“You must’ve just read the one about dinner. How was it anyway? I’ve been meaning to tell Lola I want to eat there one day soon.”
Amy appreciated the subject change. “Delicious. You’ll enjoy it,” she promised him. “So are we all set?”
“You’re ready to go. Our boy thinks you’re picking him up for a business lunch with me. The limo knows to head straight up to the lodge. Dealing with the fallout is up to you.” Yank let out a loud laugh that startled Noodle from where she’d plopped onto the floor.
“I can handle it,” she said, repeating her new mantra, the one she’d adopted for maneuvering in the Hot Zone world. After all, she could think of many times she’d taken a hard stand with her mother, going so far as to lock her in her own home, just to keep her out of trouble.
“Of course you can. I just came by to wish you luck,” Yank said. He turned, whistled and walked out, dog toddling after him.
Amy gave a silent prayer for success.
Between the stress of Roper’s injury and therapy, the constant fan backlash, his mother’s daily drama and the tracking of his every movement in the paper, Amy knew she was doing the right thing.
She just knew Roper would never see it the same way.
CASSANDRA DEFINITELY NEEDED a new plan of action to avoid Harrison. Running from L.A. hadn’t helped. He’d followed her. She didn’t know how much longer she could continue to convince John to act as a buffer and she knew better than to include Ben again. Harrison had told her Ben wanted to discuss a script with him. Her son was shameless and would use whoever crossed his path. She understood she wasn’t blameless in how Ben had turned out. She’d babied him for too long. But she understood him, too, and she couldn’t just cut him off, which was why she kept turning to her oldest son to help.
But who was going to help her with her director? The man was persistent in the extreme. He wanted her to return to L.A. with him as a couple and he wanted her to take that role. Television. Could she hold her head up in Hollywood after such a huge step down?
Cassandra didn’t know what she feared more, the role he wanted her to play on screen or the part he wanted to play in her life.
CHAPTER TEN
ROPER GLANCED OUT THE tinted window of the car Amy had hired to pick him up and take them for lunch. He still didn’t understand why he couldn’t have just met her and Yank at the restaurant for this sudden meeting, but she’d insisted. Now, as he sat beside her, she remained eerily quiet.
“What restaurant are we going to, anyway?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’m new in the city and I’m bad with names. I can’t remember,” she murmured. Her gaze strayed out the window and she drummed her fingertips on the hard leather armrest beneath the window.
Taking her cue, he sat in silence, watching as the scenery changed from the luxury shops on Madison Avenue to more eclectic scenery as they made their way farther north.
It wasn’t until the driver turned right onto 102nd Street and merged onto FDR Drive that he spoke up. “We’re leaving the city?”
“Looks that way.” She didn’t meet his gaze.
His gut churned with anxiety. He braced his hand on the seat in front of him and leaned forward so the driver would know he was talking to him. “Excuse me, but where are we headed?”
“Upstate,” he said.
“Upstate.” Roper placed his hand on Amy’s jeans-clad thigh.
Faded-jeans-clad thigh, he realized now. Warm, tight yet supple. He shook off those thoughts, reminding himself he was annoyed. He looked her over, from the top of her ponytailed hair to the bottom of her Converse sneakers. Her outfit wasn’t exactly business casual.
“Dammit, Amy. Don’t make me guess.” Because he didn’t like the direction his thoughts were going.
She turned toward him, her knees nudging against him as she moved. “We’re going to the lodge, and before you blow up at me, hear me out.”
He stiffened in shock. “What gives you the right to kidnap me and take me somewhere I explicitly told you I did not want to go?” His anger simmered on low boil. If he’d been with anyone but Amy, he’d have lost it by now.
She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze head-on. Now that he’d been clued in, she was no longer hesitant around him, but was the determined Amy he’d grown to admire.
“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but you have a goal. You want to be ready for spring training as close to the beginning as possible, right?”
He inclined his head, unwilling to give her more than that for the moment.
“In order to get ready, you need not just to be physically ready, but mentally ready.” Her eyes blazed with certainty.
When he didn’t reply, she nudged his leg with hers. “Well?”
“Right,” he muttered.
“Well, as far as I can see, you’re far from being ready either way. If you stay in the city with your mother pulling you into her problems every five minutes, and your sister needing help planning her wedding, and your couch-potato brother hanging over your head and shit arriving at your door-and I mean that literally, as well as figuratively-you’ll never have five free minutes to focus on
He shifted in his seat, finding it difficult to argue the point, yet unwilling to concede to her tactics. “So you took it on yourself to bring me to a place where I could get tough for the season.”
“Yes.”
“Care to tell me where you get off manipulating me?”
“I’m paid to make sure you’re ready. Both Yank and Micki agreed we had no choice.”
His cell phone rang and he grabbed it from his pants pocket.
“Who is it?” Amy asked before he could take the call.
He glanced at the screen. “My brother.”
Taking him off guard, Amy reached out and swiped the phone from his hand. In an instant, she opened the window and threw the device into thin air.
Amy’s heart raced a mile a minute. She truly couldn’t blame him for being angry. But with the act of throwing his phone out, her heart pumped faster and more furiously in her chest. She’d scared herself while his face flushed red with anger.
“The Hot Zone will replace it,” she said, repeating what Micki had told her last night when she’d called to support Amy and her plan.
They agreed that given the chance, Roper would use his phone to call and check on his family or let them know where he was. Both women were convinced, though, that once he had the opportunity to unwind and he saw how focused he could be on his career, he’d willingly go along with their plan.
“I don’t believe this.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Believe it.” Amy turned back toward the window, intending to ignore him.
Reverse psychology. She couldn’t think of another way to work around Roper’s anger. She curled her hands into fists and looked out the window, not really seeing the passing scenery.
“What’s going to stop me from picking up a phone at the lodge and calling someone to come get me?” he asked.
“Nothing except your own common sense. I’m counting on the fact that you want to get healthy enough that you’ll give this experiment a chance. See what relaxing without pressure does for your frame of mind.”
He’d soon discover that his suite had been stripped of a telephone and the staff had been instructed not to give him access to either the house phone or anyone’s personal cell phone. He could definitely find a way to leave or call home if he was downright determined, but it wouldn’t be easy. And Amy hoped that by the time he found the means, he’d no longer have the desire.
