Fast Courting by Barbara Delinsky Read Free Book Online Page B

that, why won’t you agree to my interview?”
    He showed no emotion. “Because I have nothing to say.”
    “God, are you stubborn!”
    “No more so than you,” he stated as fact.
    “Then why in the world are we here?” Nia bristled. He had turned off the road and was now pulling up to a small group of stores, one of which was a charmingly sleepy-looking restaurant. “I didn’t ask to be taken to lunch. You can easily turn around and take me back to my car.”
    Daniel angled the Datsun into a space, stilled its motor and uncoiled himself to step outside. When he reached Nia’s side, opened her door and offered his hand, she took it. They were in the restaurant and seated opposite one another at a quiet booth before she was able to speak.
    “I have no idea why I do it.” She spoke half to herself, shaking her head in slow dismay. Her violet eyes clouded as they sought a solution.
    Daniel frowned. “Do what?”
    “Go right along with you…against my better judgment. It’s happened three times now in the span of an hour.” Her lips thinned. “I must be a masochist when it comes to men and basketball.”
    “Either that,” his brown eyes warmed, “or you’re as hungry as I am.”
    “ That doesn’t deserve an answer,” she scolded softly, recalling all too vividly the problem they’d run into with double meanings earlier. Now she simply stared, awaiting Daniel’s next move. If he wouldn’t talk personally and she wouldn’t talk shop, what was left?
    The silence didn’t bother him in the least. He studied her face for agonizingly long seconds before turning to gesture toward the waitress for two of something. It had been an hour of surprises for Nia; why not another? Dutifully, she refrained from asking what he’d ordered, pandering instead to more professional curiosity.
    “Why didn’t you return any of my calls?”
    He glanced toward the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how many similar ones I get each week?”
    “Do you ignore all of them?”
    “No,” he answered patiently, then lowered his head in an attitude of near mischief. “It just takes time to get around to returning them. I’ve found that the less interested ones lose interest after a week or two. They stop calling. That saves some of the dirty work.”
    “The dirty work being calling them back and refusing their requests?” she asked, feeling strangely defensive, almost guilty.
    “Often.”
    Nia thought back to what he’d said earlier. “What about all that free time you mentioned? I would think you’d welcome the diversion, as a time-filler, if nothing else. It must be ego-boosting to grant a bevy of interviews.”
    “Ah,” he breathed facetiously, “the professional athlete as an insufferable prima donna.”
    “Am I that far off-base?” She smiled in a challenge that Daniel Strahan met one-on-one.
    “About me…yes. About some in the league…no. The game has changed dramatically over the last few years.”
    “Oh?” It was shaky ground for Nia, but she was hesitant to cut him off. There was always the possibility that, if she proved herself to be an innocuous, even pleasant companion, he might actually agree to her interview.
    Daniel’s explanation took the form of a pair of terse words. “Big money.” His expression held a shadow of disdain.
    “It’s really changed things all that much?”
    “Oh, yes,” he drawled.
    “How?”
    As his gaze grew pensive, his fingers flexed, then intertwined. Nia looked down at them, noting both their length and latent strength. They were beautifully formed, begging to be explored and admired, one by one. Catching her breath at the thought, she forced her eyes up just in time to note Daniel’s glimmer of awareness before it disappeared behind a mask of detachment.
    He spoke quietly. “In the old days—”
    “—when you played?” she teased him gently.
    As though in punishment—or was it reward?—he grinned that honest to goodness grin of his, a grin that melted her own