Bigger Than Beckham (9 page)

“I doubt you even remember that little old
minute or two of conversation. I barely do,” she said with all the
false sincerity she could conjure up.

He gave her a knowing smile, obviously not
buying it for a second. “Trust me. I’d never forget a face like
yours. Or anything else about you for that matter, Martha. Mere
time couldn’t possibly change that.”

Okay, this was getting to be a bit much, even
for her. Still, Branch had never called her after Wimbledon, which
had surprised her a little given the open, hungry way he’d scanned
her from head to toe that night. In fact, he’d only called after
he’d found out her team was on the skids. And for some insane,
stupidly girlish reason, that thought incensed her even more.

“Look, Tony, let’s not waste each other’s
time. Please watch my lips,” she said, tapping them with a
forefinger. She ignored the way his hot gaze dropped to her mouth.
“I’m. Not. Selling. The. Thunder. Not to you, not to anybody. So,
you can hop on that private jet of yours and go back to your own
business.”

He knitted his dark brows in a frown, looking
slightly uncomfortable. “Do I really look like some kind of tycoon?
Why would you assume I’ve got a private jet?”

Martha arched her eyebrows in patent
disbelief. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you own one of the most
successful football teams in England, plus a couple of profitable
lesser lights. Not to mention the fact that you were one of the
highest-paid players in the Premier League for many seasons. People
like you don’t fly commercial.”

“I don’t own a jet,” he said coolly. “I don’t
waste money on toys. Or on anything, for that matter.”

That surprised her. Branch was not only
seriously rich, as far as she could tell he had a high media
profile. People like him valued both the privacy and convenience of
personal air travel. She shook her head a little, enough to loosen
the recalcitrant strands of hair her nervous fingers kept tucking
back, and opened her mouth to apologize.

He cut her off. “I
rent
the private
jet,” he said politely. “Time-sharing is great.”

Then he shot her an easy grin that had her
staring at him, dumbfounded.

Before she could respond to that bit of
mischief, he turned serious again. The way he could change moods on
a dime—and take control of the conversation—was seriously beginning
to annoy her, if for no other reason than she’d always been a
master of the same type of tactics herself.

“I’ll leave soon enough, Martha,” he said.
“But not before saying this. If you would just sit down with me and
my colleague, Rex Daltry, and lay out your true, current situation
for us to review in depth—and I’m talking about full
disclosure—then I would very likely end up making you an offer you
might find compelling. Perhaps even irresistible.”

It was all she could do to keep her jaw from
dropping like some idiot. Again.

An irresistible offer.
What did that
mean?

Martha swallowed past a tightening throat,
thinking of Geoffrey. If he got wind of the bombshell Branch had
just dropped, he’d probably put a contract out on her if she
refused to bite. If the offer turned out to be indeed
“irresistible,” Geoffrey’s financial problems would be over as soon
as the ink was dry on the contract. A powerful incentive for her
uncle to line up against her.

The silence between them lengthened as Martha
rolled the implications through her racing mind. Branch must be
pretty damn sure the Thunder could have a profitable future,
despite its present disastrous situation. Why, then, if he was so
sure
he
could do it, shouldn’t
she
be confident in
her own ability to accomplish the same end?

She swallowed past the persistent lump in her
throat as that brief moment of hubris passed. Of course Branch
could be confident. Unlike her, he probably had ocean-deep
pockets—deep enough to ride out the storm and rebuild both the team
and the fan base. Martha’s pockets were as shallow as a plastic
kiddie pool with a tragic leak.

This kind of predatory crap happened all the
time in the corporate world, and professional sports teams were
businesses, too. Big fish preyed on the small and weak, swallowing
them whole. It sucked, but it was reality.

“Glad to see you’re thinking seriously about
it,” Branch said after what a seemed a good minute of silence. A
long minute, where a thousand conflicting thoughts jumbled around
Martha’s brain as she felt increasingly backed into a corner.

She forced herself to snap out of it.
“Actually, what I was thinking about was how early I’m going to
have to leave today to beat the traffic on my way to Costco,” she
said with all the insouciance she could muster. “It’s a bitch to
get around in this town at rush hour.”

Branch’s midnight eyes turned even darker.
“Martha, let’s not be flip about this situation. I flew over here
today because I’m determined to have your team, and I’ve given you
a compelling proposal. All you have to do is sit down with us and
go over your financials, and then give us a few days for due
diligence. I’m sure you’ll be happy with the result. Especially
considering your alternatives,” he added with unnecessary
emphasis.

He leaned forward in his chair, leaning an
elbow on her desk as he studied her. Even though the broad slab of
mahogany separated them, she felt his intrusion into her personal
space. Tony Branch wasn’t some bulked-up, steroid monster, but he
was still all alpha, an all-dominating male.

“I can’t say it wouldn’t be a reasonable
starting point for discussion
if
I was actually interested
in selling the team,” she said in a sharp tone. “But since I’m not,
what’s the point of your continuing to push like this?” She leaned
forward herself, glaring at him from across the desk. “There are
times you just have to take no for an answer. Or haven’t you had to
figure that out yet?”

Now she was being borderline rude, but he’d
started to piss her off. Part of her wanted to throw him out of her
office without another word.

Branch gave a disbelieving shake of his head.
“Martha, surely you can read the writing on the wall. Your team’s
at least halfway to bankruptcy court, and any day now your backers
will probably sink you with the stroke of a pen. Where will you be
if it plays out like that? You might be lucky to get half of what I
might be prepared to offer.
If
there’s even anybody around
willing to buy a dead horse, since the league could very well fold
the franchise entirely.” He settled back in his chair, crossing his
brawny arms over his equally brawny chest. “And what would happen
then to all the people who depend on the Thunder for a living?”

She flinched under the impact of that final
jab. Of course she’d thought about the worst case scenario, and its
impact on the staff she’d grown to appreciate—Jane and Kieran, Sam
Brockton and the coaches, all the front office staff, the trainers
and equipment men. The players would land on their feet, getting
picked up by other teams, but God only knew what would happen to
the support staff. But even though she thought about those
consequences every day, hearing the words come out of a rival’s
mouth made it that much harder to bear. She
was
rolling the
dice—Branch was dead right about that. And if she failed, she’d
drag a lot of good people down with her.

Branch gentled his voice, the bastard. He’d
obviously become very good at reading her already. “I frankly don’t
understand why you would take that kind of risk when I’m here to
put a workable and smart solution in front of you.”

With that serious, genuinely sympathetic
expression on his handsome face, he managed to look more like a
knight on a white horse than a marauding buccaneer. Martha felt
some of her resentment start to dissipate. After all, instead of
coming to her now, Branch could have waited until the team was
effectively a corpse and then picked over the bones, grabbing
anything left for mere cents on the dollar. Instead, despite his
cautionary words about bankruptcy, she sensed he was in fact
betting that she
would
be able to survive, and was stepping
in with a generous offer in a pre-emptive strike.

Huh. Maybe Tony Branch actually believed she
could
pull it off, and he thought it wise to put an offer on
the table sooner rather than later. Somehow, that thought made her
feel surprisingly good.

“Well,
Tony,
let me ask you this,”
Martha said, deliberately emphasizing his first name. “How would
you
feel about having to sell the Blackhampton Lions?
Especially with people holding a shotgun to your head? Just think
about that for a while and then maybe you’ll have an idea how I
feel right now.”

The slight rise in his brows and the ironic
twist to his lips told her what he was thinking. How could he
compare her situation to his? He’d spent virtually his entire life
in football—from early childhood on—living and breathing it every
single day. She’d come to the game late, and only because her
father had died too young. Surely the loss of the Thunder couldn’t
possibly compare to what
he
might feel at the loss of his
beloved team?

Fortunately, he had the sense not to respond
like that, even if he was thinking along those lines. Instead, he
gave her a genial nod. “I’d feel like a big part of me had died. I
won’t pretend otherwise.”

Martha held out her hands, palms up, as if to
say,
see?

Branch smiled as he unfolded his long, buff
frame and got to his feet. Martha rose with him.

“I’ve put a credible, honest proposal on the
table, Martha. Please take some time to think about it. I know
you’re meeting with your bankers and sponsors very soon. If you
want to talk after that, I’ll be around.”

Martha almost gaped at him. “Around?”

“I’ll be right around
here
,” he said,
giving her a warm and utterly sexy smile. “In Jacksonville, or
nearby. I’ve brought my clubs, so I’ll combine a little relaxation
with business.”

Okay, she’d read somewhere that he was a golf
nut, but the thought of him lurking around her city for any reason
scared the hell out of her. What did he have up his sleeve?
Meetings with her bank, even, or her sponsors? Or even with her
uncle?

“Well, it’s a free country,” she said as
casually as she could manage. “But don’t expect my answer to change
while you’re tootling around the golf course.”

Branch shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I’ve
always wanted to play TPC Sawgrass. That 17
^th
hole is
one of the wonders of the world, isn’t it? Ever play it?”

Martha had hit her share of balls into the
little lake on the 17th, trying to land her tee shot on that
damnable island green. “It’s a wonderful course,” she said,
suddenly envious of him. She’d been so busy the last few months
she’d managed only a handful of rounds. God, what she wouldn’t give
to be free of her problems and worries, just for a little while,
and to be able to enjoy a few relaxing hours on the course.

“I hear you’re practically a scratch golfer,”
he said. “Why don’t you take the morning off tomorrow and join me?”
He gave her a smile that would tempt the devil himself. “I promise
not to say a word about business when we’re playing.”

God, that prospect sounded like a tiny slice
of heaven. She could take out her frustrations by pounding a golf
ball, all the while enjoying the company of the sexiest, most
interesting man she’d met in quite some years.

Danger, Will Robinson!

She repressed a sigh. “I can’t say I’m not
tempted, but it’s just not possible.” The words practically stuck
to the roof of her dry mouth. “Maybe another time. Under better
circumstances.”

Branch took a step forward and stuck out his
hand. “Until we meet again, then,” he said with a look so full of
masculine confidence she didn’t know whether to smack him or grab
him by the ears and pull him into a smoldering kiss.

She compromised by gripping his proffered
hand and letting him hold it as their eyes locked. Only when she
finally averted her gaze did he loosen his grip.

“I’ll see myself out,” he said with a wry
smile.

He strolled to the door, throwing her a brash
wink over his shoulder before leaving. Martha collapsed back into
her chair, suddenly exhausted. She should be relieved he’d finally
gone, but somehow all she felt was regret.

Despite her jokes about lyin’ and dyin,’
Martha didn’t shrink from telling lies for good and sufficient
reason.

Some lies could be called little, or white,
like her quip to Branch about having to fight horrible rush hour
traffic on her way to Costco. Not that she had any intention of
going shopping, and the drive from the office to her father’s home
just on the other side of the river didn’t usually take more than
ten minutes even with traffic backed up on the bridge. But she was
so distracted by her encounter with Branch that she stuck to the
right lane, forcing herself to focus on the brake lights of the car
ahead of her.