Something to Prove Read online

  She swallowed again, but she could never get rid of the bad taste in her mouth; it always came back to haunt her. There was no solution, even though Brody Jones seemed to sense her discomfort.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” But tears were threatening, so she blinked fast. She had one strong point in her life to fall back on—her job—and here, with this skier, she couldn’t even do that properly.

  Exhaling, she lifted her chin. She needed to hold on to whatever shred of an interview she had left. “We all grow up, Brody. Life changes. Nobody can help that.”

  “True.” His brow creased as he looked not at the voice recorder, but directly into her eyes. “But we can remember when life was simpler. At heart, I think people want to recapture that. Maybe that’s why they go to mountain races—to breathe in the air and soak up the sun and ring cowbells like they’re kids again. You could, too, if you wanted.”

  She dropped back in her seat and stared at him.

  He smiled, embarrassed this time. “Or not. It’s a theory, but you asked.”

  He’s giving me amazing quotes, the reporter part of her brain said. Brody hadn’t said anything like this, not that she’d read, to any other reporter.

  “You…stayed away from the circuit for two years,” she pressed on. “Even after you were healthy. You said you were finished, that you’d accomplished all you wanted to accomplish. What made you come back to the tour?”

  “Time is up.” The agent stood. “Miss Jensen, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

  But Amanda looked to Brody. Her hunch was right. His mask was back in place, as if he regretted opening up to her. Something was wrong, and he was hiding whatever it was.

  “I’m not going to screw you over, Brody,” she murmured. How could she, after the kindness that he’d shown her?

  He reached over and turned off her digital recorder. “You’re a journalist,” he said with an edge to his voice. “It’s what journalists do.”

  “Some journalists maybe, but not me.” She pointed at him. “Let’s get something straight. You talk about the joy of youth. Well, I’ve known since I was a kid that I was a born writer, and that I loved doing it. I caught the enthusiasm for reporting early, and I never lost it. Believe me, I don’t compromise my journalistic integrity for anyone, including my employer.”

  He smiled widely at her. “Then you’re the first of the breed I’ve met.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we? I gave you quotes. Let’s see what you do with them.”

  “Cynical, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had my words twisted by all the so-called nicest journalists. They write what they want to write, for whatever agenda they have. I’ve learned better than to try to control it.”

  “Refusing to speak—is that the way to control it?”

  He shook his head. “Even that doesn’t work. Stuff still gets made up.”

  “Believe it or not, Brody, I take my job seriously. I might go undercover now and then, I might bust a person’s chops, but I never, ever mess around with quotes. Are you kidding me? That’s for hacks, and I don’t care how many awards they might have won, it’s still hack reporting. That’s like, like…” She was so mad she was stuttering.

  “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.”

  Harri
son 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.

  The goal had been to have the race long over before they crossed paths again.

  “Brody, you know I’ll do everything I can to buffer you from the outside pressure.” Harrison touched Brody’s arm, but Brody backed away. Harrison shook his head. “See, you need to trust me when I give you advice. If you don’t trust me, this isn’t going to work.”

  “Then what do you suggest I do?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AMANDA FINISHED THE EMAIL to her editor, attached the document containing Brody’s five-hundred-word profile, and then pressed Send. The internet connection was slow, so it took a few moments for her email to go through.

  Message sent, her laptop screen finally displayed.

  She let out a breath and slumped across her keyboard, head in hands. She’d written and edited the piece as if she were in a fever. With every sentence she typed, it became clearer Brody was under her skin, which was confusing. She’d never behaved this way over any interview subject. She felt like a crush-ridden schoolgirl.

  She pushed away from the desk and immediately saw Jeannie’s wedding dress hanging on the closet door. Her sister’s wedding tomorrow had to be playing its part in wreaking havoc with her good sense. Just the idea of couples being paired up for tonight’s party had surely put Brody on her mind where he shouldn’t be. The fact that he was a skier—and one of her father’s former skiers at that—should have been dampening her obviously confused libido.

  She stood and walked over to lean her hot forehead against the cool glass of the hotel window. Three stories below, a small group of Jeannie’s and Massimo’s friends from the ski tour trickled in and out of the courtyard lounge with drinks in hand. The rehearsal luncheon was finished, and now they looked to be gathering for the evening cocktail reception. Couples would be buzzed, chatty and amorous. Did she really want to meet Massimo’s and Jeannie’s fix-up for her in the state she was in?

  I’d rather meet Brody, a rogue voice in her head said.

  Stupid voice. Brody was the subject of her work. Her future. That was something she could never risk.

  She rose and circled the room, glancing at Jeannie’s clothes spread over one bed and her own papers, briefcase and notes across the other. Practical, the way she needed to be. If she thought rationally, she knew this pull toward Brody wasn’t an attraction of the heart, on either of their parts. Her reaction to him was one-hundred-percent physical, and that was all. She would never invest time in a relationship with him, or he with her, especially once he found out who her father was.

  And he would find out. Her background, including her father’s connection to the American ski racers, would be detailed in a boxed blurb below her byline. When Brody saw it, he would never want to see her again.

  Her cell phone rang. Brody, was her first thought. Which was crazy. He was leaving in the morning, why would he want to see her again?

  Besides, he didn’t have her phone number. His agent was the one she’d confirmed the appointment with, after her editor had set up their meeting.

  No, the call was more likely from Jeannie. Amanda leaned over and picked up the phone, checking the caller ID as she did so.

  Yes, it was Jeannie, calling on Massimo’s phone.

  “I’ll be right down,” she said into the receiver, her heart dropping despite her best intentions to the contrary. “I just sent the profile to Chelsea, so all that’s left is to change my clothes, okay, sweetie?”

  “Hi, Amanda!” Jeannie’s voice was tipsy, as if she’d drunk a glass or two of wine at her luncheon party. Loud, happy laughter sounded in the background, intermingled with festive piano music. “How did it go with the interview? I’ve been dying to hear.”

  “It went…well.” She settled onto Jeannie’s bed, kicking off the heels and drawing her knees to her chin. To keep her hands busy, she picked up one of Jeannie’s old sweaters and brought it to her nose. It smelled like her baby sister. “Really well.”

  “He talked to you?” Jeannie sounded breathless.

  “Even more than I’d hoped for. He opened up to me, Jeannie.”

  “Oh, my God, you like him, don’t you?”

  Like in Jeannie’s vocabulary meant want to hook up with. Which was the last impression Amanda wanted to give her matchmaker sister. “Don’t even say that,” she chided. “We have a professional relationship. Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

  “Hold on a sec, Massimo wants to listen in. I need to move someplace quiet so we can both hear you, okay?”

  Amanda found herself smiling even as she shook her head. Jeannie and Massimo were so sweet together. She’d landed in Italy a week ago feeling exhausted and weepy, still so frustrated over fighting her mom’s illness and furious over her father’s
lack of caring. But Jeannie and Massimo had made her smile again. Amanda had never blamed her little sister for being unable to visit Mom when she’d been sick—those days, Jeannie had been too often hospitalized herself. They’d talked by computer video connection almost every day, though, and Amanda had frequently thanked God for Massimo. This week, especially, he’d brought them around to his big, extended family, fed them pumpkin-filled pasta and goblets of Prosecco, shown her his and Jeannie’s new village apartment, and talked incessantly about their future together.

  “You should call him, Amanda.” The line was calmer now, just Jeannie’s voice with no background cocktail chatter. “Since your work is finished, bring Brody down to the party. Everybody else is here, it’s only polite.”

  It would be disastrous, only partly because Amanda hadn’t told Brody who she really was. But her sister just wanted to help her.

  “And to think, a few hours ago you were setting me up with Massimo’s friend,” she teased.

  “Marco? How can I fix you up with Marco when you’re interested in Brody?”

  Massimo’s assenting murmur came through in the background.

  Amanda poked at her one pedicured foot. The truly ridiculous part was, Jeannie and Massimo had bugged out of their own party to huddle over a mobile phone, plotting Amanda’s potential hook-up. “Have you two thought of starting a dating service? Because you’d be really good at it.”

  “You have his number, right? Or do you need me to get it from Massimo? He has it right here.” Another murmur of agreement.

  Amanda crushed Jeannie’s sweater closer. It was apparent Jeannie and Massimo weren’t going to let this one go. “Actually, Jeannie,” she admitted, “there is a small problem. Brody doesn’t know who my father is.”