Opposites Attract

to one.
    Starbuck was the U.S. Indoor Tennis champion, and the crowd’s hero.
    Asher let the enthusiasm pour around her as Ty walked to the net for the traditional handshake. The match had affected her more than she’d anticipated, but she passed this off as professional admiration. Now she allowed herself to wonder what his reaction would be when he saw her again.
    Had she hurt him? His heart? His pride? The pride, she mused. That she could believe. The heart was a different matter. He would be angry, she concluded. She would be cool. Asher knew how to maintain a cool exterior as well as she knew how to smash an overhead lob. She’d learned it all as a child. When they met, she would simply deploy his temper. She had been preparing for the first encounter almost as religiously as she had been preparing to pick up her profession again. Asher was going to win at both. After he had finished with the showers and the press, she would make it a point to seek him out. To congratulate him—and to present the next test. It was much wiser for her to make the first move, for her to be the one prepared. Confident, she watched Ty exchange words with Grimalier at the net.
    Then Ty turned his head very slowly, very deliberately. With no searching through the crowd, no hesitation, his eyes locked on hers. The strength of the contact had her drawing in a sharp breath unwillingly. His eyes held, no wavering. Her mouth went dry. Then he smiled, an unpleasant, direct challenge. Asher met it, more from shock than temerity as the crowd bellowed his name.
Starbuck
echoed from the walls like a litany. Ten seconds—fifteen—he neither blinked nor moved. For a man of action he had an uncanny ability for stillness. Boring into hers, his eyes made the distance between them vanish. The smile remained fixed. Just as Asher’s palms began to sweat, he turned a full circle for the crowd, his racket above his head like a lance. They adored him.
    He’d known
, Asher thought furiously as people swarmed around her. He had known all along that she was there. Her anger wasn’t the hot, logical result of being outmaneuvered, but small, silver slices of cold fury. Ty had let her know in ten seconds, without words, that the game was still on. And he always won.
    Not this time though, she told herself. She had changed too. But she stood where she was, rooted, staring out at the now empty court. Her thoughts were whirling with memories, emotions, remembered sensations. People brushed by her, already debating the match.
    She was a tall, reed-slim figure tanned gold from hours in the sun. Her hair was short, sculptured and misty blond. The style flattered, while remaining practical for her profession. During three years of retirement, Asher hadn’t altered it. Her face seemed more suited to the glossy pages of a fashion magazine than the heat and frenzy of a tennis court. A weekender, one might think, looking at her elegant cheekbones in an oval face. Not a pro. The nose was small and straight above a delicately molded mouth she rarely thought to tint. Makeup on the courts was a waste of time, as sweat would wash it away. Her eyes were large and round, a shade of blue that hinted at violet. One of her few concessions to vanity was to darken the thick pale lashes that surrounded them. While other women competitors added jewelry or ribbons and bows to their court dress, Asher had never thought of it. Even off the court her attire leaned toward the simple and muted.
    An enterprising reporter had dubbed her “The Face” when she had been eighteen. She’d been nearly twenty-three when she had retired from professional play, but the name had stuck. Hers was a face of great beauty and rigid control. On court, not a flicker of expression gave her opponent or the crowd a hint of what she was thinking or feeling. One of her greatest defenses in the game was her ability to remain unruffled under stress. The standard seeped into her personal life.
    Asher had lived and breathed tennis for so long that the line of demarcation between woman and athlete was smudged. The hard, unbendable rule, imposed by her father, was ingrained in her—privacy, first and last. Only one person had ever been able to cross the boundary. Asher was determined he would not do so again.
    As she stood staring down at the empty court, her face told nothing of her anger or turmoil—or the pain she hadn’t been prepared for. It was calm and aloof. Her concentration was so deep that the