“Stop.” Something burned behind her eyes, and she clenched her fork hard enough for the metal to jab into the fleshy part of her hand. “I’m not defending myself to my own damn agent one more time. I told you I didn’t release it. I told you Igor did, or someone working for him. I’ve said it more times than I can count. Either believe me and drop it, or just drop it.”
The sex tape, featuring one unsuspecting Katrina Kelly and her then-boyfriend, rising tennis stud and current number nine in the world, Igor Dorchessky. The video was grainy but close up. Though nothing more than some side boob showed, you could clearly see her face at one point and Igor’s. And it was beyond obvious what was happening, thanks to the sounds and motion. The soft lighting made that abundantly clear. So did the fact that the video had been posted from her phone to her own blog. Igor had proclaimed innocence, going on a rampage about women who couldn’t be trusted, gaining sympathy in the media about being used for his money, his rising success, how he wouldn’t let this bring him low…
And everyone had eaten it up with a spoon. Including, apparently, her own agent and her coach. Despite swearing her innocence, despite the fact that she had, up until that point, been a model athlete with no blemishes on her social networking or playing resume… she was immediately shunned. The few endorsements she’d had at that point dropped her like day-old bread. No company would look twice in her direction any longer. Nobody on the tour would talk to her. She was public enemy number one in the locker room of any tournament she played in. She’d been forced to pick up an extra job serving tables because she wasn’t making ends meet anymore with her tournament winnings.
Vicious circle. And the worst part was… there was no redemption. Everyone simply assumed she did it. Tried, convicted, forgotten. They’d moved on. There was no comeback story for her. No way—that she could see—to prove her innocence. All those years of playing clean, behaving perfectly… for nothing. On her best days, she’d become invisible. The worst thing a pro athlete could be.
And so she’d tried something different. She’d tried being visible on her own terms. They thought she was the Jezebel of the tennis world? Fine. She could play that part. Not that she was going to run around sleeping with people and recording it—hadn’t worked so well the first time, and that wasn’t even her fault—but she stopped behaving in a reserved fashion. A song came on that she loved? She danced to it even if she was sitting on the bench between sets. Party of an acquaintance that was set beside a lovely hotel pool? She had no problems jumping in in her cocktail dress, making a splash, encouraging others to join her in a chicken fight in semiformal attire.
If it was outrageous—and legal—she wasn’t going to say no. Being a good girl got her nowhere. Maybe focusing on her own happiness, and not the perception of others, would do something for her career.
At least it would make her happier.
Sawyer’s eyes narrowed as she took a bite of her sauced hash browns. “God, that’s disgusting.”
Peter asked quietly from the corner, “Do you still love the game?”
The food stuck in her throat halfway down. Choking, Kat grabbed for her water glass and gulped, soothing the ache. “What?” she croaked out.
“Do you still love the game? Tennis. The sport you play for a living. The game you clawed and scratched your way through since you were nine. That you’ve endured countless injuries, seen dozens of setbacks, and kept fighting through so you could keep playing.”
The man had a way with words, even if some of them were mangled by his accent. She felt a sting behind her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to keep tears from forming. “You should be writing ad copy,” she said, trying to sound flippant. “That was masterful.”
“I have a job. Coaching you. You are making that difficult.” His accent made the short, clipped sentences sound harsher than they already were.
Sawyer put up a hand to stop Peter. “It’s my job to sell my athletes. It’s my athletes’ job to be sellable.” He pointed a fork full of boring, plain, unseasoned eggs at her. “You’re heading to Santa Fe.”
Luckily, she hadn’t taken a bite yet when he dropped that bomb on her. “Santa Fe. As in New Mexico? As in nowhere near a beach, water, anything?” When he nodded, she just let her fork drop to the plate and sat back in the booth. “Why the hell would I go there?”
“Because we said to,” Peter growled. He wasn’t a fan of being questioned, on or off the court.
“Call it a change of pace. Fine,” Sawyer added when she narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s where your ‘manny’ lives, to borrow your phrase. You’re going to him.”
“Normally, handlers do the bidding of their clients.”
“He’s not a handler. He’s an athlete. A Bobcat, to be exact. And his season is in full swing.”
That took her by surprise. “So… this isn’t some professional career cleaner.”
“Nope.”
“Not someone with a psych degree who will try to make me meditate and chant junk, shop for crystals, and preach to a woo-woo god.”
“I don’t think Michael has ever owned a crystal.”
“Michael who?” she asked warily.