It wasn't any big deal."
"Oh, no?" He sprawled in one of the kitchen chairs, thrusting his bare feet out in front of him arid crossing them at the ankles. "The shindig at that place was one of the best damn parties I've ever been to."
"You crashed it."
He chuckled. "See, that's the beauty of party crashing. You get to choose the very best ones to goto." ' 'You and your pals bribed- "
"Charmed." '' -your way inside. You upset-'' "Entertained."
"-everybody. The hosts were mortified-"
"Amused."
Stevie sighed with annoyance. "I see we remember it differently."
"Admit it. My group livened things up considerably."
"That much I will admit." Her lips ached to surrender to the smile tugging at the corners of them. "Until you showed up, it was a stuffy and boring affair."
"After the hubbub we created had died down a bit, my well-trained radar system homed in on the prettiest woman there." His eyes found hers across the homey kitchen, just as they had across the ballroom of a Swedish palace so many years earlier. "You."
"Thank you. But I was also the youngest."
"I was young, too," he remarked introspectively.
"I didn't realize how young. That was before I got the job at the Tribune. I was working for a news service, covering sports in Europe. My leg…"
He shook his head, clearing it of that unhappy thought. "I had a helluva good time over there, hanging out with all the sports celebrities, hobnobbing with royalty, going to parties, eating free food, drinking free booze."
"Picking up free women."
"The job definitely had its perks." He flashed his most unrepentant smile.
"I was so naive," she said in a reflective tone that echoed his. "That was my first year on the tour. I hadn't been warned against predatory media wolves like you."
'That was a stroke of good fortune for me."
Stevie snapped to attention and said with emphasis,
"Nothing happened."
"That's not the way I remember it."
"Okay, we danced. You rudely cut in on my other partner."
"After you gave me that smoldering come-hither look."
"Smoldering? Come-hither? Boy, is your memory warped."
"And I didn't cut in, I just sort of nudged your partner out of my way. Besides, his dancing reminded me of a goose flapping its wings."
She smiled at the memory of her partner and Judd's unflattering, but accurate, description.
"No, he couldn't dance very well."
But Judd could. Oh, he could. He had ignored the gyrating couples surrounding them on the dance floor and had pulled her into his arms.
Hi.
That's all he had said. That single Americanism.
But there had been something totally captivating in the way he'd said it, softly, confidentially, as though they were meeting in a hushed, remote place instead of in a gigantic ballroom seething with laughter and deafening rock music.
He had mesmerized her with his compelling tone of voice and the possessive way his hands had settled on either side of her waist and pulled her swaying hips directly against his.
He had been everything she wasn't: sophisticated, cocky, self-assured, arrogant, undisciplined.
He was out to enjoy life, make friends, have a good time.
She thought of little except her tennis game.
Her constant companion was Presley Foster.
Their conversations revolved solely around tennis and how tough the competition was and how far she had to go to get into the big bucks and the big time. She was self-disciplined to a fault. Even attending a party and staying out that late had been a rarity.
The handsome sports journalist was fascinating -and dangerous. He danced close enough for her to feel his breath on her face, held her in a manner that wasn't decorous, looked at her suggestively and moved his lithe body against hers with blatant symbolism. He had made dedicated, disciplined Stevie Corbett feel deliciously reckless.
'And after we danced, you went upstairs with me.
"You're dreaming, Mackie." Stevie wished her voice sounded stronger, more derisive. Instead it sounded hoarse and emotional. "I went into the garden and you followed."
"You ran/'
"I needed air!" ''You were scared!''
She was scared. Scared of him and of her responses to him. Scared of the sensual awakening he had orchestrated. Scared because for the first time in many years, tennis was the last thing on her mind.
"I guess now you're going to ungallantly remind me that you kissed me."
Judd's steady gaze didn't waver. "You kissed me back."
She cleared her throat and made an offhanded gesture. "It was… pleasant."
"I'll say. Damned pleasant. Pleasant and wet and hot and sexy."
"Alright," she flared, "so we kissed.'
"French kissed."
"French kissed."
"And I put my hand inside your dress. I touched you."
"An outrageous thing to do," she whispered.
"Was it?" He rolled off his spine and came to his feet. He didn't stop moving forward until he had her backed against the countertop. "You were soft and very sweet, Stevie. Your heart was beating so fast. Just like it was last night." He laid his hand against her chest. "Just like it is right now."
"Nothing happened."
He dropped his hand and stepped back. "Because Presley Foster bore down on me and threatened me with castration if I didn't get my hands off you."
Stevie covered her face with her hands, feeling again all the embarrassment she had at that black moment in her life. She had wanted the earth to swallow her whole, so she wouldn't have to endure her coach's censorious glare, Judd's contemptuous smirk or her own scalding humiliation.
"Presley was doing what he thought was best for me," she said miserably. "He was protecting me from getting hurt." 'Were you sleeping with him?"
She lowered her hands and gaped at Judd with horror, her face pale and stricken. "Are you crazy?"
"Were you?"
"No!'* She gulped reflexively. "Is that what you've thought all this time, that I was sleeping with my coach?"
"It crossed my mind."
"You're sick."
He shook his head ruefully. "Just realistic.
I've known of kinkier relationships."
"Then you've been around people I never want to meet."
"Indubitably."
Staring into space, she organized her thoughts.
"Well, this conversation explains a lot. No wonder you've taken potshots at me in your column.
Either you took me for a slut with a lover older than her father. Or I'm just one that got away.
Either way, your phenomenal ego couldn't handle my choosing Presley over you that night, so you carved me to bits in your columns as vengeance."
"One has nothing to do with the other."
I'll bet," she said bitterly.
He grabbed her upper arm. "It was years before I connected the champion player Stevie Corbett with that wide-eyed kid I met at a party in Stockholm."
"When you did, I bet you had a good laugh."
Angrily she pulled her arm from his grip.
Not really," he surprised her by saying.
When I think back to that night, it's with poignancy, not derision. Want to know one of my deepest, darkest secrets? Even if Foster hadn't stopped it, I doubt it would have gone much further than it had."
"Why not?"
"You were so damned young. Innocent. Fresh.
And I… well, I wasn't."
She was almost hypnotized by the sadness in his expression. However, in the nick of time, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously and asked, "If you knew I was innocent and fresh, then why'd you just ask me if I was sleeping with Presley?"
"Oh, I knew you weren't sleeping with him then. You were a virgin in Stockholm, right?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but again discovered that she was too flabbergasted to utter a peep. "But I wanted to know if you had ever slept with him and were still carrying a torch.