Jay arched an eyebrow at the lawyer. Art shot a pleading look at Hank. The coffee went down Jay’s throat painfully as he braced himself for what was yet to come, pretty damn sure that it was something he wasn’t going to like.
“Art isn’t exactly a trial attorney,” Hank said unapologetically. “He handles the player contracts, issues with sponsors and the unions, but whenever we’ve had a trial, we generally hire out.”
Swearing under his breath, Jay clunked his coffee mug back down on the table and resumed his pacing. “So we have a specious class action suit looming and—even if we can defend against the claims—I’m going to have to fork out a ransom for outside counsel?”
“Unfortunately, that’s the way these things work, Jay,” Hank said. “But I’ve already contacted our local counsel. Stuart and his firm have handled at least a dozen other court cases for the team with great success.”
Jay jerked to a halt. “A dozen other court cases? How come this is the first I’ve heard of them? Why weren’t they disclosed when I took over ownership last year?” If there was one thing Jay hated, it was being blindsided. He prided himself in having information long before his opponents—much of it information his business rivals wished he hadn’t uncovered.
It was Hank’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “I believe the words I used were ‘with great success.’ Stuart is discreet and very astute. He’s the one with eyes on the courthouse. In fact, if this case comes to fruition, Stuart already has a partial strategy mapped out, including a whopper of a lawyer to represent the team in court. His firm just merged with a big firm in Boston. The same one that employs Brody Janik’s sister. She just successfully defended a small Baltimore company in a major environmental class action suit. Between her trial success rate, her being a woman, and her connection to the team, Stuart thinks we’ll have an advantage in the court of public opinion, which is half the battle here.”
Jay moved to the large windows overlooking the Blaze campus, putting his back to the other men in the room because he wasn’t so sure he could maintain a stoic expression any longer.
“I’m sure you’ve met Bridgett, at the very least at Brody’s wedding this past spring,” Hank was saying. “By all accounts, she’s as brilliant in the courtroom as she is beautiful.”
The tension that had been torturing his neck and shoulders since the meeting began settled uncomfortably in another part of Jay’s anatomy as he thought of the “brilliant” and “beautiful” Bridgett Janik. She’d avoided him at her brother’s wedding, just as she had every time their paths had crossed in the past eighteen months. Always impeccably dressed in some expensive, figure-flattering outfit, the petite blonde with the light gray eyes hadn’t even graced him with a haughty look since he’d taken over ownership of the Blaze. It was as if he was invisible to the woman, while the short hairs at the back of his neck lifted every freaking time she entered the same room as him. Given his reaction to her, she couldn’t be as immune to Jay as she pretended. He allowed himself a moment to admire her ability to remain aloof—it was a skill he’d cultivated for years. But he needed to discredit her as the Blaze’s outside counsel. Because working with the alluring Bridgett Janik would be too much of a distraction for Jay, and he didn’t need any more distractions in his life.
His eyes were still focused on the leaves changing color on the trees surrounding the practice facility as he spoke. “I’m sure that’s a conflict of interest.” He tossed the suggestion out, hoping Hank and Art would latch on to it.
“Actually, no, it isn’t,” Art piped up. “There’s no prohibition on a family member representing another family member in a courtroom. Although, it’s not always the best idea. I can quote several cases where it hasn’t been effective.” Hank cleared his throat and Art continued. “In any case, Ms. Janik will be technically representing you as the owner of the Blaze. Her brother’s association with the team is irrelevant.”
Great, Jay thought to himself, the guy can’t try a case in court, but he knows all the intricacies of conflicts of interest.
“With any luck,” Hank pointed out, “we won’t need outside attorneys, but I think Stuart’s plan is a good one. Having Bridgett in our corner will certainly give us some credibility with both men and women.”
Jay hoped Hank was right, that this case would die out before the Blaze became the butt of jokes by late-night talk show hosts. More important, he hoped it would settle quickly so that he’d be able to keep his distance from Brody Janik’s sister.
“Stuart is sending his team over this afternoon, as soon as they go over the court documents,” Hank went on to say. “In the meantime, let’s let Don see what he can find out about the Knowles girl. After that, we can come up with a defensive game plan.”
He listened as the other men filed out of his office. All the while, Jay was formulating his own game plan on how to ensure Bridgett Janik would quickly recuse herself from the case.
* * *
The teakettle whistled with annoyance while Bridgett Janik carefully stirred the ingredients for chai tea into her cup. She tucked the cell phone between her ear and her shoulder and reached for the shrieking kettle.
“I’m sorry, Stuart, but I thought you actually said cheerleaders for a minute there.” Bridgett stirred her tea before blowing carefully over the rim.
“That’s because I did say cheerleaders, Buffy,” the senior partner for her firm’s Baltimore office, Stuart Johnson, replied on the other end of the phone. He’d dubbed her “Buffy the Class Action Slayer” two years ago when she’d persuaded the judge to quash half the designated class in a large environmental case weeks before the plaintiffs had even issued subpoenas. “Good to know you didn’t leave your hearing over in Italy with all your hard-earned money. How was the shopping spree, anyway?”
Bridgett recognized a redirect when she heard one. And Stuart’s were always among the best. It was what made him such a successful trial attorney.
“My trip to Italy was wonderful, Stuart. I slept until noon. I ate bread and pasta and I shopped like I had the money to spend. The best vacation a girl could want after eighteen months on a case. But you already know this because your wife was there for part of my vacation.” Elizabeth, her boss’s wife, had a bit of a shoe fetish. When Bridgett had mentioned she was headed off for a shopping vacation on the Italian coast, the older woman had looked so enthralled that Bridgett had invited her along. She hadn’t minded the company because it gave her an excuse not to invite one of her interfering sisters. “Get back to the subject of stupid cheerleaders, Stuart.”
“You say cheerleader as though it’s dirty somehow.” Stuart’s tone was teasing. “Naughty even.” He laughed at his words, and Bridgett let out an exasperated sigh as she carried her tea over to the large window in the living room of her condo in Boston’s trendy Back Bay area. Sunlight sparkled off the dew still glistening on the rooftops in the early autumn morning. “What have you got against cheerleaders anyway?” he asked.
Bridgett blew on her tea. “Nothing.”
“No, your tone says otherwise. Don’t tell me you always wanted to be a cheerleader but you just weren’t chirpy enough?”
“Funny.” She took a sip, letting the chai mingle on her tongue. The Janik girls had all been cheerleaders—all except for Bridgett. She’d tried out, begging her friend Jessica to audition as well. Given that two of her sisters had preceded her on the squad, Bridgett figured she’d be a sure thing. After all, she had the looks and the requisite pom-poms to fill out the uniform. Jessica—the one she’d had to coax into trying out—got picked instead. Stuart was correct. It was the chirpiness. The cheer sponsor and the two captains thought Bridgett was too serious to be an effective cheerleader. Well, she was a serious person. A girl didn’t get into Harvard without being one.
Apparently, the decades-old slight went deeper than Bridgett remembered, judging by her reaction this morning. She’d have to examine that l
ittle character flaw later, though. “Focus, Stuart. You said we’re taking on a case involving cheerleaders. Can you give me more detail than that, please?”
Stuart laughed. “Usually you only get snippy when I mention conscious uncoupling. I’ll have to add cheerleader to the list of words that make Bridgett lose her practiced cool.”
Bridgett was glad Stuart couldn’t see her bristle at the phrase conscious uncoupling. “Hey, Jimmy Fallon, do you want to call me back after you get finished with your monologue?”
He laughed again before sobering up. “I didn’t say we were representing the cheerleaders. We get to be the bad guys and defend the party they are suing.”
Now, that was more like it. Bridgett took another sip of tea as she considered the possibility of being retained by a school or a university against a bunch of girls in short skirts and ridiculous hair bows. “Oh, please tell me we get to defend against a group of helicopter parents who want their daughters to all win the first-place trophy?”
That got another laugh out of Stuart. “That tune will change when it’s your little darling sobbing that some myopic judge robbed her of the blue ribbon.”
Bridgett paused with her teacup poised at her lips. She wondered if Stuart was right. But then, she’d never know, would she? Somehow she doubted that, even if she had a child, she’d want him or her not to think they had to be winners all the time. How would that prepare them for life? Life could be cruel. Bridgett knew that firsthand. There was no use sugarcoating it. The point was moot, however, and Bridgett swallowed her tea around the lump in her throat.
“Actually, these are NFL cheerleaders,” Stuart explained.
“The NFL has cheerleaders?” Of course there were the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. They were practically icons. But, Bridgett wondered, did the other teams have actual cheerleaders? She’d never really noticed.
Stuart was silent for a moment on the other end of the line. “You can’t be serious. Don’t you go to your brother’s football games?”
Bridgett’s younger brother, the baby of the Janik family, was Brody Janik, a Pro Bowl tight end for the Baltimore Blaze and certified heartthrob to women around the globe. He was as much of an icon as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. In fact, her brother’s new sister-in-law had once been on the Dallas squad. “Sure I go to his games, but I don’t go to watch the cheerleaders.” She mainly went out of family obligation and because Brody was the one member of the Janik clan who understood Bridgett for who she was. The rest of the Janiks wanted to make her over to be more like them: settled. “I didn’t think the Blaze had cheerleaders.”
“They do,” Stuart said just as an ominous feeling settled in the pit of Bridgett’s stomach. “And they’re suing team management for alleged workplace violations.”
“Oh no,” Bridgett whispered.
“Oh yes,” Stuart said. “And the Blaze have hired us to handle their defense. And you, Buffy, are the perfect person to take the lead. Not only are you a woman—although it would have helped tremendously if you’d been a cheerleader at one time—but you’re also Brody Janik’s sister. Score one for us in the headlines when this goes public later today.”
With a less than steady hand, Bridgett set her tea down on the antique marble side table she’d bought in Florence a few years back. Stuart wanted her to defend the Baltimore Blaze in a class action suit? Against cheerleaders? If that wasn’t too insulting, she factored in the team’s new owner: Jay McManus. The man was insufferable, arrogant, obscenely wealthy, and sex on a stick. And he made her stomach crawl every time she got within fifty feet of him. She did everything she could to keep her distance from the man at all costs. Working for him on his defense would violate her own personal restraining order and Bridgett couldn’t go there.
“I’m sure it’s a conflict of interest somehow,” she said, adding a silent prayer after the words left her mouth.
“Come on, Bridgett. Second year law school. There’s no conflict here even if the Sparks were suing your brother directly.”
Bridgett softly banged her head against the warm window, scaring a pigeon hanging out on the other side. Of course Stuart would have thought this through. He didn’t make a move without carefully considering all the options. She tried another tactic. “I don’t know. I’ve been in Baltimore for over two years on the Pressler case. I’d like to hang out close to home for my next case.”
“Hang out at home? Bridgett, before you left for Italy, you begged me to staff you on a case that was anywhere BUT Boston. Remember the nagging family whose radar you are trying to fly under? Brody’s been married for six months. You’re the only single one left. They’re gunning for you, Buffy. But hey, if you want to deal with that, I’ve got an open-and-shut discrimination case filed by some fast-food workers in Worcester you can first-chair.”
There’s no such thing as an open-and-shut case that involved discrimination. With another headbang against the window, she cursed her entire family, including her not-so-favorite brother, Brody, and her sweet old Grandpa Gus, who had conspired together to marry her off to the first available orthodontist they could find. She’d be a sitting duck if she stayed in Boston.
“How long?” she said, her tone resigned.
“That’s the can-do spirit,” Stuart said. “I won’t know the particulars until we pick up the filing at the courthouse. I sent Dan over there to get it.”
Bridgett sighed. Dan Lewis had been her associate on the Pressler case. At least he was a good lawyer.
“That blogger who writes the Girlfriends’ Guide to the NFL made a vague reference to the case late last night—that’s what put it on Hank Osbourne’s radar. Since then, the media have run with it.” Stuart’s chuckle sounded amazed and annoyed at the same time. “Believe it or not, several women’s groups have already announced plans for protests of this Sunday’s Blaze game.”
Bridgett knew of the blogger. Whoever was behind the poison pen—or in this case, keyboard—had tortured her brother, Brody, last season, nearly causing him to lose his career and the woman he loved.
“I’ve set up a meeting for three this afternoon at the Blaze headquarters. Hank will be waiting for you. And, Bridgett, I don’t have to tell you what a client as wealthy as Jay McManus could do for this law firm—not to mention your partner earning statements.”
“Wait, you said Hank will be waiting for me. Just where exactly will you be?”
“On speakerphone. I’ve got to be in Manhattan to take care of another of those conscious-uncoupling cases you love so much. But I’ll meet you back at the Baltimore office tonight and we can discuss strategy. Toni has you on the eleven o’clock flight, so you might want to pack those gorgeous Burberry bags of yours and hustle to the airport.”
As she hung up the phone, Bridgett gave the window another thump with her forehead. Her options were limited, really. She could stay in Boston and suffer her family’s futile attempts at matchmaking or head to Baltimore, where a meeting with the man she’d come to know as the Antichrist awaited her. Every nerve ending in her body screamed that she’d just made the absolute wrong choice.
Tracy Solheim is the author of international bestselling contemporary romance novels featuring hot football players and the women who love them. In addition to writing novels, she is a regular columnist for USA Today’s Happy Ever After blog. She lives in Georgia with her husband, two nearly adult children, a Labrador retriever who thinks she’s a cat, and a horse named after her first novel: Game On. When Tracy’s not at the barn with her daughter or working out with friends—i.e. lifting heavy bottles of wine—she’s writing. Except for when she’s reading, but that’s just research. See what she’s up to at tracysolheim.com.
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