The Player - By Rhonda Nelson Page 0,47

the sound soft and intimate between them. “Certainly. I like them both as well.”

Jamie frowned as a thought struck, a question he’d been meaning to ask but had kept forgetting. “You said you’d been a commodities broker in a past life,” Jamie reminded her. “But you never told me how you ended up here.”

She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about, the little nimrod. “Did you ask?”

“I did,” Jamie confirmed, laughing. “You said if you told me that, you’d have to kill me. Permission granted. After you have satisfied my curiosity, you can take your best shot.” It’s not like she hadn’t been taking shots at him all week. It wouldn’t hurt her to reciprocate the gesture.

“It’s not pretty,” Audrey warned him.

“The truth rarely is. Come on. Tell me.”

He heard her sigh, looked up and watched her gaze cloud over. “I had a heart attack,” she said glibly, shrugging. “Stress. It was either lose the job or lose my life.”

Jamie had to clamp his jaw to keep it from sagging. Out of all the reasons she could have listed as to why she’d made such an abrupt career change, a heart attack certainly would never have occurred to him.

Stunned, he sat up and turned around to face her. “But—But you’re young. You’re healthy.” He frowned, gestured toward her chest. “How did—”

“A body can only take so much,” she said, smiling sadly. “I put mine through hell. I was also with a guy who—” she paused, chose her words carefully “—required more of me than I could give. That relationship ended with a restraining order.” She frowned with regret. “Not one of my better decisions, but we all have some we aren’t proud of.”

Jamie swore. He passed a hand over his face and his gaze inexplicably zeroed in once again on her chest. He got it, all right. The guy she’d been with had taken so much of her that he’d literally broken her heart. Not in the traditional sense, no, but damaged her all the same.

Christ. No wonder the Colonel had kept going on and on about how special she was. He’d known it, of course. A man couldn’t spend half a second in her presence without feeling the healing, soulsoothing effects of her company. And hell, he’d even felt it from a friggin’ picture, two thousand miles away from here. A heart attack, Jamie thought again, absolutely shaken.

“How are you doing now?” he asked quietly. “Taking meds? Watching your cholesterol?” Another thought struck. Surely to God all the wild sex they’d had in the past couple of days couldn’t be good for her. The exertion, the orgasms…He could have killed her, Jamie thought, his own heart turning to lead and plummeting into his stomach. Sweet mother of—

Audrey chuckled. “I can see that your imagination is running away with you,” she told him. “No, I am not on any medication, though I do watch my diet since I’ll always be at risk.” A small smile turned her lips. “And, for the record, there are no special limitations on my…physical activities you should concern yourself with.”

“But—”

“I’m fine,” Audrey insisted. “I take care of myself. I know it sounds like a big deal, but it really isn’t.”

The hell it wasn’t, Jamie thought. “How old were you?”

“At the time it happened? Twenty-six.”

“Then it was a big deal,” Jamie said. Honestly, he’d heard of athletes who’d pushed themselves into a premature heart attack, but never a young healthy woman. The Colonel must have been out of his mind.

“Anyway,” she said, releasing an end-of-subject sigh, one he recognized because he’d used it frequently himself. “That’s how I got here. Who better to help stressed-out professionals than a former stressed-out professional, eh?”

He could certainly understand that, and there was no doubt she was in her element here. Still…“Do you miss your old job? Your old life?”

She smiled again, marginally lightening the load in his chest. “Not at all. I’m where I’m supposed to be. Everything happens for a reason.” Her clear blue gaze tangled with his and a secret knowledge seemed to lurk there that he sincerely wished he was privy to. “You’re here for a reason, too,” she told him.

While he could have just as easily made a joke, Jamie didn’t. “Do you really believe that?” he asked. “Or is that just a platitude people bandy about when they don’t have an answer for something? It all comes down to fate,” he said, a hint of bitterness he couldn’t control seeping into his