Playing Hard (9 page)

Two hours later, he played the word
sexy
and smiled innocently at Amelia as she narrowed her eyes at him. His previous three words had been
flirt
,
date
, and
bed
.

“I thought we weren’t playing dirty Scrabble,” Amelia said.

His smile widened. “If you think
sexy
is dirty Scrabble, Amelia, then you’ve been playing it with the wrong guys.”

“Oh, and you’re the right one?” She tapped her screen a few times then looked at him with challenge in her eyes.

He refreshed his screen and laughed as he saw she’d played
optimist
.

He returned the favor with
hopeful
and was rewarded when she couldn’t stop herself laughing when she read it. God, her laugh was sexy. Hell, all of her was sexy. Her laugh, her brain, the way she bit her lip when she studied the screen to decide her next move. Made him want to lean in and bite it for her. Though he was hardly in any shape to make a move and he didn’t want to scare her off. But he couldn’t resist just pushing it a little further.

“Tell me I have something to be hopeful about and I’ll be good,” he said.

“You can be hopeful that you might beat me eventually,” she said, grinning. She’d so far won every game. Which should have spiked his competitive streak but he was enjoying her company too much to care.

“Winning is good but I had something else in mind.” He held her gaze, watched her cheeks flush.

“Such as?”

Was it his imagination or did she sound just a little breathless?

“Will you come play with me again?” he said.

Her cheeks went an even deeper shade of pink. But she didn’t look away. “Yes.”

*   *   *

“Are you sure Finn’s okay?” Em asked the next afternoon, screwing her face up. In the tiny screen of Amelia’s phone, it looked kind of funny.

“Look, all I know is what he told me. He said the team doctor cleared him. So he’s on his way to Boston. I guess we’ll find out whether he plays tonight or not. So stop worrying.” She studied Em’s expression. She knew that look. Big sister in overdrive. All because Finn had been given the okay to play in the game tonight. “Aren’t you meant to be in court?”

“We’re having a recess.”

“Then shouldn’t you be studying case files or something?”

“I know what’s in my files, Milly,” Em said. “Stop trying to change the subject. Or at least, if you don’t want to talk about Finn then tell me something else fun. I need some good gossip.”

I played Words with Friends with a hot baseball player
hovered on the tip of Amelia’s tongue, but explaining that to Em would also mean explaining why she was breaking her no-jocks rule and who Oliver was, which would bring the topic of conversation back to Finn. She had no doubt Finn had complained about Oliver to his sister just as much as he had to her. Given Em’s current level of stress about Finn, Amelia doubted Em would take her side. Besides, she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell anyone about Oliver just yet. “I’ve got nothing,” she said. “It’s all work, work, work around here.”

“You went to the party with Finn, didn’t you? Before the night of the accident? Wasn’t that fun?”

“Sure. It was good.”

“Any hot guys?”

“Wall-to-wall baseball players.”

“I keep telling you, your no-athletes rule is dumb. You’re not your mom. And some of those Saints players are pretty hot,” Em said, grinning widely.

“Um. No. We discussed this, remember? Operation Nice Guy is in full swing. No Wall Street billionaires. Definitely no baseball players.” Which begged the question why she’d had so much fun just sitting with Oliver last night playing word games over the Internet.

Em grinned. “That’s your plan, I never said I was on board with it. What’s wrong with a nice billionaire? He can sweep you off your feet and take you away from it all.”

“Not sure there are many nice billionaires. I think becoming a billionaire requires a fairly ruthless streak. And I’d imagine that landing one requires a fairly ruthless streak, too.”

“But think of the private jets,” Em said teasingly. “You want to travel. Just imagine how handy a private jet would be.”

She didn’t want to think about it. It sounded wonderful.

“Come to think of it, baseball players travel a lot, too,” Em said.

“They travel between U.S. cities and probably don’t get to do much more than see airports, buses, baseball fields, and hotels,” Amelia said. “That’s not my idea of a traveling lifestyle.”

“They go to Toronto, too,” Em said.

“To the baseball stadium. Besides, Canada isn’t that exotic.”

“You’re no fun,” Em said.

“That’s me,” Amelia said cheerfully. “All work and no play.”

“Okay then, tell me about work. How’s the Ice Man?”

Amelia glanced guiltily at the glass wall of her office, expecting to see Daniel Carling walk past as if summoned by the mere mention of his nickname. “He’s fine.”

“He is, indeed,” Em said with a sigh.

Em, inexplicably, found Daniel attractive. She’d met him once when she had been meeting Amelia for lunch on one of her visits to Manhattan and declared him hot. So it was just as well that she lived in Chicago. Her best friend dating her boss was pretty much a nightmare scenario.

“Enough about me,” Amelia said. “Finn said your folks are coming to see him play.”

Em nodded. “Yes. They’re flying to Boston today and then coming down to New York on Friday. I thought Mom would have called you by now,” Em said. “You know they’ll want to see you.”

“Finn asked me to the game on Saturday, so I’ll probably see them then,” Amelia said. She always saw the Castros when they came to New York and when she came home to Chicago.

“Is your mom coming?”

Amelia sighed. “No. I offered to fly her out, but you know Mom.”

“Still won’t fly?” Em sounded unsurprised.

“Nope. And she didn’t want to do the train trip.” Her mom didn’t like to travel.

Em frowned. “Is she feeling okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine. She just had her annual checkup with her oncologist a few weeks ago. All good. No sign of anything.” Amelia smiled, unable to help herself. Every year, her mom’s checkup freaked her out. Even though she’d been in remission from the cancer and the aplastic anemia that had developed after all her chemo for six years now, it was still hard not to worry about a recurrence. Most of the time she managed to not think about it, but the checkups brought back too many hard memories. “What about you? Are you going to come see him play?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll see how today and tomorrow go in court. This case is brutal. Not really a good time to go running off to New York for a weekend.”

“I thought that partner you always work with was a baseball fan.”

“He is. But he’s a Cubs fan. So as far as he’s concerned the season is done. Plus he’s not that interested in Finn now that he’s not playing for the Cubs anymore.”

“Try and work your magic. Bat your eyelashes at him or something,” Amelia said. “It would mean a lot to Finn. And I’d love to see you. It’s been way too long.” She tried her own version of puppy-dog eyes. “C’mon, one weekend would be great. Even one night.”

But she didn’t see Em’s reaction—a notification popped up on her screen, obscuring her friend’s face.

A notification from the word game app. From Oliver. A smile spread across her face even as she tapped the screen to dismiss the notification.

“What’s that smile for?” Em said.

Amelia blinked. Damn, she’d forgotten that Em could still see her even when the notification was blocking Amelia’s view. “Just happy at the thought of getting to see you.”

“I don’t think so. I saw you. You were reading something on your screen. Is someone sexting you, Milly? Have you got a secret guy you’re not telling me about? A late-night booty call?”

“Why would a late-night booty call be texting me at one p.m.?” Amelia asked, trying to stall for time.

“Maybe he thinks you’re awesome and he can’t wait for the next late night,” Em said, laughing. “’Fess up, Amelia, have you been holding out on me?”

Amelia summoned her best innocent face. It rarely worked on Em, who was annoyingly good at reading people. Part of the reason that she was such a good attorney. “Not holding out. Nothing to report. Just a notification. I’m playing a game with one of the girls in the Hong Kong office.”

“Game? What game? Oh God, Finn hasn’t gotten you hooked on one of his video games, has he?”

Em was not a fan of video games. She claimed they made her motion sick and always got cranky when Amelia and Finn decided to battle it out onscreen.

“Finn’s limiting his screen time, remember?” Amelia said. Bringing up Finn seemed like the best option at this point. It was guaranteed to distract Em.

“He’s supposed to be limiting it. I know my baby brother. I bet he didn’t. Idiot.”

“Twenty-five-year-old idiot,” Amelia said, tentatively. “Big enough to decide for himself.”

“He needs someone to talk to him,” Em said. “You’re too nice to him, Milly.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. Em liked to think she was tough but she was just as much a Team Finn sucker as her parents and Amelia. “If you want to deliver tough love, come out here to Manhattan and deliver it yourself.”

Her phone pinged as another notification flashed up. She ignored it. “Look, I have to go, I have a meeting in fifteen and need to finish printing some stuff. Let me know if you are coming. You can stay with me if you want.”

“We’ll see,” Em said. “I might just have to take a red-eye back here if I do get away.”

“What if there’s a game on Sunday as well?”

“You really think the Saints have a chance against the Red Sox?” Em asked.

“They’ve been playing really well this year,” Amelia said. So had the Red Sox. “So who knows?”

“Well, win or lose I doubt I could pull off staying for Sunday. But I’ll let you know if I can figure Saturday out. Smooches. Gotta get back to court.”

The screen winked out. Em had never been big on good-byes.

Without Em’s face in the background, the notification from the game was stark against her screen.

She should ignore him. She had work to do.

She opened the app anyway.

And noticed the little message notification. Damn. She’d forgotten there was a chat function. She opened the message.

Sitting around all day is boring.

She rolled her eyes. Sitting around all day with no responsibilities sounded pretty good to her. But she wasn’t a professional athlete.

Read something
, she replied.

You’re no fun, Amelia.

The response came back so fast she had to wonder if he was just sitting there waiting for her to reply. That seemed unlikely. But the thought made her smile.

Then why are you messaging me?

To remind you that you should be fun.

All fun and no work makes Amelia a poor girl.

The phone on her desk rang. She hit the speakerphone button. “Amelia Graham.”

“I think the saying is all work and no play,” Oliver said in a low voice that made her want to purr.

She ignored the swift flash of pleasure as she grabbed the handset to take the call off speaker. “Maybe I believe in balance.”

“Says the woman who works on Wall Street.”

“That may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Baseball doesn’t allow for lots of spare time, does it?” she said then realized what she’d just said. Oliver had nothing but spare time right now. “Sorry, I meant—”

“It’s fine,” Oliver said though his voice had lost a little of its teasing tone. “Though if you feel bad about it, then you can make it up to me.”

“How?”

“Come over tonight.”

She looked at the document open on the screen in front of her. The list of issues with the latest version of the model the IT guys wanted to discuss with her in the morning. It was long. And she needed to be up-to-date with it and have suggested solutions. It was going to take her hours. “I—”

“Don’t say no.” There was something a little too raw in that statement. Something lost in his voice that made her stomach curl.

Made her want to soothe that pain away. Though she had no idea how. Tonight he should be in Boston with the rest of his team, playing the sport he loved. But he wasn’t. Her fingers tightened around the phone. “There must be someone else you can hang out with.”

“Amelia, ninety-nine percent of my good friends are in Boston right now.”

Where they would be playing—or watching people play—the game he couldn’t. That had to suck pretty hard. She didn’t like the thought of him sitting on his big sofa alone while that happened. Though she wasn’t entirely convinced that he had no friends left in New York. She was pretty sure he could open up whatever his equivalent of a little black book was and have some female company in two seconds flat.

But he’d asked her.

And it seemed she wasn’t very good at resisting Oliver Shields asking her for things. “It will be late again.”

“I’ll send you the details of my car service. Just call them when you’re ready.”

“I can take a cab.”

“I know you can. But you’re doing me a favor here, Amelia. Let me do you one in return.”

It was hard to argue with that. “I’ll take the car,” she promised and hung up.

Chapter Five

Oliver put the cell phone down reluctantly. He’d paid the nurse who’d come to check on him to go and buy him a new phone with some prepaid credit. For the sole purpose, as near as he could tell, of giving him a way to play the word game with Amelia. He’d get himself set up with a new iPhone and a new number soon but right now, it seemed like too much hard work. He just needed something so he could call a few select people. And play Words with Friends apparently.

He’d told himself that he wouldn’t bug Amelia at work.

So that was a fail.

Apparently he was crap at sitting around doing nothing. Even though he still felt like he’d been run over by something large and tanklike—and come to think of it, being hit by a Hummer was probably as close as you’d get to a tank outside of the military—he was rapidly driving himself nuts.