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“And you could have, is that what you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I could have tried. I wouldn’t have just given up. On the team. On—” She bit back the words.
“On you?” Alex asked. “What did he say to you?”
“He said that I couldn’t do it. And that if I failed, I’d be finished in baseball.” She flushed, the sting of it biting all over again. Her father didn’t think she could do the job. Didn’t have faith in her. He could wrap it up in pretty words about not wanting her to miss her chance all he wanted but that was what it boiled down to. He didn’t believe in her. She ducked her head, stared down at her lap, plucking imaginary lint off her trousers as her eyes pricked and stung.
“He was trying to protect you,” Alex said.
“He didn’t trust me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“If he trusted me, he would have let me try.”
“Sometimes you can’t do what you want to do. Sometimes you have to make the tough call.”
“Is that what you’ll do?” she asked. “If you can’t pull this off? Will you just bail on the Saints too?”
“We’re a long way from that decision.”
“But what would you do?” she persisted.
“It’s not just my decision. Lucas and Mal would have a say as well.”
“But you’d walk away?”
“If I had to. Not until I’d tried everything I could. Not without doing what I could to get the best outcome. That’s what Tom’s done.”
Easy for him to say. He was the one who’d gotten what he wanted out of the situation.
She looked away again, not even knowing what she wanted to hear him say. If there even was anything that could make her feel better.
“I’m not going to apologize for buying the Saints,” Alex said. “If you’re looking for sorry, you need to talk to your dad.”
“I didn’t ask you to apologize.” Though it wouldn’t have hurt.
“Good. Because you said you could work with me. So you need to deal with whatever you need to deal with and move on. We can have this conversation a hundred times and it won’t change the reality of the situation. Or we can get to work.”
“Can we?”
He put his hands on his hips. “I guess that’s kind of up to you.”
“I’m not talking about the sale. I’m talking about the party. The mistletoe. And … afterward. You broke the rules.” And broke them so damn well.
“You didn’t resist all that hard.”
“True. Which makes me wonder if this is such a good idea after all.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t have to get in the way of anything unless you let it. You say no, I don’t touch you.”
“I say no and you just forget about it?”
“I didn’t say I’d forget, I said I’d keep my hands off you.”
He made it sound easy. Which was a little insulting in a crazy way. “You wouldn’t try to change my mind?”
“There might be a little trying,” he admitted. “I told you, I’m good at spotting potential. I think we proved the potential on Saturday.”
