Page 92 of Love Game

“Well, you seem to think you’re an expert, so I’m trying to get a feel for what would be an appropriate life choice for Coach McMillan and what wouldn’t.”

“Kate, please…” Danny started.

“Does it vary from man to man? Ty Ransom is eighteen years older than his wife, but I don’t see anyone heating up tar and plucking chickens.” Kate looked directly into the camera. “Sorry, Ty. Nothing personal. I just want to get the rules straight.”

“We’re not here to talk about Coach Ransom,” Brittany said primly.

“No, we’re here so you can peck more holes in Coach McMillan.” She shuddered delicately. “It’s like watching an old Hitchcock movie.”

“Kate, don’t engage.”

Danny’s attempt to intervene was well intentioned, but she had a head full of steam and needed to release it. The poor guy was trying to fight back a hailstorm with a flyswatter.

Swinging her crossed legs toward Brittany, Kate widened her eyes in feigned confusion. “Does it work both ways? Is there some exponent I should be working with to calculate the male-to-female conversion?”

By now, Brittany looked utterly confused and just angry enough to come at her. Kate couldn’t resist. Dusting off her rusty acting skills, she threw her career and life choices down to flop at the reporter’s feet.

“I was six years older than Jeff Sommers.” Her voice dripped with mock outrage. “Where is Mike Samlin? I can’t believe the university would willfully allow a woman who preys on younger men to roam the campus freely.”

“Oh God,” Danny muttered as he propped his elbow on the arm of the chair and dropped his forehead into his hand.

Poor Brittany glanced down at the tablet in her lap, obviously trying to find the spot in her notes where she’d lost the thread. Kate almost felt as sorry for the young reporter as she did when she pounded a Division II school in the preseason using only her second stringers. It was time to stop playing cat and mouse with the poor girl. After all, she was only trying to make a name for herself. Kate respected her ambition. But Kate wasn’t interested in trading courtesy baskets with a journalist. If there was one thing her coaches taught her, it was that true champions showed mercy for the teams they outmatched. Of course, they didn’t let up entirely until the victory was assured. It was clearly time for her to put this game away.

Kate glanced at the red light on the camera and leaned in close to Brittany as if she were about to share a secret, even though she knew the mic would pick up anything she said. “Danny’s three years older than me. Is that okay?”

The reporter’s head jerked up. The overhead lights made her blond hair gleam like spun gold. Her eyes were still clouded with confusion, but instinct kicked in. Her nostrils flared as she smelled blood. White teeth gleamed as she flashed a deceptively sweet smile. “Is the age difference between you and Coach McMillan significant? Are the accusations Mister, uh”—she checked her tablet—“Davenport made true?”

“Kate.”

Danny spoke her name softly, but the underlying note of warning rang through. She ignored it. She was the woman who always made the clutch shot, no matter what the distraction.

Propping her elbow on the back of the chair, she stared past the twentysomething between them and fixed her eyes on her prize. “Well…”

She drawled the word, infusing the single syllable with a myriad of meanings. Of course, Brittany pounced.

“So you’re confirming that you and Coach McMillan are involved?”

“You haven’t seen the pictures?” Kate smiled, slow but sure, letting it unfurl as she raked the man across from her with an impudent stare. “That’s why I’m wondering how this whole age thing figures in and if it swings both ways in terms of the gender issue.” She rolled her hand, gesturing for the young reporter to be more forthcoming. “Hey, is it a problem if a female coach seduces an older man?”

“Seduces?” Danny’s bark of laughter drew every eye to him. He sat forward in his chair. His body language was challenging, but the light in his eyes was the product of pure pleasure. “Are you trying to say you seduced me?”

Recrossing her legs, she let the delicate high-heeled sandal she wore dangle from her toes. “I’m not trying. I’m saying.”

“I seduced you,” he asserted.

“Not at all the way I remember it.” She pressed a thoughtful finger to her lip. “I had the upper…hand, if I recall correctly.”

“Kate.”

This time, she acquiesced with a smirk and shrug. “Relationships are all about compromise, right? If it’s easier on that fragile male ego to think it was the other way around, I can afford to be generous.”

Brittany’s head swiveled like a Wimbledon spectator as she tried to keep up with the volley. “So the two of you are a couple. Has all this fighting been fake?”

“Oh, it’s not fake,” Danny answered without breaking his gaze. “We don’t agree on much of anything.”

“And I never fake anything,” Kate answered with a sly smile. “But there are a few things we don’t argue about.” She straightened from her insolent little slouch and got right down to the business of disarming the press. “But I have no problem letting him buy dinner. I consider it my way of closing the salary gap.”

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