Love and Other Games (23 page)

"So when – if – you win the gold in two days, the farm will be saved, right?" Brandon asked.

Lia grimaced. "I'd thought so."

From the shifting expressions on her face, he could tell she was working something out, so he patiently waited.

"It's not fair," she finally blurted. "I worked my butt off to be the best in the world, but it may not even matter."

"I don't understand," Brandon admitted. "A gold medal winner that looks like you do should have advertisers beating down her door. Surely that kind of money would save your farm – and then some."

She shook her head and buried her head into a pillow. "There are no advertisers."

Brandon couldn't keep the shock from his voice. "None?"

"Not one. Except for that guy with a restaurant in my village who promises me free
dolmas
for a year if I pose for his next print ad."

"How is that even possible?"

She sighed heavily, head still stuck in the pillow. "I don't want to tell you. It's embarrassing."

Gently, he rolled her onto her back, exposing her naked chest. The cool air of the hotel room tightened her nipples. It took a considerable amount of self control to pull his focus back to their conversation.

He kissed the smooth white skin on her stomach. "Look at me, Lia."

"No." She shook her head and scrunched her eyes tightly closed, but a smile played at the corners of her lips.

Two could play that game. He traced a hand below the curve of her breasts, barely brushing the bottom of them. "Tell me."

She groaned and squirmed. Brandon wasn't sure whether she was trying to get further from his touch or closer to it.

He raised himself up on his arms and leaned over her. He grazed his lips as lightly as possible against hers.

"Mmm," she murmured, then tried to kiss him.

He pulled out of her reach. With a whooshing sound, her head fell back to the pillow. Brandon laid his palm on her toned stomach and tormented her again with the whisper of a kiss. Again, she tried to kiss him. And again, he pulled away.

"Kiss me," she moaned.

It was all he could do not to give in to her demands. "Tell me."

Her chest heaved as she sucked in a deep breath, then forced it out through her nose. "I'm not likeable."

"That's ridiculous." Brandon's brow creased. "I like you," he added, planting a kiss on her temple.

"Well the public doesn't," she said. "I guess I come off as an
iena
, but not enough to be interesting."

"A hyena?" Brandon asked, confused.

"Yes, that's the English word for it."

"It's not an expression in the States," he said. "Is it like being a bitch?"

She thought for a minute. "I think so."

How had he never heard this about her before? He supposed it was more something people didn't talk about at all. Like she said, not interesting enough.

"So the advertisers don't want to offer a smoking hot gold medal favorite a contract because you're not … what? Miss Congeniality?"

She blushed at the compliment, but nodded. "I don't like to do interviews at competitions because I don't like the distraction. When I do talk to them, I only talk about my sport and my performance. It sounds like buyers want athletes – especially female athletes – to be more accessible, so the sponsors want the same thing."

She didn't know it, but this was a problem for him, as well. When he wrote his story – and he had indeed decided that Evangelia Milonas was exactly the story he'd been searching for – he needed people to at least care a little bit. Just the seed of interest was necessary, so Brandon’s words could grow it into a full garden of sympathy and affinity.

When he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes, he knew it wasn't just about his story. He wanted to help her. And he had to admit it to himself, he wanted to be the one who fixed this for her. He wanted to be her hero.

"I could help," he said.

She gave him a strange look.

"Public opinion is my specialty, after all," he said. "There's a reason why the US Olympic Committee provides media and social media training to all their athletes."

"What did you have in mind?" She sounded skeptical.

"A PR boot camp," he said. "Tonight. I'll tell you everything you need to do to turn the tide of public opinion before your competition. Plus I'll call all my contacts tomorrow and try to set you up with some interviews."

She stared at the ceiling. "I don't know. I only have a day."

"Well," he said, trying to choose his words carefully. "I can't do it for you. You'd have to do it. Everything I say, I mean. You'll have to smile when you don't want to, talk about yourself. But it
will
work."

She chewed at her bottom lip as she got lost in her thoughts. "Do I have to talk about my family?"

"Yes."

Her face hardened and he could see her closing a door on the idea. He had to keep that door open. It was the only chance for both of them to get what they wanted.

"But not about the problems with the farm," he added. "Just about their support and your love for them."

Her jaw worked for a few seconds. "I could do that."

"Yeah?" he asked, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic. "All of it?"

Focusing on the family angle would be perfect. It would give her something fundamentally true to focus on. She obviously cared greatly for them and that would come through in all her interactions.

She stopped fidgeting and nodded once. She'd made her decision. "Yes. Let's do it."

He sat up, leaned against the headboard, and plucked the phone from its cradle.

"What are you doing?" Lia scrambled to a sitting position, tugging the sheets up around her body. She sounded half panicked, like he might ask her to talk to a reporter right then.

He smoothed a hand from her shoulder down to her elbow and smiled, trying not to laugh at her panic. "Just getting some food delivered. This is going to take a while."

A shrill sound yanked Lia from her deep sleep. Her eyelids flung open, then slammed shut against the snow-reflected sunlight shining in through the window. The shriek sounded again and she realized it was the hotel room phone. She forced her eyes open to slits.

Brandon's head and bare shoulders popped out of the bathroom. He somehow managed a smile that made her stomach tingle, despite the toothbrush in his mouth. His hair was uneven, pressed to his head on one side, but his blue eyes almost glowed in the white sunlight. He was sexy as hell.

"That'll probably be the wake-up call I arranged," he said. "Can you answer it?"

"What time is it? Why'd you get a wake-up call for so early?" Lia asked. She realized she was whining, but they had stayed up well into the early morning hours working on Brandon's plan – with a few breaks for other activities, of course. They couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Simply sitting on the same bed as Brandon while he explained how to avoid pushier interview tactics turned her on more than any other man’s clumsy touch ever had.

"Oh, the farm girl can't get up at nine in the morning?" he teased.

She grabbed his pillow and smooshed it to her face, pulling the sides down to cover her ears.

Brandon laughed as he went back into the bathroom. "It won't stop until you answer it and tell the clerk you're awake," he called in a sing song voice. "We've only got a day to make everyone love you."

Where did he get off being so cheerful after just a few hours sleep? He shut the door behind him and she heard the shower turn on.

The ringing phone blared again. Her arm shot out toward the bedside table and fumbled around until she found the phone. Pulling the earpiece under her protective pillow, she pressed it to her ear. "I'm awake," she grumbled. The poor clerk probably didn't deserve her morning grumpiness, but there was no doubt he or she had heard far worse before.

"Congratulations," a gruff male voice said. "Is Brandon?" His words were clipped, self-important. Definitely not a hotel clerk.

Fear pumped adrenaline through Lia's brain and she became alert instantly. If this was one of Brandon's coworkers or media contacts, they absolutely could not know a female athlete had spent the night in his room. It would destroy both of their reputations, no matter how much they insisted the hookup had nothing to do with a sponsorship. What had she been thinking? Of all the people to break her no-sex-on-the-first-date rule with, of course she'd do it with an advertiser representative.

"He's in the bathroom," she said, trying to sound innocent and professional and nonchalant all at the same time. "May I tell him who called?"

The voice huffed. "It's his boss. You know, from the job he should be doing instead of messing around with whoever you are." The man's words dripped with disdain. His voice was harsh and confrontational and sounded like those in movies she had seen about American mobsters.

Lia's mouth dropped open. Her heart fluttered, then pounded painfully in her chest. How could she possibly respond to that?

"Do you know if he has a story for me yet, at least? I've already stayed up two hours past when he said he would call me. It's three in the morning here, you know." He slurred some of his words and fumbled others. It sounded as though he had been drinking while waiting for Brandon's call.

Lia gulped. "I'm sorry, I'm sure there was a—" then something he had said struck her. "Wait, story? What do you mean?"

"Please," he sneered. "You can't think I'm blockheaded enough to believe you boinked the top reporter for
Moment Magazine
at the Olympics without expecting some sort of quid pro quo."

Lia didn't understand half the words the man had said, but she understood "reporter for
Moment Magazine
". And that was enough. Speechless, she dropped the phone back to its cradle, silencing the man's rant with a click.

Her pulse thundered in her ears as she stood up. It took her a solid minute to find all of her clothes and, by the time she had, rage boiled her blood. Her hands shook with the force of it as she got dressed. He had lied about his job, at the very least. How had he even gotten in to that party? Press were strictly
not
invited. She couldn't trust a single thing he had told her. Except, ironically, the advice he had given her about dealing with the media – since he was one of them. No wonder he'd known so much about it.

She had told him
everything
. Idiot. He knew all about her family and the farm and why she trained so hard. She guessed the
malakas
on the phone would be happy. Brandon had definitely found a story – she'd spoon-fed it to him with a piece of ass on the side.

She checked her pants pocket to confirm her wallet was still there. Then she stood in the hallway, staring at the bathroom door. The thought of confronting him now made her knees shake. She thought about simply leaving without a word, but she wanted him to know that she knew. She wanted him to know that whatever game he'd been playing was over. She scanned the room for some way to leave him a message. His suitcase sat on a foldable stand underneath the window. Walking closer to it, she smiled to herself.

She opened the window and tossed the suitcase into the snow drifts one story below. It landed with a heavy, satisfying thud. The freshly-fallen snow puffed up into the air, half covering the bag. The phone began to ring again as she scooped his clothes from the floor and grabbed the two suits in the tiny closet. They joined his suitcase in the snow below the window. She dangled a tie over the windowsill and left the window open so that he wouldn't miss her message.

In the pause between rings, she heard the shower shut off. Her heart sprinted into overdrive.

"Why are they calling back?" Brandon called from behind the bathroom door.

She had to get out of there. Knowing what she knew now, she couldn't handle seeing his face. The thought of it made her stomach roil in protest. Lia rushed out of the door and closed it softly behind her. She spotted the nearest stairwell and ran to it, not caring if another guest saw her. If he came after her, she wanted to be long-gone. She hated herself when she realized she was hoping he'd come after her, that he'd be able to explain how it was all a big misunderstanding.

No. She hadn't misunderstood. He was a liar and a player and the
archimalakas
.

When the heavy stairwell door closed behind her, she let out a long, slow breath. As always when she was panicked, she reverted to her pre-competition breathing exercises. A minute later, she walked calmly downstairs to hail a taxi. Her heart rate had returned to near normal – but she wasn't sure if her heart itself ever would.

How fucked up was it that, as he was picking his wet dry-clean-only clothes out of the icy snow, shivering his ass off, wearing nothing but a towel, Brandon couldn't help but laugh appreciatively at Lia's act of revenge? He'd gone and screwed up like he'd never screwed up anything before – personally and professionally. He deserved what she did. Worse, even.

Fifteen seconds after picking up the ringing phone, he'd deduced why neither Lia nor his clothes were in his hotel room. As he stood, not really listening to Joe's tirade, he'd spotted the tie in the windowsill. That was a nice touch. He admired her spirit. Evangelia Milonas wouldn't go down without a fight.

And neither would Brandon James.

He had to fix this, had to make it right. For her. How some Greek farm girl had captivated him so completely in a single night was beyond him. Over four million women in New York City and he'd never given them half as much thought in ten years as he did Lia in one day. Of course he'd screwed it up.

Forget the article, his new mission was to make sure Lia got the sponsorships her family needed. How he'd do it without her cooperation – well, he'd never backed down from a challenge before.

Brandon shoved everything back in his suit case and scooped it up into his arms. He entered the hotel through a side door, grateful he didn't have to walk through the lobby as he was. When he came out of the gray stairwell into the well-lit hallway of his floor, he blinked at a maid starting her morning rounds. Seeing him, she squeaked and stared at his bare chest before remembering her manners and looking away. She busied herself with refolding the perfectly-folded towels on her cart.