagined.

  “Tally, come on, now. Tell me. It can’t be that bad.”

  “I’m moving in with Cash,” she blurted out.

  She held her breath, waiting for the explosion. Except there was none. Pete’s mouth hung open in an expression of stunned surprise.

  “Say something,” she said, gripping the sides of the chair.

  “I––isn’t it a bit sudden?”

  “I guess.” She shrugged. “But he makes me happy, Pete.”

  Pete stood up and walked around his desk. He tugged her into a warm cuddle. “Were you so afraid to tell me? Am I that much of an ogre?”

  The tears she’d been struggling to hold back spilled over. “No, of course you aren’t,” she said, wiping her nose on the back of
her hand.

  Pete reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.

  “Thanks.” She blew her nose. “I know how much effort you’ve put into helping me become a journalist, that’s all. I didn’t want you to think I was throwing it all away.”

  “Is Cash asking you to give up writing?”

  “No. In fact he’s the one encouraging me to continue. He suggested freelancing.”

  Pete nodded, and she could have sworn his approval of Cash increased slightly. “It’s definitely an option, especially as you’ll be travelling quite a bit, I expect. I could use a roaming reporter.”

  Tally kissed his cheek. “You’re the best. It will take me a while to build up a reputation, so I’ll need all the help I can get.”

  “I doubt Cash will let you starve in the meantime.” Then Pete pulled a face. “I suppose I’ll have to be nicer to him from now on.”

  “You look a little disappointed.”

  “As long as he treats you right, he’ll do, but I meant what I said a few weeks ago. That boy hurts you, and I’ll make his life a misery.”

  Tally chuckled. “Can you keep it to yourself for a while that I’m leaving? It won’t be for a few weeks anyway. It’ll take me a while to get sorted, so I won’t be moving until after Cash gets back from Indian Wells and Miami.”

  “It’s our little secret. I presume Em knows, though?”

  “Yeah. Difficult to keep much from her,” Tally said with a raised eyebrow.

  Pete laughed. “That’s an understatement. Jeez, I’m going to miss you, Tal. If I’d thought this would be the outcome of sending you to that bloody foundation gala, I’d have stuck to my guns and sent Kaminsky.”

  She chuckled and hugged him again. “I’m going to miss you too. Anyway, I’d better get back to work. I have a tyrant of an editor who has very unreasonable demands, and if I’m late with my article…”

  “He’ll hang you out to dry,” Pete said.

  * * *

  Tally unlocked the front door and kicked her shoes off without unbuckling them. Exhaustion washed over her as she glanced at her watch. Eleven. The flat was in darkness apart from a lamp Em had left on in the living room. Her stomach rumbled, but the thought of making a meal wasn’t exactly appealing at that time of night. She opened the fridge and spotted a pot of beans. Tally heated the beans in the microwave, scoffing them straight out of the plastic pot. Then she made a cup of hot chocolate and went to bed.