his navy-blue basketball shorts and wrested the ball from her grasp.
“Thanks. But the only thing I need to keep track of is right here in my hands.”
He spun the basketball on his index finger, and kept it going with the other hand. “My whole world revolves around the game. It’s all that matters to me.”
She crossed her arms and, with a twinge of guilt, took aim.
“That’s not what the headlines say.”
Derek flinched and swung his head toward hers. The ball dropped to the floor with a loud twang and he grabbed it before it bounced a second time.
Natalie knew she’d hit a nerve, but sometimes she had to play hard, especially when a client was as stubborn as Derek seemed to be.
“Oh, yeah?” He smirked. “What’s the latest?”
She met his eyes, spoke softly. “That you’re on a three-game suspension for not showing up at morning practices for the past month. You’ve been irresponsible, unfocused and like a different person—both on and off the court.”
Derek bounced the ball a few times, a bored expression on his face.
“They fit all that in a headline?”
She tapped her foot rapidly. As attractive as he was, he was really testing her patience this morning.
“You don’t seem to be taking this situation very seriously,” she said in a calm voice.
He shrugged and bounced the ball again. “Would you?”
“Absolutely,” she said, nodding. In fact, she took everything seriously. It was one of her worst faults. Behind her calm and poised demeanor, she was a bundle of nervous energy that was never satisfied.
His face went hard, but there was pain in his eyes. “Then you must care what people think about you. Thankfully, I don’t have that problem.”
One massive hand palmed the ball and he pointed it at her. “So you can just take your Gucci purse, and all the little motivational brochures you probably got stuffed in there, on down to Wall Street. With this economy, those guys need it more than I do.”
Her heart sank, but she was intrigued rather than dismayed by his attitude. Derek wasn’t a typical A-lister. Instead of soaking up the adoration of his fans, Derek seemed almost resentful of the attention. The psychologist in her wanted to know why.
A memory slashed her brain, rocked her back into the past. She’d been in his place before. Esteemed and highly regarded one minute, forgotten and scorned the next. She could help him before it was too late. If he would only let her.
She took a chance, reached out and touched his arm. It was thick with tension. “I’m not here about me,” she said quietly. “I’m here for you.”
He took a couple of steps back, as if she was offering something that would hurt rather than help him.
The playfulness on his face was gone and his voice was like stone again.
“And I’m here to play ball. No more. No less. And as much as I would love to stand here and stare at that pretty face of yours, I’ve got to get back to the court.”
And with a squeak of his sneaker, he turned and walked away, dribbling the ball and whistling as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
But he wasn’t fooling her. She knew how easy it was to pretend.
Derek was supertalented, handsome and wealthy. But even without a degree in psychology, Natalie could tell that beneath the bad-boy attitude was a man who was in pain. It was clear he would require a different, nontraditional approach to get him on board with her plan.
Checking her watch, she mentally ticked off the to-do items on her schedule for the rest of the day, and decided she could squeeze in some minor inconvenience.
As quietly as she could, she set her purse on the floor and slowly unzipped her boots. After a brief glance around to make sure she was alone, she pulled off her panty hose and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt.
With a quick toe flex, she sprinted like a gazelle toward Derek and stole the ball from him middribble. She rounded him for the layup and, mercifully, the ball went up, over and through the basket.
She caught it and passed it to Derek so hard he nearly dropped the ball. She wanted to laugh out loud at the surprised look on his face.
“What’s the matter?” she teased, shifting her bare feet back and forth, ready to charge forth. “You said you wanted to play one-on-one, didn’t you?”
Derek dribbled the ball a few times and she could tell he was doing his best to appear unruffled by the sudden change in her appearance, and her attitude.
“I thought you were leaving.”
Her toes curled as she felt his eyes move over her bare legs and feet. The ball whizzed through the air and she caught it from him easily.
She crossover-dribbled the ball, keeping her feet planted on the cold wood floor, as she tried to anticipate his next move.
“I never back away from a challenge,” she said, dribbling the ball.
For a moment the only sound in the room was the twang-twang of the basketball bouncing against the floor.
Suddenly, Derek closed the gap between them. But she quickly pivoted out of his reach.
“And I don’t play ball with chicks in skirts. It’s too...” He shook his head and swallowed hard. “Distracting.”
She grinned. “You mean, it’s too easy to lose!”
“Me lose to a girl?” He put his hands on his hips and his sonorous laugh echoed throughout the court. “Are you kidding me?”
She kept a straight face and dribbled the ball until his laughter finally died away.
“You ever play before?” he asked. The wariness in his voice bolstered her false bravado.
She hesitated for a few seconds, feeling a strong urge to just hand over the ball and walk away from him, from the task she was hired to do. What was she thinking going head-to-head in anything, let alone basketball, with one of the NBA’s top forwards?
She huffed out a breath. “I think you know the answer to that,” she chided.
He raised a brow, flexed his fingers. “You got one shot off me, you won’t get another.”
“We’ll see about that,” she countered, although by the look on his face, she knew he was telling the truth. He wasn’t going to go easy on her.
“Half court press,” she said, circling around him. “First one to hit five baskets wins.”
He clapped his hands together, as if he’d already won. “Game on! You might as well start packing up that Gucci bag and crying for your mama.”
My what? she thought, and before she knew what was happening, Derek smacked the ball out of her hand. A few seconds later he made a humongous, swinging-on-the-edge-of-the-net dunk and landed on both feet. Grabbing the ball, he passed it to her as she caught up to meet him.
Her bare feet pounded the floor as she rounded him and then faked him out for a not-so-easy layup.
“One–one. Nice job,” he commented.
The ball bounced once on the floor and Derek grabbed it. She edged toward him until they were practically toe-to-toe and attempted to steal the ball, but he held it high over his head.
“No traveling!” she shouted, reaching for it, knowing there was no way she could grab it. At five feet six inches, she was clearly outmatched. But she kept stretching for it anyway and felt her shirt pull out from the waistband of her skirt. But she didn’t care. Now was not the time for fashion.
She had to win.
If