Something to Prove Page 9

  His chest clutched with the sense that she was in trouble. He stalked inside the crowded reception, which had doubled in size to about three hundred people. Wedding crashers, he realized. Hell. A group of thirty to forty guys milled in the back; they looked like fans left over from the downhill race earlier in the weekend. Brody moved past them, threading his way toward the bride’s table, searching for Manda. His shirt was still unbuttoned at the neck and he hadn’t bothered to knot his tie, but judging by the rest of the crowd, he fit right in. A woman staggered past looking as if she’d had too many limoncellos. She saw his face and screamed, “Brody Jones!” in the manner he knew so well.

  Here we go, he thought, as a chorus of voices picked up his name. He lowered his head like a ram and went plowing through the crowd, figuring if he wasn’t anonymous, he could at least be quick. “Excuse me, moving forward.”

  One of the wedding crashers, a young man of about twenty-five with a scraggly goatee stepped directly into his path. “Can I have your autograph, Brody?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Brody said by rote. “Got a pen?”

  The fan stared blankly at him. “No.”

  “Then if you don’t mind, we’ll do it another time.”

  He moved on, visions of an Italian lothario stalking Amanda onto the dance floor urging him to hurry the hell up, but then the fan grabbed his arm and tugged back on him, hard. “Can you find me a pen?”

  Brody had thought he’d seen everything, but the attitudes of some people never ceased to amaze him. He stared pointedly at the fan’s claw-like grip on his suit jacket, and then at the fan. “No, I cannot,” he said calmly. “Please release my arm.”

  “No,” the fan said.

  No?

  “I am your biggest supporter,” the fan slurred. “I travel to every race you ski, and I will not leave until I have your autograph.”

  Brody glanced toward the dais but he couldn’t see Amanda, he just heard Massimo shouting something in Italian into the microphone.

  This didn’t bode well. And he didn’t understand enough Italian to know how bad it was.

  He sighed and stared down at the fan’s bony grip on his arm. In the old days, pre-injury, Brody would have shaken off the guy and then laughed about it with his friends. Maybe he would have called hotel security if the fan got persistent enough. But he had too much to lose now. He couldn’t afford to tempt the many journalist-fans with blogs and camera phones and grudges to air.

  But he also needed to get to Amanda, pronto. He didn’t have time to run down a pen and glad-hand this guy and his group of friends who were fast assembling, elbowing through the wedding guests and screaming for “Pen! Pen! Pen!” which none of the guests were offering up because they were too interested in listening to whatever it was Massimo was saying.

  “Okay,” Brody said to the guy. “Here’s what we do.” He held up his finger. “Invisible ink.” He pointed to the guy. “Tattoo.” And he scrawled an imaginary autograph on the guy’s forehead. Hard.

  “Wow.” The guy removed his grip from Brody’s arm and instead rubbed his own head. “That was super cool.”

  “When it wears off, come find me with a marker.” Brody stepped aside. “But wait a while, because I need to get to the front of this room, or else I might not make it to Alto Baglio on time. You got it?”

  “Okay.” The fan nodded. “You are the man, Brody.”

  Shaking his head, Brody continued to push his way through the maze of bodies to Amanda. He found her sitting on a chair in front of the dais, looking stunned, though she still had the flush of the mountain wind in her cheeks, which made him smile.

  Beside her, her sister beamed. Before them was a line of…was that the Italian men’s alpine ski team?

  They were locking arms and singing drunkenly. It looked like Saturday night after the downhill race in Val D’Isere.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  His first instinct was to storm the proverbial castle and save Amanda. But after the shock wore off her face, she gave him a pleading look: don’t do anything rash.

  Yeah, he thought, do you really think I’m going to let you suffer, sweetheart? He would have sent her a text message asking her what she wanted him to do, but he didn’t have her phone number.

  And then came the deal-killer: a skinny, dark-haired guy with glasses that magnified his I’m-a-puppy-dog eyes tugged at Brody’s suit jacket and then pushed in front of him, cutting directly into the center of a line of guys that was forming beside the skiers.

  What the hell?

  “Marco!” Jeannie called to the guy, recognizing him. “This is Amanda!”

  Marco? Was this a setup?

  And then it all happened in slow motion. First, the ski team stopped singing. Then the band decided to rest between songs. The guests stopped dancing the tarantella and decided to see what the action was up front, so they crowded the dais, pushing him forward.

  An itching started on Brody’s scalp. Every instinct of foreboding was screaming at him to do something. Now.

  All eyes were on Amanda. And Marco, in the center of the line of men. The bespectacled runt was the recipient of bawdy backslaps and obscene mutterings.

  Brody’s teeth slowly began to grind.

  “And…here we go!” Massimo Coletti lobbed something fist-sized into the air. The unidentified flying object was light blue and feminine-looking, made of satin and frilly lace. And it was arcing directly toward Marco. No one else even made a pretense at going for it, including the guys on the ski team.

  Brody got a bad feeling in his gut this was some kind of lewd ritual aimed at Amanda. Whatever the game was, she sat on her chair looking like a sacrificial offering to Jeannie’s happiness, an expression of pure fear stamped across her face.

  His teeth gritted. The decision was simple—he reached out his hand and caught the flying object. Bam. Like a fan over the Green Monster wall at Boston’s Fenway Park, picking off a home run ball into his glove. Then he scrunched up the silky satin and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

  Marco blinked at him. He still held his empty hand forward, as if to say “That was mine.”

  “What did you expect?” Brody said to him. “I’m six inches taller than you and I have longer arms. It wasn’t a fair contest.”

  And then a chorus rang out. “Brody Jones!” About three hundred voices comprised of wedding guests and crashers, most with Italian accents, chanted his name. The rest of the instructions they were shouting were unintelligible to him.

  He turned to Marco. “What are they saying?”

  “You are to put the garter on the thigh of Miss Jensen,” Marco explained patiently.

  “I’m to do what on the where?” He took the garter out of his pocket and stared at the thing.

  “It goes on the thigh of the lady. As high as your hand can reach.” Marco mimed the action. Brody felt his blood pressure soar ten points. The twit looked a world-class groper.

  This is baloney, he thought. In his mind, weddings were sacred events, not a time for post-race barroom antics. Not that Brody had been to many sacred events. But he could imagine.

  So he did what any self-respecting man would do. He strode forward, picked Amanda up and carried her away from there. Through the crowd, toward the darkest corner of the deserted dance floor, where he set her down, hoping she wasn’t mad at him. “Could we, uh, please dance or something?” he asked.

  Amanda was laughing. “You never cease to amaze me.” She kissed him on his cheek. “Thank you for rescuing me.” But still, she shook her head as if he was the funniest guy she’d ever seen.

  “What? I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t you know about throwing the garter, Brody? It’s just a wedding game.”

  “It seems like a perverted version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”

  She draped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. The band was on break and somebody had hooked up an iPod. U2 was playing an excellent, bluesy version of “Love Rescue Me.”


  Brody wasn’t a dancer, not by a long shot. But there was something about the way the bass vibrated through his bones, something about the woman who held him so tightly and yet so loosely, too. She was smiling up at him in a way he hadn’t seen in a long time, probably never.

  She understood him. And she accepted him, even knowing a bit of his crappy background. That was a comforting feeling, he was fast realizing.

  He slid his hands around her waist and drew her to him. But they weren’t alone for long. A guy dancing in the crowd bumped into her, stepping on her foot. She winced, and he steered her into a corner.

  “Pardon!” the guy called.

  “I think he’s one of the Rome relatives,” Amanda explained, bending down as she rubbed her toes. “Massimo’s mother comes from a big family down south.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t give them the excuse to put you up on the dais like a piece of meat for their entertainment.”

  “A piece of meat, huh?” She smiled at him. “Then I’m glad you weren’t here earlier for the buste.”

  “What’s that?” Or did he even want to know?

  She stepped into his arms and put her head on his shoulder. “It’s a tradition where the male guests pay to dance with Jeannie. Only in this case, they kissed her on the cheek because it’s awkward for her to dance.”

  “Massimo’s friends do this?” He felt incredulous.

  “It’s a sign of respect. Not everybody thinks in terms of sex like you do,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Trust me, sweetheart. Every man thinks of sex.” He drew back and looked into her eyes. “Amanda, we’re in Italy. They invented sex.”

  “The buste is perfectly innocent. It’s for fundraising. You know, to pay for the wedding.”

  “Uh-huh. And I’m a ballroom-dancing expert. Come on.”

  He clasped her hand and led her out of the crowded room to the quiet corridor beside the coat racks. The place was deserted—even the attendant had decamped in favor of the open bar. Out the window, the snow fell silently down. The only sound was the faint drift of music playing inside the ballroom.

  He looked at her, beautiful in her silver dress and upswept hair and shining eyes. He felt like a kid at his first real dance.

  “Will you dance with me, Amanda?”

  She smiled up at him. “Yes, Brody.”

  He had all the time in the world to ask for her phone number. For now, he just wanted to enjoy being with her.

  So he took her hand and she stepped into his embrace. I’ll never feel like this again, he thought.

  And he couldn’t stop himself. He buried his head in Amanda’s hair and took a deep, cleansing breath. God help him, he clung to the fantasy, just for a moment, that they were a real couple. Not this summer or next winter or whenever it was they were finished with their goals, but here and now. He imagined he could take her out in public, today, and have people respect their relationship. Nobody assuming he was dogging her because that’s what skiers did.

  It felt good being with Amanda Jensen. He could get used to this feeling.

  She smiled up at him again, her hazel eyes softening, and he knew in his heart she felt the same way.

  But like a ghost, she transformed before him. Her face grew pale, her eyes wide. “Brody…”

  And then he felt a cold, deliberate tap on his shoulder.

  He closed his eyes. Only one person had ever tapped him like that. “Excuse me,” he murmured in Amanda’s ear. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He turned and, as he’d expected, he found the hard, angry face of MacArthur Jensen staring him down.

  BRODY STOOD IN THE MEN’S ROOM, manning up the way Amanda had manned up before him. He faced the new head of his country’s ski federation, his arms crossed, while MacArthur coolly washed his hands and avoided his gaze.

  “Listen, Mac, there’s no reason for us to be at odds any longer,” Brody said. “I’m back and I’m here to win, which will only help you and your cause of having Americans on the podium.”

  “Is that so?” MacArthur shook off the water from his hands. “Then come under my organization’s umbrella. Rejoin the main team and take my funding.”

  He couldn’t do that. To compete under MacArthur’s control was to be destroyed again. “Is that what you really want?” he asked, hedging his bets. “Or wouldn’t you rather have the public credit for my successes? Because I’m willing to give you that, in spades, but only if you let my team keep their autonomy. That’s non-negotiable.”

  MacArthur frowned and reached for the paper towels. “Impossible. You need to take my funding.” He gave Brody an oily smile.

  If Brody took his money, he’d be subject to MacArthur’s scrutiny. Brody had spent two years healing injuries caused by this man’s games. There was no way he would open himself up to it again. “We won’t win that way,” he said. “Think of the good of the overall team.”

  “Do I care?” Mac asked softly, still smiling at him.

  His stomach sank. It was true; MacArthur didn’t care. He wasn’t bluffing. The way MacArthur played, there would be no winners, only losers who had their faces saved.

  He felt cold all over. He hadn’t expected Mac to be as bad as this. He’d worked with him for just one season, Brody’s last, and he’d known him as a control freak. An egomaniac with an insatiable need to win, to be right, to be superior. Mac was easily offended, and he judged himself on the basis of his achievements, which Brody had assumed were the guys on his team who stood on the podium.

  But he’d been wrong about that. Mac wanted control. Pure and simple.

  “I thought as much,” MacArthur said, his smile twisted and his eyes strangely flat in that dead way Brody remembered. “Now get out of my daughter’s wedding before I grab the microphone and tell everyone your deep, dark secret.”

  Brody felt his pulse thudding at the base of his neck. He had to do something to stop this.

  He groped for what he’d rehearsed so often, the reasoning, the logic to cover it all. “You can’t do that without hurting yourself. Because you were involved in it, too.”

  “You underestimate me, Brody,” MacArthur hissed. “I always win.”

  “If I fall, then you fall, too.”

  Brody owned that point, and he saw the doubt forming in Mac’s eyes.

  But then MacArthur seemed to recover. He smiled and pointed to Brody’s chest, his finger stabbing at Brody’s breastbone. “Know this, and tell your manager this—I am playing the long game. I may not win tonight. I may not win tomorrow. But I’m smarter than you and I always win the final trophy.”

  “Mac, drop this, for one last season while I win—”

  “You made that impossible when you went over my head to the international organization, Brody.”

  Harrison had made that decision in order to apply to field their own independent team. Damn it. “So it comes down to that? That in the process of regrouping, we inadvertently disrespected you?”

  MacArthur smirked and headed for the door. “I’ll see you in Alto Baglio. Watch your back.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  “No.” He turned to Brody. “Stay the hell away from my daughter.”

  “Amanda? I thought you disowned her.”

  MacArthur laughed, his eyes gleaming. “I did.”

  THE SNOW WAS FALLING LIKE BIG, soft clumps of goose down when Amanda stood in the lobby in her jeans and wool coat, her luggage packed and on the floor beside her.

  “I wish you didn’t have to leave tonight,” Jeannie was saying. “We’ve arranged for the ballroom to stay open later. Nobody’s going anywhere in this weather.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda said, “but I really do need to get going.”

  She felt beyond numb. She’d waited for Brody for an hour, but he’d never come back after he’d left with her father. And yeah, it had stung. As they’d walked away, neither of them had looked back at her once. Brody had to know how much that hurt her. The whole situation f
elt even worse because she’d taken a chance and confided to him how her father made her feel. Talk about vulnerable. She’d been a fool to trust him.

  Clenching her fists inside her pockets, she knew she had to end this silly fantasy she’d been living. It was over. She was never coming back on the ski circuit to see Brody, and he was never going to New York to see her either. Who were they kidding?

  Fling is finished, she told herself. Get over it.

  “Amanda, are you all right? You look pale.”

  She shook herself and forced out a smile. This was a happy day and she would be happy—if not for herself, then for Jeannie, dammit. “That’s because I hate leaving you. But the first staff meeting since the restructuring is tomorrow at four o’clock, and I told Chelsea I’d be in the office by then. If I don’t show up, I’m worried about being on the layoff list.”

  “You wrote a profile on Brody Jones for them yesterday,” Jeannie said gently.

  Can we not talk about him, please?

  “Amanda?” Jeannie peered at her. “I know we haven’t had a chance to talk about what happened last night, but have you been upset because of it?”

  “No. Really, Jeannie, I’m not upset. I’m just thankful you and I got to spend the week together. We need to do this more often, okay?”

  “I’m so glad you said that,” Jeannie whispered. She raised her arms and gave Amanda a hug. “And I need to tell you something. I called and invited him here. I’m sorry if it was the wrong thing to do.”

  Amanda felt the flush creeping up her cheeks. “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “I do, because I want you to be happy. You’re important to me, Mandy. That’s why I wanted you to come.”

  Amanda shook her head. “You don’t need me here. The Colettis are good people. I’m glad I got to know them better this week.”

  “Will you visit us this summer?” Jeannie’s eyes were watery.

  “Every day of vacation time I’ve got.” She clutched Jeannie in a hug again. Oh, great, now her throat was closing up.

  “I’m so sorry things didn’t work out for you here,” Jeannie whispered.