Cathryn Parry - Something to Prove

“Cheating?” Brody asked.

That was it. Cheating. She nodded in excitement. “Exactly. You understand.”

“Yeah.” He smiled sadly. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Well, that’s good.” Harrison clapped from where he stood. “Time is definitely up.”

“Amanda Jensen.” Brody stood and moved around the table, then held the door for her. Her knees were suddenly weak and she wobbled on her too-high shoes. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

And then he leaned close and kissed her first on one cheek, and then the other. She felt the electricity from his kiss ricochet all over her body. By reflex, she reached up and touched his arm. It felt rock-solid.

He grinned at her sheepishly. “Sorry. When in Italy…”

Her cheeks flamed.

“Yes,” she breathed.

And then he reached up and tipped the brim of his hat to her.

Like a wayward cowboy, he was out of there. Taking all the air in the room with him.

BRODY SPLASHED COLD WATER on his face, the back of his neck, his forearms. He leaned over the sink, feeling wired, as if he’d just finished a challenging run and wanted to go back up the mountain and do it again.

Because he did want to do it again. He wanted to see more of Amanda Jensen, and outside the interview room.

He reached for the paper towels. Unfortunately that was off the table. Maybe someday they could get together, after he’d finished what he’d come to accomplish, but not now. He had so little free time as it was. Harrison was a pain about scheduling him.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Harrison muttered, his voice echoing off the tile in the empty men’s room. He’d already attempted to chew Brody out for being needlessly open with a reporter, but Brody had shut him down, reminding him there were times when going off-script was the best strategy. When he followed his intuition on the race course, good things happened. It was the reason for his wins, and nobody could deny that, especially his agent.

“Don’t worry about her. She isn’t going to screw us,” Brody said, but Harrison just grunted. Brody wadded the wet paper towels and turned, realizing that Harrison was preoccupied with reading text messages on his phone. He mopped perspiration from his forehead and cursed under his breath.

“What’s the matter?” Brody asked. “Xerxes yanking your chain?”

“No. Give me a minute,” Harrison said, furiously typing a text message.

“Not a problem.” He thought of Amanda again. Something about her niggled at him. What had upset her and tripped her up, enough to almost throw that one part of the interview?

“Why haven’t I heard of her before?” he muttered, though it was likely Harrison wasn’t listening. “News of a reporter like her would have gotten around on the circuit.”

“We could be in deep trouble here, in case you haven’t noticed.” Harrison snapped his phone shut and scowled at him.

His agent was always the jumpy type, but today he was excessively nervous. He’d been sticking to Brody in full-on babysitter mode, and Brody had taken enough. “Cut her some slack,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended.

“It isn’t her I’m worried about.” Harrison stalked to the far sink and soaped up his hands. “It’s you,” he said over the spray of water. “You don’t seem to grasp what’s at stake.”

“Are you talking about the note cards?”

“I’m saying I’m not sure we can pull this off anymore.”

Brody stilled. Everything in his life depended on them making this race a go. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice.

“You know you’re the center of my business, Brody. You always have been.”

He waited, his heartbeat slowing until it was a dull thudding in his chest.

“I met you when you were what…eighteen?” Harrison continued. “A local kid at a local race.”

Those days were a distant memory. Brody couldn’t go back there if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, but that was beside the point.

“You had it even then, raw talent compounded with charisma. Only a handful of athletes in any sport have those. But because you skied, the big boys were blind to it, agents bigger than me.”

“Why the trip down memory lane?” Brody asked sarcastically.

Harrison wasn’t laughing. “People mocked me when I signed you, did you know that? I was a small-time agent at a big agency, scrounging for crumbs. And you delivered, more than any American skier ever had. The sponsor deals rolled in. Companies signed you who hadn’t known what skiing was until you lit up their TV screens.”

“So what’s the problem?” Brody said, his voice hard. “Just spit it out and tell me.”

Harrison shook his head. “No, because I don’t think you get it. And I want to make sure you hear this from me—You crashed and burned, Brody. You. Everything ended because people don’t like losers or also-rans. They want to see successes.”

Brody felt the ice in his veins. He didn’t care about the successes. Not really. He didn’t even care about losing. That’s not what this comeback was about for him. And he couldn’t acknowledge the anger that Harrison so obviously wanted him to feel.

“You think I don’t know I allowed myself to be manipulated? You think I’m not serious about fixing what happened?” His voice shook. “Everything has changed about me. I’m not that guy anymore, Harrison.”

“You were talking about being a kid today.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I have as much to lose as you do, which is everything. Not just every deal we’ve made together, but your entire legacy, demolished.”

Brody felt a shudder go through him as if Harrison had sucker-punched him. His name and his integrity were the only reasons he’d come back. To fix the mistakes that he’d made. To make it right this time, in a way he could be proud of.

He walked to the paper towel dispenser, avoiding looking at his reflection in the mirror as he did. To change that feeling—wasn’t that the whole point of this exercise?

“Are you chewing me out because I talked with a reporter?” Brody stared at the wall in front of him, doing his best to hold on to the good he felt about Amanda, the good that Harrison was doing his best to stomp flat. “Are you complaining because I dared to trust somebody, just a little?”

“I’m saying you should trust me. Me, Brody.”

Yeah, he’d ignored Harrison during the interview and maybe that had been out of line. “Okay. I’m sorry about the index cards. I should have told you before I went in that I wouldn’t use them. The last thing I’m going to do this time around is be someone I’m not.”

Harrison took a long breath. “Understood. And I accept your apology, by the way.”

“Good. So tell me what your text message says before I rip that phone out of your pocket and read it for myself.”

Harrison took a step back. Yeah, you should be worried, Brody thought.

“We need to get you out of this hotel, now,” Harrison said.

“Why?”

“Because Jean-Claude texted me that MacArthur Jensen is on his way over.”

“What?” Brody felt his anger flare. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking. There’s a cocktail party scheduled in honor of his daughter’s wedding tomorrow. He’s got one damn daughter, and she has to get married here, of all places. Jean-Claude is following him in the rental car as we speak.”

“You have my equipment manager tracking MacArthur Jensen?” Brody shook his head. “Never mind, don’t tell me.” He paced to the wall and back. It had obviously been a mistake to believe the rumors that his former coach didn’t plan to attend his only daughter’s wedding.

MacArthur Jensen was their wild card. Neither Brody nor Harrison had any idea what he would do when they bumped into one another for the first time in two years. Every nightmare Brody had was related to the knowledge that his former coach could destroy him whenever he wanted.