Opposites Attract Read Free Page A

quick squeeze. “Why didn’t you give someone a call?”
    “I wasn’t entirely sure I’d make it.” Asher allowed herself to be negotiated to a clear spot in a rear hallway. “Then I thought I’d just melt into the crowd. It didn’t seem fair to disrupt the match with any the-prodigal-returns business.”
    “It was a hell of a match.” The flash of teeth gleamed with enthusiasm. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Ty play better than he did in the last set. Three aces.”
    “He always had a deadly serve,” Asher murmured.
    “Have you seen him?”
    From anyone else the blunt question would have earned a cold stare. Chuck earned a quick grimace. “No. I will, of course, but I didn’t want to distract him before the match.” Asher linked her fingers—an old nervous habit. “I didn’t realize he knew I was here.”
    Distract Starbuck, she thought with an inner laugh. No one and nothing distracted him once he picked up his game racket.
    “He went crazy when you left.”
    Chuck’s quiet statement brought her back. Deliberately she unlaced her fingers. “I’m sure he recovered quickly.” Because the retort was sharper than she had intended, Asher shook her head as if to take back the words. “How have you been? I saw an ad with you touting the virtues of a new line of tennis shoes.”
    “How’d I look?”
    “Sincere,” she told him with a quick grin. “I nearly went out and bought a pair.”
    He sighed. “I was shooting for macho.”
    As the tension seeped out of her, Asher laughed. “With that face?” She cupped his chin with her hand and moved it from side to side. “It’s a face a mother could trust—foolishly,” she added.
    “Shh!” He glanced around in mock alarm. “Not so loud—my reputation.”
    “Your reputation suffered a few dents in Sydney,” she recalled. “What was that—three seasons ago? The stripper.”
    “Exotic dancer,” Chuck corrected righteously. “It was merely an exchange of cultures.”
    “You did look kind of cute wearing those feathers.” With another laugh she kissed his cheek. “Fuchsia becomes you.”
    “We all missed you, Asher.” He patted her slim, strong shoulder.
    The humor fled from her eyes. “Oh, Chuck, I missed you. Everyone, all of it. I don’t think I realized just how much until I walked in here today.” Asher looked into space, lost in her own thoughts, her own memories. “Three years,” she said softly.
    “Now you’re back.”
    Her eyes drifted to his. “Now I’m back,” she agreed. “Or will be in two weeks.”
    “The Foro Italico.”
    Asher gave him a brief smile that was more determination than joy. “I’ve never won on that damn Italian clay. I’m going to this time.”
    “It was your pacing.”
    The voice from behind her had Asher’s shoulders stiffening. As she faced Chuck her eyes showed only the merest flicker of some secret emotion before they calmed. When she turned to Ty he saw first that his memory of her beauty hadn’t been exaggerated with time, and second that her layer of control was as tough as ever.
    “So you always told me,” she said calmly. The jolt was over, she reasoned, with the shock of eye contact in the auditorium. But her stomach muscles tightened. “You played beautifully, Ty . . . after the first set.”
    They were no more than a foot apart now. Neither could find any changes in the other. Three years, it seemed, was barely any time at all. It occurred to Asher abruptly that twenty years wouldn’t have mattered. Her heart would still thud, her blood would still swim. For him. It had always, would always be for him. Quickly she pushed those thoughts aside. If she were to remain calm under his gaze, she couldn’t afford to remember.
    The press was still tossing questions at him, and now at her as well. They began to crowd in, nudging Asher closer to Ty. Without a word he took her arm and drew her through the door at his side. That it happened to be a womens’ rest room didn’t faze