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“What did your mother think of all this? Didn’t she have any say in it?”
“She was out of the picture by then. She’d married Jack Sinclair and my father never gave her any true power in the company despite all the family money she sank into it.”
“What about your sisters? Why couldn’t they have taken the reins?”
His mouth curled. “My father would never have put a woman at the helm.”
“What are they like, your sisters?” She asked the question more out of curiosity than a need to know.
His face took on a decidedly softer edge. “They’re all completely different. Agape, whose dress you wore, she’s the oldest, an event planner in New York. Bubbly, always talking too much. Gabby is a librarian, has middle-child syndrome. Always trying to please everyone. And Arty—” his mouth curved as Izzie gave him a curious look “—short for Artemis, and yes my mother really called her that, and yes we teased her about it and called her a goddess her entire life, is finishing up her final year at law school. Whip smart.”
She smiled. “They sound completely different. Which one are you closest to?”
He shrugged. “All of them, really. They came to live with me when I turned pro. Agape and I are the most alike, I guess.”
“Agape is the one coming tomorrow night?”
“Yes. She helped me plan the party.”
Which reminded her that her time to get him to talk was running out. She dug in. “Back to Frank Messer then. You’ve said Mark created Behemoth. Messer claims he did. How do you reconcile that?”
“Developing a game like Behemoth involves hundreds of people. Come take a tour of our development facility. It’s mind-boggling how much work goes into a title. For years. Messer played a key role, yes, but so did dozens of other designers. The platform, the starting point, was Mark’s vision. The patents rightfully belong to Sophoros.”
“Then why did you pay him off?”
He scowled. “We were rewarding him for everything he’d put into the company. He deserved it for his tenure.”
“He says you took unfair advantage of him. Bullied him into it.”
“Funny he should be saying that now when the game is a raging success.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice. “He was fine enough with the money before.”
“He says he has proof he created the platform.”
“Then let him bring it forward. It doesn’t exist.”
Fine. She was starting to get that feeling the more unforthcoming Messer became on that point. She took a deep breath. “I need to ask you about the night your career ended.”
A wary expression slid over his face. “What’s there to ask? I came back too soon, tore my rotator cuff and it was over.”
She bit down on her lip. Forced herself to go on. “I talked to your coach, Brian Sellers. And to Dr. Forsyth. They both said you weren’t supposed to play that night, Alex. Dr. Forsyth had given you strict orders to stay on the bench for at least another month. And Sellers had backed him up.”
His jaw tightened. “I felt fine so I decided to play.”
She struggled to keep up with him as his strides lengthened. “But why would you do that? You’d told Coach Sellers you weren’t going to play. Why risk your career?”
He stopped in his tracks, the hint of a storm brewing in his blue eyes. “I thought I was fine. I made a mistake. That’s all there is to it.”
She pressed sweaty palms to her thighs, telling herself to just get it over with. “But Gerry Thompson was already starting. You didn’t have to go out there. Surely your career was more important than one game?”
“What the hell would you know about it?” he roared, his sudden explosion making her take a step back in the sand. His eyes blazed, skin stretched taut across his cheekbones. “How could you have any idea about the pressure I was under? About what I was risking by not playing? The media—you,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “you wanted my head on a platter.”
Izzie’s heart was pounding as if it were going to jump out of her chest, but she pressed on. “You needed to prove to your father you could be a success. You played because failure was not an option.”
“I didn’t care what the hell my father thought,” he ground out. “Christós, Izzie, have you listened to a word I’ve said? I thought I was fine so I played. That’s it.”
“I know about the illegal painkillers.” She forced the words past her constricted throat. “I know you had someone supply you with a street-level narcotic that allowed you to play that night...that allowed you to mask your injury. That there were some who worried you might have become...dependent on it.”
His tanned face turned ashen. “Who told you that?”
“I can’t reveal my source.”
He stood there utterly silent, feet spread apart, fists clenched at his sides, the absolute devastation on his face shaking her to the core. But it was nothing compared to the look of white-hot rage that was spreading across it now, making her breath catch in her throat, making her take another step backward.
When he finally spoke, it was in a voice so lethally quiet she had to strain to hear it over the crash of the waves.
“We are done with this conversation. I will answer the question about why I played on camera next week, at which time I’ll give the answer I just did. And that will be the last time it’s mentioned, ever, or this story will not happen.” He trained his gaze on her face. “Do you understand?”
She nodded, hands, knees, everything shaking as he stalked down the beach away from her. Her brain spun. How could one night have possibly been more important than an entire golden career? Brian Sellers had characterized Alex as a man who’d never taken an unsure step in his life. So what had happened that night to push him over the edge? To make him play when there was no way he should have ever taken a step onto that field?
CHAPTER NINE
THIRTY LAPS OF his fifty-metre pool was generally pretty cathartic for Alex. But after spending the last twenty-four hours ruminating over yesterday’s conversation with Izzie and facing demons he’d thought long ago put to bed, it wasn’t having the desired effect.
Biceps crying out from the vicious workout, he stepped out of the shower, toweled himself off and stalked into the bedroom where he rifled through his closet for his tuxedo shirt. He should have listened to his instincts and never agreed to do the interview. Because those questions Izzie had asked yesterday, the pieces of his past she was digging up, were nobody’s business but his own. She and James Curry were clearly taking this interview in a whole different direction from what they’d agreed upon, and the private life he’d guarded so closely for so long was in danger of being blown wide open by a woman he had severely conflicting feelings about.
He jammed his hand against the closet door, dropped his head and let out a string of curses. How had Izzie found out about the illegal painkillers? The only person who knew he’d taken them was his former teammate, Xavier Jones. And Xavier wouldn’t have talked to a reporter. No way.
But then again, he thought, agitation rocketing through him, what did it really matter now? His football career was history. He’d paid for his mistake in the worst way possible. And he’d moved on. He didn’t need football anymore.
So why did he feel gutted? As if someone had sliced him wide open? Because the only thing worse than reliving it all over, a little voice in his head said, would be to be made into a pity party all over again. To have the whole world know his shame. He’d worked too hard building Sophoros into an international powerhouse to let the media make a tragedy of him a second time. To overshadow everything he’d done since.
He would not let it happen. Could not.
He yanked his shirt out of the closet, found some boxers, and pulled them on. He would do exactly as he’d said. He’d do this interview, he’d draw the lines, then he’d never talk about it again. No one could prove anything. And as for Izzie? He grimaced as he did up the finicky little pearl buttons on the shirt. He was at a loss. Ever since she’d walked into his life, she’d been driving him slowly, surely mad. And it wasn’t getting any better. When he should be thinking about Frank Messer and the case his lawyers were mounting against him, he was wondering instead how to get her into bed. How to satisfy the craving in him that ached for another taste of her.
His shirt finally done up, he located his tuxedo trousers, pulled them on and went searching for his bow tie. He should hate Izzie for setting him up. For digging into his painful past. But the satisfaction of harboring that against her was being called into question after the conversation he’d had with Laura Reed this morning. He and his head of PR had been covering some items that couldn’t wait until he was back in New York when Laura’s tone had changed into that serious, “you need to listen to me” one she reserved for the most important points. “Alex,” she’d censured. “I met James Curry at an industry breakfast this morning. He asked me what the deal was with you. Said you tore into him at the Met fund-raiser about him setting you up...and he still couldn’t figure out what you were talking about.”
