Chapter 13
RIVULETS OF SWEAT DRIPPED FROM HER FOREHEAD AS PENNY attacked the ball.
Air pushed through her lungs; she grunted with the effort of playing the ricochets off the wall.
She counted in her head: ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred backhands.
She let the ball fly by her after the last stroke, her eyes slipping closed as she tried to regain her breath.
It was a good workout, but it hadn’t solved the problem.
Her hands fell to her hips. “Damn it.”
With the rhythm of each solid shot against the wall, she could hear Alex calling her “love,” his voice in that half-sarcastic lilt, the smallest touch setting her entire body on fire, then that other way he spoke sometimes, the earnest, deep tones telling her she was the most incredible-looking girl he’d ever seen.
They hadn’t even spoken since their almost kiss, not even during training.
She wasn’t sure if he was avoiding her or the other way around, maybe both.
Pushing herself to near exhaustion wasn’t working.
No matter how hard she went at it, it was impossible to clear her mind.
It was like Australia all over again and she couldn’t let that happen. Not when Paris was in five days.
She tossed her racket against the fence surrounding the small half-court used for groundstroke drills, grabbed a towel from her bag, and wiped the sweat from her forehead, down her arms, and across her midriff. Her sports bra and shorts were soaked through.
Her breath came back to her and she took a small swig of water before picking up her racket again—one hundred forehands and then she’d call it a day.
Penny wandered to the locker room, muscles aching pleasantly after her long workout, but she hesitated at the door.
She didn’t want to go home. She turned around and walked down the path, away from the locker rooms and toward the beach.
Glancing up at the sky, she noticed that the sun was beginning to set.
She could get in a quick run on the sand before it got too dark.
And then she could pass out on her bed exhausted enough that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t dream of him.
Her thoughts turned into a complete mess as her feet pushed through the sand.
She stayed close to the water where the ground was firmer, but her calves still burned with the effort.
Her focus needed to be completely on tennis and not on Alex Russell or his stupid meditation exercises or their almost kiss or why he was almost kissing her if he was going to dinner with Caroline Morneau or how four months after their night together, she could still feel a thrill surge through her body at the mere thought of those moments in his arms.
Up ahead, she saw a dark lump sitting in the sand, the setting sun reflecting off something next to it.
As she jogged closer, the lump took human shape: a man hunched over, knees up, and a glass bottle wedged into the sand beside him. Alex. He caught sight of her as she drew near and he held the bottle aloft, saluting her, before taking a long draft from it.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, stopping a few feet away.
“I live here,” he said, jerking his thumb back to the house a few yards up the beach. “What are you doing here? Come back for that kiss, did you?”
She ignored the biting tone in his voice. “Trying to clear my head.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that head of yours foggy, would we? You might do something stupid like give me the time of day.”
“You’re drunk.”
“A little,” he admitted, standing up and dusting off his jeans. “This is how I clear my head, love. You know, when the meditation doesn’t quite do the job.”
“There are better ways,” she said, though she was vastly tempted to throw herself onto the sand, steal the bottle, and drown her problems in alcohol.
“You run until you’re so tired you pass out. I drink until I pass out. Don’t see there’s much of a difference.”
The conversation was going nowhere fast. “Fine. Enjoy your bottle.” She wanted to turn around and keep running, but there was this inexplicable need inside of her to be near him.
When he wasn’t around, it was a tiny ache, a constant reminder that something was missing.
Now that he was there, standing inches away, close enough to reach out and touch, it was so much worse.
“Penny?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still here.”
“Yeah, um,” she said, her mind racing to come up with an excuse.
He reached out a hand and she stared at it for a split second, hesitating as if it might burn her.
She pressed her hand into his and shivered as the calloused tips of his fingers slid across her skin.
Looking up, she saw he’d moved closer, close enough to bend his head to hers, if he wanted, close enough to—
“Penny,” he murmured nearly against her lips before he touched them with his.
He slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss immediately.
She could taste the alcohol on his tongue, but it barely registered as she pushed up onto her toes, winding an arm over his shoulders, hooking a finger into the belt loop of his jeans, anchoring herself to him.
His stubble scratched against her cheeks and his hands fell to her hips, pulling her body into his, their hips colliding, before one hand slid up to her neck and the other down over her backside.
A jolt surged through her as a low moan escaped from the back of her throat.
He broke away then and trailed his hot, open mouth across her jawline and over her neck. Penny shivered in his arms as his lips hovered over her pulse point.
“Stay with me,” he mumbled, his teeth scraping lightly against her skin.
“What?” she asked, trying to force herself to focus on his words and not the feeling of his fingertips slipping beneath the hem of her running jacket, brushing against the skin of her waist.
“The house I’m letting, it’s right there.
Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, cupping her cheek and pressing a soft kiss to her lips again.
His eyes softened. “Penny,” he started again, but she stepped away from him, cutting him off.
He was drunk. She shouldn’t be doing this.
Who knew if he would even remember this in the morning?
“I’m sorry.”
And she sprinted down the beach knowing her dreams would be full of him, no matter how fast she ran.
Awkward. That was the only way Penny could describe the heavy silence that hung over the office the next morning as she and Alex waited for Dom to arrive.
There were only inches separating the two chairs in front of the desk, and that meant she was sitting only inches away from Alex after a text from their coach had summoned them both there instead of where they should be, out on the training court.
What the hell was taking Dom so long? It was seven o’clock in the morning.
Nothing else was going on at OBX except breakfast, and so help her, if she was sitting in the most painfully awkward situation of her life while he was enjoying his morning coffee, coach or not, she was going to let him have it.
She started tapping her fingers against the wooden arm of the chair.
Granted, she’d still have to be near Alex, but at least they’d have something else to do, a distraction from how good it had felt to give in, to finally close the space between them.
Penny had never been kissed like that, not even by him, like she was the only thing holding him together, like he needed her.
She glanced to her right and had to suppress a sigh. He looked like hell—dark purple circles under his eyes, drawn expression, shoulders slumped. He looked as bad as she felt.
Suddenly, a large hand landed on top of hers, ceasing the tapping. “Please stop,” Alex rasped. She stiffened and nodded. Their eyes met for the first time since she’d walked into the room to find him sitting there, head hanging back, legs extended out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
“Ah, good, you’re both here,” Dom said, jogging up the last few steps into his office.
They turned toward him together and Alex’s hand shot away from hers, but not before Dom saw it and raised his eyebrows.
He pushed on, however. “Sorry about the wait,” he said, but didn’t offer an explanation.
He stepped behind his desk and sat down, picking up a thick envelope and fiddling with the flap.
“So,” he said, looking back and forth between them, “do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Bad,” Alex muttered.
“Good,” Penny said right over him.
Dom snorted and shook his head. “The draw is out for Paris.”
Penny sat up straight, but Alex didn’t move.
“Funny enough, you’re ranked the same, twenty-five.”
“Lovely,” Alex said through a grunt.
“Damn it,” Penny said. She knew her ranking might drop after not playing in Rome, but she’d hoped to stay in the top twenty. “When would I get Lutrova?”
“Third round,” Dom said, winking at her. “So, the end of week one.”
“Gotta win two matches first, love,” Alex quipped, his posture unchanged.
Penny rolled her eyes and then turned to Dom. “Wait, was that the good news or the bad news?”
Dom grimaced, opening the envelope. “That was the good news.” He stood, pulling out two packets of paper and handing one to each of them.
It was a printout of the Athlete Weekly website, and there, front and center, was a collage of pictures from the past week, and every single one was of her and Alex.
The photo in the center was from their photo shoot, but it was surrounded by candid shots.
The first was from the Classic Reception, Alex towering over her, a tumbler in his hand, while she glared up at him.
The next was of them arguing over a point on the practice court; another was of them on that same court, lying down, hands entwined; and the last was from that same night, him leaning in, his mouth hovering above hers, her fingers curled around the cotton of his T-shirt.
“Now, look,” Dom said, “what either of you does off the court is none of my business, but—”
“You’re right,” Alex cut him off. “This is none of your damn business.”
Dom raised his hands up in surrender. “Easy there, Al. I’m not the enemy here. I was on the phone with Hodges already this morning, but he claims he didn’t take these pictures. He says they were sent in anonymously and when his editor saw them, he was forced to run them.”
“Dom, this isn’t what it looks like,” Penny said, scanning through the article quickly.
From what she could tell, they were creating their own narrative, starting with Australia—she and Alex leaving the Nike party together, then the motorcycle accident with another woman, filling in the blanks with whatever garbage they thought would sell the most magazines and whatever Hodges observed while he was at OBX.
Apparently, she and Alex Russell had a rocky on-again, off-again relationship, which she didn’t want to commit to because he was bad for her public image, and with that, Penny stopped reading and crumpled up the papers. “None of this is true.”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, finally sitting up, as he read through the article. “Some of it they nailed right on the head.”
Penny turned, ready to blast him, but Dom said, “Look, like I said, this is none of my business, but what do you want me to say once the phone calls start pouring in?”
“No comment,” they said together.
Penny laughed, though there was absolutely no humor in it. At least that was one thing they could agree on.