As he did, she took her first up-close look at him, searching for that elusive “it” factor that seemed to make men want to be him and women want to do him. Granted, he owed much of that to his packaging, but she’d already known that. He had still-wet-from-his-shower dark hair and movie-star dark eyes, and a face that could have been descended directly from the Greek gods, but she wasn’t moved by such things. As a writer and a people watcher, Holly knew his pull had to go far deeper, that there had to be more to his charisma than genetic makeup.

Or so she hoped.

But the good looks sure didn’t hurt. He hadn’t shaved, though she could smell his shampoo or soap, something woodsy and incredibly male that made her nostrils sort of quiver. Which meant People magazine appeared to be correct on the beautiful-people assessment—he clearly had genuine appeal.

Since she barely came up to his broad shoulders, she had to tip her head up to stare into his face as he straightened and handed her back her pad, giving her just enough time to see that his eyes weren’t the solid brown his bio claimed, but rather had gold swirling in the mix. They weren’t smiling to match his mouth, not even close, and if she had to guess, she’d say Mr. Hotshot was pissed at something.

Then she glanced down at her pad and saw what he’d done.

An autograph. He’d just given her an autograph.

And then, while she was still just staring at the sprawling signature in shock, he handed her back her pen and walked away, heading down the wide hallway with his steady, long-legged, effortlessly confident stride.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t want—”

But he’d turned a corner and was already gone.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

You spend a good chunk of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around the whole time.

—Jim Bouton, professional baseball player and writer

Unbelievable, Holly thought, stunned enough to stand there while Pace got away. Okay, so maybe she had looked like a fan girl hanging around outside the locker room. And she’d obviously been holding a pen and a pad of paper, just as she imagined the hordes of people who hounded him on a daily basis did.

But there was something faintly embarrassing about him thinking that all she’d wanted from him was a signature. And for the first time since she’d taken on this assignment, instead of thinking of killing her boss, she thought of Pace Martin as someone more than an overpaid athlete. He was flesh and blood, no doubt complete with a myriad of complex emotions driving him. As a writer she should have known that—which would be her first and last mistake. At least today.