And because of her occasional lapses in good behavior.

Now she’d fallen into a brand-new drama with someone else whose celebrity would drag her into the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

He frowned.

“I went in through the back—the same way we left. I usually try to avoid the morning rush.” He smoothed his tie and adjusted the newspaper under his arm, the same one he’d been reading in the restaurant. The journal had been folded to the sports section, with a photo from a baseball game peeking out from behind his elbow.

“Well, I made a commitment to work at the event today and I can’t back out just because some of the more irritating members of the media hoped I would stir up trouble.” Did they really think she’d get into a knockdown, drag-out fight at a fundraising event?

She retreated a step, ignoring the vibrating cell phone in her back pocket. No doubt someone had ratted her out to her agent who would be ticked off about her hasty exit from the charity gig.

“The media thought you would stir up trouble,” he parroted back at her, his expression morphing to thinly veiled disapproval instead of the normal curiosity or interest that usually came when people found out they were speaking to a celebrity. “Jamie M. That must stand for—”

“McRae.” She thrust out a hand and shook his before he offered it. “Jamie McRae. Nice to meet you, Mr. Enigmatic.”

His expression shifted again, this time moving from the earlier disapproval to something she’d categorize as vague horror.

“You’re that big music producer’s wife. The one who got in the catfight and lost her top.”

“I didn’t lose it. It was forcefully yanked from my body by a woman who hates my guts. And I’m the music producer’s ex-wife, by the way.” She thought the whole world knew about her well-publicized split. But maybe some people had missed the details in favor of the more exciting headline that she’d exposed a nipple in a ritzy Hollywood bar.

Before Lance could explain why he was staring at her as if she was his worst nightmare, she heard the oncoming rush of feet and voices, a sure sign their alone time was over.

Whipping the newspaper out from under his arm, he handed it to her.

“Then we’re screwed.”

The page featured a face shot of the man in front of her along with a picture of him sliding into home plate, his fist raised in the air victoriously. It was no game in a men’s Over-Thirty League. This was big time. The majors. The guy was wearing a New York Scrapers uniform with the trademark Empire State Building silhouette and Manhattan skyline.

She had been caught on film flirting with one of New York’s favorite sons, the legendary playmaker Lance Montero.

A name anyone else in the city would have known immediately, but as a recent L.A. transplant, Jamie had been slow on the uptake. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have minded a little harmless flirtation to encourage her husband to pay attention to her. But that was before she learned he’d lavished all his attention on other women instead of work, as he’d claimed.

He yanked the paper back. “You’re about to have your past splashed all over the headlines and I’m—” He scowled. “I’ll be written off yet again as the playboy ladies’ man who spends more time playing the field than—er—playing the field.”

He didn’t need to explain it. The consequences were crystal clear to her. She was about to have a media nightmare reprised and she had no doubt that he’d be raked over the coals for dating someone like her—someone with a reputation for speaking her mind in the press.

“Take cover,” she warned him, shoving his big, sexy body toward his building. “I’ll deal with the fallout since I’ve got to resurface over there anyhow.”

Tucking the newspaper into her purse, she searched her brain for how to spin the encounter for the media as the first camera appeared around a corner. She’d developed a bit of a knack for this crap over the last six months.

“If you’re sure—” His chocolate-brown eyes shuttered at the arrival of the invading lenses and she knew a moment’s regret that they’d met under such crappy circumstances.

Then she remembered that he was definitely the wrong type of guy for her. Wealthy beyond imagining. A media favorite. And if memory served—a confirmed heartbreaker.

“Positive.” With one last push to his shoulder, she finally succeeded in budging him. Or maybe he simply acquiesced.

Either way, she was alone by the time the press arrived in full force to barrage her with questions. And withdrawing her favorite leopard-print umbrella from her purse, she popped it open and took cover behind the nylon. Then, cruising through the streets like a ship at full sail, she navigated her way through the worst of it the way she’d plowed through so much other garbage ever since she’d become a notorious woman.

Although her methods were slick and savvy, her public veneer as tough as ever, Jamie couldn’t help but mourn the loss of a private life. Especially on a day when she’d crossed paths with the most intriguing man she’d met in a long, long time.



2



WHAT A WOMAN.

Lance couldn’t get Jamie out of his mind that night as he reached for a fresh bat before his turn in the on-deck circle. He hadn’t been able to resist a glance out the tinted windows of his building at her after he’d left her to fend for herself with the media hounds. He’d half regretted leaving her there all alone even though she’d seemed desperate for him to get lost. But any worries he’d had about her had vanished when he’d seen that umbrella snap open, cocooning her in leopard-print privacy.

No doubt about it, she was a pro at dealing with the press.

As the crowd at Scrapers Stadium cheered for a hit by the lead-off batter, Lance grinned all over again at the memory of the way Jamie had run full tilt through the paparazzi before they could pen her in with microphones and questions. Her moves were sweeter than an NFL running back as she’d dodged hits from every side, finding the holes in the defense to make it up field. He’d been cheering her progress all the way back to the coffee shop.

Of course, he’d been less pleased when he returned to his penthouse apartment to already find an e-mail from his publicist with a link to the online video of his morning flirtation with Jamie. He’d watched the video and instead of being embarrassed by the encounter he’d been taken in by her sexy grin all over again. But that link had been accompanied by a slew of other video snippets. Some were amusing enough, like the time the Texas oil heiress hitchhiked across the Lone Star State with a camcorder and a mission to uncover more “green” energy options, much to the irritation of her father.

But the video with the most links and the most hype appeared to be the wrestling match with her ex-husband’s girlfriend—a recording he didn’t watch out of respect for her. Beyond that, there seemed to be a whole list of film bites alluding to impulsive behavior, but he could read between the lines enough to see they were amateur bits probably filmed by people trying to aggravate her into losing her cool. At the bottom of all that, he found a few videos for music she’d written to benefit a variety of environmental causes. He’d had to dig to find those, however, since her personal life seemed to overshadow the rest. She actually had a great voice.

Fingers snapping in front of his nose wrenched his thoughts away from Jamie.

“You got your head in the game, Montero?” a voice from the bench piped up as Lance climbed the steps to leave the dugout. “We need this one.”

They were playing the Boston Aces tonight, a rivalry that stretched back to when the league was in its infancy and tickets to a day game cost pocket change. Boston had beaten them out in the playoffs the previous year, but New York had spent big bucks on some rookie talent to improve their chances this year. One of whom just had a base hit with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. The Scrapers were down by two, so the runner on first could be the tying score.

“Is my head in the game?” Lance turned toward the lineup on the bench, staring down his teammates. He normally minded his own business with the other players, but in a youth-dominated sport, sometimes it paid to defend your territory and put the mouthy ones in their place. Narrowing in on the perpetrator, he leveled his bat in the guy’s direction. “Bobcat, you work on that hole in your glove and let the big guns take care of the hits.”

He grinned as he stalked off to the on-deck circle for a few warm up swings, keeping things on friendly footing. Of course, half the team hooted at the taunt while the other half smothered laughs. The right fielder had bobbled one early in the second inning that cost the Scrapers a run, and no doubt big Bob Cacciatore would be stinging from that error all week. But if he couldn’t handle the ribbing, he damn well shouldn’t dish it out.

In the meantime, the hitter walked, advancing the leadoff runner and bringing Lance up to bat. The crowd reaction was predictable—he’d been sent to the All-Star Game for five years straight. But he had die-hard detractors along with his fans. This was New York, after all. No major league city was more notorious for tough fans.

And tonight they seemed louder than ever. Or maybe that was because Boston’s supporters didn’t mind traveling to cheer on their team. Scrapers Stadium sported plenty of Boston blue and red this evening. And as Lance readjusted the Velcro straps on his batting gloves, he noticed a crowd of Boston fans featured on the overhead screen. That in itself wasn’t unusual.

What was out of the ordinary is that the whole row of guys wearing Aces T-shirts also held up paper copies of Jamie McRae’s gorgeous face in front of their own. The jumbotron broadcast ten identical smiling Jamies for the whole stadium to see.

One of the hecklers waved a sign that read “Boston’s Secret Weapon is the Catfight Queen.” The guy next to him flashed a piece of cardboard that said “Jamie McRae—the Ultimate Distraction” next to a cartoon of Lance with eyes the size of dinner plates and a head that looked like a bobble head doll.

Is your head in the game, Lance?

Bobcat’s question suddenly didn’t seem so off base as the noise in the stadium rose to a fever pitch.

Damn. It.

A hundred-mile-an-hour fastball suddenly seemed like the best place for him to take out his frustration. He’d been trying to polish up his womanizer image and he’d inadvertently flirted with a notorious divorcée in front of the whole world. But that was the nature of the media, wasn’t it? One mistake could alter the course of a career.

And the only defense Lance had against the hooting and hollering crowd was to send that fastball into the East River. A simple matter of physics and iron will.

Too bad the first ball got past him.

And the second.

Down in the count, he half regretted talking smack to Bobcat. How could he brag about getting hits when he watched two fastballs sail past him without getting the bat on a square millimeter of it?

Careers were made or broken at moments like this. And it wouldn’t have jack squat to do with a strikeout and everything to do with a sexy songbird who had taken up residence in his head—and in the public eye—at the worst possible time.

Seeing the potential career-defining moment in front of him, Lance realized Jamie McRae wasn’t going away simply because he ignored her. Like it or not, the two of them were forever linked by an unguarded moment caught on film.

Digging in at home plate, Lance tightened his grip on the bat and stared down the hard-ass pitcher with a left arm like a cannon. Lance kept his eye on the ball as it left the guy’s hand and swung for the fences.

When the splitter hit the bat, it wasn’t a crack that would send it to the East River, but Lance knew beyond a doubt it was a hit that would end up in the stands. The solid connection of his time-tested Louisville Slugger on the ball was the kind of beautiful moment a player never forgot. Even on his home field where he’d hit one out plenty of times.

There was magic playing under the lights for seventy-five thousand fans at one of the biggest baseball stadiums in the world. And something about having all those people there to witness it, driving the ball deep into the opposite field against one of the best pitchers in the majors, tattooed this particular three-run homer forever in his mind.