by Sykes, V. K.
Since this morning’s showdown with her boss, she’d asked herself a dozen times why it mattered what Ryan Locke thought about her. It didn’t make logical sense, since whatever he thought wouldn’t change the nature of their relationship. The minute he put on a Philadelphia Patriots uniform, their relationship had become one of player and manager. While their future interactions should of course be cordial and mutually supportive as members of the same team, in the end it didn’t much matter whether players liked or hated the front office staff, and vice-versa.
But Taylor had to reluctantly acknowledge that while it shouldn’t matter what Ryan thought about her, it absolutely did. Maybe that was just her guilt talking. The only thing she knew for certain was that when she’d seen Ryan striding across the parking lot toward her, she’d felt such a sense of loss and missed opportunity that he must have seen it written on her face. And as for him, Taylor hoped she hadn’t misread him, because the wary interest in his eyes hadn’t really meshed with the clipped harshness of the few words he’d spoken. That was the only thing that had given her the courage not to turn tail and run after blurting out her half-assed apology.
She spotted his SUV, which headed directly for her Fusion. It was hard to miss her red car, especially in a nearly-deserted lot. While the beach and the lot would be jam packed on weekends, especially once the weather got a little warmer, today she could have fired a few mortar rounds in the area and likely not hit anybody.
Ryan got out of his car, tossing his keys in the air and catching them before shoving them in a front pocket of his tight jeans. She hadn’t seen him in that particular shirt before, a long, off-white one—in linen, maybe—that he’d appropriately left hanging out of his jeans. It looked big enough that he could wrap her inside it and tie her up with a bow on top. Or big enough that it would cover up her naked body in the morning when she got out of bed to make them coffee.
She mentally groaned at herself. What a time to be having that runaway thought.
Taylor didn’t get up as he reached the table, nor did she greet him. Ryan didn’t say anything, either, and didn’t sit down. Instead, he stood at the end of the table staring down at her and almost blocking out the lowering afternoon sun with his big, broad-shouldered body.
Maybe he just wants me to take a good, eye-level look at his package and think about what I’m going to be missing. As if I need reminding.
She motioned him to sit while she grabbed her mug and took a swallow of coffee.
When he finally sat down across from her, Ryan pulled off his sunglasses and hung them from the neckline of his shirt. Taylor felt she had no choice but to take hers off, too, even though she’d have preferred to hide behind her shades until the ordeal had ended.
“So, here we are,” he said in a deep, sarcastic voice.
“Here we are,” she echoed, her throat tight.
His dark eyes were locked onto hers, certainly more questioning than angry if she didn’t miss her guess. Her tension eased a fraction.
“You told Dembinski about us, Ryan,” she said, breaking a short, uncomfortable silence. “Why did you feel the need to do that?”
Ryan’s upper lip quirked, as if the question wasn’t what he’d anticipated. “Well, first of all, I said what I said out of pure instinct. Second, I wanted to know if you and Dembinski had cooked this whole thing up together. I don’t apologize for that, not after what you did.”
“Um, define whole thing.”
“You know. The coincidence of our first meeting. The questions about the possible trade and where I wanted to go. Everything you said.” His look had darkened again. “It was all manipulation, though I guess Dembinski didn’t have anything to do with it, after all.”
Taylor shook her head. “He didn’t. It was all me, even though it certainly wasn’t all manipulation, Ryan. But it wasn’t great that you dumped our business on my boss like that. He was good and pissed at me.”
He shrugged. “I guess you should have told him yourself, then, shouldn’t you?”
Taylor couldn’t really argue with that logic. She’d somehow hoped to skate over the icy patches with Dembinski, and hadn’t anticipated that Ryan would blow the whistle on her. Anyway, she shouldn’t be trying to question what Ryan did—not when this whole thing was her fault.
She took a deep breath and gave him a wavering smile. “You’re right. I just kept digging myself into a deeper hole and didn’t know how to get out of it without making an even bigger mess. I didn’t want either you or Dembinski to think the worst of me, and it’s turned out that you both do.”
Ryan’s brow furrowed as he considered that. “I think you owe me the whole story, Taylor.”
“Yes, I do.” She turned her gaze away toward the beach as high-pitched caws from dive-bombing seagulls filled the air. A soft breeze off the water caressed her face, reminding her how lucky she was—despite her current mess—to be in sunny Florida instead of chilly, bleak Philadelphia.
Start from the beginning and just say it.
“Okay, then,” she said. “I’d been an admirer of yours for a long time. I’m a stats person, and you’re the kind of player whose value is sometimes only fully apparent when you dig a little deeper into the numbers.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I think.”
Taylor turned her gaze back to him, smiling a little at his comeback. “It was a compliment, I assure you. Anyway, when Dembinski tasked me to come up with some out-of-the-box thinking regarding a replacement for Jared Stark, I already had you in mind. It seemed to me that your…er, defensive shortcomings wouldn’t be nearly so problematic at first base. And your offensive production would be perfect for the Patriots. God knows we’ve got enough home run power with Miller, Harmer and other guys. I wanted a player who gets on base and doesn’t make stupid, ill-timed outs.”
Ryan gave her a hint of a smile. “That`s me, all right.”
“Mr. Modesty, aren’t you?” Taylor gave him a genuine smile in return.
“Hey, my ego’s taken a hell of a beating lately, right?”
“Point taken. Anyway, I got the not-so-brilliant idea that I should try to ferret out any additional information about you that I could before I laid out my idea for the GM.” She shook her head. “Look, Ryan, I don’t even know exactly what I was looking for. A sense of what you might want to do if you were traded, I guess. And some insight into your…character. How much grit you still had. Something like that,” she finished with a vague wave of her hand.
Ryan shot her a puzzled look. “Was that why you were at the Summer Moon with Ridge that night?”
“That was more a fortunate happenstance, since Joe did invite me to have dinner there. But, yes, I was planning on striking up a conversation with you one way or the other. You just made it easy when you decided to come over to our table.”
“Some sort of karma, I guess,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. “You kept glancing over at me, and it made me think I should do something about that.”
“Like hit on me,” she said.
“I’d have to have been dead from the neck down not to want to. And I’m not, as you later found out.”
That’s for sure. And when we made love, something in me came alive, too.
Taylor had to take a deep breath as Ryan’s stare suddenly turned into something darn close to predatory. He might be mad as hell at her, but the vibes coming off him told her he’d probably like to finish the argument with some really hot makeup sex on the picnic table.
God, I’d like that, too.
The dark, magnetic look in his eyes made it difficult to talk. The mental image of her flat on her back right here in the middle of the park, skirt up, panties off, and with Ryan between her spread thighs, was ridiculously erotic and frighteningly tempting. Knowing that she could never act out any fantasies with him—much less that one—depressed the hell out of her.
“Yeah, I could tell right away,” she managed. “And I felt the same, obviously. Once we started talking it was like being
pulled under, like I was in a rip tide or something. I won’t deny that I really wanted to be with you—sexually, that is.” She took a deep breath, willing herself to keep going. “After that, it was all I could do to maintain enough equilibrium to carry on a rational conversation. Yes, I did try my best to pump you for information, I’ll admit that. But I was falling down the rabbit hole the whole time, I assure you. Much to my surprise.”
He didn’t say anything for maybe half a minute, instead staring intently at her as if trying to divine what truth there was in her words. Finally, he raked a hand back through his hair and nodded. “Yeah, well, same here, I guess.”
Taylor swallowed past her tight throat. She knew without a doubt that he’d aimed to get her in his bed, but falling down the rabbit hole, to use her words? Could it be true?
“I wanted to be with you,” he continued. “I wasn’t sure how much could come out of it—what with our careers and everything, not seeing each other very often—but I meant what I said about how it felt real.” He absently rubbed his chest, as if trying to massage away an ache. “That’s why when I found out what was going on about the trade, and that you’d left town without so much as a word of explanation or even goodbye…” He let his words trail off as he shook his head.
She hung her head, staring at the tips of her beige pumps and feeling like the world’s worst coward. “I didn’t know what to say to you. I know that’s not an excuse. I just felt like it was all spiraling out of control and I didn’t know what to do about it. And I never let things get out of my control. That’s not me.” Taylor forced herself to look at him. “The right thing to have done was to be completely honest with you when we went to dinner at that crab place.”
“And then what?” he replied with a skeptical frown.
“And then it would have been over. You’d probably have walked out on me, and that’s what should have happened. And, if not, I should have walked out on you.”
He grimaced. “Because what was happening between us was dangerous, right? I remember your words exactly.”
She managed a nod. “I can’t believe you’re even talking to me anymore. I thought you’d be so angry and disappointed that you’d never want to see my sorry face again.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. But the funny thing is I don’t seem to be quite able to unsheathe my claws when I’m around you.”
The image of the big, predatory cat that his words conjured up in Taylor’s mind gave her a pleasurable little jolt. If he meant it to sound like he was some kind of cuddly pussycat when he was around her, it came out very differently to her.
“Thank goodness for that,” she said in a thin voice, trying for a lighter tone. Being around Ryan challenged her willpower beyond sanity.
“You’re convinced that being with me would screw up your career, aren’t you?”
That shot wounded her, even if there was a big element of truth to it. “It’s not just about me, if that’s what you’re saying,” she countered. “I’m the Assistant GM of your team now. How would your new teammates react when they found out you were literally in bed with management? Think about it.”
His gaze raked up and down her body, mentally stripping her clothes away. “Knowing how freaking hot you are, I’m pretty sure they’d call me lucky as hell.”
There was only one rational way to react to that. “Be serious, Ryan,” she said, frowning.
His mouth flattened into an irritated line. “Okay, I’ll seriously tell you that I don’t give a damn what anybody else thinks, player or management, and I’m not about to let Dave Dembinski or anybody else tell me who I can or can’t be seen with off the field. What, you figure Dembinski would think you’d feed me management secrets in between the sheets?” He gave a derisive snort. “If he really thinks that little of you, I doubt you’ll have much of a career with the Patriots, anyway.”
On the surface, he had a point. The same thought had gone through Taylor’s mind more than once. But she couldn’t bring herself to accept it. Having a relationship with Ryan would simply be a constant minefield of opportunities for misunderstandings and erosion of the team’s confidence in her. Even if she believed the two of them could keep their personal life separate from their business relationship, no one in baseball, on their team and otherwise, would share that confidence. Not a chance.
But it would be so very easy to agree with him, to let her heart overrule what her brain was telling her. The day and a half they’d been apart hadn’t changed her feelings for him, and had in no way diminished her desire for him. In fact, not being able to build on what they’d started at his house seemed incomprehensible and unfair. After all those years of shallow encounters with men—encounters that couldn’t even be called relationships—she’d finally met a fine man who had rocked her to the core, both physically and emotionally. Denying what she felt for Ryan was so much more than resisting an obviously tempting confection. It felt just plain wrong that she had to choose between her job and a relationship that she and Ryan obviously both hungered for.
You know how problematic it would be to become involved with a player. Dembinski’s words gripped her yet again, yanking her back from the precipice as she leaned far out over the edge.
“I wish I was as confident as you are,” she said softly. “And as brave. But I’m not. And for that, I’m sorry, Ryan. I really, truly am.”
Ryan’s hard look eased, as did the rigid tension in his arms and hands. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just studying her face instead. Taylor hoped he could see how hard it was for her to say no to him. And to her own craving, especially since it seemed like nothing short of a miracle that he still wanted her.
The soft ocean breeze cooled her hot cheeks as they studied each other. It was such a gorgeous spring day, the sunlight glinting off the azure water, the leaves of the tall palm trees rustling above their heads—a day just perfect for beginnings, not endings. And that made Taylor’s heart ache all the more.
Finally, Ryan nodded and came to her, standing near the end of the table. “Brave? It’s not that brave for me to stand up. There’s not much that can happen to a player like me. But to you…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t have to. He was letting her know he understood, even if he didn’t like it. Ryan was giving her an easy way out, if anything about what went on between them could ever be called easy.
“I get it, Taylor,” he continued. “It’s your decision to make, and it’s clear you’ve already made it.”
She should have been relieved—she was grateful—but it felt more like her heart had been chopped and diced into little pieces. Ryan was letting her go, and she hated it. Hated that life had brought her to a man she could have fallen for, but a man who was off limits unless she wanted to abandon the dreams she’d sacrificed and fought so hard to attain for so many years.
She didn’t know what else to say to him.
When Ryan leaned down, she instinctively closed her eyes and turned her face up to meet his lips. His kiss was gentle and over in a second, and by the time she opened her eyes he’d already turned away. She didn’t unlock her gaze from him until he was in the car, and didn’t get up until the Cherokee disappeared down the narrow roadway, lost to her sight after the first curve.
Taylor had expected nothing from Ryan but anger, recriminations, and a fiery argument that would see him storm off with a vow never to forgive her betrayal. She certainly hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected that he’d want to be with her as much as ever, and that he’d grimly acknowledge and accept the fact that he couldn’t.
She hadn’t expected forgiveness to hurt so much.
15
RYAN PACED ACROSS the vaulted lobby of the Edenwood junior girls’ dorm, practically as nervous as the day he cooled his heels waiting to be called into the delivery room for his daughter’s birth. He’d driven all night and half the day to get from Tampa to the little hamlet in Westchester County where Edenwood School had been preparing young ladies for
college and life since 1890. Devon’s dorm wasn’t quite that old, though he figured it had to have been around since at least the Great Depression, with its ancient gray stone walls and pointed turrets at the front corners.
Back in the day, parents probably could have walked straight up the broad staircase and found their daughters’ rooms. Today, though, the place was like a government building—you practically needed a biometric scan to even get through the front door, much less upstairs. After showing his photo ID, Ryan had asked the front desk clerk, or whatever she was called—warden, maybe, given what Devon had told him about the place—to ring Devon and let her know he was here. Though the middle-aged woman appeared to do it immediately, Ryan was still waiting ten minutes later. Devon was probably just yanking his chain by keeping him waiting. She hadn’t exactly been over the moon with excitement when he’d called before leaving Florida to say he’d stop at Edenwood before heading to Philadelphia. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with Devon, but he had to get to his hotel in time to get a solid sleep before tomorrow’s game. Resting up after the grueling drive north was mission critical for him, especially since Jack Ault had announced on Friday that he’d be the Patriots’ starting first baseman for the Monday home opener.
Though he’d only played a handful of innings at first base in Florida, he hadn’t disgraced himself by any means. The bad throw on Friday, where he’d been charged with an error, and his earlier questionable decision not to go after the lead runner had been his only screw-ups. His arm was by far the weakest part of his game, but the Patriots knew when they traded for him that he’d make more throwing errors than average. Taylor had told him that on Friday when she sought him out after the game to give him a few slightly uncomfortable words of encouragement about the error.
That was the only time he’d seen Taylor since their gut-wrenching meeting in Sand Key Park, and it was a tense, uncomfortable three or four minutes, especially for her. While he could barely stop himself from taking her into his arms—in full view of players outside the clubhouse—she’d rocked back and forth on her feet, jumpier than a jar full of grasshoppers. When he’d asked her if she was okay, he swore she started to get a little misty-eyed before she mumbled something and turned away.