Bigger Than Beckham (10 page)

While that teeny lie was barely worth
counting, she’d told him a whopper when she’d said she barely
remembered their meeting at the Wimbledon dinner. What a laugh that
was. How could she forget the way every nerve in her body had
tingled when Mr. Sex on a Stick had made his interest in her so
startlingly clear? And what was even more humiliating, she could
vividly recall her disappointment when he hadn’t called her the
very next day, or any day after that. She knew from the gossip
columns that Branch wasn’t married or in a serious relationship,
and neither was she. What had stopped the man from following up on
what his eyes had revealed to be so evidently on his mind that
night?

Or maybe you just misread him, dopey.

Maybe she had, because in her office he’d
been all business. Sure, his eyes had flicked over her body with a
couple of appreciative glances and he’d made the remark about how
lovely she looked, but he’d given Jane more of a come-on than that.
And didn’t it just beat all that his flirtation with her assistant
had annoyed her so damn much?

As for his invitation to play golf, he
probably just wanted to give himself another opportunity to chip
away at her determination regardless of his promise not to talk
business. Mr. Tony Big Shot Branch would do whatever it took to
wrest the team from her. Even if it took a few days of pillow talk
to get it done, she had no doubt that would be more than fine with
him.

And maybe fine with her, too?

Martha clenched the wheel in an unforgiving
grip, thrusting aside the tempting whispers provided by her
sex-deprived brain. She had a business to run—and a promise to
keep—and had no time for fantasizing about Tony Branch or anybody
else.

As she wheeled into her driveway, she
gloomily thought of ordering takeout—again. And spending the
evening rehashing her bank presentation—again. What else could she
do to blunt the loneliness of the long evening and night ahead? She
had nobody in Jacksonville to spend time with other than Jane, and
her friend had a bridge game, of all things. Martha had expected to
be lonely as she got settled into her new job and life in Florida,
but the solitude was killing her. In Philadelphia, she’d had an
active social life, with close friends like Nate and Holly, and
Maddie and Jake—not to mention a steady stream of would-be beaus.
Down here, she felt like the proverbial wallflower, rattling around
her father’s big, lonely house, unsettled and increasingly unsure
about her future.

Even worse, she was actually beginning to
feel sorry for herself, and
that
she hated more than
anything.

* * *

Tony stared down at the St. John’s River from
his 17
^th
floor suite at the Hyatt Regency, his eyes dry
and sore. His grueling fitness regimen rewarded him with great
stamina, but the jet lag pulled at his very bones. It was going on
eleven p.m. in London, and his body was yelling at him to get some
sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Traffic crawled over the bridge below as
lines of tinker toy cars crossed the still river at a snail’s pace.
The city spread out in a snarled haze of snaking roadways, and he
thought about Martha’s jest about the traffic, wondering where she
might be at that moment. Perhaps stuck on that very bridge below
him, which seemed like a damn waste of a beautiful woman. A woman
who could be spending time with him instead.

She’d proved every bit as stubborn and
hard-headed as he was. But even though her stance was stupid, he
couldn’t help admiring her dogged determination to keep hold of the
franchise despite the long odds she faced. Her question about how
he’d feel if he had to give up the Lions had surprised him, because
he’d never really thought about it before. The depth of his
attachment to the Blackhampton team, its players and its fans
couldn’t be adequately described in words. At least not by any Tony
had in his vocabulary. Then again, he’d given his life blood to the
Lions for more than four years, while Martha’s attachment to the
Thunder could be measured in months on the fingers of one hand.

Still, it was a useful illustration of her
emotional state and how invested she was in her team, so invested
that she’d even rejected his proposal to play golf with him at
beautiful Sawgrass.

That response had him shaking his head. He
knew Martha was crazy about golf and could shoot the lights out, so
her refusal had to mean that she wanted to stay as far away from
him as she could. That was a problem, since getting her out on the
course was part of his strategy for dealing with her. Unless she
had a bad day, she’d have beaten him by three or four strokes, and
that couldn’t help but make her feel proud and powerful, not to
mention casting him in a humbler light. He would have shown some
self-deprecating humor and made sure she knew how much he admired
her game. And after a few drinks in the clubhouse and hopefully
dinner later, who knows what could have happened?

Besides, riding around in a golf cart on a
sunny, hot day with one of the most stunning women he’d ever met
was a sure winner no matter the outcome of his campaign. She’d
thrown a spanner in the works, but he was a long way from giving up
on Martha Winston.

The phone in the suite’s living room rang.
Tony dropped onto the plush leather sofa and answered.

“I’ve got Cole Tate in my suite,” Rex said,
“and I think you’ll want to hear what he has to say directly from
him.”

Cole Tate, of the Tate Group in Atlanta, was
Rex’s “man on the ground.” A specialist in corporate takeovers,
Tate had the financial pulse of every sports franchise in the
country, and especially those in the southeastern states.

“Let’s meet here, then,” Tony said, his
curiosity ramping up.

“We’ll be right there.”

A minute later, Tony ushered Rex and Tate
into the suite. Tate took the sofa and Tony dragged over a hard
chair from the dining table, turned it around backwards and
straddled it. He rested his arms along the high back and locked his
eyes on the consultant.

“Drinks?” Rex said, moving to the suite’s
well-stocked liquor cabinet.

“Bourbon, neat,” Tate said.

Tony nodded for the same, then gave Tate a
friendly smile. “It’s good to finally meet you in person,
Cole.”

“I wish it was under better circumstances,
though. The news isn’t particularly good, is it?”

Tony shrugged. “Realistically, I didn’t
expect to get much out of Martha at the first meeting. I’m just
getting started.”

Rex brought the drinks and took his seat on
the opposite end of the sofa from Tate, who took a sip of the Knob
Creek and then set it on the low coffee table in front of him. “Rex
filled me in on what happened with her. But I wasn’t talking about
Martha Winston’s reluctance to sell you the team.”

Tony frowned, not touching his drink. “Go
on.”

“I’m afraid you’re not the only one trying to
buy the Thunder, Tony. There’s another prospective buyer. A serious
one. A real heavy hitter.”

Fuck
. That was a complete surprise,
and Tony didn’t like surprises. “You just found this out now?” he
said, letting his irritation show.

Tate winced. “Unfortunately, yes. They kept
their goddamn cards close to their chest. I had no—”

“It’s Steam Train Breweries, Tony,” Rex
interjected, clearly wanting to get down to business.

Tony let long seconds of grim silence pass
before he spoke. “Martha’s primary sponsor. I’m sorry, but weren’t
we speculating that Steam Train might pull the plug and let the
team sink? And now you’re saying they want to bloody well buy
it?”

“Until yesterday they’d given no indication
of any interest in buying up a dying franchise,” Tate said. “But a
new CEO took over recently, and he’s something of a shark. I think
he’s looked around at other companies that have bought up sports
franchises so they can fully control how the team, the stadium and
the TV rights are used to market their products. It works, and they
don’t really have to make a profit on the team’s actual operations
if they’re able to capitalize on the marketing.”

“But that’s not exactly an earthshaking
discovery, is it?” Tony groused. Christ, this entire situation was
turning into amateur hour.

Tate shook his head. “No, but it looks like
Steam Train’s new guy may have been the first one there to figure
it out. He obviously knew Martha Winston had no intention of
selling, but the team’s slide in the last couple of months probably
made him think she’d soon have no choice. I suspect he wants to
force her into a position where she’ll have to let the franchise go
for peanuts.”

“Bloody bottom feeders,” Rex said in disgust,
a disgust Tony shared. As partners, they had always prided
themselves in offering fair market value for any team they were
interested in.

Tony shook his head. “Still, I can’t see why
she’d be any more likely to sell the team to a damn brewery than
she is to me. Especially since our offer will be better.”

“We’ll see,” Tate said, his skepticism
evident. “At the very least they’ll be a complicating factor. I’m
betting that they’ll announce soon that they’re withdrawing their
sponsorship of the Thunder when the contract expires at the end of
the current season.”

“Just a few weeks away,” Rex said. “You told
us Steam Train’s a heavy hitter. Fill Tony in on that, please,
Cole.”

Tate nodded. “Steam Train’s one of the
strongest regional breweries in the whole country, with deep roots
in Florida and most of the South. A very successful family owned
business. They’re happy as a dominant regional player and they do a
lot of sports marketing, like most beer companies.”

“You think they’ll bid high if they have to,
then?” Tony said, fearing the worst. “I’m prepared to make Martha a
bloody good offer, but I’m not going to jeopardize everything I’ve
worked for just to get this team.”

But the truth was he wanted the Thunder so
badly that his gut twisted at the thought of losing out to some
sodding big corporation. The Jacksonville team remained his best
chance to get into the American soccer market, and God only knew
when another opportunity would present itself. Rex had made it
clear that the other struggling franchises had no interest in
selling, at least in his price range, and the league was highly
unlikely to expand anytime.

Tate looked thoughtful as he ran a finger
around the rim of his glass. “Anything I could say to you on that
score would be just a guess. But I can tell you this, Tony. Steam
Train sure as hell has the capacity to outbid you if the owners
decide they want to. They like controlling the sports market in
this little corner of the world. And who knows? They might even
feel it’s their patriotic duty to keep the ownership local, rather
than let it slip into the hands of some Englishman.”

“God, no,” Tony growled. “Not an
Englishman
.”

“Just raising the possibility,” Tate said,
holding a hand up defensively. “You don’t know these people.”

“No, but I know plenty in England who are
just like them.” Tony looked at Rex. “You think this changes our
strategy?”

Rex sat forward, leaning his forearms on his
long, thin legs. “Only to the extent it makes it more urgent that
you come to an agreement with Martha. The longer it all plays out,
the weaker the team will be, and the weaker she’ll be. And once
she’s truly backed into a corner, who knows what could happen?
People can do unpredictable and stupid things when faced with
imminent catastrophe. Not to mention the fact that the Steam Train
people already have a connection to the team, which might give them
a psychological leg up.”

Tony pondered that for half a minute while
the other two waited quietly for his response. Finally, he leveled
a narrow gaze on Tate. “You need to keep us apprised of every move
both Martha and Steam Train make. But this bullshit makes it even
more clear that our success lies in convincing Martha that I’m the
man—the only man—who can make the team into what she always hoped
it would be. When push comes to shove, if I can’t convince her that
she’s better off selling to me than to some bloody corporate hack
who knows nothing about the game, then I don’t deserve to have the
team.”

* * *

Martha rarely went off her feed and could
usually eat like a farm hand while never gaining an ounce of
weight. But tonight she couldn’t even bring herself to pick up the
phone and order takeout from one of the half-dozen places she
relied on in her little corner of the city. Despite the bravado
she’d displayed at the prospect of facing down her financial
backers tomorrow, her insides ached every time she pictured herself
on the hot seat. Sure, she’d put the best face on the team’s dire
situation, but it practically killed her to know that the fate of
the Thunder—its staff and players—rested in the hands of a bunch of
suits who didn’t seem to give a damn about anything other than
money and profits.

Gloomily, she pulled a bottle of Sauvignon
Blanc from the fridge and poured herself a glass. Apparently gone
were the days of the pioneering spirit when banks actually took on
risks and helped forward-looking men and women build the country.
Today, it was all about the sure bet. The recession and housing
crisis, a truly awful spectacle in Florida, had washed away any
appetite for a venture that had even a sniff of risk.

And the Thunder had a lot more than a
sniff.

She wandered into the living room and sat on
the sofa in front of the enormous gas fireplace, staring up at the
portraits of Mama and Daddy. Though her father’s presence remained
everywhere in the house, Martha had never felt lonelier. Or less in
control. She missed her friends in Philadelphia, she missed her job
at the
Post
, and she missed having a social life.