Page 21 of Match Point

Nina Garcia. Sorcha forced herself to maintain a calm smile. Nina had shot up through the ranks and knocked Sorcha out of the top tier in her last three tournaments. It was during a match with the bitch that she’d injured her ankle.

“How do you take your coffee?” Grams asked, moving into the kitchen.

Leo leaned against the countertop. “If she’s serious, she’ll have black, no sugar, and no cookie.”

Sorcha narrowed her eyes at him in mock outrage. She liked the teasing side of Leo. Words she thought she’d never say. “I take my coffee with two sugars, and I will have a cookie.”

Grams turned, but not before Sorcha caught her grin, and opened a container.

Leo’s phone rang and he glanced at the screen. “I have to get this. The reception here is bad so I’ll be out back.”

The sugary sweetness of cookies wafted to Sorcha’s nose. Her stomach churned and she took one, tearing it in half. “Has he always been this, um, pushy?” she asked.

“Leo likes structure, and it used to drive the other boys crazy. He’s never been good at flying by the seat of his pants. I think he gets it from his father. He hasn’t had an easy time of it; none of my kids have. That’s why the state placed them here.” She put a coffee cup on the counter and scooted the sugar dish over to Sorcha.

Leo had said Grams was a foster parent, but it hadn’t sunk in that Leo was a foster kid. She skipped the sugar and added honey to her coffee. Taking a bite of the cookie, she absorbed what Grams was telling her.

“We take the hard cases. Not that Leo was a difficult boy. He just needed someone to listen to what he was telling them.” Grams cupped her own coffee mug. “He’s very smart and adults don’t always listen to kids, even when they’re right.”

“No, they don’t. It was difficult when I first started in tennis. Everybody thought they knew what was best for me no matter what I said. I would have quit had my dad not taken over my management.” He’d been everything to her and she missed him each and every day.

Leo returned to the kitchen, eyed the cookie in her hand, and shook his head. “We’re going to head out to the cabin to watch some footage and hammer out some details. Grams, we’ll see you in the morning sometime.”

“Thank you for the cookies.” She leaned in close and whispered, “If you see a sock hanging out the window, I need a sugar fix. Slip me one of these.”

She exited the house to Grams’ laughter, her eyes glued to Leo’s back. The jeans hugged his hips and there was a sensual swagger to his walk. He might be hard to deal with at times, but he was easy on the eye.

Chapter Sixteen

Sorcha leaned back into the couch. The visual of herself on the television screen was painful. Not since her father’s passing had she studied her own footage. Relaxing, she propped her feet on the chaise. Exhaustion weighed on her body, but her mind was alert and aware of the man sitting on the end of the grey sectional.

She was used to being under the microscope, her every action recorded, questioned, and reported on. Leo read beneath the surface, and his uncanny ability to ferret out her weaknesses was disconcerting to say the least. Sighing, she turned and inspected the watercolor landscapes that filled up every inch of wall space, most of them flowers. All of them beautifully done and signed by his grandmother.

Except she wasn’t his grandmother. She was his foster mother.

The news had come out of left field and she was still absorbing the implications. Given the tattoo inscription on his neck, his dad had died, thus he was an orphan. But what about his mother? Had she abandoned him or died like her own mother had?

“Do you see a pattern in the clips?” he asked, his voice cutting into her musing.

“I overshot the net. It happens.” It had taken many years to get out of the bad habit, with her dad harping on her every time she fell back into it. He was no longer there to point it out, and none of the other coaches Stanley had hired for her noticed.

“It happened when you first hit the circuit. It stopped while you were at the top. Now that you’re twenty-third, it’s imperative that we rid you of that habit.”.”

She twisted her neck, frowning. “Seventeen. I’m ranked seventeenth as you pointed out.”

“Last month. Not since this morning. There are two sisters, twins that have been hopping through the ranks.”

Alarm shot through her and she snatched up her phone. He was lying, he had to be. It would be hard enough to get back into the top ten without this disastrous news. She clicked on the internet and the blue circle spun but nothing happened. No bars. “What’s the Wi-Fi password here?”

He shifted in his seat, grabbed his laptop, and gazed at her over the top. “I’ll tell you when we’re done. For now, you’ll have to trust me on this.”

“You are so annoying.” She dropped her phone on the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest. She was tired, her head hurt, and his little bombshell sucked at her energy.

“Tucker will be here in two days. Do you want to fly your assistant out?”

“I haven’t had an assistant since my last one married my ex-boyfriend, who was also my bodyguard.”

“How is that possible? You have a multimillion-dollar company and are on the circuit half the year. How can you do it all on your own?”

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