“Ah, yes.” A sardonic press of sinfully full lips. “The Rookie Whisperer.”

“Whatever.” I shrug faux carelessly. “Lamont will be under intense scrutiny, and we both know he has some issues that could derail him. I’ll take care of him.”

“You’re right. I don’t play babysitter to grown men making millions of dollars,” he says. “I agree he’s better suited to you. I thought he was signing with Mitch, in which case I would have been doing him a favor.”

“He was actually. I intervened after hearing Mitch’s choice words about me at the bar that night.”

Jared grimaces as close to contrite as I can expect from him.

“I am sorry for what I said, Banner. I was . . .” He searches my face, but seems to be searching for words, too. “Wrong. I was wrong.”

It’s just words, probably empty ones, but his admission soothes a sting I didn’t realize I still carried.

“Apology accepted.” I clear my throat and, I hope, the air. “Since we have to work together for our clients, let’s put it behind us.”

“Right,” he says briskly, donning a businesslike expression like he would put on one of his silk ties. “We have an appointment tomorrow.”

“How do we have an appointment tomorrow? You didn’t consult my schedule. I don’t know who we’re meeting with or what we’re meeting about.”

“Should we sit?” he gestures to the sofa.

No way I’m sitting on a sofa with Jared Foster and Zo just outside. I wouldn’t straddle the man but don’t trust my subconscious. Look what it made of an argument in the hall. There’s no telling what it will concoct even from these few minutes together.

“No need to sit,” I reply. “Just tell me how you have commandeered my schedule and I can get back to my dinner and my boyfriend.”

Knowing he disapproves of my relationship with a client, I don’t miss the chance for a dig.

“Okay.” He exasperates me by stubbornly remaining unoffended and suppressing a smile. “We’re having lunch with a huge potential sponsor. It’s all but done.”

“I know you’re not used to playing well with others, but this is pretty high-handed even for you.”

“I called your office and your assistant said you were free for lunch.”

“Why would Maali give you that information?” I can’t believe my usually lips-are-sealed assistant would be that forthcoming.

“Don’t blame her. I can be pretty persuasive.” He chuckles when I roll my eyes. “So lunch tomorrow with Kip Carter.”

“Wait.” I frown and rack my brain. “That name sounds familiar.”

Jared rubs the back of his neck, wearing reluctance like a red flag. “It’s Bent’s father.”

I’m momentarily too mad to speak, but that doesn’t last.

“Are you kidding me?” My words bounce between us like a medicine ball. “Bent who saw me naked and laughed? That Bent?”

“He did not laugh.” A muscle bunches along his jaw. “He felt like an ass about that night, and we didn’t speak for years. I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t join The Pride.”

“I’m not revisiting this,” I snap. “Stick to business.”

“You’re the one willing to compromise business because you can’t let go of what you think happened a decade ago.”

“What I think . . .” I swallow my anger and the words that would only extend my time in his presence. “Whatever. When and where?”

“I’ll pick you up around eleven.”

“I can meet you. That won’t be necessary.”

“It’ll be easier,” he says before I can protest more. “He’s sending his helicopter for us. We’re having lunch with him on Catalina Island.”

“Isn’t that a bit extra?” I frown and reach up to tighten the slipping knot of my hair. The motion of raising my arms lifts my dress, exposing a few more inches of my thighs. Jared scrolls a leisurely glance over the length of my legs, landing and lingering on my toes. I keep my face expressionless though it’s burning with a blush.

“Not for the people we deal with,” he says. “Kobe Bryant took the helicopter to every home game his last few seasons with the Lakers to avoid traffic. It’s only a fifteen-minute ride, and it’s either water or air since Catalina regulates cars so strictly.”

“Alright, then.” I blow out a resigned breath. “I could still meet you. I don’t want anyone from my office seeing you pick me up.”

I pause for effect.

“They abhor you,” I say with deliberate glee.

To my dismay, he barks out a laugh, looking pleased with himself.

“Good. Means I’m doing my job.” He turns to leave. “We are rivals after all, right?”

“Very right.” I follow him to the door, eager to shut it behind him.

At the last second, he turns before he reaches the door, and barely an inch separates us.

“You know,” he breathes the words. “Tonight it’s easy to forget we’re supposed to be enemies when you look like my friend from college. The one I used to study with in the laundromat.”

It’s one thing for him to bring up Bent, for us to argue about what he did or did not intend to happen that night. I’m not sure I’ll ever really know. It’s another thing for him to bring up our friendship. What I believed to be our friendship. That’s not fair.

“Goodbye, Jared,” I say, my tone sharpened to a fine point, eyes on my bare feet.

“You look the same,” he continues. I feel his eyes on my face but refuse to look up.

“I hope not.” I cross one foot over the other. “That dumpy girl had no clue.”

I laugh, some of my old self-consciousness rushing back, and glance up at him. I’m not prepared for the intensity on his face. It’s watchful. It’s frustrated. It’s something I can’t translate and in a language I don’t speak.

“I liked her,” he says, his voice a heated rasp. “She was smart and funny and honest and principled. She was . . . you were . . . one of the few people on that campus I could tolerate for more than an hour without wanting to saw my arm off.”

Then why?

The question rips through my defenses. Yes, it hurt to think he set me up with The Pride, that he would sleep with me as part of some prank or rite of passage I never understood. What hurt most was the uncertainty of what had been true, what had been real. If I’d misjudged every moment of our friendship. And if I hadn’t, then how could he do that to me?

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say woodenly.

“Ban, if you would just—”

“Eleven you said?” I cut in and school my face to look at him.

He runs a hand through his hair, disrupting it into a silky mess I remember too well. The way the strands clung to my fingers.

“We will have this out one day, Banner,” he says, his voice rough and impatient.

“Not today we won’t,” I lob back at him. “I don’t need a walk down memory lane, Jared. We have a job to do, and we’ll do it. No need to talk about the past. It’s dead and gone.”

“The past isn’t all gone,” he says, his voice suddenly softer. I’m unprepared for him to eliminate the protective space between us, for him to touch my face. He runs a finger over my nose. I jerk back, startled. “You still have the freckles.”

“What?” I rub my nose, wiping away his touch.

“You had seven freckles on your nose then,” he says, one side of his mouth canted up. “You still do.”

That’s the last mystifying thing he says before turning and walking up my short drive to the convertible sports car at the curb. I lean against the closed door for a minute, maybe more, reassembling my splintered composure. I don’t know what’s happening between us. My greatest defense against Jared has been my anger and bitterness over his treatment that night. When he denies it, when he makes me think it could have been real . . . that the fiery connection, the perfect give and take of our bodies, the closeness we shared before the sex and even more so after may have been real, my defenses flag. I can’t allow that to happen. If my armor slips, if I’m exposed. I don’t want to think of all the ways Jared could ruin my life.

14

Banner

The thing about flying in a helicopter is I’ve never flown in one. I was so preoccupied with Jared’s unexpected visit and all the ways I could maintain some distance, I forgot that I would probably be scared to death. I’m faced with that reality once we approach the helicopter, a giant bug-eyed insect with rapidly rotating wings. The helipad sits on top of a thirty-story building downtown, overlooking LA’s flat-topped Lego-like skyline. The Staples Center lies in one direction, the Sheraton in another. Those are the only buildings I distinguish. The rest are just a blur of glass and stone as I drag my feet toward the bullseye where the helicopter waits.

“Are those shoes slowing you down?” Jared yells over the noise of the spinning propellers.

“No,” I yell back, speeding up my steps in the black Balenciaga pumps I splurged on last year. “I’m fine.”

“Agreed,” Jared says, giving my appearance an appreciative quick scan.

I chose the paper-thin leather jacket and form-fitting black pencil dress carefully, knowing Kip Carter, Bent’s dad, is a big deal. I may be thicker than a lot of the girls in the circles I move in, but I know this dress highlights the toned curves I’ve literally worked my ass off for. Some of my hair is pulled into a half-up top knot and the rest spills in loose waves down my back. For better or worse, image is a lot in this town, and I want to put my best foot forward meeting such an influential man.

Even if his son is an asshole I hope to never see again. Fingers crossed Bent won’t be around at all. Last I heard, he lived in Boston, tearing his way through a string of women unfortunate enough to be fooled by his gorgeous face.