The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1)

  ALSO BY NANCY HERKNESS

  A Bridge to Love

  Shower of Stars

  Music of the Night

  Whisper Horse Novels

  Take Me Home

  Country Roads

  The Place I Belong

  A Down-Home Country Christmas (novella)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Nancy Herkness

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503944091

  ISBN-10: 1503944093

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner

  In memory of Grandmuffy

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  EPILOGUE

  PREVIEW: THE QUARTERBACK ANTES UP

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  “Scotch, straight up.” Nathan Trainor settled into the leather chair and yanked the end of his bow tie loose. Ripping the black silk out from under the collar of his tuxedo shirt, he tossed it on the brass-topped table in front of him. One of the things he liked about the Bellwether Club was that the dress code was relaxed, no ties required.

  “Here you are, Mr. Trainor.” The waiter set a cut-crystal glass filled with golden-tan liquor in front of him and disappeared back behind the bar.

  Nathan tossed it back, all of it. It was a twenty-year-old single malt and should be treated with more respect, but Nathan was soul weary. The scotch spread a welcome pool of warmth in his gut.

  He held up the empty to the waiter, who arrived with a freshly filled tumbler. Sipping it this time, Nathan stretched out his long legs and glanced around the room. Not surprisingly for the late hour, it was virtually empty. However, he spotted another tuxedo-clad patron in the far corner, nursing his own glass of forgetfulness. He’d seen the man at the club before, of course. The membership was highly exclusive, so he suspected he had seen almost every member at some point.

  Nathan frowned as a stronger sense of familiarity nagged at him. His fellow drinker was blond and took up a lot of space in his chair. Maybe an athlete. The Bellwether Club included a few, since they tended to be men who’d started with nothing and had succeeded on their own merits, one of the requirements for admission.

  The other requirement was to have a net worth in ten digits, so the man must be a world-class athlete with some hefty endorsement contracts or he wouldn’t have that kind of money. Nathan had neither the time nor enough interest to waste it on following spectator sports.

  The mahogany door swung open to admit a third man, also wearing a tux. He had dark hair and walked carefully, as though he had to think about where to put his feet. Nathan had seen him drinking at the club more than once before tonight. The blond athlete glanced over and nodded politely to the newcomer. The man nodded back and headed for the bar, sliding onto one of the tall, leather-topped stools. “Bourbon, no rocks,” he said into the silence.

  After the bartender placed the glass in front of him, the new arrival swiveled on the stool and lifted it to the room. “To my fellow late-night tipplers. Bottoms up!” He tossed back the bourbon and turned to plunk the glass down on the counter for a refill.

  Nathan took another sip of scotch and wondered if all of them had been at the same fund-raiser that night. That reminded him of Teresa Fogarty, and he finished his drink in a single gulp. The waiter materialized beside him with another glass. “Bring the bottle,” Nathan said. “It’ll save you steps.”

  He’d thought Teresa might be different. She wasn’t a model or an actress. She was a lawyer, close to making partner. She didn’t need Nathan or Trainor Electronics to succeed. They’d met at a charity dinner like the one he had just escaped. Her beauty was undeniable, but it had been her intelligence that intrigued him . . . and the fact that she hadn’t known who he was when they both reached for the same canapé—her long, slim fingers brushing against his. Or so he’d believed until tonight.

  They’d played a little game where neither introduced themselves, deliberately hiding in a corner of the balcony outside the party room. The attraction was electric. He had bribed a waiter to bring a table and their dinner outside to keep the bubble from bursting too soon. Only at the end of the night had they exchanged names and phone numbers.

  Tonight one of her friends had overindulged with champagne and described how carefully Teresa had engineered the meeting, right down to the subtly sexy shade of nail polish she’d chosen for that moment when their fingers touched. The friend had treated it as a joke, now that Teresa and Nathan were a couple, but Teresa had sensed his disgust. She’d drawn him out onto the terrace behind the ballroom and wound her arms around his neck. “Melissa’s exaggerating,” she said. “I was kidding around with her about meeting you.”

  “You claimed you didn’t know my name,” he said.

  “Because I was afraid you’d think I was just another woman throwing herself at you,” Teresa said. “Does it matter how we met? We love each other now.” She stretched up on her toes to touch her lips to his.

  He put his hands on her waist to set her away from him. “You might have told me yourself.”

  “I was embarrassed.” A shadow of concern crossed her face. “You do love me, don’t you?”

  “The first words you said to me were a lie,” he said, wondering how many more were. He released her. “You can take the Rolls home.”

  She’d made a small sound of distress, but he was already halfway to the exit leading out to the anonymity of the New York City streets.

  Too many people said only what they thought he wanted to hear these days. He didn’t need his lover doing the same thing. She could have told him about the ruse of their meeting and he would have laughed about it. But she’d kept it a secret.

  Now he wondered whether she’d been after his money or his influence.

  His glass was empty and he poured himself another one. The scotch was beginning to seep into his brain.

  “At this hour of the night, I’m betting it’s a woman.”

  Nathan looked up to see who the man at the bar was talking to.

  “I know what his problem is.” The barfly tilted his head toward the blond man in the corner. “He threw an interception with five seconds to go against the Patriots.”

  The alcohol had lubricated the connections in Nathan’s brain
, so with that hint, he could identify the broad-shouldered drinker as Luke Archer, longtime quarterback for the New York Empire. You couldn’t go anywhere in New York City without seeing his face on a billboard. Archer ignored both of them.

  The bar stool occupant took another swig of his bourbon and brought his gaze back to Nathan. “So am I right?”

  “I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” Nathan said.

  The other man laughed. “Everything’s my business. I’m a writer.”

  Nathan scowled. The last thing he needed was to appear as an item in some gossip column. He relaxed when he remembered this was the Bellwether Club, where the dress code was laid-back but confidentiality was strictly enforced. A lot of high-level business deals got done within the thick walls of the club’s tall brownstone. Probably a lot of government deals too, but he wasn’t privy to those. Didn’t want to be.

  “What do you write?” he asked, to turn the conversation back on his overly talkative fellow drinker.

  The man’s posture went tense. “Novels.”

  “You’re Gavin Miller.” The quarterback spoke, a noticeable Texas twang in his voice. “I read your Julian Best books on planes. When’s your next one coming out?”

  Miller stared down into his glass as he swirled the bourbon around. “My original deadline was three months ago.” He looked up with a mocking smile. “I missed it. My deadline extension was today. Missed it too. Writer’s block.”

  “So what happens when a writer misses the deadline?” Nathan asked.

  “The same thing that happens when a quarterback throws a bad pass. The coach isn’t happy. And I get no royalties.” He took a swig of bourbon. “But there’s nothing they can do about it, because I don’t have a backup.”

  “No ghostwriters?” Nathan asked.

  “Don’t think I haven’t considered it, but I have enough respect and gratitude for my readers to believe I owe them my own efforts.” He shook his head. “The truth is, I could keep myself in style on what I earn from the Julian Best movies for the rest of my life and beyond, but good old Julian has become a small industry in his own right. The editors, directors, actors, film crews—hell, even the movie theater ticket takers—all depend on him.”

  He grimaced and looked at Nathan again. “So we’ve established who two of us are. What about you?”

  “I’m just a businessman,” Nathan said.

  “Not if you belong within these hallowed walls,” Miller said, gesturing with his glass to the dark wood paneling that lined the room. “Frankie Hogan doesn’t allow ‘justs’ in her club.”

  Nathan shrugged. “Nathan Trainor.”

  “Computer batteries,” Archer said.

  Miller saluted the quarterback with his glass. “So you’re not just a dumb jock.”

  Despite the slight haze the scotch had cast over his brain, Nathan was shocked at Miller’s bad manners. Archer, however, ignored the near insult. “I’m considering an investment in Trainor Electronics stock,” the quarterback said. “No one has ever figured out how to make a computer battery as long lasting as yours.”

  “We’ve diversified,” Nathan said. “Just in case they do.” The truth was he no longer knew what products his research-and-development department had in the works. His job as CEO was to read endless reports and go to endless meetings. He didn’t hear about new products until the paperwork hit his computer.

  Another problem, right up there with Teresa. It struck him that he hadn’t thought about her since Gavin Miller had started this odd conversation. “Why don’t you all join me?” he asked, pointing to his table. “That way we won’t have to shout at each other.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” the writer said, staggering slightly as he eased off the stool.

  Archer rose to an impressive height and strolled across the room, glass in hand. This was the guy Nathan had hated in school: the tall blond jock whom all the girls swooned over, while he and his fellow nerds were invisible. He allowed himself an inward smirk of satisfaction at meeting on an equal footing now.

  Then he considered Teresa and her kind and decided that maybe the Archers of the world weren’t so lucky after all. The high school girls had wanted Archer for the status of dating the star athlete, just like Teresa had wanted Nathan for his wealth or power. Neither was a good basis for a relationship.

  “It’s the beginning of a bad joke. A writer, a quarterback, and a CEO walk into a bar,” Miller said, slouching into a chair and setting his glass down on the table.

  “What’s the punch line?” Archer asked, an undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

  Miller shrugged. “I have writer’s block, remember? That’s why I missed my deadline.”

  “What does that mean, having writer’s block?” Archer asked with a jab in his tone. “You can’t type?”

  Miller looked at Archer. “Why’d you throw a pass nowhere near your wide receiver?”

  “It’s harder than it looks,” the big man said, unruffled, although Nathan noticed that he rolled his right shoulder slightly as he said it.

  Miller laughed. “Exactly.” He kept his gaze on the quarterback. “You must have some major endorsement contracts to be a member of this club.”

  “I’ve had some luck in the stock market. It’s a hobby of mine.”

  “Luck, eh? Maybe I’ll buy some Trainor Electronics stock too.” He turned to Nathan. “So, a woman?”

  “Maybe I just learned that my competitors invented a better battery,” Nathan said. He gave his two companions a sardonic smile. “Which means you might want to rethink that investment.”

  “It’s after midnight and you’re wearing a tux.” Miller let his head rest against the chair’s back as he stared up at the coffered ceiling. “You weren’t jilted at the altar, because it’s a weekday. Maybe you caught your wife in bed with another man.”

  “Is this a way of trying to break your writer’s block?” Nathan asked.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “You wear a look of cynical disgust,” Miller said. “So her motives were less than pure.”

  Archer swallowed the last of the clear liquid in his glass. “Good luck finding a woman without ulterior motives when you qualify as a member of this club.”

  “What are you drinking?” Nathan asked, gesturing the waiter over.

  “Water.”

  The writer laughed and picked up Nathan’s bottle of scotch, sloshing slugs of liquor into Archer’s glass and his own. “If we’re going to discuss women, you need something stronger than water.” Miller handed the empty bottle to the waiter. “Bring us one of bourbon and another one of scotch. And some nuts.”

  Archer picked up the glass of scotch and looked at it a long moment before lifting it to his lips.

  “Attaboy,” Miller said before he turned back to Nathan. “Did she break your heart or just injure your pride?”

  Nathan had drunk enough to give the question serious consideration. “How can you tell the difference?”

  “Now that is an excellent question,” Miller said. “When my fiancée dumped me, I believe she broke my heart. But I was new to Hollywood back then and quite naive.”

  “Hollywood?” Nathan asked.

  “She’s one of the actresses in the Julian Best movies,” Miller said. “I met her on the set.”

  “Irene Bartram,” Archer said. “She plays Samantha Dubois, the double agent.”

  “A true fan,” Miller said. “My thanks.”

  “You don’t have a lot of women in your books,” Archer pointed out.

  “There’s a reason for that,” the novelist said.

  Nathan snorted in agreement. “So, Archer, how do you handle women?”

  “Full disclosure and keep it short,” the quarterback said. “I don’t have a lot of free time.”

  “None of us do,” Nathan said.

  “Full disclosure?” Miller asked.

  Archer shrugged. “No strings, no rings.”

  “No gifts?” t
he writer asked, his eyebrows raised. “I hear Derek Jeter gives them signed baseballs.”

  “If they ask for a football, I’m happy to oblige,” Archer said. “Seems kind of arrogant to assume they want my signature, though.”

  “I would think arrogance went with the territory,” Miller said. “You’re a quarterback.”

  For the first time, Archer smiled. “I’ve got plenty of arrogance on the field.”

  Miller turned to Nathan. “So have you figured it out yet?”

  “You’re damned annoying,” Nathan said. “All right, pride. She played me and I’m pissed about it.”

  “What are you going to do?” Miller asked. The writer’s eyes were half-closed as he lay back in his chair, but Nathan saw a spark of interest in them.

  “Nothing. I don’t care enough to expend the energy.” It was depressing to realize how true that was.

  Miller shook his head. “Disappointing.”

  “It’s the only way to go,” Archer said.

  “Have you had your heart broken?” Miller prodded the quarterback.

  “Half a dozen times,” Archer said. “I got over it.”

  “Ah yes, the stoic, laconic jock,” Miller said. “If I wrote you in a book, you’d be too much of a stereotype and my editor would complain.” He gave a gusty sigh. “Since we agree that women are nothing but trouble, maybe we should play cards. It would distract us from our problems.”

  “Cards? Where the hell did you get that idea?” Nathan asked. Miller’s conversational zigzags were beginning to irritate him.

  The writer smiled crookedly. “Don’t they say, ‘Unlucky at love, lucky at cards’? Although it’s hard to predict who will get the good luck in this group.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Archer said, leaning forward. “Everyone at this table knows you make your own luck. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  Nathan nodded. “Luck is the residue of design.”

  “We’re all big on quotations tonight,” Miller needled.

  Archer made a sharp gesture to silence them. “How important is finding a woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

  Neither Nathan nor Miller spoke, so Archer continued, “Pretty damned important. How much effort has any of us put into the search?” He gave them each a hard look. “I’m guessing not a lot. We see the same women at every event. Friends or colleagues fix us up. Maybe we even get a napkin slipped into our pocket and call that number.”