Opposites Attract

eyes were huge and dark with shock.
    Her father’s fingers trembled in hers. “He phoned me from London. He sounded half mad—I thought with grief. He said that you hadn’t told him until after it was done. That you had told him you wanted no children to interfere with the life you intended to build as Lady Wickerton.”
    Too numb for anger, Asher shook her head. “I didn’t know even Eric could be so vindictive, so cruel.”
    It all began to make horrid sense. Her letters to her father hadn’t been answered. Eric had seen that they were never mailed. Then, when she had phoned him, Jim had been cold and brief. He’d told her that he could never resolve himself to her choice. Asher had assumed he meant her rejection of her career.
    “He wanted me to pay,” she explained as she dropped her head on her father’s lap. “He never wanted me to stop paying.”
    Gently Jim cupped her face in his hands. “Tell me everything. I’ll listen, as I should have a long time ago.”
    She started with Jess, leaving nothing out, including her final stormy estrangement from Ty. Jim’s mouth tightened at her recounting of the accident and the hospital scene with Eric. Listening, he cursed himself for being a fool.
    “And now, Ty . . .” As realization struck her, she paled. “Ty thinks—Eric must have told him I’d had an abortion.”
    “No, I told him.”
    “You?” Confused, Asher pressed her fingers to the headache in her temple. “But how—”
    “He called me a few nights ago. He wanted to convince me to see you. I told him enough to make him believe the lie just as I’d believed it.”
    “That night when I woke up,” Asher remembered. “Oh, my God, when he realized it had been his baby . . . The things he was saying! I couldn’t think at the time.” She shut her eyes. “No wonder he hates me.”
    Color flooded back into her face. “I have to tell him the truth and make him believe it.” Scrambling up, she dashed for the door. “I’ll go to the club. I have to make him listen. I have to make him understand.”
    “The match must be nearly over.” Jim rose on unsteady legs. His daughter had been through hell, and he had done nothing but add to it. “You’ll never catch him there.”
    Frustrated, Asher looked at her watch. “I don’t know where he’s staying.” Releasing the doorknob, she went to the phone. “I’ll just have to find out.”
    “Asher . . .” Awkward, unsure, Jim held out his hand. “Forgive me.”
    Asher stared into his face as she replaced the receiver. Ignoring the hand, she went into his arms.
    ***
    It was nearly midnight when Ty reached the door of his room. For the past two hours he’d been drinking steadily. Celebrating. It wasn’t every day you won the Grand Slam, he reminded himself as he searched for his keys. And it wasn’t every day a man had a half dozen women offering to share their beds with him. He gave a snort of laughter as he slid the key into the lock. And why the hell hadn’t he taken one of them up on it?
    None of them was Asher. He shook away the thought as he struggled to make the doorknob function. No, he simply hadn’t wanted a woman, Ty told himself. It was because he was tired and had had too much to drink. Asher was yesterday.
    The hotel room was dark as he stumbled inside. If he was right about nothing else, he was right about having too much to drink. Through glass after glass Ty had told himself the liquor was for celebrating, not for forgetting. The kid from the Chicago slum had made it to the top, in spades.
    The hell with it, he decided, tossing his keys into the room. With a thud they landed on the carpet. Swaying a bit, he stripped off his shirt and threw it in the same direction. Now if he could just find his way to the bed without turning on a light, he’d sleep. Tonight he’d sleep—with enough liquor in his system to anesthetize him. There’d be no dreams of soft skin or dark blue eyes tonight.
    As he fumbled toward the bedroom, a light switched on, blinding him. With a pungent curse Ty covered his eyes, balancing himself with one hand on the wall.
    “Turn that damn thing off,” he muttered.
    “Well, the victor returns triumphant.”
    The quiet voice had him lowering the hand from his eyes. Asher sat primly in a chair, looking unruffled, soft and utterly tempting. Ty felt desire work its way through the alcohol.
    “What the hell are you doing here?”
    “And very drunk,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken.