“Allie, I’m sorry if it’s problematic. You could have found another solution.”
“I…”
He was right. She could have but she hadn’t had much time to consider the alternatives. When she’d found the man in question, he’d been at a dead-end road, until she’d interceded. That she didn’t want him to get away had put her on the path to perdition. She’d tried different options, but it didn’t matter who she talked to, Mexicans, Americans, embassy officials, homeland security representatives, she’d learned the odds of getting Mateo to Boston in time for the season were slim to none. There were two ways of getting him in the country: a two-year wait time for Mexican residency to kick in, with no guarantee he’d be granted permission to enter the country, or she could marry the man and he could apply for a spousal visa. She’d done what she had to do. She’d thought she’d be able to extricate herself out of her dilemma as soon as they’d landed.
She’d been wrong.
She felt the flare of anger spike as she walked away from Dan’s office, glanced down at the key ring in her hand. Seemed like she was back on the hot seat. She did not want to be in Mateo Alvarez’s company. Did not want to move him out of the hotel and into the condo she’d leased for him, using the funds that had come from his signing bonus, and she didn’t want to handle him for the next few weeks until he was acclimated. When he’d been signed, she’d known the Greenliners and upper management would want someone to introduce him to the culture. Shit, she’d been the one to suggest things like that. Her guys were her top priority and she wanted to make the move to the big leagues as stress free as possible. She’d begun to fly in the families of players making their big-league debuts so they’d have their own rooting section. Bringing a Cuban on board carried extra weight. Some of the defectors who’d come before had buckled under the weight of affluence, impacting their effectiveness. No one wanted Mateo to be one of them. Dan had just assigned her the task, and it would be up to her to make sure Mateo didn’t fall prey to abundance.
What she wanted was an end to the hair-brained scheme she’d come up with to get the job done.
She couldn’t deny she acted impulsively at times, never thought to justify her actions to anyone else. She couldn’t in her position. Fans were always second-guessing the moves made to strengthen the team. She’d been getting flak about the new closer she’d brought on board, but everything told her Milo Buzzley was the right man for the job. She’d had to develop thick skin along the way and didn’t look back very often. She couldn’t afford to do it now.
Nor should she. It wasn’t as if she’d been pining for a man, aching for a wedding ring. She’d decided years ago not to go the traditional route. A husband and family would have slowed down her forward progress. She almost laughed out loud. She certainly hadn’t taken the conventional path. What was worse was she’d attached her wagon to an athlete, something she swore she’d never do again.
Didn’t matter. She’d done the unthinkable, discussing the only plausible option to Mateo over lunch while in Cancun. While Zamoutto was negotiating a deal with DeLorenzo, his proposition a contract for the third baseman, her proposition had included marriage.
She’d explained that if he agreed, they’d fill out the necessary forms to bring him into the country as her spouse. She’d been quite clear about the reason and the rules. They’d be married in name only. No affection, no living together, and absolutely no sex. He’d balked at the idea initially, argued against it, and then appeared to examine it more critically. After arriving at the conclusion it was his only choice, he’d relented. She probably should have let him go the third-country residency route, but she wanted to win this year, not two years from now. And there was an underlying reason, the one that made it dangerous. There’d been a pull and it wasn’t sympathy for a man alone, in a foreign land, trying to escape a limited future. That he was a gorgeous specimen of manhood had played a part. In fact, it was the spark that got the whole damn thing detonated. Bottom line: her beloved Greenliners needed him and the day she’d accepted the job, she’d promised she’d put the team ahead of all personal sacrifice. If it hadn’t been for the ramifications, it would have been an easy decision. She couldn’t remember a time when baseball wasn’t an essential part of her life. While she was growing up, Sundays weren’t for friends and family, they were dedicated to the game, a ritual that took place at home or at Bogs Field watching from the reporters’ box. Her father, a writer for a national sports magazine, had been on the Greenliner beat since hired there. He’d spent thirty years following the team, which had been a roller-coaster ride of winning seasons and losing ones. They were no longer only in her blood. Today they were also her bread and butter.
She was relieved when Keith had arrived within twenty-four hours of the exchange of vows and had taken over for her. He’d whisked Mateo off to Brazil to wait for the paperwork to go through. Reid Jackson had in-laws who lived there, and they’d offered the Cuban temporary housing, along with a companion to stay with him while they were attending the World Series in Boston. The visa approval hadn’t taken long. It was actually a matter of course. What helped was the agreement reached between the countries in December that allowed for the release of contracts in exchange for money. They’d covered all their bases. Mateo Arteaga Alvarez had a job and a sponsor and had paid all the
