Bigger Than Beckham (50 page)

Almost involuntarily, Martha clapped a hand
across her mouth, stunned by his words. She immediately realized
that such an offer would have put her in an excruciating situation,
knowing she could have protected her staff by selling to him but at
the same time clearly unable to turn down Steam Train’s vastly
better monetary offer. But now he seemed to be saying he was going
to spare her that heartbreak.

“Go on,” she was finally able to get out
through her tight throat.

“Then I started thinking outside the box,” he
said with a crooked grin. “Something that I try to resist, at least
when it comes to spending money.”

Martha’s tired brain tried and failed to
grapple with his enigmatic statement, so she simply nodded her
encouragement.

“I suppose it comes from the fact that I
started playing competitive football at an age when I barely knew
my alphabet,” Tony said. “All I’ve ever wanted to do was play
football and win. To just beat the other guys’ arses into the
ground every single time. And when I quit playing and started to
buy and run my own teams, winning was still all that mattered.
Winning on the field. Winning by taking over failing teams and
turning them around. I didn’t even much care about making money—not
as long as my guys were at or near the top of the standings and I
was building up my little football empire.”

“I think I’ve noticed that about you,” she
said in a wry voice.

He flashed a charming grin, one that made her
heart do flips in her chest. Then he turned serious again.

“When I decided to go after the Thunder, how
could I think any other way? Like I said when we had that…talk at
Fenton, Martha, I’ve never been an investor. Never wanted to be.
Never thought I ever would be.”

She gave him an exaggerated eye roll, unable
to resist yanking his chain. “Oh, I remember that day perfectly.”
She’d wanted to beat him senseless with soggy noodles, but instead
had fled to a hotel before she could do or say anything completely
rash and self-destructive. “You and I had a slightly different
definition of the word ‘partnership’, as I recall.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I
thought I was making a big concession by offering to take only a
bare majority of the shares.” He gave a self-deprecating snort.
“That was stupid and arrogant, but it was the only way I knew how
to operate. At the time I thought I was doing some pretty great
things—rescuing you from your financial mess and letting you retain
a large chunk of the team. Not to mention giving us the opportunity
to work closely together.”

“While I saw it as a fiendishly clever scheme
to gain effective control of the team while putting up only half
the money,” Martha said.

Tony shrugged. “Like I said, stupid and
arrogant, and you saw through it right away. Back then I was still
stuck in that bloody mental box. I didn’t know how to adapt to such
a…foreign situation.” He paused to rub his heavy stubble.
“Especially not one where…uh, personal feelings were seriously
complicating things.”

She managed a small smile. “I have to admit I
wasn’t thinking entirely with my brain, either.”

“Martha, love, please listen carefully now
because I mean this and I want you to believe me. If there’s one
thing I’ve realized since the first time I walked into your office,
it’s that no matter what happens I don’t want what we have between
us to end up incinerated in the same fire as my offer for your
team. I’ve been killing myself to find a way to square the circle
and buy the Thunder. But, if I have to, I’ll walk away and be at
peace with it.”

Tony’s fiercely sincere gaze held her
transfixed. Her heart raced as her body hummed with an instinctive
recognition of the importance of the moment.

“From the
team
, Martha,” he finally
said. “I’ll walk away from the team. But not from
you
, love.
That’s never going to happen.”

Martha’s heart swelled so much it seemed to
push every ounce of air from her lungs. A wild, ecstatic heat
flared through her as she realized how much those few simple words
were going to change her life. Change it more than anything to do
with her team.

More than anything else ever could.

“Oh, my God, Tony,” she gasped.

With a scrambling leap she was off the sofa
and into his lap, her arms around his neck, hugging him as if her
very life depended on not letting go. In a heartbeat, all the
crushing angst of this pivotal day and all her repressed fears that
she would lose him too morphed into something light and
unsubstantial, flicked away with the touch of a finger. Tony
wrapped his arms tightly around her, stroking her hair, murmuring
comfort as she snuggled into him.

“Thank you, Lord,” she finally said in a
choked-up voice. “I never really understood how very much I wanted
you to say those words. Not until you just did.”

Tony lifted her just enough to find her lips,
and kissed her with sweet tenderness before pulling back. “Hold on,
you haven’t even heard my offer yet.” He gave a rumbly little laugh
that vibrated Martha’s chest as she pressed her body hard against
his.

“I know,” she murmured. “But whatever it is,
whatever happens with the team, we’re good—you and me—right?”

“Oh, I think we’re
very
good,” Tony
said. “Can’t you tell by the party going on in my lap?”

Martha laughed and wriggled her bottom
against the thick erection nudging into her. But she refused to
lift her head from the warmth of his shoulder, or loosen her grip
around his neck. “You’d better lay it on me fast so we can get down
to the real business at hand.”

She wriggled again just to make sure he fully
understood exactly what business she was talking about. Right now,
the forced sale of the Thunder to Steam Train seemed far less of an
earth-shaking moment than it had a couple of minutes ago.

“I’ll be quick,” he said, his voice dropping
to an even deeper note. “Let’s just say this. If your definition of
partnership is still sharing everything equally—exactly
fifty-fifty—then I think we’re in perfect agreement, love. Because
that’s what I want now, too.”

Those words finally made her head jerk up
from his chest. She stared into his dark eyes, almost afraid to
believe what she’d heard. “My God, are you serious? You’d equally
share
control of the team? With me, the dilettante that’s
driven the operation into the ground?”

Tony gave her a gentle shake. “Don’t say
that. We both know what a rotten hand you were dealt. I’ll never
say a word against your father because I know how hard he tried to
build a winning team. But some of the decisions he and his staff
made turned out to be, well, pretty bad.”

She snorted. “Monumentally bad, I’d say.”

He nuzzled her cheek. “And you got off to a
bad start with some of the players, which didn’t help things.”

Martha immediately pictured the arrogant mugs
of Derek Kavanagh and Diego Flores. “Damn babies,” she muttered.
“But I was bound to make mistakes, Tony. I didn’t really know what
I was doing, and maybe I still don’t. They don’t teach you how to
run a soccer team in journalism school, you know.”

Tony laughed and the warmth of it, the sheer
joy of the sound, washed over her like an unexpected and powerful
gift, healing parts of her that had been wounded for a very long
time.

“Experience and adversity are the only real
teachers,” he said. “Trust me, I know. You’ll be great in time. If
we do this together.”

If?

To hell with
if
. Martha wished she had
the legal documents in front of her that very second so she could
scrawl her name and drag Tony straight upstairs to the bedroom.
“So, Mr. Branch, are you by any chance saying that you want me to
actually continue in an active role with the team, and not simply
be a silent partner?”

His hands slipped down to her hips.
“
Silent
partner?” he said in a gently mocking tone.

Martha lightly dug her elbow into his ribs.
“Just answer the damn question, Branch.”

“Hell, yes,” he said, nudging one hand under
her butt. “The only way a fifty-fifty partnership has a hope of
working out for us if we keep in
constant touch
. If we work
as
close
together
as we possibly can.”

“Oh, I do like the sound of that,” she
purred. “But leaving the sexual innuendo aside for just a moment,
what about Kieran and Sam?” A little flash of anxiety stabbed her,
threatening to diminish her amazing buzz. “And Jane, and everybody
else? I still want them all to be safe, and I need to hear you say
the words.”

He brought one hand up to cup her cheek,
gently moving her face to meet his solemn gaze. “Every single
contract will be honored, love. Count on it.”

Desperate to forestall her silly, happy
tears, Martha gave him a lingering kiss. Tony’s big hand gripped
her bottom, his fingers moving in a light, sensual massage. But
after a few moments he broke free with a sigh.

“But we have to talk money, too, I’m afraid,”
he said, his voice a husky, sex-filled rasp.

Martha blinked. She’d forgotten that minor
detail, no doubt because money didn’t matter to her. “You know I
don’t care about that, Tony.”

Tony looked startled, as if he couldn’t wrap
his head around somebody not caring about money. “I know, but your
uncle surely does.”

Oh, right. Martha had somehow momentarily
forgotten Geoffrey and his twenty percent. “Ah, good point.”

“Here’s what I’ll do, then,” Tony said,
pulling a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and running
his finger down a column of handwritten numbers. “I’m prepared to
buy Geoffrey’s shares at the exact price Steam Train’s offered,
which will net him about two million dollars. Hopefully, that will
shut him up and we can keep the whole transaction on the down low,
as you Yanks say.”

Martha pressed a palm to her chest, weak with
relief. With just a few words, Tony had solved their biggest
problem. “He’ll be ecstatic, I guarantee it. He told me just a few
minutes ago that he’d rather you got the team than Steam
Train.”

“Excellent. Now, as for your shares, I’d like
to buy the necessary thirty per cent I need to get to fifty on the
basis of the twelve million dollar offer I gave you this afternoon.
That would mean you would cash out close to a million net after
your share of the debt is paid, and you’d of course retain a full
fifty per cent of the team. The fact that we could restart the
Thunder on a completely debt-free basis after the sale would be
just huge.” He pushed the paper into her hands. “How does that
sound?”

She gaped at him. “Wow,” was all she could
say, barely able to take in the fact that everything she could have
dreamed of seemed to be coming true.

Tony dark brows marked his handsome features
with a frown. “I realize it’s a far cry from the kind of money
you’d get if you took Steam Train’s offer. You could walk away with
eight million if you went with them. And that’s obviously a hell of
a big difference.” His wary expression told her that he was still
worried about how she might react to his numbers.

But Martha had meant it when she said she
didn’t care about the money for herself. Besides, the truly
important part was that she would still own half the team—her
father’s team. And now Tony would be part of it, too. As an
equal
partner with her.

She pressed a soft line of kisses along his
strong jaw. “Maybe I should hold out for more,” she murmured.
“After all, I think I’ve got you in a rather compromised position.”
She shifted, letting her body stroke the length of his rock-hard
cock.

Tony let out a low moan and pressed his
forehead against hers. “Hell, if you keep doing that I might sign
over everything I own before we’re done tonight.”

She kissed him once more before sliding off
his lap. “Well, then, what the heck are we waiting for?”

When Rick Grange stuck up his hand again,
Martha glanced down the length of the Hyatt meeting room to see if
any other reporters had more questions. Seeing no hands in the air,
she shifted her eyes back to the front row where Grange slouched in
a chair on the aisle.

“Go ahead, Rick,” she said, giving him a
gracious smile.

“Martha and Tony, I have a question I’d like
you both to answer,” Grange said. “How do you see this partnership
working on a practical, day-to-day basis? Some people might just
leave that stuff in the hands of the GM and the rest of the staff,
but that certainly hasn’t been Tony’s style, has it?”

Martha glanced at Tony on her right on the
dais, sitting relaxed but with an incredulous look on his handsome
face. He gave her a nod to tell her to take first crack at
answering.

“All I can say on that matter is that we both
plan to be hands-on owners,” she said. “I’m positive we’ll work
very well together,” she said. Grange looked disgruntled, but she
had no intention of elaborating.