The Devil in Denim (32 page)

“Then we’ll tell them that Alex and I are just friends.”

“No one who looks at these pictures is going to believe that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You’re not sleeping together?” Mal asked.

“Not anymore,” Maggie said sharply.

“Oh no,” Lucas said. “Nope. We can’t go with that. ‘We shagged a few times and moved on’ is not going to fly right now. Sorry, Maggie.”

“I doubt there’s anything we can say that’s going to make a good impression, so why does it matter? We’ll make it clear that Alex and I are happy to work together and they shouldn’t care about anything else.

“Shouldn’t but they will,” Alex said. “Mal’s right about that. Though there is one interpretation that might swing them in our favor.”

“Which is?”

“We tell them we’re head over heels in love,” Alex said bluntly.

*   *   *

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Maggie demanded, staring at Alex. Did he think they were back in the nineteenth century? “Next thing you’re going to be telling me we should have a fake engagement.”

“No, I don’t think we need to go that far, but I think we need everyone to believe that we’re together and we’re happy. The press love a good whirlwind romance.”

Maggie looked at Lucas and Mal, hoping for some support. Surely one of them could see that this was perfectly crazy? But no, they were both watching Alex as though he’d just offered the perfect solution to the problem. “Why?”

“Because anything else is complicated and we don’t have time for complicated.”

“So lying is better than complicated?”

“It’s a tiny white lie,” Alex said. “And it doesn’t have to be forever.”

“So what, I dump you after the deal goes through?”

“It would be better if you waited until the season got started … it won’t be news then,” Lucas said. “Someone else will have done something stupid and there’ll be a whole new scandal to get everyone talking.”

Maggie threw up her hands. “The three of you are insane.”

“Can you come up with another story? One guaranteed not to piss off any of the owners? Or do you want to spend our meetings with them explaining how you had a fling with Alex but everything’s just peachy now?” Mal asked.

“This is not exactly the ideal situation but Alex’s idea is better than anything else I can think of,” Lucas added.

“I think we buy Sutter some concrete boots and the problem goes away,” Maggie said, wishing she wasn’t joking. Damn Will Sutter and his bloody male ego. This wasn’t business, it was personal. He was trying to take both her and Alex down now that she’d said no to him.

So. She could tell the truth and give Will the advantage, or she could agree to Alex’s nonsense and they could win the bid and then she could ignore Sutter and put Alex safely back in the boss box where he belonged.

“Lucas, Mal, can I speak to Alex alone, please?”

They exchanged looks but nodded. No doubt they’d be right outside, trying to listen in, but she knew from experience that this office was pretty soundproof. She’d never managed to listen in on her dad when she’d tried it as a teenager.

Lucas closed the door behind them, which left her alone with Alex.

“You really are trying to ruin my life, aren’t you?” she said.

Alex scowled. “You think I like this any better than you?”

“I think that in these scenarios it’s always the woman who comes off looking bad, so how you feel about it doesn’t really matter. Are you sure you want to do this? Lie?”

“I don’t like lying but I’m not going to let Sutter win. Especially not now. You’re right, he’s a prick and he’s not getting his hands on the Saints if I can help it.”

The venom in his voice warmed her heart a little but she stomped on the feeling. There was to be no feeling kindly toward Alex. Nothing but mutual, professional respect. And a mutual pact to lie to the press, it seemed.

“We need ground rules,” she said.

“For what?”

“For our fake relationship.”

“Rules about what, exactly?” he said, looking almost amused.

“For what we will or won’t be doing. In terms of public displays of affection. Or private ones,” she added.

“About that…”

“I don’t want to talk about last night,” she said hastily. The memory of it had haunted her dreams and her body was still pleasantly sore from his touch. She didn’t need to discuss it.

“Did I hurt you?” Alex asked, ignoring her.

“I’m not made of china, Alex, I can handle a little—” She chopped off the “rough sex against a wall” because, really, that would probably be setting the cat among the pigeons.

“You should’ve stopped me.”

“Stop yourself,” she snapped back.

He blinked, then shook his head. “Right. Sorry. This conversation isn’t helping. Shall we get back to ground rules then? You’re going to have to let me touch you. Hand-holding and so on. When we’re out in public.”

“When it’s appropriate,” she said. “We’re meant to be demonstrating we’re a good team, not that we’re goggle-eyed teens in love.”

“Agreed. But couples touch. Particularly new couples. And you’re going to have to pretend that you like me.”

“Liking you is not the problem,” she said.

“Then—”

“No. We’re not discussing this again. This is the way it has to be. So, yes to touching in public. You can hold my hand and hug me and do that stuff.”

“How about kissing?”

“Only as a measure of last resort.”

His mouth quirked. “What, when you need CPR?”

“Something like that. Look, this is simple enough. Do what we need to do in public, but behind closed doors, it’s hands off, Winters. Agreed?”

“I don’t see that there’s much choice. So, yes.”

“Good. Now, what’s the next step?”

“We have to issue some sort of statement.”

“I’d rather that it just said that we believe private matters are private and leave it at that. We can deal with the owners’ questions if we have to but I don’t see the point of feeding the media beast any more than necessary.”

“We can talk to the PR people. They’ll know what’s best.” He sighed. “Okay, so outside of this room, and as far as everyone else but Mal and Lucas know, you and I are a couple.”

“Hana knows that I was going to break up with you.”

“Great. Well, you can tell her that you changed your mind, okay? That I wooed you back to reason.”

“This isn’t reason.”

“No, but it’s reality. So let’s deal with it and get on with taking Sutter down.”

*   *   *

It was another long day. Another round of phone calls and strategizing until they’d come up with a list of where they thought their votes currently stood and a plan for tackling the undecideds and the outright no votes.

“That’s a lot of plane trips,” Mal said, staring at the list.

“Good for your frequent flyer miles,” Alex said.

“Good for deep vein thrombosis,” Lucas said, looking cranky.

“You just don’t like to fly,” Alex retorted.

“I fly all the time.”

“Yeah, but you don’t like it,” Mal said.

“I’m not going to be able to do all of these trips,” Lucas pointed out. “I have patients whose procedures can’t be delayed.”

“It’s only a week.”

“A week’s too long when you’re trying to save someone’s leg,” Lucas countered. “I’ll clear my schedule as far as possible but I can’t just drop everything.”

“Fine. So we’ll do them in batches. All four of us where we can. Three when we can’t. We’ll see what Tom can cover as well. What do you think, Maggie?”

Maggie considered the list. “There’s a few guys on here that he gets along with. So those might be worthwhile. But these three?” She swiped over three names with her highlighter. “Not going to help. They don’t like Dad at all.”

“Well, we’ll use him where we can and it will help. He’ll help convince the owners’ that there’ll be some stability and continuity.”

“Presuming he’s still talking to you after you two explain today’s pictures to him,” Mal said. “Maggie, how are you going to handle that?”

She winced. “I should go talk to him.”

“I’ll come with you,” Alex said.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yes. For one thing, it’s what men do.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Newsflash, it’s 2014, not 1950.”

“Doesn’t matter. And it can’t hurt for us to be seen going to see your dad. We’ll leave here together.”

“Now?” It was closing in on eight
P.M.
“I wanted to get back to the city.” Mainly because it was far away from having to deal with her dad.

“I’ll make sure you get home. And get a car to bring you back in the morning, so you can leave your car here.”

Which was another perfectly terrible idea. She didn’t need to be spending any more time with Alex right now than strictly necessary. But she had no particular argument to mount for taking two cars when they were faking being together, so she nodded reluctant agreement.

*   *   *

Two hours later Maggie slid back into the passenger seat of Alex’s Jeep.

“That wasn’t too bad,” she said cautiously.

“Speak for yourself,” Alex said, rolling his shoulder and flexing his hand with a wince. “You weren’t the one dragged outside in the freezing cold for a game of catch for forty-five minutes.”

She stifled a giggle. She and Veronica had watched the two men square off in the backyard, bundled up and spotlighted under the garden lights, Tom barking questions while he fired off pitches at Alex.

“Your dad has a pretty good arm on him still.”

“Yup. I should’ve warned you.”

“Yeah, I could’ve brought my gear. He nearly took my head off twice, but I think we came to a meeting of the minds.” He flexed his hand again.

“Is your hand okay?”

“I’ll live,” he said, as he steered the car across to the far lane to pull up at the lights.

“Is your hand why you quit baseball? After the bombing?”

His head twisted back to her. “How do you know about that?”

“Ollie said something. I did some digging. So is it?”

He shook his head, turned his attention back to the road. “No. I made the decision before I knew my hand wasn’t going to be the same.”

“But why?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“It’s a long drive.”

“The bombing…” He paused. “It changes you, going through something like that. I was lucky, my injury wasn’t too bad and I was smart, I had good grades. But there were guys on the team who weren’t that lucky. They had injuries that meant they couldn’t play again. Kids who were only ever going to make it through college because they were on the team. They lost their scholarships.” He went still … remembering. “It changed everything for them. And I just knew that I never wanted to be at the mercy of something like that. That I wanted to build something bigger than a baseball career. Something more solid. So I changed schools and changed my major to business and the rest is history.”

Somehow she didn’t think it was quite that simple.

“But you loved baseball. You were good. I saw your stats.”

“I was good,” he said. “But dreams change, Maggie. And sometimes when you get to the other side of that change, it’s better than you could have imagined.”

“Every cloud has a silver lining? How Pollyanna of you.”

“No, not quite that. But I do believe that some things happen for a purpose. Sometimes you need something to jolt you out of a rut and into what you’re really meant to do.”

“I see.” Was that aimed at her? Or was he still talking about himself? She decided she didn’t want to know right now and changed the subject.

Despite it being late, there were still reporters outside her building when they got there.

“Oh crap,” she muttered. “I thought they would have given up and gone home by now. I can call Dev and get him to open the parking garage for you, we can go in that way.”

“No,” Alex said. “Better to get it over with. We’re going with happy and in love, remember? Not skulking around. Let’s go give them what they want.”

“What’s that?” she said, but he was already climbing out of the car. She watched as he pushed his way through the reporters who had swarmed him and came around to her side of the Jeep. He opened the door.

“Back off, guys,” he said in a commanding tone. “I’m trying to walk my gal to her front door.” He held out his hand and she took it as she slipped down from the high seat. His fingers were very warm around hers.

“Your gal? The rumors are true then?”

Alex smiled down at her and she managed to smile back, remembering that she was meant to be happy. The flashes and shouting voices around her made her want to bolt for the front door.

“If you’re asking if Maggie and I have been seeing each other, then yes, that part is true. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Maggie has to be up early.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and shepherded her through the crowd. Maggie kept the smile on her face, fighting the winces. She hated this feeling, being surrounded by the press. Knowing that she was lying through her teeth to them didn’t help.

But Alex got them to the front door of the building and Dev was there, opening it with a scowl on his face for the reporters as he ushered them inside.

“I am sorry, Miss Maggie,” he said. “I told them to leave.”

“It’s okay, Dev.” She tried to tug her hand out of Alex’s but he didn’t let go.

“We’re not quite done yet,” he said. His eyes went to the doors where the reporters now had their cameras pressed up against the glass. “A guy has to kiss his girl good night, after all.”

Oh crap, she thought, but it was too late. Alex had ducked his head and found her mouth and her free hand coiled around his neck before she could stop it, pressing him closer.

It was a sweet kiss. Soft and tender and staged for the cameras. It still rushed through her low and hot, making her pulse pound and her head spin. Damn the man.

“That should do it,” Alex muttered, but his voice sounded a little dazed. She didn’t trust her own voice so she just pulled back from him, managed a smile, and bolted for the elevator.

Chapter Twenty

Maggie had seen plenty of strategies being put into action before. She’d listened to her father talking business and baseball since before she was old enough to have any idea what he was talking about. She’d heard game plans and strategies for the draft and sat through semesters of lectures on team management.