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  To look at Amanda.

  He took off the sunglasses—her glasses—and pointed them toward the stands in right field. She felt his gaze like a laser across the wide sweep of perfectly groomed grass. She realized she was standing, that her fingers had folded around the railing, as if she were actually considering jumping down and joining him on the field.

  That was ridiculous, of course. So she took a step back. And she nodded once, tight, sharp, sending a single focused message. His smile was clear across the diamond, and it melted something inside her, sanding off one of the stony corners of her heart. He returned the sunglasses to his face and headed off to join his colleagues in their midfield congratulations.

  Amanda joined the happy fans climbing to the top of the stands and the exit to the park. As soon as her back was to the field, she glanced at her watch. 4:15. Plenty of time to go into the office. Plenty of time to settle down and get some real work done.

  She told herself she wasn’t allowed to look back at the playing field. She wasn’t allowed to watch the joyful celebration behind her. She had other things to accomplish.

  ~~~

  On Monday morning, Amanda’s usual routine was knocked back a couple of hours. She woke up at five, of course, and she completed her usual punishing rounds of calisthenics. She showered and pulled on her office uniform—white blouse, tailored suit, practical pumps. She slipped on her plain eyeglass frames, squaring her shoulders at the feeling of competence they brought her.

  Then it was down to the medical library at the University of Raleigh. She had some hardcore research to complete, tracking down a few complicated details about the pharmacokinetic properties of the drugs at issue in her case. The law firm had skilled librarians, but sometimes Amanda found it better to do her own research, rolling up her figurative sleeves and studying the numbers, the graphs, the threads of information that spun out, one after another, completing a beautiful complicated whole.

  Science had always been that way for her—an elegant and complicated structure built on the steady, soothing constants of mathematics. She loved the simplicity at its very core, the balance as everything did what it was expected to do. There was power in the predictability, in the absolute truth of her work.

  By the time she’d spun out her research web and tracked down all the articles she needed, it was nearly noon. She hurried into the office, already planning the legal document she would draft that afternoon. She’d have to include half a dozen graphs, rely on the color printer to make the data on suppressed bioavailability absolutely, perfectly, one-hundred-percent clear.

  She was just calculating the best way to display four complicated variables when she turned the corner into her office. The lights were on—that should have been her first clue that someone had invaded while she was out. The second warning was the pile of sunglasses on her desk.

  There had to be three dozen pairs, tangled together on the old-fashioned leather blotter like some bizarre sea creature. They were all designed for kids—Disney characters and cartoon creatures and so much sparkly pink and lavender that she thought she might be sick all over the collection. Someone had written a note in huge bubble letters: I Love Baseball. But, of course, “Love” was written as a giant heart.

  “Very funny, guys!” she called over her shoulder, and she was rewarded by a cascade of giggles. The office crew had had their fun with her. It must have taken them half the morning to assemble the plastic collection. She swept every last frame into an empty drawer in her desk, the one she saved for comfortable shoes and a change of clothes in the winter.

  The glasses were funny. The entire situation was laughable—or it would have been, if she didn’t feel compelled to continue with the charade. At least the Rockets played in Florida tomorrow night, the beginning of a road trip that would last almost two weeks. That gave her two vital weekends to get her own work done, concentrated days and nights that couldn’t come at a better time, given her inflexible trial deadline.

  She snapped open the locks on her briefcase and dug out the stack of articles she’d copied at the medical library. She was just spreading them out on her desk when Harvey poked his head in the door. “Wow,” he said. “Are you sure you can work in here? Isn’t the light blinding?”

  She made herself smile as she pushed her librarian glasses higher on her nose, purposely trying to send a subliminal message that she was studious and competent. “Let me guess,” she said. “The Miss Piggy glasses were your contribution?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “My daughter sacrificed her very own pair of Hello Kitty frames. Nothing but the best for you.”

  “Give her my thanks,” Amanda said dryly.

  Harvey flashed a grin before he became a little more sober. “I just wanted to stop by and make sure you received your invitation to the partners’ retreat.”

  Partners’ retreat. The words expanded in her head like a balloon filling with helium. For seven years, she’d put in her time at Link Oster, doing the work assigned by others, playing by their rules. Every year, she’d watched the partners traipse off to a secluded resort for their annual retreat. She’d listened to the office gossip, to the tantalizing hints of what they’d be discussing away from prying eyes, from straining ears. She’d waited, breathless, to find out what decisions had been made, how the firm had shaped policies for the coming year—what offices they intended to open, whether they’d distribute raises, who would receive bonuses.

  And this year, she’d be in on the talks. This year, for the first time, she was a partner. That’s what she’d bought with her blood money, with the checks Kyle had given her.

  “I haven’t seen the invitation yet,” she said.

  He nodded toward her inbox, to the neat stack of inter-office envelopes she hadn’t had a chance to open yet. “It’ll be in there. We’re thrilled to have you join us.”

  Amanda smiled as she looked at her boss. “Thanks, Harvey. I can’t wait.” Before she could express more of her gratitude her phone rang.

  “I’ll let you get that,” Harvey said, ducking out the door.

  “Carter,” Amanda announced as she picked up the phone.

  “Mandy!” Only two people in the world called her Mandy—her mother and her brother. And Alex sounded like he was about to have a nervous breakdown as he shouted her name.

  “What’s up?” she asked, cautiously easing herself into the ergonomic chair behind her desk.

  “I’m so glad I caught you at the office,” he said.

  “What’s wrong, Alex?”

  “You know I wouldn’t bother you at work if it wasn’t really important.”

  She swallowed her frustration, even as her palms grew slick with sweat. “I know,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Hunter.”

  Her nephew. “Oh my God! What happened?”

  “Nothing. I mean, not like you’re thinking. God, I just found out myself, and my head is spinning. I called you because I couldn’t figure out what else to do.”

  Amanda forced herself to take a deep breath. She realized her fingers had tightened into a fist, and she spread her palms out flat on the desk in front of her, cradling the phone with her shoulder. She hadn’t heard Alex babble like this in years—not since she’d taught him how to ratchet down his emotions, to keep from provoking their father, to avoid sharing too much with friends, teachers, strangers who didn’t give a damn.

  He took a deep breath before he said, “We just got back from the doctor. She says the early intervention is really working. It’s not like the autism is going away or anything, but this is such an important time, before he starts school, while his brain is still completely elastic.”

  “What do you need, Alex?”

  “Two more aides. His doctor wants to put him in this special, intensive program. There are half a dozen types of therapy; he’ll work with specialists every day. The doctor says she’s seen such incredible improvements in kids just like Hunter. But…”

  Amanda shove
d down her glasses and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “How much?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars.” She heard the emotion in her brother’s voice—hope and fear and shame all wrapped up in a shroud of exhaustion. She knew exactly how he felt. “Insurance won’t cover it, not this year anyway. I might be able to change policies next year. And I wouldn’t ask, I wouldn’t call you at all, but the doctor says timing is really important…”

  She knew all that. She’d read the studies, monograph after monograph, from the second her nephew had been diagnosed. She kept abreast of new developments, of pioneering treatment options. But where the hell was she going to get twenty-five thousand dollars? “Let me see what I can do, Alex.” She tried to keep fatigue from her voice.

  “Mandy, you know I wouldn’t ask you if I had anywhere else to turn.”

  She knew that. Of course she did. But she also knew she was tapped out. There was no way she was scraping twenty-five grand out of her bank accounts. “Let me talk to some people,” she said. “I’ll call you back when I’ve got things worked out.”

  “Thank you.” She heard the gratitude in Alex’s voice, crystal clear behind the tears that clogged his throat. All of a sudden, she pictured him when they’d been kids. He’d always trusted her, always known she could solve any problem, whether it was a Matchbox car that wouldn’t roll or a father who was furious that his horse hadn’t come in at the track. Amanda could fix anything. She was a superhero, at least in her little brother’s eyes.

  Well, now that she was an adult, capes were in short supply. But as she hung up the phone, she knew she had to do something. After all, it was her fault Warren had screwed up the family finances. She was the one who was good with numbers. She should have realized he was emptying their accounts, trashing their credit history, long before he’d finished the job. She should have done something to stop him before they all fell over the cliff.

  Before it was too late.

  She couldn’t let her brother down now. She couldn’t give up on Hunter’s potential. Not without a fight. No matter what it cost.

  ~~~

  Kyle watched Amanda over the top of his menu, realizing he hadn’t been certain she would actually show up at Artie’s. He’d known she wouldn’t trust him enough to let him pick her up. He hadn’t even considered pressing the issue.

  Instead, he’d gotten to the restaurant early and made sure he could get the small table in the curtained alcove. The last thing he wanted was a bunch of the guys horning in on their conversation, giving him shit about his sunglasses girl. They’d dished out enough crap in the locker room for a lifetime. But no one was arguing with the fact that he’d broken out of his slump.

  Now, Amanda clutched her Stoli, her hands tight enough on the tumbler that he thought she might shatter it. She eyed his glass of tonic water, her eyes narrowed behind those sexy glasses. “You don’t drink,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  He sipped before he replied, a little surprised that she’d tackled the subject head-on. Most women beat around the bush, changing their minds about their own drink order after he placed his, making excuses that they didn’t feel like drinking that night, that it was too hot out, too late, too whatever.

  Amanda wasn’t most women.

  He said, “I figure it’s probably for the best. I kept things under control in high school and freshman fall in college. But after Spring Valley, it just makes sense to avoid temptation.”

  Spring Valley. He never said the words out loud. He never talked about that part of his life, tried not to think about it, about how the ’roids had upped his game, how they’d turned him into a power hitter for a couple of months. He tried not to think about how the oxy had taken away the pain in his ankle. Or, rather, the way it made him not give a flying fuck about his ankle, because it boiled down every care, every concern he’d ever had. It made everything melt away under a huge, heavy blanket of Don’t Give a Shit.

  Despite himself, he still longed for that soft retreat sometimes. But he’d learned his lesson at Spring Valley. He didn’t have room for anything soft in his life. He pushed himself every day he played ball. He drove for new personal bests every workout, never settling for cushioned and easy. He wanted hard angles and sharp stones, the challenges that made him the best man he could be, the best ballplayer.

  And from Amanda’s raised chin, she seemed to be just the sort of sharp edge he craved. He raised his glass and touched hers, watching her over the rim as she drank to the silent toast.

  “You’re screwing up my life,” she said as she returned her glass to the table.

  He could have said the same thing about her. She’d cost him a hundred grand, and she still held the papers she’d tracked down about him. He should be angry with her. Careful, at least. But instead, he kept thinking about the power she’d brought to his hitting game, the force that had put him back in the middle of the most important season the Rockets had ever played. Truth be told, everything about Amanda put him off balance—including the fact that he was enjoying that uncertainty, that feeling of standing on shifting sand. “How’s that?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

  He liked watching the way she chose her words, careful and precise. She wasn’t afraid to look at him while she answered, wasn’t shy at all. “My co-workers left a pile of sunglasses on my desk this morning. The cashier at the sandwich shop called me ‘sweetheart’, and he winked as he pretended to catch something when I got my turkey on wheat. Opposing counsel asked how I had time to write a brief when I was playing at the ballpark all weekend.”

  That last one really bothered her; he already knew her well enough to tell that. “So you told him you were such an incredible lawyer you could get the brief done and watch a couple of games.”

  “Her,” Amanda clarified, but her lips curved in the hint of a smile. “I told her. Pretty much word for word what you just said.”

  “Then I fail to see a problem.” He wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly what had pissed her off. But he wanted to see that flash of anger in her green eyes, wanted to see the flush on her cheeks as she explained.

  “The problem,” and she raised her eyebrows to emphasize the word, “is that after three lousy weekends, I’ve lost half my credibility as a lawyer.”

  “Half your credibility?” He purposely drew out the phrase. “How do you measure that, exactly?” Before she could retort, he leaned forward. “And why do you care? Isn’t it an advantage to have people underestimate you? Isn’t it better if opposing counsel thinks she can walk all over you?” He emphasized the pronoun just enough to remind her he was listening. She hadn’t lost any credibility with him. Not a bit.

  “That’s not—”

  But he wasn’t done yet, not when he had the advantage. Because he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get the advantage on Amanda Carter many times in the future. “Besides,” he said, riding right over her words. “Whatever you’re losing in credibility, you’re gaining in attractiveness. At least from where I’m sitting.”

  That seemed to confuse her. She obviously wasn’t used to anyone telling her she was attractive, which was a crying shame, because he hadn’t been able to get the thought out of his mind for two and a half weeks.

  It didn’t make any sense. She’d taken him for a hundred thousand dollars. She held the power of his hitting streak in the palm of her hand—all she had to do was snap those sunglasses in half, and his game would be back in the toilet. She was sitting across the table, radiating spikes like a porcupine cornered by a hound dog, and he could barely keep his hands off her.

  He couldn’t forget that goddamn kiss in front of her apartment building. Sure, his dick remembered it, pressing against his zipper even now. But his brain remembered it too—how she’d stiffened when he first kissed her, how she’d fought against her natural response before giving in to what she actually wanted, to who she really was.

  He wanted to see behind that wall again. He wanted to see more of the real Amanda Carter.

&nbs
p; Of course Artie managed to screw that up. The guy chose that moment to come in with their appetizers—shrimp cocktail for her—cold, pink curls on ice. Kyle had opted for the blistered sishito peppers.

  But it didn’t matter that Artie broke up the flow of their conversation. Kyle had all evening with Amanda. He could afford to let the conversation drift back to safer topics for now. He could let her relax, forget that she didn’t trust him, forget that they were adversaries, at least where their bank accounts were concerned.

  As Artie ducked away under the velvet curtains, Kyle said, “So? Tell me about law school. What made you decide to be a lawyer?”

  ~~~

  Amanda couldn’t believe she was sitting there, having a normal conversation in a normal restaurant with a normal guy. Okay. Maybe Kyle wasn’t a normal guy. He was so superstitious she wondered how he got out of bed in the morning. She couldn’t imagine what he’d do if a black cat crossed his path, if he had to walk under a ladder.

  But despite his lack of logic, despite the crazy connections he made and then held on to like they were the holy word of God, he made her feel more relaxed than she’d been in ages. His quirks opened a door for her. They gave her freedom when everyone else in the world made her feel more burdened, more pressured, more responsible for every single thing that could go wrong.

  Like her brother. If she’d worked harder, finished law school earlier, made partner sooner, she would have the money Alex needed. She could help Hunter, get her nephew the care he required.

  She took a deep breath. Talking to Kyle was like taking a break from all that tension. He was like a holiday.

  Maybe it was the steak that finally let her relax, the buttery filet that melted in her mouth, richer and more satisfying than any meal she’d eaten in months. Maybe it was the oaky rioja she sipped, the single glass of gran reserve costing more than any bottle she’d ever bought for herself. Maybe it was the soft velvet draperies that surrounded them, the quiet alcove that cut them off from the rest of the restaurant, from the rest of the world.