“You bastard.”
The word hit as if she’d stabbed him in the gut. Yes, he’d done this on purpose. He’d humiliated and inflicted pain upon the only woman he thought could ever really matter to him.
Roy held up his hands as if to remind her she knew what an ass he could be.
He could see her shake as she approached him and he kept his hands down, opened himself to whatever she would say next.
She slapped him. Hard, across his cheek. As punishment, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
“I hate you for this. I hate you, Roy Walker.”
Then she walked past Danny and his flavor of the moment without so much as a word.
* * *
ROY LATER LEARNED that Lane moved out of her home that night. She and Danny were divorced six months later. The Founders’ season collapsed as the locker room never got over the pure hatred the star pitcher and shortstop felt for each other. And Lanie left her sports therapy business, putting the world of professional baseball behind her.
Roy heard she’d taken a job working at a veterans rehab facility. Helping soldiers with missing limbs adjust to their prosthetics. Sounded like something Lanie would choose to do.
At the start of his final game in baseball, Roy focused on doing what he’d promised himself he would. Go out on top.
And he did. Pitched a “no-no.” No hits. Only one walk. It wasn’t for the playoffs, or for the World Series win. Just the end of a lousy season, but a great career.
In his heart Roy knew he did it for her. The princess of baseball deserved such a tribute. Even though he doubted she watched.
After, he changed out of his uniform, got into his car and drove away from the stadium and the game that had been his life since he was six years old.
It was time to start a new life. Maybe in this new life he could forget Lanie Baker ever existed. The way she had so obviously done with him. He’d written her a letter to try to explain why he’d done it and, more importantly, that he was sorry.
He never heard from her.
Yes, it was definitely time to move on and forget his princess. After all, everyone knew the villain didn’t get the princess. Only the hero did. And Roy was never the hero.
A few months ago
“YOU’RE BROKE.”
Roy looked at his accountant and blinked. Frank’s face remained unchanged and entirely serious.
Roy knew the news would be bad. But not this bad. “That can’t be right.”
“You chose not to file for bankruptcy,” Frank reminded him. “I told you to.”
Stubbornly, Roy had refused. Bankruptcy had seemed like the coward’s way out. He’d taken the products from his vendors in good faith and he was a man who paid his debts. All of them. This meeting today was to discuss what was left.
Apparently not much.
“Look, you still have a few assets you can sell to get you a little more liquid until you get back on your feet. Your father’s house—”
“Not an option.”
Frank sighed. “Right. Your town house, then.”
“Great. I can sell that.”
“That will take some time. It’s November, not the greatest season to move real estate. What about your ex-fiancée’s thirty-thousand-dollar engagement ring?”
“Also not an option.”
Frank shook his head. “In today’s world it’s custom to give the ring back, regardless of who broke it off.”
Maybe, but Shannon hadn’t offered and Roy couldn’t ask for it. He’d met Shannon a few years into his new life and they had dated for nearly a year before deciding to get married. He’d tried, he really had, to make the long-term commitment work. But eventually he’d admitted to himself marriage wasn’t in the cards so he ended it.
Six weeks before the wedding.
What he’d done to her—led her on, let her plan a big, public wedding—was wrong and if she took some consolation from an expensive ring, she was welcome to it.
But that decision seemed to kick off his entire life coming down on him like a ton of bricks. After he ended the engagement, his developers told him the coding logic in Roy’s new high-tech gaming system, SportsNation, was faulty and would not be ready for their scheduled major launch. All the money they had poured into publicity, including print, radio and television, essentially gone as they had to push back the release date again and again.
By the time they got it working, there was another—better—product on the market. Eventually Roy’s company did launch the system, but it was too little too late. The company in which he’d invested every dime, every ounce of energy, for the past five years had failed.
Now he was broke.
He was thirty-seven, just beginning what was supposed to be the second half of his life. And it was over after five measly years.
Roy leaned back in his chair, looking at the stack of papers on the older man’s desk. Roy’s life had been reduced to overdue notices and collection letters. When all was said and done, there was nothing left but the loose change in his couch.
“What about advertising? You know, do a few commercials for some local auto dealer. They love that stuff. Or ESPN? You could become one of those baseball color commentators.”
Roy knew Frank was trying to help, just like he’d given him sound advice about the bankruptcy option. But Roy didn’t want to go back to any part of baseball. He sure as hell didn’t have the personality for television. And given his nonrelationship with about everyone associated with MLB, he was fairly sure no one would be standing in line to do him any favors. The type of job offers players got after they retired were based on the connections they made while they were still playing.
Roy hadn’t made any friends, let alone connections. He pitched. He pitched better than anyone. That’s what he did.
Even if he could find a way to work up the enthusiasm to sell some product, advertisers wanted someone relevant. Roy hadn’t been that in five years. Maybe after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame he would be, but not now.
“You could get a job. What kind of skills do you have?”
“I throw a mean sinking cutter.”
“Look, you’ve got some cash. Maybe it’s enough to get you through until you sell your house. If you’ve got some fancy watches or something...”
Roy shook his head. All of it, every last thing, had gone into the company. He drove a ten-year-old Jeep and his last investment in himself had been a five-dollar haircut. There was nothing to sell.
“What about some of your old baseball stuff? You hardly ever gave any of that away. I’ll bet that might fetch you some bucks to hold you over.”
Hold him over until what? The town house was in a nice area of Philadelphia, the city he’d chosen to establish his business, but it wouldn’t set him up for life. It might provide some seed money to invest in a new company, but what kind of lenders would take a chance on him again?
He’d seen it in the faces around him at the end. From the people who worked for him and the people to whom he owed money. Roy Walker was a great pitcher but he didn’t know much about building a successful company.
A vision of him selling used cars to men who shook his hand and said, “Hey, weren’t you that pitcher?” flashed in front of his eyes.
“So