He moved up next to her. “His arm made him famous, Liz.”
Her lips curled in a wistful smile. “That was part of it. You guys don’t understand PR at all. You think all you have to do is what you do out on the field, when it’s so much more than that.” She emptied her glass again, then set it on the table. “Being good at your sport is only a small part of making you into an icon. The gossip magazines, the media, your pictures and your endorsement deals ... everything else is what makes you.”
She turned to face him. “You could be the best goddamn first baseman in all of baseball, but if I don’t get you the deals to hawk deodorant or razors or underwear, if the public doesn’t find out who you are, doesn’t see your face eight times a day on commercials and in print media and online during your season? No one’s going to care, Gavin. No one’s going to care that you had a three seventy-eight batting average with forty-eight home runs; that you won your sixth consecutive Golden Glove and that you were the National League’s MVP. No one’s going to care. They care because the media tells them to care. And the media cares because I tell the media to care.
“All you guys want to do is play your sports, have your parties with your women, or buy your expensive cars and make sure you look good. You want those endorsement deals so you’re financially secure, but you don’t realize how cutthroat it is out there, how hard it is to get those deals. Because for every one of you there are forty other guys clamoring for the same spot. That’s what you pay me for. Not just to negotiate your contract, but to get all those deals for you, and to put your face on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and to make sure you end up in People magazine. That’s what you pay me for. That’s why you need me.”
She pushed off the railing and stumbled into the kitchen.
Hell. He had no idea what that was all about. He knew damn well what she did for him. She was on a roll, wasn’t she?
But he liked the feisty Elizabeth much more than vulnerable, sad Elizabeth. He was just going to let this play out and see where she went with it.
SHIT. LIZ LEANED AGAINST THE COUNTER AND TOOK a long swallow of wine, wishing she’d never agreed to come here with Gavin.
Spilling her guts like that had been stupid. She never talked to Gavin like that. Everything with him was always superficial. She told him how great he was, or she set him up for a photo shoot. And she renegotiated his contract and got him the best deal. That was it. That was all they ever discussed.
She always kept her distance from him, usually met him in crowds and at public events where she’d be safe.
And she had a damn good reason for it.
One, she was four years older than him. She didn’t date younger guys. Ever.
Two, she was in love with him and had been for years.
Three, he was totally, utterly and completely oblivious to it, and she intended to keep it that way.
Oh sure, she flirted with him, just like she did with all her clients. Surface stuff, nothing but fluff. She never wanted Gavin to think she treated him any differently than she did any of her other clients. And he was mostly clueless because he paid very little attention to her except when it came to business, thankfully.
But she did treat him differently, because she felt differently about him. She kept her distance because of how he made her feel.
When it had happened, she couldn’t say. God knows she’d tried to keep it from happening. But there was just something about him. Maybe it was his dark good looks, his mesmerizing green eyes, the way his dark brown hair fell over his brow, or the sexiness of his goatee. Maybe it was his lean body that he honed into shape with daily workouts at the gym and playing noncompetitive sports outside his own sport of baseball. Maybe it was the way he catered to kids on the field, always taking the time to sign autographs or stop and talk to them. He was a big jock and worth millions, but he’d never developed a giant-sized ego about it like many of her clients did. He was a genuinely nice guy.
But what she really loved about him was his smile. There was something wickedly devilish about Gavin’s smile. It was a secret, mature kind of smile, the kind of smile that made a woman want to know what he was thinking about.
She’d been curious about his smile when she’d first met him and he’d looked her over in the way a man looks at a woman. But as soon as she’d signed him, that had been the end of it. He’d never looked at her that way again. Oh, she’d seen him look at other women with that smile, and in many ways she’d regretted signing him on as a client, even though she’d given him one hundred percent of herself as an agent.
But she’d woefully, wistfully, regretted not having him direct that wicked smile at her.