Staying On Top(11)

I dragged myself off the bed, out the front door, and into my car. The chill in the afternoon air nipped as badly as it ever would in south Florida, just enough to make me miss Manhattan. My brain turned the Sam Bradford problem over and over in my head until a plausible solution started to take shape.

It went against every instinct, but the answer was the truth. Approaching this con with a lie or a cover wasn’t an option, given that he knew the real me, but I still had the element of surprise. My father had been using the name Neil Saunders for the last five years, running long cons with clients like Sam and Daisy, so Sam would have no idea that he was my father.

Unless I told him.

The campus athletic complex parking lot wasn’t even half full this time of year. The fall sports were winding down and our football team was on the road. Winter sports were gearing up, but with winter break looming in a few weeks, the gym wasn’t swamped. The people inside were those few students using exercise instead of some kind of substance to fuel their studies, and the tennis team, who had conditioning from four to six every evening.

Heat and the smell of sweat smacked me in the face when I entered the indoor practice facilities. I loitered by the door, watching Quinn Rowland where he stood on the far side of a blue and white state-of-the-art tennis court and whacked ball after yellow ball at a line of sweaty students closer to me. He shouted over the sound of squeaking tennis shoes, heavy breathing, and rackets smashing into balls—some of it encouragement, some disappointed-sounding instruction—as the drill continued without a break for another ten minutes.

Some of the players collapsed when he called an end to the practice. Quinn wiped his forehead and swigged some water, his eyebrows going up when he noticed me loitering near the doors.

I gave him my most genuine smile, but judging by the suspicion brightening his impossible blue eyes, it needed some work. His thin white shirt clung to every hard dip and curve across his chest and all of the ripples down his stomach until his upper body disappeared into his shorts. Even with sweaty chunks of black hair sticking to his forehead and a salty smell hovering around him, he was dead fucking sexy. Sexier than Zach Flynn, and sexier than the boy I’d thought I loved in high school.

Or rather, I thought he’d loved me. Both turned out to be false.

“Hey,” I smiled, approaching Quinn. “Good workout?”

Quinn flicked a glance at his destroyed athletes. “They’ll be in shape by spring. Whether or not that means they’ll be able to play decent tennis remains to be seen.”

“I’m sure you can do something with them.”

“Thanks.” He grabbed a towel and wiped the back of his neck, those keen blue eyes studying me the whole time. The guy missed nothing. “What are you doing here? Thinking of playing?”

“Me? Hell no. I enjoy a good tennis match, but no way I’m willingly putting my life in your hands.” The pause that followed felt awkward, but I forced my voice to emerge at my leisure. “I lost Sam’s number and wanted to text him. Can you give it to me?”

“Why?”

I forced myself to meet his gaze. “What do you mean, why?”

“I mean, I heard he didn’t make much of a secret of his interest in Switzerland last spring, and I know for a fact he invited you to sit in his box at his first tournament back, and you blew him off both times, so . . . why now?”

It occurred to me now that perhaps the drive would have been better spent figuring out how to con Quinn Rowland rather than Sam Bradford. Of the two of them, Quinn struck me as the more suspicious. Then again, since my dad had recently lifted thirty million off of Sam, I had to assume he would no longer be the trusting, happy-go-lucky guy I remembered, either.

Luckily, I was at least as smart as Quinn, and I had the advantage of knowing what game we were playing, at least at the moment. “Well, when Sam and I met, I had a thing for Flynn, and then we dated. That ship has sailed, and I can’t help but wonder if I missed out on something with your friend.”

Quinn’s eyebrows went back up. “So, it doesn’t bother you anymore that he’s a pro tennis player with girls swooning at his feet all over the world?”

“I’m not saying we’re going to get married, Rowland. Christ. Are you his mother now? I just hate the idea of always wondering what would have happened, since even though I told him I wasn’t interested, I felt something between us.”

This time I waited out the awkward pause. The best thing to bring to any negotiation was the ability to walk away, and I had other ways of getting to Sam Bradford. Perhaps not ways as convenient or simple, but ways nonetheless.