Amalie scanned the bar, looking for Romina’s raven hair beneath the dim lights. For a Tuesday night, quite the crowd had gathered inside Oakley’s, a trendy hangout in midtown Atlanta.
“Can I get you something else?” Bryan, the cute bartender, asked with a boyish smile.
Amalie looked at her watch again. Romina was already fifteen minutes late. Tonight of all nights, when Amalie needed her best friend most.
Amalie’s father, mega-billionaire Andrew Warner, had just dropped the hammer with his latest ultimatum, and Amalie needed Romina’s sage advice, help, magic—anything that might help her figure out what to do. Her father had been pushing her to work for the family business, something she had no interest in doing. If she didn’t, she’d be disowned and disinherited from the great Warner Hotel fortune. To some that might not be a huge deal, but to Amalie, who had no back-up plan, it was everything.
She sighed and took one last sip of her daiquiri. “No, that’ll be all. Thank you.”
With a quick nod, Bryan moved to the other end of the bar, where a seat had been claimed by a man who, even sitting down, was still taller than most. Amalie couldn’t help but give him a once-over. He had a powerful frame, even if soft around the edges, like the forgotten build of an athlete lived under his skin. But something else snagged her attention.
Amalie watched with interest as the bartender seemed to contemplate cutting the guy off for the night even though it was only eight o’clock. The man bristled, spine stiffening, fingers tightening around the empty tumbler before him. But in a half-second, his eyes flicked up to one of the flat screens suspended behind the bar and he leaned forward, completely enraptured, his face oddly serene.
As a writer, or well, washed-up writer on the hunt for her next idea, Amalie was captivated by this guy’s body language. One minute it looked like he might shatter his whiskey tumbler with his bare hands, and the next his eyes were glued to the television.
Amalie glanced at the screen, surprised to find a replay of the US Open tennis finals from several years ago. She knew enough about tennis to know the names of the Grand Slam tournaments and some of the cute players (hello, Rafael Nadal), but other than that, she was clueless. Her father, who loved tennis and watched it religiously, had tried to inspire a love of the sport in her, but…it just wasn’t there.
Her eyes slid back to the enigma at the end of the bar. There was a catlike tension in the way he studied the battle between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, his entire focus narrowed to the game, his muscles twitching with restrained energy. Her writer instincts screamed that there was far more going on here than a bar patron watching the rerun of an old match. Cheering and clapping erupted on the screen.
“I could’ve done that! Easily!” The man pounded his fist on the bar and exploded from his seat with such force that his barstool tumbled backward. He was just as tall as she imagined, well over six feet.
Amalie gasped and took a step back. The man downed his drink, slamming the empty glass onto the bar with a thud, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Another,” he growled at the bartender.
He shifted slightly and when he turned, she caught sight of his lovely eyes in the dim light, but they were marred with heavy bags beneath them.
“Hey, man. Julian, come on. You’ve got to chill,” Bryan pleaded.
Julian. Amalie rolled that name around in her mind, tasted it on her tongue. She supposed he looked like a Julian, though to be fair she hadn’t met a single Julian in her twenty-eight years. She studied him, his calves and thighs muscular beneath his khaki shorts. Yes, shorts, despite the cold. Even his arms looked like they had once been powerful, but judging by the slight beer gut he was rocking, Julian had missed a workout or two. He was ridiculously attractive, though, even if Amalie struggled to reconcile that fact with his brutish behavior.
She studied him further, imagining his story and committing his features to memory, a memory she would later take out, dissect, and piece together into one of her fictional heroes. Romina always teased that Amalie was more voyeur than participant in life. Perhaps that’s why writing was so important to her.
Julian’s burnt umber hair fell in unruly waves across his tanned forehead, his nose almost too flawless. But no, when he turned, she noted a slight bump, perhaps hinting at a fight at one point in his life? Or maybe, if he was like Amalie, a pretty nasty run-in with a suspiciously transparent sliding-glass door.
Julian’s profile, with his sulky lower lip, was a thing of beauty, and she found herself wondering why such loveliness had been wasted on a staggering mess of a man.
As if feeling the levity of her gaze, or rather her judgment, Julian met her stare. Now that was completely unfair. His eyes stood out against his dark skin, a stunning green that reminded her of lush trees in the spring, and there were tiny lightning strikes of sparkling gold darting from the pupils.
Wait…
Holy crap, she was standing directly in front of him, having gravitated towards him without even realizing it. It didn’t matter how hot he was, how big he was, she didn’t want any part of this.
As if he heard her thoughts, he raised a perfect, dark eyebrow, a quirk she was sure was meant to be sexy and had probably worked on dozens of other women, but at that moment it only came off as sloppy and awkward.
“Like what you see?” he challenged. His sultry voice would’ve made her panties melt if not for the slur accenting it.
Amalie recoiled, cheeks hot as she leveled the behemoth with a sneer. “Excuse me?”
Julian tilted his head, studying her with a drunken intensity that made her squirm. “I said, do you like what you see? My place isn’t that far…if you think you can keep your hands off me that long.”
Bryan snickered as he shook his head, pretending to be mesmerized by the cleanliness of the beer mug in his hand.
“Can you believe the balls on this guy?” Amalie hooked a thumb toward Julian as she looked to Bryan. For what, she had no idea.
“A filthy mouth, too.” Julian shot her a wink and sat back down at the bar. “My favorite.”
“You are out of control.” Amalie huffed. “I can’t help it that I naturally gravitated toward this”—she waved her arms around, motioning and flailing at Julian—“train wreck. I thought I might’ve had my next book idea. But yet you disappoint, something I’m sure is very common.”
There. She hated to be a mean girl, but he’d totally asked for it.
Julian reared back as if she’d slapped him but quickly recovered. “Enough of the spoiled little rich girl act. It reeks.”
She faltered, the sting hitting home. “You don’t even know me.”
“Right, and you don’t know me either, princess.”
Princess? Anger burned inside her as she poked her finger into his surprisingly hard chest. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, mister.”
He puffed up, straightened his broad shoulders, and gave her a scalding once-over. “Yeah, I’m shaking in my boots. Listen, I’ll have you know that you’re looking at a US Open contender.” He leveled her with a hard glare, daring her to argue.
Interest piqued, Amalie remained in place, her finger falling away. “You’re a tennis player?” she asked through gritted teeth while mentally berating herself for continuing this conversation.
Julian paused a beat too long before answering with a shrug. “You could say that.”
“Okay…” Amalie stretched the two-syllable word into three and cocked her brow as if to silently say, I call bullshit.
Julian blinked, but his gaze was still hazy as he responded with a surprising amount of vindication in his voice. “Actually, I’m going to qualify for the US Open.” His eyes widened, as if his words were a revelation to him as well.
Interesting. Amalie’s nails tapped the bar in an easy rhythm as she assessed him. “So I gather you used to play?” She almost mentioned his fading physique, but he was being oddly civil now, and she feared an observation like that would bring out the pig in him, again.
Julian averted his gaze, studying his hands, which now gripped the edge of the bar. He gave her a tight nod, then he seemed to slowly deflate. “I used to be the best. Before it all went to shit. Now I’m just a has-been, stuck selling pharmaceuticals day after day. I had everything I ever wanted right here”—Julian lifted a hand, palm open, his stare searing into his own flesh—“then I let it all slip away.”
It was a surprisingly coherent statement, one that echoed and mirrored things Amalie felt about her own life. But before she could dwell on it, electricity hummed in her veins, the wheels in her head spinning wildly.
A tiny spark of sunlight filtered through the cracks of the prison that had slowly become her life as an idea quickly formed. Ever since New Year’s Eve, she’d been mulling over goals, and writing a book was at the top of her list—this was perfect. The threat of having to work for her father receded as she pulled in a deep breath and let the realization settle over her bones. This could be her next hit, a novel that chronicled the rise to the top of a former tennis great. Hadn’t her agent, Stella, recently hinted that sports romances were making a comeback? Besides, everyone loves a good underdog story. She could see the headline now: Washed-Up Tennis Player Makes Run for US Open.
What were the odds that he played the only sport she knew even a little bit about?
Right now, it didn’t matter that she hated tennis. It didn’t matter that her father always rubbed it in her face that her older sister, Simone, was such a great player. It didn’t matter that he’d tried to force Amalie to take lessons even though her instructor was the meanest person on the planet and cut her down every time she made a mistake
Her past with tennis was exactly that the past. An opportunity had presented itself, and she was hellbent on taking it. Stella had been adamant that Amalie write something “real and honest,” something more along the lines of her debut, Breaking the Fall, the story that shot her into the next-big-thing stratosphere at the ripe age of nineteen. Of course, Amalie didn’t want to let her down. Stella Frenette of Frenette Literary had been a hard win after Amalie lost her first agent for being a little twit high on fame and her own wealth. She’d bailed on so many commitments and haggled over stuff so stupid it made film and book people walk away. Yeah, film—that’s how close she’d been to the big time.
Somewhere along the way, Amalie also lost the gift of natural storytelling. Every time she set pen to paper or fingers to keys, it felt forced. Her words read like See Jane run. See Jane jump. See Jane suck at writing.
Her last two novels fell flat because the characters weren’t realistic. To fix the problem, Stella suggested Amalie study real people. Her bestseller had centered around a heroine based on none other than her sister, Simone. The intimate knowledge shared by sisters had given Amalie the means to create a three-dimensional character readers adored, which was really no surprise. Who didn’t love Simone?
Amalie’s follow-up books hadn’t had that benefit and suffered because of it. She struggled to craft characters who leapt off the page, and she had no doubt the reason was because, other than Ro, she hadn’t let anyone get close. Not even her ex-fiancé, Maxwell. Not really. Amalie failed at human connection because people broke hearts, and her heart already had enough cracks. It couldn’t survive another quake.
She cringed as she thought of her early writing days, trying to reconcile that person with who she was now. Sadly, though she was ready to write again, the human connection thing was still a problem. But maybe Fate had given her a workaround. Readers—and Stella as well—would love that this novel was based on a real tennis player—one who was gorgeous and, with some training, would have muscles popping by the time the tournament rolled around. It would be so easy to capitalize on his looks and to even use the momentum of his rise to the top for promotion of the book.
She couldn’t let fear get in the way of her dream this time. She just needed to get this Julian fellow to the US Open.
Just as Amalie was about to open her mouth, Julian slumped over the bar, passed out cold. The bartender dipped his head and smiled. “From what I hear, he does this all the time. He’s pretty popular with the ladies, so usually he’s already secured one or two to go home with. Looks like he didn’t get that far with you.” He had the audacity to smirk.
“Hard to imagine that he’s popular with the ladies when he acts like a Neanderthal.”
Bryan leaned forward on the bar conspiratorially, his voice hushed. “He was different tonight. Besides, I think you got under his skin because you called his bullshit. But hey, that’s just my opinion.”
Amalie sized up the situation and Julian, her mind calculating a million possibilities at once. “Was he really a great tennis player?” she asked Bryan, needing to know for sure before she made her next decision.
Bryan nodded. “Hell yeah. You never heard of Julian Smoke? They called him ‘The Smoke’ in college because he was a beast. He was even pegged as the next tennis great of his generation.”
Amalie studied Julian’s face, willing herself to remember him from one of her father’s endless tennis ramblings. “What happened?” she asked, bringing her gaze back to the bartender.
“That’s his story to tell. You’ll have to ask him.”
Amalie drummed her fingers on the smooth surface of the bar one last time before releasing a deep breath and making a decision she was sure she’d regret. “Help me get him to my car, will ya?”
Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of PAINTING THE LINES by City Owl Author, Ashley R. King.
And find more from Jaqueline Snowe at www.jaquelinesnowe.com