Unfortunately, Sean took her silence as acquiescence, because he said, "We'll be by your office in twenty minutes," then hung up.

Julie blinked at the telephone for a long, confused moment, then ripped off her headset and threw it down onto her glass-topped desk.

"Amy," she called, "I need you to take a meeting for me." But when she poked her head into her friend's office, it was empty.

"Amy just left for a doctor's appointment," her new receptionist said with a helpful smile.

"Oh, right, thanks," Julie said, hating the way she was stumbling over her thoughts—something she never, ever did.

Pull yourself together. This meeting would be no different from any other difficult situation. She'd be cool, composed, and unflappable. No matter what Ty said or did, she'd refuse to be baited. She felt nothing but pity for the man he'd become. A boy could be excused for his actions, but a man had to take responsibility for his life. Based on media accounts of his wild partying and speeding tickets and evenings with strippers, Ty was as far from responsible as a person could be. No matter how good he looked when he walked in the door, pity would be her only emotion.

As she redid her makeup, made sure that her fishnets didn't have a run, and buffed her peep-toe, black patent leather heels, Julie reminded herself that anything she'd felt for him had died long ago. And nothing could ever bring those pointless feelings back.

CHAPTER THREE

Ty followed Sean through a shiny red door into Julie's office, and didn't even stare at the cute receptionist's nicely showcased ass. Not today. Today was all about Julie. He looked into the glass-walled offices beyond, not surprised to see that Julie had done very well for herself. She'd always been poised to be successful, to take what she wanted. And then he saw her, pushing open the door of her office, walking straight toward them. A surge of emotions shot through him—longing, hope, pain, lust—and he knew the only way he could deal was to shut them all down.

Heat shot straight to his groin. Even in her buttoned-up-to-the-neck sweater and knee-length skirt, Julie put every other woman he'd been with to shame. She was still the bar by which he measured the female sex, and everyone else came up short. Way short.

Her legs seemed to go all the way to her neck, and they were neither pencil thin nor overly muscular. She had rounded calves that he wanted to sink his teeth into, the sexiest kneecaps he'd ever seen, and her thighs would tempt a monk. Plus, that glorious ass of hers created the perfect waist-to-hips ratio. They were the perfect handful for grabbing onto when she was riding above—or below—him in bed.

Ty's gaze moved past her waist and up to her chest. Damn, a guy could be moved to write poetry about breasts like those. Marilyn Monroe would have had some stiff competition if Julie had been around in the fifties.

Finally raising his gaze to her face, he took in the ice-cold eyes that studied him as if he were a bug beneath a microscope.

One that she wanted to spear beneath her very sexy stiletto heel.

Okay, so she was still pissed at him. No big surprise there. A flash of guilt hit him square in the chest, and he couldn't believe he was still feeling bad about things after all these years. Grad night had been the usual party mix of drinking, dancing, and sex. The only surprising thing was that the sex had been with a virgin.

With Little Miss Perfect.

With the one girl he'd always wanted but knew he could never have.

He'd never been good enough for her, and one look now at her expression told him that all the money and fame and success in the world hadn't changed anything.

Julie seethed as Ty reached out to shake her hand. How dare he walk into her office as if he'd never ripped her heart out of her chest and thrown it overboard? Her final words to him on the morning after grad night played over and over in her head.

I hate you. I'll always hate you. And I never, ever want to see you again. After ten long years, she hadn't been able to think of anything more sophisticated and cutting that she could have said. Not when her heart had been broken into a million, billion pieces. Not when he'd stolen her virginity and then dumped her in the most humiliating way possible less than twenty-four hours later. The bastard.

In the back of Julie's head a voice whispered, Are you sure he really stole it from you? Didn't you practically shove it at him like the desperate virgin you were?

As far as she was concerned, that voice—and Ty—could go to hell.

Forcing herself to shake his hand in as detached a manner as was humanly possible, Julie acknowledged another big reason for her anger: Even after a lifetime of hard living, even though he rated a negative number on the scale of humanity, Ty Calhoun was still the most incredibly gorgeous man she'd ever set eyes on.

He'd been a hot, hunky teenager. And now, ten years later, he had the build of a warrior. Beneath his expensive shirt and overpriced jeans, his well-trained muscles were hard and tight. His jaw had filled out just enough to lend a rough edge to his male beauty, and the light stubble that covered his chin drew her attention to his lips, which held incredible sensual promise.

"Nice to meet you," she lied, hating his smirk, hating the fact that her body still responded traitorously to his touch. Goddamnit!

Julie pulled her hand away, reminding herself that she was in complete control of the situation.

"Now, Julie," he drawled, "I can't believe you don't remember me." She itched to smack the lazy grin off his perfect face even as she searched his eyes for any sign of remorse. Nothing. Just as she'd figured:

Once an asshole, always an asshole.

Raising a condescending eyebrow, she tilted her chin the slightest bit as if she was trying to place him among her enormous list of other unimportant acquaintances.

"Oh yes, now I remember you," she said, pleased with how smooth she sounded. "Didn't you go to my high school?"

"Sure did," he replied, and she could feel him laughing at her with his eyes, practically hear him thinking how pathetic she still was after all these years, trying to pretend that she didn't know him. He probably thought she had run home to dress up for him, that she was wearing sexy heels and fishnets to try and seduce him.

Sean studied the two of them between narrowed eyes. "You two know each other?"

"Yup," Ty said just as Julie muttered, "Barely."

"We ran in different crowds," Ty clarified. "She was class president, went to Stanford. One of those brainy, do-good types."

"And he was a jock," Julie spat.

Sean laughed. "Thank God for that. Jocks pay my salary, you know. But fact is, we need you to make everything nice and pretty for us again. With the media, the fans, and especially the new team owner, who's a full-blown southern conservative."

Julie led the two men to her spacious, colorful office, knowing Ty was taking it all in. Bet none of your little playthings know how to run their own business, do they?

Sean didn't waste another second making his sales pitch. "It's pretty obvious that you don't have a very high opinion of jocks. Or Ty."

Julie almost laughed. Talk about being up-front! It was an impressive, and disconcerting, tactic. She nodded. "That's right."

An odd expression flashed across Ty's face, quickly replaced by his I-don't-have-a-care-in-the-worldand-yes-I-was-born-looking-this-good mask.

"Perfect," Sean replied. "You're exactly the right person for the job." Ty's and Julie's heads jerked toward Sean in surprise.