Page 1 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

AUDREY

LATE MARCH

S ometimes life is like baseball—in that it can suck.

But as every fan of a team who is playing worse than pee wees in desperate need of a nap, sometimes you just have to sit there and endure until the last inning. Even if you know that what awaits is a big L.

This is one of such occasions. I know it as well as I know my legal name, what with the fact that I changed it and all.

The assistant of Charlie Cox, owner of the Orlando Wild team, is missing from his desk, which makes this all the easier for me.

Without warning, I push the door of team owner’s office open.

There is no one else in this building who would dare to barge in on the man upon whose whims hinge all our salaries.

I have seen people actively cow away when he walks down the hallways, among them my roommates.

It’s probably a result of how he wiped half of the workforce the second he bought the team just five years ago.

Unlike Hope and Rose, though, I have full immunity from getting fired.

The truth is that Charlie Cox is my father. However, Charlie isn’t the protective kind of father, wanting to get his spoiled daughter a big present that will make her happy.

Baseball was supposed to be my refuge from him .

I thought going away to an ivy league college would put enough distance between us.

After everything we had gone through at that point—losing my brother, followed by my parents’s inevitable and very expensive divorce—I figured he would be better off living his alcoholic billionaire life without me in the picture.

It worked out for a while. I graduated from college, found my dream job at a professional baseball team without any connections, and even got a loan to buy a nice house and start fresh by my own, honest means.

Then five years into my new life as Audrey Winters—Mom’s maiden name—Dad showed up again as the new owner of the team I worked on.

We’ve kept a careful truce since, consisting of pretending like we don’t personally know each other while at work, and me blocking him from every other form of communication.

This is the moment all that is going to end.

Hope and Cade’s relationship came out to light yesterday, and Rose is about to risk her entire career to help them. I can’t just stand by doing nothing when I hold the figurative keys to the kingdom.

It just means that I’ll have to give something up—something I’ve been getting quite comfortable with in the past few years.

My peace of mind.

Dad turns around at my entrance, cutting an impressive figure for someone who is sixty-three-years-old and has personally met the bottom of many a bottle.

His phone is in his hand and Airpods in his ears, which makes me guess I’m interrupting a phone call.

He may be negotiating the purchase of an entire country for all I care.

“I’ll have to call you back,” he says to whoever is on the other end of the line, a smirk growing on half of his face. “I’m afraid I have a very interesting visitor to take care of.”

Like in all dealings with him, I can’t help but feeling like a little bird hopping willingly into the mouth of a cat. I fold my arms and widen my stance, pretending like my heart isn’t about to escape from my throat with how fast it’s beating.

“Audrey,” he says as a greeting, finally removing the Airpods from his ears. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“I’m here to make a deal with you,” I respond, cutting to the chase because he and a panel of other powerful men in the organization are about to go into a conference room with Cade Starr to decide on the fate of his girlfriend, my roommate and friend, Hope Garcia, and whether dating a player is a violation of her employment contract.

I have zero confidence that panel’s better judgement will prevail.

Since when do men judge women fairly? And as much as Rose’s fingers have the magic to make viral hits for the team’s social media page, I doubt that public opinion alone will be enough to sway my dad, a man who doesn’t even care about his family.

The only thing he responds to is power, and no one but me has any semblance of it over him.

“Is that so?” His bushy, white-blond eyebrows rise, giving him the same air of cynicism from a robber baron of the Gilded Age. And yes, I’ve been watching a lot of historical shows. Anything to escape my reality.

Dad is old, old , and yet even older money, and has always conducted himself like it puts him above the entire plane of existence called the twenty first century.

The worst part is that it’s true, his rules of the game are completely different to anyone else’s.

I’m here to play by them, even at the cost of losing.

I take a deep breath. “I want you to guarantee Hope and Rose’s jobs.”

“Who?”

It’s not easy, but I manage not to snark at him. I don’t know if he asked the lil question to be annoying, or if he truly doesn’t know.

“Hope Garcia, the training staff member who was found to be dating our starting pitcher, and Rosalina Mena, the social media manager who is about to blow it up publicly.”

“Audrey, that’s not how you make a deal. You have to make me care and also give me something in return.” He shakes his head in mockery. “I thought I taught you better.”

What he really taught me is to not trust him, but saying that aloud won’t help my case right now.

“In exchange, I’ll give you something you want.” I make a strategic pause but Dad shows no signs of being reeled in. Finally, I say, “Direct access to me.”

All along, that’s what he’s been angling for with buying the team and hovering nearby. Adam, my brother, has been dead for ten years already, and Mom moved to Paris the second her passport said Adalyn Winters instead of Adalyn Cox. I’m the last possible puppet Dad has left.

Rather than closing his jaws around me, the big predator in the room just shrugs. “How is that any different than how things already are?”

“Very different,” I hasten to add, thinking my argument aloud. “I’ll go with you to galas and country clubs, and pretend like we’re a happy family like you want.”

“Audrey, Audrey.” Dad shakes his head like he’s disappointed. “That’s not what I want.”

“Then what?” I ask even as I know the truth behind his words. If he’d really wanted a happy family, he wouldn’t have been the one to destroy it in the first place. But instead of starting out with a high and dangerous bargain, I’d rather try on the lower end.

“What I want is for you to accept your inheritance.”

My breath hitches.

That sounds good, right? Accepting a trust containing a multitude of businesses, among them a whole professional baseball franchise, billions of dollars in cash, jewels, properties, holdings, stocks, and bonds is probably anyone’s dream.

But it’s my personal nightmare, because it comes with strings attached. The kind you’ll never be able to cut.

“We’ve already talked about this,” I remind him. In fact, that was the subject of our very last fight before I went to college on his dime, before I decided that cutting off his money supply was the only way I could free myself from him.

Back then, I believe that the words I used were hell and no .

“I recall.” His amusement raises the other corner of his mouth into a full smile. “But surely you don’t expect that a few soirees will be enough for me to forgive your roommates.”

I bristle at that—not at the fact that he does know who Hope and Rose is. “Forgive? That word would only apply if they had offended you directly.”

He places a hand on his chest, right over the place where his heart is missing. “I am personally offended. Look at them, trying to sink the reputation of my team, when I kindly offered them their jobs in the first place.”

“They’re not in breach of their contracts and you know it.”

Ignoring that resounding argument, Dad just says, “That’s my bargain. Take it or leave it. Either you accept your inheritance with everything it entails, or I let HR take care of your little friends.”

Wow, I didn’t think I could hate my own father any more than I already did, and yet I just unlocked a new level of vitriol for the man.

Grinding my teeth and squeezing my fists, I ask, “Can we change the terms of my inheritance? I’m happy to leave most of it to the trust or something as long as I don’t have to…”

I can’t say it.

My throat closes up and I have trouble taking in oxygen, like I’m allergic to the rest of the sentence.

Dad finishes it for me without a problem, though. “No, you will have to marry a man I approve of in order to get your inheritance.”

My head swims. I regret power walking so far into his massive office because there’s nothing nearby for me to balance against.

“But I’m willing to sweeten the pot a little.

I’ll guarantee that your friends will stay employed by the Orlando Wild for as long as they want, and I’ll even make you the team owner a year after your marriage.

How about that?” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, aww shucks like and not as if he’s uttering absolutely unhinged words.

“Your definition of sweet and mine are very different, Dad,” I say with a bitter taste in my mouth.

He checks his Patek Philippe watch, worth the entire salary of our All Star catcher. “I have a disciplinary meeting to go to in ten minutes, so tell me quick. Is that a no?”

Shit.

Even though my head races, I can’t find a single way to solve this, and I knew from the beginning that I was going to be the loser of this deal. I just didn’t think that Dad would charge me the full price.

But I have no choice. There’s no way I can stand by and watch an injustice being done against my friends. They’re like my family now—more than this man ever was, or than the woman who lives in front of the Eiffel Tower.

“Fine,” I mutter, barely holding down the bile rising up my throat. “I agree to your terms.”

The predator leisurely leaves his spot by the window, where he was sunning when I barged in. He stops before me, extending his hand for a handshake. The moment his hand closes around mine is when the commentators in my mind announce that I’ve officially lost the game.