The Striker's Chance

by Rebecca Crowley

  “I just heard once that most people in London don’t have cars, because the roads are so busy. I didn’t know if South Africa was the same, or if you had a driver, or whatever.”

  His eyes were flinty as he fixed her with a hard, cold stare.

  “You may recall I was involved in a rather highly publicized car accident. During which I was driving.”

  Hot shame burned in Holly’s face as she cursed herself inwardly. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t herself at all this afternoon. Kepler always managed to put her off balance and keep her there.

  “That was really stupid of me,” she said tightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind. Maybe if my PR manager can forget about it, there’s hope that someday the rest of the world will too.”

  “Of course they will,” she assured him. “After all, it’s been proven that it wasn’t your fault, and Tommy’s injuries weren’t nearly as bad as they thought at first.”

  “Not even as bad as mine, it turns out. Yet he’s back on the pitch with Archway and I’m in North Carolina.”

  Holly drew a breath to respond, but he held up a hand to stop her.

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  There was so much misery and pain in his voice, she wanted desperately to reach over and give his knee a comforting squeeze, or better yet, pull over to the side of the quiet residential road and throw her arms around his neck. He would press his forehead against her collarbone, she would whisper soothing words as she ran her fingers through that thick blond hair...

  Holly braked hard at a red light, bringing her fantasy to a screeching halt and working hard to ignore the delicious tingle still buzzing through her from the mere thought of touching him.

  Professional distance. Friendly, polite, nothing more.

  “Well, I hope you’ll learn to like Charlotte as much as I do,” she managed eventually. “I’ve never lived anywhere larger, and although I’d love to try life in a big city, I still think Charlotte’s a great place.”

  She interpreted his silence as skepticism, so she carried on. “The first house is in an area called Ballantyne. It’s south of the city—actually most of what we’re seeing today is on the south side.”

  “Is this where you live?”

  She shook her head. “I do live on the south end of town, but in Dilworth. My sister Gina lives in Ballantyne. She has a beautiful house.”

  And a rich husband who bought it for her. I couldn’t afford this neighborhood if I saved up for a million years.

  “Is yours a house or an apartment? Do you live with anyone else? Roommates, or your boyfriend?”

  Holly stole a sharp glance at him as she steered the car into the immaculately manicured, high-end community. His expression was annoyingly neutral.

  “I don’t have roommates—or a boyfriend. I live in a house. I bought it last year,” she added with a hint of pride.

  His attention had strayed out the window. “It seems slightly sterile around here. Does your sister like it?”

  “It is a little bit farther out of the city center,” she acquiesced, “but the houses are big and new, and you have everything you need in terms of amenities. My sister loves it. She doesn’t work, so there’s plenty for her to do during the day. She shops at the mall, goes to the spa, hangs out at big chain coffee shops with the other neighborhood wives, that kind of thing.”

  “That’s my idea of hell,” Kepler said so bluntly that Holly had to laugh.

  “I don’t disagree with you. My brother-in-law wants to start trying for a baby, but she keeps telling him she’s too busy to be running around after his children.”

  Kepler made no reply, and Holly realized she was probably veering into too-much-information territory.

  “I guess it works for her. Anyway, this is our first stop.” She parked on the street in front of an imposing, brick-faced house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The front door was open, and the several other cars parked nearby were of a considerably more expensive standard.

  “This one backs up to the country club,” she explained as they proceeded up the walkway. “And it’s sort of secluded down here at the end of the road. I thought you might like that.”

  “What gave you that impression?”

  Holly suppressed a groan. Had she said the wrong thing again? For someone people hired to smooth things over, she was doing a great job of making a mess.

  “Most of my celebrity clients value their privacy. I assumed you would too.”

  He smirked as they reached the front door. “I appreciate the appeal to my ego, but I have no illusions about the extent of my fame in Charlotte.”

  The realtor appeared at the other end of the entry hall and began walking toward them. Kepler turned to Holly with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that filled her with dread.

  “Watch,” he said, “I’ll prove it.”

  “Kepler, wait.” But it was too late. Although her heavily applied makeup made her look older, Holly guessed the realtor was in her early twenties. She was blonde, slim and tall, and her partially unbuttoned blouse walked a thin line between sexy and skanky. She shot Kepler a toothpaste-ad smile as she handed them both brochures on the property. Holly hated her instantly.

  Please don’t flirt with her in front of me. She didn’t think she could survive five bedrooms’ worth of watching Kepler deploy his smoothest lines on this infuriatingly attractive young woman.

  “Welcome, y’all. Thanks so much for coming down. I’m Leslie-Ann and I can’t wait to show you around this amazing house.”

  Holly fought the urge to roll her eyes, but Kepler grinned and stuck out his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Leslie-Ann.” He pumped the girl’s hand with more warmth and animation than Holly had thought him capable of. “I’m Kepler, and this is my gorgeous wife, Holly.”

  He slung his arm around Holly’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. Somewhere between the shock of his statement and the intoxicating heat and scent of his body against hers, she found enough mental clarity to notice Leslie-Ann glance skeptically at their bare ring fingers.

  “We had to get married quickly for his green card,” Holly blurted out, possibly surprising herself even more than Kepler, who glanced at her with a playful grin.

  “That’s right,” he confirmed. “We’re only just getting down to basics now. Like buying a house.”

  “I see.” Leslie-Ann nodded, her perky smile never leaving her face. “And where did you move here from?”

  “Africa.”

  Leslie-Ann’s pretty green eyes widened. “Wow.” She tilted her head sympathetically. “It must be so overwhelming to move somewhere so different. But I promise you one thing, every house here in Charlotte has an indoor toilet, including this one.”

  Holly had no patience for ignorance and was about to interject that Africa was a diverse continent with a huge variety of plumbing options, when Kepler replied, “God bless America” with such earnestness that instead she struggled to stifle a laugh.

  Leslie-Ann nodded solemnly and gestured to the rest of the house. “Let me take you through.”

  As soon as the realtor turned around, Holly squirmed out of Kepler’s grasp and shook her head to clear it.

  “What are we doing?” she whispered as they followed the girl down the hall. Now that Holly had extricated herself from his hold and the giddy excitement of his proximity—which she planned to worry about later—was subsiding, all her professional alarm bells were ringing.

  “Viewing a property.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “You know what I mean. What if someone recognizes you? What if people think we’ve really gotten married? In many ways Charlotte works like a small town, and if we’re not careful we’re going to see a far crazier headline than the one about tequila.”

  “Stop worrying so much. I’m proving my point. No one knows who I am.”

  “That means I’m not doing my job.”

  Kepler shot her a withering look, but before he could sp
eak Leslie-Ann ushered them into what she described as the French country kitchen.

  “And in here you’ve got granite countertops and fabulous painted cabinets.” She spun to face them wearing an expectant smile.

  “Uh, great,” Holly said uncertainly, but Kepler flashed his gorgeous grin.

  “Holly loves to cook.” He slipped his hand across her lower back. “Don’t you, honey?”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed, trying to ignore the thrill of his touch. She knew she shouldn’t encourage him and that she should put a stop to this—but she didn’t want to.

  “I cook all his favorites, lots of African delicacies,” she elaborated, getting caught up in the joke. “But mostly I’m just trying to find the best way to mask the poison so I can collect his life insurance.” She gave Leslie-Ann a conspiratorial wink.

  The realtor’s carefully maintained smile faltered ever so slightly, but Kepler’s reaction was stronger. He dissolved into hearty, genuine laughter.

  Holly realized she’d never heard him laugh before. It was an awesome, infectious sound, boyish and full of mischief, lighting up his whole face.

  At that moment another couple wandered into the hallway outside the kitchen, and Leslie-Ann turned to them gratefully, her smile already back to full force. Holly heard her describing the simply fantastic iron balustrade staircase as she guided the newcomers back toward the foyer.

  Holly twisted to face Kepler, but he didn’t drop his hand; instead he raised his other one to rest at her waist.

  “I should’ve known you were trying to kill me,” he murmured, his lips curled in amusement. He tightened his grip on her waist and spread his fingers so his thumbs brushed her hipbones.

  She swallowed. This situation had spun completely out of her control, and she had no idea how to claw it back.

  “Come on, Kepler.” She tried to make her tone light and joking. “I’m not your consolation prize. You played the wrong card with Leslie-Ann back there. You might have had her with the exotic accent, but she’s not the type to let a man cheat on his wife. Even I could see that.”

  Confusion clouded his handsome face for a split second, and then he shook his head. “I was never interested in the realtor. Not my type. But you’re right—you’re no one’s consolation prize.”

  He pulled her against him so suddenly that her hands flew to his arms to steady herself. She spread her palms over his biceps, indulging in the feel of him, smooth skin pulled taut over the hard swell of muscle.

  A creak in the hallway outside sent panic fluttering in her chest. This was an expensive neighborhood—what if someone on the Discovery board was house hunting and came upon them like this? What was Kepler doing, anyway? He seemed so underwhelmed by her earlier in the day, and now...

  ...now he was lowering his lips to hers. She’d been too preoccupied with worry to anticipate his kiss, and there was no time to stop it.

  He kissed like he moved on the pitch: confident, patient, unyielding. Holly jerked in surprise at the first crush of his mouth, but as the initial shock wore off she melted into his embrace. The logical, rational, utterly boring part of her brain shut down layer by layer until her mind was blissfully overtaken by sizzling, sensual heat.

  Her hands slid to press flat against his chest, where the warmth of his body radiated through the soft cotton of his T-shirt. He flared his hand on her lower back, pulling her even closer as the other one moved to rest between her shoulder blades. She knew he could feel the clasp of her bra through the thin material of her dress. As she imagined him unhooking it and slipping the straps over her shoulders, imagined the lips that probed hers making the same movements on her bare breasts, she shuddered and moaned, her response involuntary but deeply, vividly female.

  Kepler made a sound like he’d just tasted something utterly delicious and the pressure of his mouth increased. Blood pounded in her veins as the rest of the world fell away. There was only the touch of his hands, the hard lines of his body, the gentle exploration of his tongue. She parted her lips, eager to welcome him deeper, and he responded hungrily.

  The jingle of keys in the kitchen doorway was like a bucketful of cold water on her overheated senses. She and Kepler jolted apart like guilty teenagers.

  Leslie-Ann stood with one hand on her hip, looking extremely displeased, a middle-aged couple behind her. While the husband seemed amused, the wife gave Kepler a quick onceover and shot Holly a blatantly impressed look.

  “We were just leaving,” Kepler said huskily, grabbing Holly’s hand and leading her through the kitchen. They had to pass the couple as they snaked through the doorway, and he paused long enough to say, “Granite countertops—great stuff,” before practically dragging her to the foyer and out the front door.

  As they burst into the bright summer sunshine, the full impact of what had happened hit Holly like a ton of bricks. For a moment she was paralyzed with fear. If anyone found out about this, she would lose her job. Her stomach began a sickening, anxious churn. That one kiss could cost her entire livelihood and dash any hopes she had of expanding her career beyond North Carolina.

  Then Kepler pushed her against the side of her car, pinning her body with his own as his hands rose to cup her cheeks.

  “I don’t think I’ll be making an offer,” he murmured as he brought his face down to hers.

  Bolstered by the image of Alan Brady pointing his finger in her face as he fired her, she found the resolve to clamp her hands on Kepler’s shoulders and hold him back. He paused, and she squirmed out from under him and walked briskly to the driver’s side.

  “Come on,” she pressed, not trusting herself to look at him as she unlocked the car. “We have a lot more to see.”

  He dropped into the seat beside her and she pulled out of the cul-de-sac so fast the tires squealed on the asphalt.

  “I thought we could look at something in Myers Park next,” Holly said, trying to recover the professional distance she’d so fervently coached herself to maintain barely an hour earlier. “It’s an older neighborhood, more central, maybe a little more fun.”

  She could feel his eyes on her. She studied the road ahead as if it might give her an answer to this predicament.

  “We’re two single adults, Holly, we didn’t do anything wrong. Why are you acting like we did?”

  “Because I’m getting paid to be your PR manager, not to get personal. Not to, uh—”

  “Kiss me? Don’t try to put some PR spin on it. We kissed. And I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he added with a seductive growl that had her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.

  Suddenly she was reminded of the press search she’d compiled when first given this assignment. She’d trawled through years and years of coverage by the British newspapers. For every write-up of an outstanding goal, there was an inch of gossip column space detailing his off-the-pitch antics.

  What came to mind now were all the photos of Kepler emerging from nightclubs with his arm draped over a woman. Rarely the same one twice, and even more rarely a woman anyone had heard of. Unlike those among his teammates who used their fame to leverage trysts with high-profile actresses and pop stars, he favored the impossibly beautiful, low-paid young women who probably spent their entire wages on getting the look needed to gain entry to these sorts of venues and dreamed of snagging a rich boyfriend once inside. To them, he was a chance at a different kind of life.

  To Kepler, they were simple playthings. Anonymous. Disposable.

  She glanced at him, and the distance between them seemed to multiply.

  He was charming, for sure, but she was no starry-eyed girl drunk on expensive champagne. And she wasn’t about to join his long list of conquests. A fresh resolve stiffened her spine and cooled her blood.

  “Let’s leave it there,” she admonished. “We were rude and disrespectful to that realtor, and I let myself get caught up in the moment. None of it was appropriate, and we’re not going to mention it again, okay?”

  Kepler glared at her for a long minute, th
en his face closed up the way it had in the park when they first met. He slumped in his seat and stared out the window.

  “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Five

  Kepler glanced at the enormous clock mounted over the pitch. Discovery had twenty minutes left in the match against Pittsburgh Steel, and they were a goal down. They needed to score, and quickly.

  One of the Pittsburgh players had tripped and badly twisted his ankle, and Kepler enjoyed a few minutes of rest while the medics tended to the injured man.

  He swiped his wristband across his forehead. Soaked with sweat, his sky-blue shirt clung to his skin. The rest of his teammates were so inexperienced and lacking in technical skill that he had to play as if he were the only one on the field. After seventy minutes of constantly covering the ball, he was beginning to feel the toll on his body. His chest was tight, his breathing short and hot, and his leg throbbed in complaint.

  The medics bundled the Pittsburgh player onto a stretcher. His moment’s respite was over. Time to get his head back in the game.

  Out of nowhere, he thought about Holly.

  Her cheeks had felt like rose petals under his fingers, and the curve of her waist had stalked his daydreams for days. He’d seen another side to her in that ostentatious house, a side that was funny and lighthearted and spontaneous. He liked that new angle on her personality. Liked it a lot.

  But it had disappeared as quickly as it had emerged, and before he knew it she was explaining which utilities providers he could choose from as they walked through the second property, a four-bedroom built in the 1920s.

  Myers Park seemed to be a friendlier, less extravagant neighborhood. He’d liked the house’s deep, shady lot, and the wraparound porch reminded him of old colonial mansions in South Africa.

  “I’ll take it,” he’d informed the realtor.

  Holly had gaped at him, her professional demeanor finally falling away. “You don’t want to see any more? Or take some time to think about your offer?”