Staying On Top (Whitman University) Read online

  “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.” It did sort of explain how she found me, since her father seemed to know whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Her smile was explanation enough as far as getting into my room, but I planned to talk to the hotel manager about it at my earliest opportunity. Hot girl or not, letting people into my space was not cool.

  “I want to help you get it back.”

  “Get it back …” I repeated slowly, not understanding where this was going. “The money? Why? And, more importantly, how?”

  “You might guess that I didn’t have the most fantastic childhood. My father is a ghost, even to me, and I haven’t seen him in over two years.” Blair tucked a piece of hair that was caught in the breeze behind her ear. Her fingers trembled and she took a deep breath before continuing. “I want to find him. You want to find him. I thought we could help each other out.”

  “If you haven’t talked to him, how do you know I was one of his … cons?” I couldn’t bring myself to say “victim.”

  “I said I hadn’t seen him. The FBI is all over my ass—has been since before I could drive—to help them find and arrest my dad. I’m tired of this shit. Of being watched, of being treated like a criminal by association. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. But I have talked to him. He doesn’t keep his life or his cons a secret from me.”

  “So you knew he was going to steal from me before it happened?” Just talking about the money made my mouth go dry. “How could you do that to me?”

  “First of all, I barely know you, remember? Second of all, I don’t know the names of all of his marks. I know he’s been running long cons, mostly international, mostly high-profile clients, as Neil Saunders for the past four to five years. I saw the blip on TMZ’s radar about your credit card being declined and asked the next time we talked. End of story.”

  Her voice softened and she reached out a hand, resting it on my forearm. Despite the surreal nature of this entire conversation, my muscles twitched in response to her silky skin against mine.

  “So, you find out some guy you barely know—and didn’t want to know, by the way—just lost the bulk of the money he’s earned with fucking sweat and time and a lot of other things I can’t bitch about, and your immediate reaction is to fly halfway around the world to ask me to join you on a manhunt for your father. Do you even have a clue where he is?”

  A knock at the door interrupted her reply, whatever it was going to be, and she slipped past me back into the room. It took me aback, the way she moved purposefully through my space in her bare feet, but it also felt strangely as though it had been happening my entire life. As though the wrong scenario was one in which she hadn’t ordered multiple courses of room service without asking.

  Blair signed the receipt and thanked the porter, then flopped back on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table. “Could you be a dear and pour the champagne? I’m old-fashioned about things like that.”

  “About pouring your own beverage?” I asked, more curious about her than ever.

  I picked up the bottle of champagne and worked on the cork, my mind racing. Blair had grown up the daughter of a con man. What that entailed I had no idea, but she appeared a bundle of contradictions. The girl who butted her way into my room and spent my money, the one who didn’t pour her own champagne, the one who claimed to be bothered by the effects of her father’s enterprise, the one who wanted to help me.

  She had said that, hadn’t she? That his criminal activities bothered her?

  I shook my head, trying to clear it. The situation with Neil suggested that more caution was needed in my personal life, and as pretty as Blair was, as sincere as she seemed, and as much as I would really, really like to take her clothes off of her … who’s to say she wasn’t a chip off the ol’ block?

  She shrugged in response to my question about pouring her own drinks. The thin strap of her sundress slid down her tanned shoulder and I forgot what was happening.

  It was a nice four seconds.

  “I think that, while feminism has its merits, we’ve lost a few niceties along the way.” She took the flute of champagne from my fingers, smiling. “Like having someone bring us a drink and being okay with it.”

  “I’m okay with it.”

  I poured my own glass and settled in the overstuffed chair next to the love seat to keep some distance between us, unwilling to let the sparks I felt around her cloud my judgment.

  “So, what do you think? Do you want to help each other out?”

  “There are many, many ways I can envision the two of us helping each other out,” I replied without thinking. “But as far as finding your dad … I mean, what good would that do?”

  She ignored my suggestive statement. “We find him, we turn him in, the FBI helps you get your money back. It’s not that hard to figure out.”

  Maybe not, but something bothered me. I couldn’t put my finger on what, and maybe it wasn’t anything at all. Maybe I was paranoid, and I should go ahead and count her appearance as a blessing fallen from the sky, but … “You would do that? Turn in your own dad?”

  To her credit, she paused. Something flickered in her eyes, there and then gone before I could pin it down or even begin to figure out what caused it. In its place, a mask of indifference that I so did not believe, descended.

  “Honestly? I don’t know what I’ll do when the moment comes. But I want to see him, and if you know where he is you’ll have enough leverage to at least get your money back. Win-win, right?”

  It sounded right. But also wrong.

  I mean, I wanted my money back. Badly. My still-questionable obliques scared the piss out of me—the idea that it could all be over in a moment and I’d be left with nothing. No way to make money, nothing to fall back on, since 80 percent of my life had been dedicated to this sport. Her offer tempted me, to say the least.

  “What’s your plan? Use the same private investigator you used to find me?” Another knock at the door closed her mouth, which was distracting as fuck. “Jesus, are we having a ten-course breakfast?”

  “No. I was hungry after this stupid long flight but I didn’t want to waste any time. I’ll give you the cash, if you want, but I mean … you kind of owe me.”

  “Owe you? Your father ripped me off—I’m guessing you’ll get your fair share of that sooner or later.”

  “I don’t know about fair. That’s not really a concept near and dear to my father’s heart.”

  She let in another porter, this one bringing waffles, fresh fruit, and biscuits with jam. Thank God no Vegemite, because as much as I loved this country, that shit was an atrocity.

  “You think I owe you because you’re offering to find your dad. Except you have no idea where he is, either.”

  “When did I say that? No one knows my dad and his habits better than I do—shit, no one else knows my dad and his habits at all. I can find him. I know it. But …” She cut her waffle, flicking a dubious glance my direction.

  “But what?”

  “I’ll need your financial details in order to lure him out of hiding when I find him.”

  “I’m sorry, when you find him?” She went still, but there was no way that was happening. “I have six weeks off. If you’re going to find your dad, I’m going with you. And I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t give my financial details to Jesus right now.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Sam. You can trust me. I’ll be faster on my own, and my dad’s defenses won’t be up if it’s just me, and …”

  “You can stop talking. I’m coming with you.”

  Annoyance tangled with frustration tightened the muscles in her face. Now she looked more like the Blair Paddington I’d met in Switzerland, the girl who had unwillingly lit such a fire of interest inside me.

  “No, you’re not. I’m going alone, and I can try to get your money back or not. Without your details, he has no reason to meet me, and I have no way to get your money back. I came to offer you my help, not to babysit you on a tre
k across the world.”

  “Excuse me, but there would be no babysitting. I have contacts and friends in a dozen countries, speak five languages, and have the desire for justice on my side. In what way would I be a hindrance to you?”

  “First of all, I didn’t invite you. Second, my father has pretty specific security mechanisms in place, and you’re pretty high profile, which means he could find you anywhere in the world in under ten minutes. How do you think I did it?”

  “So, if that’s true, what makes you think he can’t find you even faster? You’re his daughter. If you take me with you, I promise to pull my weight and give you a percentage of anything I recover.” It was a last-ditch move, a shot in the dark, but my curiosity overrode everything else.

  I wanted to see how Blair would react to me offering her money in order to right a wrong.

  “I don’t want your money, Sam. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  The breath I’d been holding gushed out of my lungs and I smiled at her. It seemed to take her aback, but the loosening of the tension in my gut felt great. If she was like her father, with little to no moral compass, she wouldn’t have turned down a fee.

  That’s what I’d have to believe to go forward. To at least trust her enough not to lead me down a dark alley and kick me in the nuts.

  “So we’ll go together? Fly under the radar?”

  She squinted up at me. “You know what that means, right? No fancy hotels, no room service, no staying with your friends or taking chartered jets. It’s going to be … different.”

  “For you, too.” After a moment she nodded reluctantly. I grinned because I wanted to see if she would return it, and warmth spread over my skin when she did. “So, do you think we’ll need to wear disguises?”

  *

  “Are you sure you want to come?” Blair asked me for at least the fiftieth time in the past twenty-four hours, pursing her lips as she slammed charging cords into her backpack. “I’m sure it’s not going to be good for your training schedule. And the time change is going to be a bitch to deal with when you come back for the start of the season.”

  “Yes, I’m sure, but thanks for coming up with new reasons for me to stay. The others were getting stale.” No reaction. “Besides, we’ll be on the move and you can be my new hitting partner. You up for it?”

  This time she rolled her eyes, shouldering her pack in a way that drew my eyes to her breasts under her tight black tank top. “I’m going to assume you mean tennis, not some other kind of hitting. And I don’t play.”

  “I’m still coming. And by that I mean coming along, not some other kind of coming, although we are going to be spending a lot of time together so I hope you’re prepared to control yourself in that department.”

  “I think I’ll manage,” she said with a snort. “Are you ready?”

  “Yep. We’re all checked out, and I have enough cash and euros on me to pay an international ransom. Are you going to tell me where we’re headed first now?”

  “You mean you’re not going to follow me blindly, no questions asked? I knew that it would never have worked between us.”

  I stepped closer, inhaling her perfume and purposefully invading her personal space, not missing the hitch in her breath when we drew close enough to touch. Blair had been flirtier since she came to my room this morning, still trying to change my mind but also ready to accept my company on her trek. Her cocoa eyes gazed up into mine, a confusion of thoughts parading through them. I couldn’t catch a single one, but most of them I didn’t like.

  I bent down until our faces were inches apart, loving that she leaned in to me instead of backing away. Blair likely didn’t shy away from much. “Trust me, Blair, if we were involved, I would lead or follow, whichever you wanted at the time. I do it all.”

  She tipped her chin up, but not before a delicate shudder told me she wasn’t immune to the crackling tension between us. “Maybe so, but given your confidence and reputation, I’d need to see multiple blood test results to go anywhere near your bare skin.”

  Protests or not, she leaned closer when I took another step forward, swaying as though fighting the desire to touch me. “Is that what bothers you? That you wouldn’t be the only one?” I slapped her ass a little harder than necessary, and when she bit her lip I got a hard-on I would have to hide.

  Her recovery didn’t take long, and the dirty look she shot me could wither a rose in the middle of summer. “Rule number one—don’t ever touch my ass again. Rule number two, I’ve never been a one-and-only kind of girl, but this entire partnership is fragile enough without adding sex to the mix. I think we’d be best off keeping it simple.”

  “Agreed. Nothing fancy, then. And I agree to your rules, with one exception—I won’t touch you again until you ask me to.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s go.”

  I could tell by the look on her face that she thought resisting me would be possible, but the lust neither one of us could quite hide made me wonder if we wouldn’t end up in bed together sooner or later. Even though it was hard to feel badly about that, the whole thing tickled my newfound suspicious bone. Blair had been so dead set against even a harmless fling with me, she’d turned down at least five requests for a date and refused to come to my tennis tournament. What had changed?

  It could be that nothing had changed, because no matter her protests, the attraction between us couldn’t be one-sided. She felt it, and I felt it. Maybe she had gotten tired of fighting it.

  Maybe. But she showed up out of nowhere, claimed to be the daughter of my accountant and that she wanted to help me. My unwillingness to let her go without me had been met with … flirtation. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t trust it.

  Instead of overthinking it, I followed her swaying hips down the hotel stairs—all twenty flights of them—and into a cab. A cab. I couldn’t remember the last time a car hadn’t been waiting for me, but according to Blair’s assessment of her father’s reach, the flying-under-the-radar plan was necessary. If we used our connections, he would know.

  And this was only the beginning. We were flying coach all the way to fucking Austria.

  It had been a long time since no one had waited on me hand and foot, but that wasn’t even my biggest concern—it was the germs. It wasn’t my manliest quality, and I didn’t share my issue with many people because it was a bigger problem than I liked to admit, but they freaked me out. And I was pretty sure I was the only guy on the tennis tour with a full-fledged plan for the zombie apocalypse.

  Because it was going to happen. It was only a matter of time before germs adapted further and turned on us, the microscopic little hellbeasts, and we were all brain-rotted zombies. I didn’t want to think about how many of them lived on commercial airlines or were currently trying to find a way through my pants in the cab.

  “Why are you making that face?” Blair asked, watching me with a mixture of amusement and concern from her side of the taxi.

  I stared at her legs, half turned on and half horrified that her bare skin was touching the cracked black leather that had been touched by countless other bare legs. It wasn’t an incapacitating obsessive-compulsive fear of germs, but I went out of my way to avoid certain things. And, fine, the incapacitating level of my problem might not be far off.

  Blair didn’t need to know my secrets, or weaknesses. It made me uncomfortable enough that she’d read my face with such ease. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

  “You know, if taking a taxi bothers you this much, this is going to be one long trek.”

  “Maybe we’ll find him in Austria.”

  “You have no idea how badly I’m hoping that’s the case.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’re sitting in the middle on the flight, by the way.”

  We lapsed back into silence when I didn’t argue with her. Arguing could turn into a full-time job with the two of us, and I had no interest in a nine-to-five. I had a bag full of sleeping aids in the shape of pills. She’ll be sorry she didn’t give me the window when I
pass out on her lap and leave a drool puddle between her legs.

  No. Do not think about anything between her legs.

  “The taxi doesn’t bother me.”

  She gave me a look that said she didn’t buy my protest but was already tired of arguing with me, too. I had no idea how she read me like that—we hadn’t spent hardly any time together and I had no idea what she was thinking. Ever.

  My phone buzzed with a text message from my cousin Melody, asking if she could come spend Christmas with me. I replied with an excited yes; it would be nice to not be alone on the holiday for the first time in years. Then a message came in from Leo, wanting to know where in the hell I’d gotten off to, and I had to break the news that I was leaving the country for an undetermined amount of time.

  There was no way Blair could miss the angry buzzing of my phone created by his flurry of pissed-off protests, and I caught her eyebrow raised in between my hurried responses. “You’re not the only one who’s less than thrilled about my decision to blow off a few days of training.”

  “You know—”

  “Save your breath.”

  Once we checked our bags and went through security, we settled at a table in the airport Starbucks without discussing it. Blair ordered a black coffee and stirred in cinnamon, vanilla, and Splenda. I ordered a decaffeinated tea.

  “Okay, so now that I’ve proven my willingness to follow blindly and we can’t possibly be overheard by anyone who cares, Miss Paranoid, how about you share a little bit about where we might be going on this little impromptu adventure.”

  I still wasn’t convinced this would end up doing me any good. Even if we did find Neil, why would he give me my money back? What if he was more of a badass con man than a weaselly one and tried to, like, get rid of me or something?