Dirty Play (The Ferrari Family Book 1) Read online

  But, luckily, being a pro athlete had some perks, including media training. And for that reason, the idea of putting a very attractive woman in front of me to try to open up about my future—a future that, by the way, I really had not thought that far ahead about—would not work.

  Well, it might have worked on some twenty-one-year-old rookies who thought they could sleep with anyone, but not on someone who knew he could—and could be much pickier as a result.

  “Well, Nick Ferrari, we appreciate you sitting down with us. Let’s close with some good old Ferrari Wine, huh?”

  “Indeed,” I said, reaching for the glass that I had put to my lips many times during this interview—that still had the same amount of alcohol in it as it had at the beginning.

  “This is your grandfather’s? Alf?”

  “Yep,” I said. “He came here in the sixties in pursuit of the American dream. I’m just trying to make him and my father proud.”

  “Well, that’s as good a toast as I’ve heard. You heard it here first, folks. Nick Ferrari, toasting to the American dream.”

  “And the Giants organization.”

  We clinked, put it to our mouths, and put it back down. I smiled and someone yelled, “and…cut!” Immediately, our bubble of an interview space popped from about half-a-dozen different sides. I’d experienced this type of scene starting with when I’d gotten drafted fifth overall, but it still seemed surreal every time—like one minute, I’d been soaking in a private oasis with typically a very attractive woman, or at least a charming guy who could make good conversation, and the next, it was like I had somehow decided taking a seat in the middle of a Manhattan intersection was a good idea.

  Typically, in these spots, I liked to hang back, make small talk with all the folks that wouldn’t make it onto the TV screen, and offer them a tour of Ferrari Vineyards. But before I could say a word, the woman, Brittney, came straight over to me, all but claiming me as her own before anyone else on set could have a word.

  “This is really damn good wine,” she said. “Fuck! I always love coming out to the Bay Area. All you get is jack shit everywhere else.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said with a playful laugh. “Ferrari Wines does sell across the country. We’re not just local.”

  “Maybe, but there’s nothing like getting it from the source.”

  Her eyes never left mine when she spoke, and there was a certain tone to her voice that suggested what she was looking to get was not necessarily wine.

  “Well, my father would be happy to give you a tour. Tell ‘em Nick sent you, and ask for Bill Ferrari, I’m sure he’ll be happy to help.”

  “You’re not going to give me a tour?”

  Damn, and she sounded so earnest in asking that question.

  “I’ve got a baseball season to prepare for, Brittney!”

  She slightly blushed, but I still think she seemed more than a little surprised that I wasn’t giving it to her so easily.

  “Look, I would love to,” I said, which was somewhat of an exaggeration. “But spring training starts in just a few weeks, and when that’s done, the season is in full swing, and it’ll be virtually impossible to give myself a tour, let alone anyone else that’ll probably be traveling just as much as I am. I’ve got a bunch of siblings like me you could ask. There’s Brett—that guy knows more about wine than anyone I know. Layla, she’s a real sharp one. You could ask Leo, although…”

  “No worries,” Brittney said, a smile on her face, but her eyes turning cold. “Thanks anyway.”

  With that, she turned her back on me, demanded someone grab her lunch, and left me to my own devices. It was just as well. I should have passed her off to Brett or Leo—those two would have loved someone like her.

  I headed back into the main office of Ferrari Wines, taking the opportunity to check my phone. I had about a dozen new text messages—two were from my father, asking me to come to his office when the interview wrapped up. Three were in a family chat, two from Brett, one from Layla. A few were from some reporters asking me if I’d be available for an interview. A couple were from some girls that wanted to know when I’d be in town.

  In other words, only one person’s texts actually required my attention at that moment.

  I walked through the middle of the building, trying to move as quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t have to stop for any autographs. Given that we’d conducted our interview relatively early in the day and on a Tuesday, that didn’t seem too likely, but unfortunately, as a pro athlete, there was no such thing as privacy when out in public. People wanted to be me, but what they didn’t realize is that after about two weeks of everyone thinking they knew you, you just wanted to be another anonymous man moving about the streets of Sacramento or San Francisco.

  I reached my father’s door, which was slightly ajar, and put my hand on it.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I stopped. He was on the phone.

  “OK…OK…you’re not going to tell Dad, right? You know he doesn’t want to know about that anymore.”

  About what? But I didn’t think too much about it. Although I would eventually take a greater hands-on role in the family business, being a professional athlete did not really allow time for a second role. I certainly leveraged my image and brand name to benefit the family business, but that was just me putting a pretty smile and a confident voice on the various media platforms, not me providing marketing strategies or acquiring new distribution clients.

  “No, Nick, I told you—whatever they want, we keep Dad away from it. You know he’s trying to enjoy retirement with Mom. It’s—”

  Another pause came.

  “Look, here’s the bottom line, OK?” my father said. “You take care of it however you need to. Do not rope Dad in unless you absolutely have to. You know just the mention of that will turn him inward very quickly. OK? OK. Goodbye.”

  I waited a second after my father had let out a long sigh before I knocked once and pushed open the door.

  “Tough call with Uncle Nick?”

  My father, with his heads in his hands, laughed in an exasperated manner.

  “Nothing but some disagreements about how business is run,” he said.

  Something in me said that that wasn’t exactly the full truth, but it was like if one of my teammates said he’d “only” stayed out until midnight; it wasn’t something that I could change.

  “How did the interview with ESPN go?”

  “It was fine,” I said with a sigh. “You know how it is. Tried to push them towards Ferrari Wines—”

  My father cut me off right there.

  “You’ve always done good for the business, Nick, and we’ll get you more involved when you retire. I didn’t drive your ass to Little League games eight months a year and batting practice another three so that you could retire in your prime.”

  “Strange, I always thought you enjoyed that.”

  “I enjoyed it when it meant I got to have some peace and quiet with your lunatic siblings,” he said.

  I laughed. I knew full well that the minute my father got around Brett or Layla, he’d be calling me the stupid jock. It was just how we operated.

  Well, everyone except Leo, but that was…that was an incomprehensible one.

  “Anyway, just wanted to see what the chances were of you reaching up to the marketing department in the Giants to get us some wall space in the outfield,” he said. “That’s some prime real estate space, and more people are interested in wine than they are in some hot new app that butchers the English language.”

  “I can make some calls,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “See to it that you do,” he said. “I know that as soon as you head down to spring training, your ass will be harder to corral than a mountain lion.”

  I laughed, promised that I would make do, and left. With nothing left to do at the family business for the day, I headed outside, found my Tesla, and got inside.

  I may have been the only person in
the world who actually liked driving in California traffic, and it wasn’t false modesty for me to say that. At almost every other hour of the day, I had thousands, if not millions, of eyes on me. Even bringing a girl back to the house or to a hotel room was a risk; some girls thought they would get famous recording a sex tape of me. It hadn’t happened yet, but the paranoia was always there.

  In my car, though? No one was recording me. No one was keeping tabs on me. It was just me, the road, and whatever audio I had playing. I usually liked to listen to a good audiobook, but it wasn’t something I talked about much. I had to maintain some secrecy.

  “You have one new email.”

  The car notified me of this arrival, something that only happened when I got something that wasn’t obviously marked as spam or kept from me by my personal assistant. Although I was a good driver, as we’d reached a spot where we were in bumper to bumper traffic, I decided to check the email. The subject had my attention immediately: “Speaking gig at Fresno State.” My alma mater.

  “Dear Nick Ferrari,

  We hope this email finds you well. As part of our Friends of Fresno campaign, we are actively seeking successful alumni to speak at the opening of the career fair about the process of becoming good at what they do.”

  I read through the rest of the body of the email, which contained the usual marketing bit about who past speakers were, what it would mean to fellow bulldogs, and so on and so forth. The part that really mattered, though, was who was signing this email at the end. It wasn’t like I had the entire Fresno State administration memorized, but my days as a star baseball player there—not to mention the “Ferrari” name—introduced me to more than a few of the higher-ups.

  “Please let us know at your earliest convenience.

  Sincerely,

  Izzy Saunders”

  Izzy Saunders. I repeated the name in my head a few times, trying to recall if I had ever known an Izzy Saunders. No, I had not.

  “Hey, Siri,” I said. “Search for ‘Izzy Saunders’ on Google.”

  After Siri confirmed the search had been completed, I took a quick glance at the results while traffic remained at a standstill.

  And, damn, I didn’t say this often, but she was stunningly attractive. Like, not just porn-star or made-for-TV hot, but beautiful too.

  First, she had a captivating smile that pretty much made it impossible not to fall for her. So many girls thought the “unsmiling” look was sexy, and I just never understood the appeal. It was like they deliberately made themselves less attractive, but Izzy did not suffer from that issue.

  Second, as shallow as it may have sounded, she hit a lot of the “shallow” qualities I preferred. She had brunette hair; she had dark blue eyes; she had amazing dimples; and she wore clothing that made it clear that while she had a great body, she was not trying to reveal everything to the world.

  Perhaps I was just spoiled by all of the girls who thought cleavage plus blonde hair equaled an easy night with me, but I really valued someone who could pull off an understated look like this.

  And, of course, it didn’t hurt that the speaking engagement would be at the school I had attended mere miles away, had a great relationship with, and would allow me to speak about whatever I wanted. I wouldn’t have to answer a host’s questions; I wouldn’t get grilled by a reporter—for once, I’d actually get to say whatever I wanted and not have to do it on someone else’s terms.

  I had never said yes so fast in my life. In fact, I actually pulled off the highway so I could safely reply. I knew full well that using Izzy as a reason to say yes was dumb. The real value in this was giving back to Fresno State, not in the chance to meet a woman. Someone with my name didn’t need to use backhanded means of winning over someone.

  But I had to say, I didn’t think I’d seen someone like that since I’d become a prominent public figure.

  Chapter 2: Izzy

  As soon as I hit “Send” to Nick Ferrari’s personal email address, I got up from my chair, left my marketing office, and checked my phone. Please, nothing today. Nothing today. Nothing…

  I had three new texts.

  One was from my mother, asking if Ryan had begun sleeping a little bit better at the house. Two were from a friend in town, Rebecca, asking me if I’d like a break from parenting by having a round of drinks with her.

  None were from any kind of official or law enforcement.

  I felt my shoulders relax and my lips go from rigidly sharp to a gentle smile. In fact, it soon turned to soft laughter as I thought about what “a round of drinks” with Rebecca would look like. Let’s just say it would not start and end at one drink—she would find a way to turn that phrase into a literal circle of a dozen drinks that we’d have to finish through the duration of the night.

  Well, if he shows back up in your life in any fashion, you’re probably going to need multiple nights like that.

  That dark thought was always in the back of my mind—and probably always would be—but at least it came around frequently enough that I knew how to handle it and wouldn’t break down at its presence.

  I took the peaceful moment to just sit on the park bench right outside our office, basking under the warm California sun. Such moments in my life were rare these days, and I didn’t pass up the chance to get them when I could. Someday, I’m going to have to let the office run a “bring your kid to work” day.

  I walked back inside a few moments later and nodded to some of my coworkers. I made myself a pot of coffee, my second of the day, and said a few words to my boss, Jordan. I headed back to my desk, expecting to hit the list of more people to invite to Fresno State’s job fair kickoff.

  I did not expect to see that the first person I had emailed had not only already responded, but they had responded in the affirmative.

  “Dear Izzy…”

  Well, that’s a first.

  “I would be honored to speak at my alma mater—can never pass up the chance to help guide current Bulldogs. Please let me know how I can meet you to get everything running.”

  Meet me? That’s another first.

  Nick very much had the wrong idea about who I was. While I had a bit of a big role at this firm, I wasn’t the one who would be running point on every single aspect of this event—assuming I was willing to let go when the day came, that was. I was running a lot of it, but I had an assistant to help with that. Besides, I wasn’t going to give him some insightful advice about running his firm or making his brand bigger on campus.

  Or, maybe, he very much understood what I was, and there was a little more to his email than had first seemed obvious.

  Now I was curious. Admittedly, I could pass this off as work, since I’d be doing this eventually, but I didn’t usually do my “due diligence” on my clients until they had confirmed. It was a waste of time to learn about someone you’d never meet in person or in a publicly recorded session.

  But since Nick had just affirmed that he would be there, what was the harm?

  I knew from just living in the area that he played for the San Francisco Giants as an outfielder and had obviously played ball at Fresno State, but beyond that, I didn’t know much about him. A quick Google search revealed much more to him than just being a guy who could swing.

  For starters, his family might have been worth more than his actual contract—he came from the Ferrari family, the namesake of Ferrari Wines. Rumor had it, according to a few articles I clicked through, that the Ferraris had started as mobsters, but all of the family members had denied and called it a low-blow attempt to make them look bad.

  Second, Nick also was not like most athletes, who got outlandish with their tattoos, their dress, or their style. He looked pretty buttoned-up and clean-cut; rare was the photo of him with stubble or facial hair, and he dressed in a sophisticated fashion but not to the point of being a metrosexual. He seemed well-liked by the fans and was consistently rated as one of the favorite players on the team.

  And I could see why.

  Put f
rankly, he was really fucking hot. He had brown hair that always seemed impeccably trimmed and clean; I never saw a photo where it looked too long or too short. He could make it spike at the front, but not to the point of looking like a tool or someone out of a heavy metal concert. He had seductively haunting brown eyes, but they also didn’t seem to be that forceful; they weren’t the kind of eyes that sucked you in so much as they made you want to feel drawn in. He had a fantastic smile.

  And, of course, being paid to use your body effectively in athletic competition meant that you had to have the muscles to perform at the level where you got paid.

  It was too bad that I’d had experience with the so-called “hot guy” that ended so badly and so violently that a restraining order came into play.

  It was too bad that I always had a “no-touch” rule with clients. There was no chance I would do anything more than shake Nick’s hand.

  But boy, if there ever was someone to break the rule for…

  “Izzy?”

  “Jesus!” I yipped as I jumped in my chair, turning around just in time to see my boss, Jordan, the chief marketing officer at our firm, standing in our door. “Sorry, was not expecting you.”

  “Apparently so,” she said with a gentle smile.

  I liked working for Jordan. She was much older than me and had taken on something of a parental role at the firm. She knew how hard I worked as a single mom. She didn’t know the details of why I had put the “single” in “single mom,” but she knew enough to know it hadn’t been a decision made on solid ground, and she had more than done her part to make sure I came through the situation as intact as possible.

  “Everything all good?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, catching my breath. “Just doing research on our speaker for the Fresno State job fair.”

  “Ohhh, is that Nick Ferrari?”

  Apparently, the name was far more common than I thought. Jordan was married with two preteen girls, both of whom were more interested in the arts than athletics. I would have figured she’d watched more modern-day MTV shows than baseball games.