Fair Play Read online

  As executor of my grandmother’s estate, my dad had offered to give me a one-time, one-hundred-thousand dollar distribution. In return, I had until my thirtieth birthday to prove I could make a substantive career as a playwright. If I failed, I would have to get a “real” job or else forfeit the remainder of my inheritance, which was one huge chunk of change. I’d only asked for one caveat: if I did end up failing, the remainder of my inheritance would go to a non-profit of my choice.

  I’d been twenty-five at the time, and a hundred grand was a lot of money. Since I’d had only $300 in my bank account and needed a $1,400 root canal, I’d signed the contract my father had drawn up. And had regretted the decision ever since.

  Still, my dad had underestimated me. He thought I’d take the cash and go buy an expensive car and too many clothes. But I’d been thrifty. I even had some money left over. Some being the operative word.

  “Quinn had no right to tell you any of that,” I snapped out.

  “You and I may not see eye to eye on much,” Noah said, “but if there’s one thing I can admire about you, it’s your tenacity. When you’re focused, you don’t miss. You proved that with Arlington.”

  My gaze slid away from his. I didn’t need to point out how untrue his latter statement was. I’d been focused on Noah once, had naively thought myself in love with him. Who knew falling in love could bring a playwright so much drama? I tried to mentally shove those memories back deep down, but the damage had been done.

  Pain transitioned to anger. “I don’t need you rushing to my aid,” I said, heatedly. “Never have, never will. Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, I have a real brother, and guess what? I don’t need him to take care of me, either.”

  “You think this is all about you?” Noah shook his head. His New York accent grew thick, the way it did when his temper reached its peak. “Are you so self-involved you still don’t get it?”

  I’d had enough. Standing, I slapped my palms on the bar and leaned toward Noah. “Maybe for once you could stop playing mind games and just tell me what the hell I’m not getting.”

  He gestured to the near-empty bar. “Look around. The theater’s not in session, and because of that, this place is practically dead. What do you think will happen to the Double Shot if The Marshall Theater closes?”

  “Why is it my job to care about the Double Shot?”

  Noah had the audacity to look hurt. “Fine, I get it. You don’t care about me, and maybe I deserve that, but what about the town? What about Phair?”

  I looked around the bar. There were few patrons, certainly not enough to fill the place. Noah’s words hit me—finally.

  The Phair Theater Festival brought in boatloads of tourists, but only for one week in the year. The Marshall Theater Players, however, brought in tourists year-round, except for when the theater was dark. But the theater went dark only three times a year, for a four-week interval each time.

  People raised families here, led lives, and made livings that were only possible because of tourism. The Marshall Theater was the lifeblood of Phair. Noah had multiple Double Shot bars scattered all over the country, but this location depended on Phair’s local economy not falling into collapse.

  And apparently, keeping the entire town of Phair alive depended on me writing a brilliant script.

  Fantastic.

  Lucas finished his drink, straightened his bolo, and stood. “It just occurred to me what’s wrong with this draft.”

  I stared questioningly at Lucas.

  “Noah is Andy Rich. You are Caroline.”

  I sat, perplexed, staring at Lucas. “What could possibly bring you to that conclusion?”

  He nodded at both me and Noah. “Everyone can tell you two have history.”

  Neither Noah nor I had made any secret that my brother was his best friend. But what did that have to do with my script? “And your point would be…”

  Lucas shrugged. “The tension between the two of you is palpable. Like the tension between Andy Rich and Caroline. You two are those characters.”

  No way. I took a step back, putting space between me and the bar. Between me and Noah. Lucas was dead wrong.

  I pointed at Noah. “He is not the inspiration for my lead character.” Not even Noah Blake was as damaged as Andy Rich. And I certainly wasn’t the wannabe bad-girl, Caroline.

  “I’m sure you patterned the characters’ dynamic around your dynamic with Noah subconsciously,” Lucas said. “But if you could manage to bring the same fire I’ve been witnessing between the two of you over the last few months to this play, we’ll win the Phair Theater Festival for Best in Show. Even if Anderson Jones is a judge.”

  I was so not buying Lucas’s observation. Yeah, Noah and I snapped at each other from time to time. Well, I snapped at him and he ignored me—all the time.

  Lucas pulled out his wallet and laid cash for his drink on the bar. “Tell you what. I’ll agree to stay the course and keep you on as playwright, but only if the two of you agree to work together.”

  Noah’s chin lowered. “What exactly are you asking, Lucas?”

  Yeah, really. What was Lucas asking?

  “Spend time together. Help her flesh out what’s missing on paper between these two characters.”

  “What?” Rattled, I raked fingers through my hair.

  “That’s insane,” Noah said.

  For once, Noah and I agreed on something.

  “I’m not talking about hanging out in the Double Shot, pretending to talk,” Lucas said, rubbing his chin the way he did when new ideas came to him. “I’m talking scene enactment, and maybe some real-world situations. Improvisation.”

  But that would mean spending one-on-one time with Noah. Not just the occasional run-in at the Double Shot. I’d done my best to ignore Noah since I’d discovered his bar was my across-the-street neighbor, and could handle encountering him while I sat at the bar with a tumbler of gin in my hand, but this was too much. I felt pinpricks of panic work their way across my skin. “Lucas, no. Absolutely not.”

  “My decision is final, Ashlyn. Work on scene enactments and improvisation with Noah, or I’ll assign another playwright to finish the script.”

  But this play was my one chance at Broadway. And my one chance to prove to my dad I could succeed in this business—and therefore receive my full inheritance. I gulped back panic.

  “There’s no way I have time to play pretend with Ashlyn so she can finish her script,” Noah said, scowling. “I have a business to build. I’m not playing babysitter.”

  Lucas turned to Noah. “According to you, the success of this Double Shot location depends on the success of the theater, which depends on The Marshal Theater Players winning the Phair Theater Festival. And you’re the one who convinced me Ashlyn was a brilliant playwright in the first place. Looks like you don’t have an option, either. You will both do this my way, or…”

  “Or what?” Noah demanded.

  I made a last-ditch plea. “Lucas, forcing us together will only hurt the situation, not help. Noah isn’t even a writer.”

  A gleam entered Lucas’s eyes. “He might not be a writer, but for this play, he’s certainly your muse.”

  Chapter Two

  Noah

  Through the large plate glass window, I watched Ashlyn—fine, I was checking out her ass—as she stormed out of the Double Shot and crossed the street, probably destined for her apartment on the top floor of the theater. The slump of her shoulders showed how the pressure of her situation held her down. When she slammed the theater door behind her, I folded my arms over my chest and frowned.

  At the word “muse,” Ashlyn had gone bat-shit crazy, huffing like a schoolgirl and storming out of the Double Shot. Lucas had followed, leaving me alone to figure out how to get myself out of this one. Why would Lucas say I was the inspiration for Ashlyn’s lead character? Ashlyn had barely spoken to me since arriving in Phair. Well, except to snap at me.

  So she needed to fix her script. I got that.

&n
bsp; But Ashlyn and me hanging out, acting scenes from her play, was Lucas’s way of solving the problem? That man might be a world-class director, but he was dead wrong in thinking me and Ashlyn in close proximity would solve anything.

  But in one way, Lucas was right. Like it or not, we all had a stake in the outcome of the Festival.

  And whether Ashlyn was writing for The Marshall Theater Players or a puppet theater, there still were only two more months until her thirtieth birthday. Quinn had shared the details of the deal she’d made with her dad. Prove herself as a playwright by the time she turned thirty, or lose her inheritance from her grandmother. And that was major money. This play was her last shot at the big time before then. Sue me for having faith in her. And screw me for wanting her to succeed. But I sure as hell didn’t see how us being in close proximity would make that happen.

  Besides. I didn’t have time to pretend to be a character to trigger Ashlyn’s muse. I had projects under my belt in need of my focus. Negotiations were under way regarding a partnership with a high-end hotel chain, the Cambridge Hotels, which was considering Phair for its next location. Then there was the international expansion I had planned. The Double Shot in London, Paris, and Sydney. As it stood, I already didn’t have enough hours in the day.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the wrench on the bottom shelf beneath the bar. I had a video conference in an hour, but a leaky sink was one thing I could fix. I grabbed the wrench and slid under the counter, ready to do battle with a recalcitrant pipe. But then the image of Ashlyn’s tight ass as she stalked away consumed me. The very thought of being bound to her, even temporarily, did things to me I rather enjoyed thinking about—things her brother would disembowel me for if he ever knew. But he wouldn’t know and neither would Ashlyn, because I’d never tell either person. Quinn trusted me with his sister, and Ashlyn…well… Ashlyn hated me.

  Sometimes the feeling was mutual.

  But sometimes her presence brought with it a hard-on I had to hide.

  Still didn’t mean I would accept Lucas’s ultimatum.

  A few twists of the wrench, a bit of nasty water in my face, and the leaky pipe was repaired. I returned the wrench where I’d found it, wiped my face with my sleeve, and stood.

  “Need some help, Noah?” asked one of the regulars. I’d nicknamed him Dusty because he worked for the road crew and came in, every night, covered in dust. He was tall, ham-fisted, and based on his burly build, hadn’t missed any meals. Including the snack of the Double Shot’s homemade potato chips that sat in front of him.

  “Oh, now you offer,” I grumbled. “After I’m done.”

  He grinned then thumbed up the crumbs in his near-empty chip bowl. “Yell before you get started next time, wouldja?” His focus left me and returned to the game.

  I cleared away his empty bowl and slid him a fresh one. Had we been in New York, Miami, or one of the ten other Double Shot locations, an offer like Dusty’s wouldn’t have been made. But that was how things worked around here—and why Phair had become my home in a way no city in the world ever could.

  The front door opened. A smarmy-looking dude, wearing aviator sunglasses and dressed in pressed linen pants and a white button-up shirt, entered. Without acknowledgement, he bypassed the other patrons and approached the bar.

  “I’ll have a glass of red wine. French, if you have it,” he demanded, an East Coast accent evident in his words. He took out a handkerchief and wiped nonexistent crumbs from the stool in front of him.

  Wine? On a hot summer evening? The guy obviously wasn’t from Texas. I nodded, and rummaged around in the drawer near the soda dispenser. “Are you a transplant?” I asked, referencing his accent. “Or here on vacation?”

  He removed the sunglasses and placed them on the bar in front of him, then sat. “Business, actually. I’m a theater critic. I’m here for the festival.”

  After pulling the cork out of a fresh bottle, I poured the man’s wine and set it in front of him, giving him a good once-over. Something about his disjointed nose and close-set eyes seemed vaguely familiar.

  “You’re a little early,” I pointed out.

  He smiled, slow and steady, revealing an even row of porcelain veneers. “You don’t recognize me, do you, Blake?”

  I continued staring. Apparently not.

  Before he finished, Babs was at my side. She’d piled a bowl high with potato chips, straight from the fryer, and set it on the bar for our new customer.

  “Classy,” he said, practically sneering at the chip bowl.

  And right then that one word took me back—back to a seventeen-year-old Ashlyn, on the outs with her parents, running away to her brother’s apartment in New York. Me going out to look for her when she didn’t come home when she should have. Returning to the apartment, scared out of my mind when I couldn’t locate her. Hearing her voice, high-pitched and tense as I charged up the stairs to my apartment. Muffled voices. Sounds of a struggle. Then clearly, above everything else, the word no.

  My fists clenched. Blood tunneled my veins. In a snap, I reached across the bar, pulling Kyle Pritchard to me by his neck. Wine sloshed down the front of his white shirt as I pressed my thumb into his Adam’s apple. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you douchebag. Waltzing in here, sitting at my bar. If I so much as see you here, or even in the same room as Ashlyn, next time I won’t just beat the shit out of you—I’ll put you in the ground.”

  Pritchard’s face grew red and he struggled to breathe. I relaxed my thumbs enough for him to speak.

  In a rough voice, he said, “Staying away from Ashlyn might prove difficult, considering I’m one of the festival judges. And I know she’s one of the playwrights.”

  I swore, but kept my grip. When he gave me a satisfied smirk, I wanted to pound his face in all over again. Then I heard Babs.

  “Noah,” she said in a low tone. “Is this who I think it is?”

  Two of the guys who’d been watching the game approached. Dusty and Haywire.

  “You need some help, Noah?” Haywire, the city’s electrical engineer, asked. Short and pole-thin, he looked like he couldn’t shoo away a fly. But Haywire was a black belt in one of those weirdly named martial arts. The two men plus me would not equal a fair fight against Pritchard. Somehow I didn’t care.

  One of the wives, I couldn’t see who, reached across the bar. Remote in hand, she flipped off the game mid-play. Not a single moan of protest was uttered by the men who’d been watching the game. The tension grew. All eyes remained on us.

  Dusty inspected his nails. “So much for my manicure.”

  I opened my hand and shoved Kyle back by his throat. “This douchebag was just leaving.”

  Kyle staggered and swiped at the red wine staining his shirt. “You’ll regret this, Blake.”

  As Dusty and Haywire saw our guest to the exit, Babs began clearing broken glass and spilled wine. Noise from the game once again filled the bar.

  I hadn’t been convinced Lucas’s plan to be Ashlyn’s constant companion was a sound one. Me, the owner of one of the fastest growing chain of bars in the nation, acting out scenes? Playing at improv? Yeah, right. But Kyle Pritchard’s arrival in town had changed my mind. At the very least, Ashlyn needed someone watching her back.

  It was only right that someone should be me.

  The critic Anderson Jones and the chink he’d made in her confidence seemed like nothing compared to the damage Kyle Pritchard could inflict. I had to let her know he was in town and that he’d be judging her play. That was not a conversation I was looking forward to.

  But Kyle’s presence in the bar had brought out at least one positive. After the way Dusty and Haywire stood up with me, if I ever doubted my place in Phair, I did so no longer. Texans abided by a certain code when it came to right and wrong. And they always took care of their own. The way I’d take care of Ashlyn.

  …

  The rest of the evening had been slam-packed with phone calls and video conferences with my attorneys. I hadn’t gotten
over to Ashlyn’s yet to tell her about Pritchard. From my office across the street, I could see the light on in her apartment. I’d watched her silhouette cross the window as I set about taking care of what needed to be done.

  I would follow Lucas’s ultimatum just so I could protect her. But in doing so, I would need help keeping tabs on Kyle.

  That’s where Ashlyn’s brother, Quinn, came in. If Ashlyn ever found out I’d betrayed her confidence and told her brother about what happened with Pritchard that summer, there’d be hell to pay. But I’d gladly pay the price so long as it ensured her safety.

  Quinn and I had been best friends since our undergrad days at Columbia. With his long, lanky build, paired with rust-colored hair and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, on first impression I thought he’d turn out to be a world-class dork. His techno-gadgetry genius only compounded that point. We called him Q in college, like the gadget guy in the Bond films. But he turned out to be a pretty cool guy, who unbelievably got laid more than James Bond. He was also the only guy I’d trust when it came to surveillance advice.

  “Is this a bad time?” I asked when Quinn answered my request to video chat.

  On the screen, I watched him finish off the last of a beer. The Seattle skyline featured prominently behind him—he had to be on his fifteenth floor balcony, enjoying the cool northwestern weather while I sweltered in Phair. “How’s Vanessa?” I asked.

  He settled back against light-colored cushions. “She dumped me four days ago. Said I work too much.”

  Quinn had used his share of his grandmother’s legacy to patent and manufacture highly specialized surveillance equipment. That equipment had put his company, Q Technologies, on the map. And kept his nose to the grindstone. Not much would get him to budge from Seattle.

  “What’s up in blistering Phair?” he asked. “That blazing sun’s the one thing I don’t miss about Texas.”

  “It’s heating up, and I’m not talking about the weather.” Guilt ran up my spine and into my gut. I’d kept Ashlyn’s secret for years. But there was something about the way Pritchard had sneered, even when I had my hand around his throat, that made me figure he was up to something bad when it came to Ashlyn.