Brooklyn Heat (14 page)

“No, I mean, I
am
Alyssa Cotler.” She caught sight of herself in the wall of mirrors behind the desk and gasped. She was a mess. Her hair, this morning slicked back into a perfect and sleek low ponytail, was now a loose mess of frizzy curls framing her face. Her shirt had slipped down her shoulder, exposing one bra strap, and her skirt had somehow hiked up, making her Spanx visible to the world.

“And who are you here to see?” the guard asked. There was an edge to his voice. Apparently this guy was exactly like those mean, hurried New Yorkers in all the movies.

“I’m here to see Cliff Billingsley, the head of the Brooklyn Heat.”

The security guard looked at her skeptically, like he couldn’t imagine that the disheveled woman standing before him had any business meeting with someone as high-powered as Cliff Billingsley. Not that Alyssa could blame him. In fact, technically she wasn’t even supposed to be here, Cordelia Bloom was supposed to be here, but there’d been that whole thing with the sexual harassment charges and then –

The elevator doors dinged and slid open, and the sound of footsteps echoed on the polished marble floors. From around the corner came one of the best-looking men Alyssa had ever seen. Tall, dark, and handsome, he was a little bit of a walking cliché. But as he got closer, Alyssa saw that his eyes were bright blue, and there was a little bit of stubble on his chin, which was a stark contrast to the dark pinstriped suit and crisp white shirt he was wearing.

“Mr. Havens,” the security guard said, suddenly standing up straight.

“Jensen!” the man said. “You hear about Billingsley?”

“No,” Jensen said. He licked his lips and leaned over the security desk. “What now?”

“He got the ticket sales numbers back,” Mr. Havens said, grinning.

“The old man about flipped his wig, he ran out of here like a ---”

“He ran out of here?” Alyssa cried, dismayed. Great. Now what was she going to do? This was so typical. She’d finally gotten an assignment that actually meant something, and now this Cliff Billingsley person was going to screw it all up.

The man in the suit turned and looked at her. His eyes slid up her body slowly, taking in her messy hair, the run in her stocking (how had that happened? She’d been so careful!), and the bottom of the Spanx that still peeked out from under her skirt.

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said hastily. “I just… I had a meeting with Mr.

Billingsley, that’s all.” She turned back to Jensen. “So what do we do now?

Is there a secretary or someone I can – ”

“Alyssa Cotler?” the man in the suit asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m Jay Havens.” He smiled, revealing a set of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.

Alyssa’s heart sank. Jay Havens. Shortstop for the Brooklyn Heat.

She recognized him from his picture on the website. Although in the picture he was clean-shaven, and had been wearing his navy blue and white Brooklyn Heat baseball uniform. Either way, he was very intimidating, and not just because of his fame.

Jay Havens was the reason that Alyssa was here. Four months ago, the website she worked for, The Juice, had been invited to send a reporter here, to Brooklyn, to become immersed with the Brooklyn Heat. To live with the team, attend their practices, travel with them, and go to their games.

And the reason The Heat was willing to let someone do that was because of their PR problems. And their PR problems were mostly because of Jay Havens.

“Hello,” Alyssa said. She yanked on the bottom of her skirt. “It’s very nice to meet you.” Her boss was going to kill her. This was a big assignment, huge, even, and the only reason Alyssa was even here was because Cordelia Bloom had gotten caught up in some sexual harassment charge (something to do with their male intern who was always wearing tight jeans.) So Alyssa had been called in to pinch hit, no pun intended.

And she was already screwing everything up.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Jay said. He turned to Jensen. “I’ll bring Ms. Cotler up to the offices.”

“Oh, no,” Alyssa said. “You really don’t have to –”

“I insist,” he said, smiling at her. “Who knows when Mr. Billingsley will be back. Besides, you can’t just stay down here.”

She started to protest again, but he was already signing her in, he was
writing her name
in a book that Jensen had pushed across the counter, and the next thing she knew she was wearing a visitor nametag and following Jay Havens into the elevator.

***

The elevator was one of those big roomy posh ones, but for some reason, Jay felt it necessary to stand close to her, and it made Alyssa wish she were alone. Something about the man made her nervous – he seemed slick, and kind of….dangerous. Also, she didn’t understand why he was taking her upstairs. Didn’t a famous shortstop have something better to do?

Not that Alyssa really knew anything about baseball players. Or baseball for that matter. Although she had been reading up on it and watching a lot of highlights on youtube since she’d gotten this assignment a couple of weeks ago.

She shifted in her high heels and watched the numbers in the elevator slide up toward the thirteenth floor. She glanced at Jay nervously out of the corner of her eye.

Although no one was actually coming out and saying it, everyone knew that Jay Havens was the reason she was here. The Brooklyn Heat’s ticket sales were suffering big time. A little research had revealed that Jay was their main problem. The Heat had paid a lot of money for him – 73

million dollars over three years – and there had been a huge hoopla when they’d landed him.

But Jay had always been a partier, and it seemed like in the past year, he’d gotten worse. A marriage to a stripper he’d met in Vegas, a bunch of photographs of him out with several different women, an annulment to his stripper marriage, questions about how dedicated he was to the team….

“So where are you from?” Jay asked easily as the elevator continued its ascent to the Heat offices.

“Boston,” Alyssa said. It wasn’t really a lie. She’d lived in Boston for the last six months, ever since she’d gotten the job at The Juice. Before that, she’d lived in the same little town in Upstate New York where she’d been born and raised. But she couldn’t tell this guy that. She didn’t want him to think she was an easy mark, someone he could just walk all over and charm. She was going to write the truth about him and his team, no matter what.

“Boston’s nice,” Jay said. “If you like that kind of vibe.”

“What kind of vibe?” Alyssa asked.

“The uptight, pseudo-intellectual vibe,” he said.

“Boston’s not like that.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“How long have you lived there?” He looked at her, and grinned, and Alyssa felt red-hot indignation boiling up inside of her.

“That,” she said, “is none of your business.”

His grin got bigger.

“Anyway,”
Alyssa said, “I thought I’d be meeting with Mr.

Billingsley. Do you have any idea when he might be back?”

Jay shrugged. “Nope.”

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out onto a plush cranberry carpet. Gold columns flanked either side of a huge white marble reception desk, white couches with curling gold legs dotted the lobby, and huge crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

Alyssa’s mouth dropped as she took it all in.

“Mr. Billingsley likes things gaudy,” Jay said. “Not my style, but you know, it has its charms.”

Alyssa walked to the reception desk, deciding to ignore Jay Havens.

She had no reason to feel so nervous around him. In fact, he should be the one feeling nervous around her! He should be kissing her ass and feeling anxious about what she was going to write about him. She considered taking a pen and paper out of her bag and pretending to write something down about him to throw him off his game, but she decided that might be going a little too far.

“Hello,” she said to the receptionist, a pretty twenty-something girl with red hair. “I’m Alyssa Cotler. I’m here to see Mr. Billingsley.”

The girl looked down at the appointment book in front of her. “Yes,”

she said. “I see you had a two o’clock appointment. Unfortunately, Mr.

Billingsley isn’t here right now.”

“So I heard,” Alyssa said. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

The girl shrugged. “Could be a few minutes, could be tomorrow.”

She pointed to one of the gaudy white couches that was pushed up against the floor to ceiling windows. “You can wait there, if you’d like.”

Alyssa felt her heart sink. She was exhausted from the train ride from Boston, her feet were killing her, and she needed a shower. All she could think about was how nice it would be to curl up back in her hotel room. She looked at the couch in the corner. It looked very uncomfortable, like one of those couches where you had to sit ramrod straight and even then sometimes ended up with a backache.

Before she could figure out what to do, she caught sight of Jay, watching her from the corner, that same arrogant smile playing on his lips.

She turned her back on him and walked over to the couch in the corner, mentally preparing some headlines in her head.
“Brooklyn Heat Playboy
Just As Much Of A Jerk As Thought”
or something like that. Obviously, it would have to be punchier, but –

Her Blackberry started ringing from the depths of her new bag, a Tommy Hilfiger she’d gotten at TJ Maxx for thirty-nine ninety-nine. She thought it would seem hip and sophisticated, but one look around the city and she realized it was horribly out of place. The women here were all carrying very expensive bags, like Louis Vuitton or some other designers that Alyssa had never heard of. The ones that weren’t were carrying vintage bags that looked ugly but Alyssa was sure were actually quite stylish.

Not only was her purse not NYC-worthy, it also wasn’t good for her Blackberry, since the bag was so big that Alyssa had to root around for what seemed like forever before she found her phone.

“Hello?” she said breathlessly, taking a few steps toward the windows and away from the watchful eyes of Jay Havens. What was his problem anyway? Didn’t he have somewhere to be? A baseball practice or a blackjack table or a strip club or something?

“Alyssa,” her boss, Isobel, barked into the phone. “Just checking in.

Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m here. And there’s been a little bit of a – ”

“You in with Billingsley yet?”

“No,” Alyssa said. She was starting to get a headache. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. He’s not here.”

“What do you mean he’s not there?” Isobel sounded shocked.

“I mean he’s not here. He missed our meeting. At least, I think he did, he – ”

“Well, then get out of there!” Isobel said, now gleeful. “He missed the meeting, end of story.” Isobel was an okay boss, although she talked too much and was always interrupting. She was also bullheaded and stubborn, and she was hoping that this story was going to be something that painted the Brooklyn Heat and their organization in a bad light. Scandals equaled lots of web traffic, and lots of web traffic equaled lots of money.

“Are you sure?” Alyssa asked. “His secretary said he might come back. I could wait a few minutes just to make sure.”

“Get out of there,” Isobel said. She clicked off the phone.

Alyssa sighed and slid her phone back into her bag, ready to walk by Jay Havens with her head held high on her way to the elevator.
Take that,
she thought, you figured you could push me around, but I
’m
the one who’s leaving, and
I’m
the one who’s going to end up maybe writing about your cocky little smile tomorrow.

But when she turned around, Jay was gone.

~Chapter Two~

Jay Havens was relieved. Very relieved. The so-called reporter they’d sent to make sure the Heat was on the up and up was a complete mess. Definitely not used to reporting, definitely wanted to prove herself, and definitely hadn’t lived in Boston that long. He could tell by the way she stiffened up when he asked her. Probably she was from some small town, either New Jersey or upstate New York. He was guessing upstate, since anyone from New Jersey would have at least known their way around the city.

He chuckled to himself as he took the elevator down to the parking garage that was below the sports complex. He slid behind the wheel of his car, a new Aston Martin that was completely inappropriate for city driving.

Jay didn’t care. He was from Texas, and he missed driving, spending his days exploring all the back roads in the middle of nowhere with his dog, Track, and his high school friends. He was getting ready to pull out of the garage when his cell phone rang.

“What the fuck is going on?” the voice of his agent, Steve Concord, came screeching through the line.

Jay sighed. “Steve,” he said. “I can explain.”

“Explain? You better fucking explain!”

“He was being unrealistic,” Jay said. “He was getting up in my business about how I spend my time.”

When Jay had told Jensen the security guard that Cliff Billingsley had stormed out the complex because of the ticket sales numbers, he wasn’t lying. But it had only been part of the story. The ticket sales numbers
were
pretty dismal, yeah. But Old Man Billingsley had somehow decided that Jay was to blame. Which was completely ridiculous. It wasn’t
Jay’s
fault that the seats weren’t getting filled. He was doing his part. His batting average was over three hundred, and he was definitely going to be in the running for a Golden Glove.

Besides, it wasn’t the stats that were keeping the fans away – it was the team’s reputation. It wasn’t exactly family friendly.

“Jay,” Steve said, “he’s paying you millions of fucking dollars, he has the right to be unreasonable.”

“Fuck him,” Jay said. “He’s trying to put a curfew on me! Home by eleven! That’s bullshit, Steve, and I don’t need it. I’m not Derek fucking Jeter.”

He was out of the car now, pacing up and down the garage, his energy making him all jumpy.

“Look,” Steve said. “You have to keep the peace. Try a little harder.