I cringe. “And second?”
“Hannah Vinch is gay, Charlie.”
“She is?”
“Very much. Married to her wife for twenty years. They have two kids.”
“So that wouldn’t work.”
“It would not. We have a couple of days. We’ll come up with something that won’t require you to, what was it . . . have an effect on women of a certain age?”
“Shut up,” I say, shaking my head at her with a grin, embarrassed, but mostly just glad I said something to her before trying it and truly humiliating myself in front of our boss.
“Make me,” she shoots back, her grin matching mine and I lift an eyebrow at the challenge, thinking of one particularly effective way I could make that happen.
The silence stretches out between us and, the longer it goes on, the more I want to make good on the images flashing through my head, remembering with crystal clarity what it’s like to kiss her thoroughly, to make her body meld into mine, to trace the fullness of her mouth with my tongue and feel every nerve ending in my body respond to her.
“Maybe we should,” she finally breaks, “maybe we should skip lunch and just go to the hotel. We can have everything set up when the rest of the team arrives and we can get started right away.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea,” I hear myself agreeing out loud, when I don’t actually agree at all. I want her and I know she wants me, and I don’t know how much longer we’re going to get away with pretending that isn’t true.
Chapter 15
FRANCESCA
My Japanese is rudimentary, despite that Duolingo streak, but I don’t need it to talk to Nakamura’s agent.
Daniel Wilson, the same guy who got Ethan Quicke to use our offer as leverage to squeeze some extra money out of the Dodgers, is on the other end of the phone when I call to schedule an appointment for an initial conversation.
Pacing back and forth, the plush carpet of our suite at the Four Seasons is soft under my toes. It’s not their most expensive room, but has a decent-sized sitting area and a dining table with an okay view of the city, but not too good. Don’t want him to look out the windows and think, yeah, fuck Brooklyn, it’sLAfor me because we’re too close to the beach or the mountains or something. Just some streets below us, hustle and bustle.
That’s all.
I sit down on one of the dining room chairs and pick at the frayed edge of my shorts, studying the purple Lakers shirt that I still haven’t changed out of.
Working in clothes that don’t match the job I’m supposed to be doing feels wrong. Like the uniforms I used to wear on the field, my skirt suits and silk tops are armor for the job I need to get done. But the clean scent from the t-shirt must be the laundry detergent his housekeeper uses, I realize now.
I want to be annoyed at myself for it, for liking it and being so freaking aware that I like it.
And that he’s aware of it too.
Would it be so bad?
He was right, that one time: we’re equals. Him on the field. Me off the field.
And yet I made that promise to myself a long time ago. I wouldn’t be that girl.
But . . . would I still be that girl?
The girl everyone whispers about, the girl who slept her way to the top. The girl who, ultimately, was just another girl who doesn’t belong.
I made it.
I’m where I want to be.
Being with Charlie and, yeah, I can admit that’s what I want, would it undo the decade plus of hard work I’ve put in? We’re both adults. Fully consenting adults. Enthusiastic consent. Barely even a conflict of interest.
But it would look like . . . something.
