Opposites Attract

win.”
    “It showed,” Madge agreed, giving her shoulder a quick rub. “Nobody’d believe you haven’t played pro in three years. I hardly believe it myself.”
    Slowly Asher lifted her face to her old partner. “I’m not in shape yet, Madge,” she said beneath the din of the still-cheering crowd. “My calves are knotted. I don’t even know if I can stand up again.”
    Madge skimmed a critical glance over Asher’s features. She couldn’t detect a flicker of pain. Bending, she scooped up Asher’s warm-up jacket, then draped it over Asher’s shoulders. “I’ll help you to the showers. I don’t play for a half hour. You just need a few minutes on the massage table.”
    Exhausted, hurting, Asher started to agree, then spotted Ty watching her. His grin might have been acknowledgment of her victory. But he knew her, Asher reflected, knew her inside as no one else did.
    “No thanks, I’ll manage.” Effortfully she rose to zip the cover around her racket. “I’ll see you after you beat Fortini.”
    “Asher—”
    “No, really, I’m fine now.” Head high, muscles screaming, she walked toward the tunnel that led to the locker rooms.
    Alone in the steam of the showers, Asher let herself empty, weeping bitterly for no reason she could name.

Chapter 3
    It was the night after her victory in the semifinals that Asher confronted Ty again. She had kept herself to a rigorous schedule of practice, exercise, press, and play. Her pacing purposely left her little time for recreation. Practice was a religion. Morning hours were spent in the peaceful tree-shaded court five, grooving in, polishing her footwork, honing her reflexes.
    Exercise was a law. Push-ups and weight lifting, stretching and hardening the muscles. Good press was more than a balm for the ego. Press was important to the game as a whole as well as the individual player. And the press loved a winner.
    Play was what the athlete lived for. Pure competition—the testing of the skills of the body, the use of the skills of the mind. The best played as the best dancers danced—for the love of it. During the days of her second debut, Asher rediscovered love.
    In her one brief morning meeting with Ty she had rediscovered passion. Only her fierce concentration on her profession kept her from dwelling on a need that had never died. Rome was a city for lovers—it had been once for her. Asher knew that this time she must think of it only as a city for competition if she was to survive the first hurdle of regaining her identity. Lady Wickerton was a woman she hardly recognized. She had nearly lost Asher Wolfe trying to fit an image. How could she recapture herself if she once again became Starbuck’s lady?
    In a small club in the Via Sistina where the music was loud and the wine was abundant, Asher sat at a table crowded with bodies. Elbows nudged as glasses were reached for. Liquor spilled and was cheerfully cursed. In the second and final week of the Italian Open, the tension grew, but the pace mercifully slowed.
    Rome was noise, fruit stands, traffic, outdoor cafés. Rome was serenity, cathedrals, antiquity. For the athletes it was days of grueling competition and nights of celebration or commiseration. The next match was a persistent shadow over the thoughts of the winners and the losers. As the music blared and the drinks were poured, they discussed every serve, every smash and error and every bad call. Rome was blissfully indolent over its reputation for bad calls.
    “Long!” A dark, lanky Australian brooded into his wine. “That ball was inside by two inches. Two bloody inches.”
    “You won the game, Michael,” Madge reminded him philosophically. “And in the second game of the fifth set, you had a wide ball that wasn’t called.”
    The Australian grinned and shrugged. “It was only a little wide.” He brought his thumb and forefinger close together at the good-natured razzing of his peers. “What about this one?” His gesture was necessarily shortened by the close quarters as he lifted a drink toward Asher. “She beats an Italian in the Foro Italico, and the crowd still cheers her.”
    “Breeding,” Asher returned with a mild smile. “The fans always recognize good breeding.”
    Michael snorted before he swallowed the heavy red wine. “Since when does a bloody steamroller need breeding?” he countered. “You flattened her.” To emphasize his point he slammed a palm down on the table and ground it in.
    “Yeah.” Her smile