Author: Jaci Burton

This was a new side to her. Gavin looked closer, suspected she was full of shit since he knew she had no feelings. She was just bitter about losing Mick as a client.

“You could have arranged to see me outside of family gatherings.”

She studied her nails. “My schedule has been kind of full.”

“Bullshit. You went into hiding after Mick fired you.”

Her head shot up. “I don’t hide. Losing Mick was a giant financial hit. I had to scramble to sign clients to lessen the burden.”

Gavin laughed. “You’ve made a ton of money off Mick, me, and the other guys. I don’t think you’re hurting.”

“Fine.” She set her wineglass down and stood, moving toward the railing to stare out over the ocean. “You can believe whatever you want to since you’ve already made up your mind. And if you’re going to fire me, then get it over with so I can get out of here.”

Gavin stood and came over to her. “You think I brought you here to fire you?”

She faced him. “Didn’t you?”

He was struck by the vulnerability on her face. He’d never seen it before. Elizabeth always had a hard edge to her, a confidence she wore that made her stand out like a star. Right now it wasn’t there. She was vulnerable, hurt, and afraid.

Maybe it wasn’t an act after all. He’d been convinced she wasn’t capable of actual emotions.

It would appear she was capable of hurting, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about that.

Moonlight danced across her hair, making her look like a goddess lit by silver fire. For the second time that night Gavin realized that Elizabeth was a beautiful, desirable woman. He’d always thought of her as a vicious shark, which was a great place to file her in his head because she was the business side of his life. Oh, sure, she was always great to look at, and he had to admit he’d admired her body more than a few times, but he’d never thought of her as someone who had . . . feelings or emotions.

But as the light played with her eyes, he thought he saw tears welling up in them. And something else lit up her eyes when she looked at him, something he’d seen in many women’s eyes before.

Desire. Need. Hunger.

Couldn’t be. Liz was cold. He’d seen her drive a three-hundred-pound lineman into the ground with her sharp tongue, take a cold-hearted team owner by the tie and squeeze millions from him without so much as blinking. Liz was ruthless and had no soul. She would cut your heart out before she ever showed you she was vulnerable.

He’d seen what she had done to Tara and her son, Nathan, and hadn’t once thought about how it would affect them. She’d wanted to cut them out of Mick’s life. Emotion and how they felt hadn’t entered the picture. They were an inconvenience and needed to be removed.

Whatever act she was putting on for him now was just that—an act, a way to gain his sympathy or distract him so he wouldn’t toss her out on her ass. Losing clients was bad for business. And Liz was all about business, all the time. As far as he knew, she didn’t have a personal life. She ate, breathed, and slept business twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

So yeah. Elizabeth, vulnerable? That was a freakin’ laugh. Those tears were manufactured, and he wasn’t buying it. And the idea of her wanting him? No way. She’d usually been straightforward with him, so he didn’t understand what game she was trying to play.

“Liz, what are you doing?”

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“What are you trying to do here?”

She rolled her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Gavin. You brought me here, remember?”

She drained her glass of wine and held it out to him. “Either get on with the reason why you brought me here or refill my glass. You’re making me crazy.”

Ditto. He grabbed her glass and took it into the kitchen, finishing his beer along the way.

When he came back outside, he found she’d kicked off her shoes and taken off her jacket. Wind whipped strands of her perfect hair loose. They flew in the breeze, wild and untamed.

He’d like to see Liz wild and untamed, but he’d bet she gave orders in bed, too.

He never thought about Elizabeth and sex in the same sentence, preferred to keep the two topics separate.

So why now? Was it the look she’d given him earlier?

Dammit. He didn’t want to think of her that way.

She shivered and rubbed her arms.

“Want your jacket?

“No. I’m just cold by nature.”

He could make a remark about that but decided to let it slide, handed her the wine, and poured himself a whiskey from the bottle he’d brought outside with him. Beer just wasn’t cutting it.

It was time to get down to business and tell her why he’d brought her out here tonight.

“I screwed up with Mick,” she said, staring at the water, not looking at him. “I thought I could control him, that I knew what was best for him. Turns out I had no idea. I wasn’t listening to him when he told me he wanted Tara. I thought it was a fling. But he was in love with her, and I didn’t want him to be in love with her.”

This was new. Liz opening up to him? They talked business, and sometimes had a few drinks and laughs when they were together, but they mostly talked sports. Nothing personal. Ever.

“Why didn’t you want him to be in love with her?”

“Because if he was, things would change.”

“What things?”

“Mick was so easygoing. I could fix him up with an actress or model for promo, and he’d go along with whatever I suggested. His face was on the cover of so many magazines, and his name was everywhere. I made him famous.”

He moved up next to her. “His arm made him famous, Liz.”

Her lips curled in a wistful smile. “That was part of it. You guys don’t understand PR at all. You think all you have to do is what you do out on the field, when it’s so much more than that.” She emptied her glass again, then set it on the table. “Being good at your sport is only a small part of making you into an icon. The gossip magazines, the media, your pictures, and your endorsement deals . . . everything else is what makes you.”

She turned to face him. “You could be the best goddamn first baseman in all of baseball, but if I don’t get you the deals to hawk deodorant or razors or underwear, if the public doesn’t find out who you are, doesn’t see your face eight times a day on commercials and in print media and online during your season? No one’s going to care, Gavin. No one’s going to care that you had a .338 batting average with forty-one home runs, that you won your sixth consecutive Golden Glove, and that you were the National League’s MVP. No one’s going to care. They care because the media tells them to care. And the media cares because I tell the media to care.

“All you guys want to do is play your sports, have your parties with your women, buy your expensive cars, and make sure you look good. You want those endorsement deals so you’re financially secure, but you don’t realize how cutthroat it is out there, how hard it is to get those deals. Because for every one of you, there are forty other guys clamoring for the same spot. That’s what you pay me for. Not just to negotiate your contract, but to get all those deals for you and to put your face on the cover of Sports Illustrated and to make sure you end up in People magazine. That’s what you pay me for. That’s why you need me.”

She pushed off the railing and stumbled into the kitchen.

Hell. He had no idea what that was all about. He knew damn well what she did for him. She was on a roll, wasn’t she?

But he liked the feisty Elizabeth much more than vulnerable, sad Elizabeth. He was just going to let this play out and see where she went with it.

SHIT. LIZ LEANED AGAINST THE COUNTER AND TOOK A long swallow of wine, wishing she’d never agreed to come here with Gavin.

Spilling her guts like that had been stupid. She never talked to Gavin like that. Everything with him was always superficial. She told him how great he was, or she set him up for a photo shoot. And she renegotiated his contract and got him the best deal. That was it. That was all they ever discussed.

She always kept her distance from him, usually met him in crowds and at public events where she’d be safe.

And she had a damn good reason for it.

One, she was four years older than him. She didn’t date younger guys. Ever.

Two, she was in love with him and had been for years.

Three, he was totally, utterly, and completely oblivious to it, and she intended to keep it that way.

Oh, sure, she flirted with him, just like she did with all her clients. Surface stuff, nothing but fluff. She never wanted Gavin to think she treated him any differently than she did her other clients. And he was mostly clueless, because he paid very little attention to her except when it came to business, thankfully.

But she did treat him differently, because she felt differently about him. She kept her distance because of how he made her feel.

When it had happened, she couldn’t say. God knows she’d tried to keep it from happening. But there was just something about him. Maybe it was his dark good looks, his mesmerizing green eyes, the way his dark brown hair fell over his brow, or the sexiness of his goatee. Maybe it was his lean body that he honed into shape with daily workouts at the gym and playing noncompetitive sports outside his own sport of baseball. Maybe it was the way he catered to kids on the ball field, always taking the time to sign autographs or stop and talk to them. He was a big jock and worth millions, but he’d never developed a giant ego about it like many of her clients did. He was a genuinely nice guy.

But what she really loved about him was his smile. There was something wickedly devilish about Gavin’s smile. It was a secret, mature kind of smile, the kind of smile that made a woman want to know what he was thinking about.

She’d been curious about his smile when she’d first met him and he’d looked her over in the way a man looks at a woman. But as soon as she’d signed him, that had been the end of it. He’d never looked at her that way again. Oh, she’d seen him cast that smile at other women, and in many ways she’d regretted signing him on as a client, even though she’d given him 100 percent of herself as an agent.

But she’d woefully, wistfully regretted not having him direct that wicked smile at her.

Until tonight. Tonight, outside the hotel, he’d looked at her that way for the first time since he became her client. He’d looked at her like a man looks at a woman he’s interested in having sex with. Her breath caught and for one brief moment she’d wondered . . .

“You hiding in here?”

She jerked around to face Gavin, her fingers clutched tight to the empty glass of wine.

“Refilling my wineglass.”

His gaze shifted. “Glass is empty.”

“So it is.” She lifted the wine bottle. “And so is the bottle.”

Gavin went to the wine cooler and pulled out another bottle, grabbed the opener and yanked the cork out. His warm fingers slid over her chilled ones as he held the glass steady as he refilled it, his gaze never leaving hers.

“Your fingers are still cold.”

There was that look again, that smile he’d given her outside the hotel earlier tonight, the one he’d never let her see before. Her belly tumbled, and oh, God, her nipples hardened. She wondered if Gavin could tell through her flimsy bra and silk blouse.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He held on to her hand, and she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You’ll have to spend the night.”

She swallowed. “What?”

“I’ve had too much alcohol to get back in the car tonight. I’m not driving. You’ll have to stay here.”

“Oh. Uh . . . I could call a cab.”

He smirked. “You could. But you don’t want to, do you?”