Love in Straight Sets Read Online Free Page B

crackpot ideas about half inches.
    Regan narrowed her eyes as he loaded another two balls into the machine. She couldn’t renege on her promise not to fire him—so she’d just have to make him quit.
    * * *
    Ben pulled his baseball cap lower over his forehead as he watched Regan effortlessly defeat her sparring partner, a lanky Slovakian named Ivona. The overcast, breezy afternoon meant they could use one of the outdoor courts, but he could tell Regan’s total lack of visible exertion wasn’t due to the cool temperature.
    This match was too easy. A complete waste of her time.
    She was like one of the impalas in the countryside back home in Zim. They watched you approach with muscles twitching and ears perked forward, almost seeming to trust you until the very last minute when they suddenly jolted and bounded away, springing through the tall savanna grass on long, spindly legs.
    Despite many boyhood hours spent trying, he’d never caught one. Yet as his arms had encircled her small frame, Ben thought he might know what it would’ve felt like if he had.
    Regan bounced on the balls of her feet, her toffee-colored ponytail swinging with the subtle motion, as her sparring partner served into the net. Ben thought again of the impalas, of the way they tensed like coiled springs before leaping over the uneven ground, and the echoing clack of the males’ lyre-shaped horns colliding and locking as they fought.
    She was practically vibrating with untapped power. And he’d have a hell of a fight on his hands dragging it out of her.
    Ivona double-faulted, the net shuddering where the ball struck it, and Regan exploded into furious motion, throwing her racket onto the ground and slapping her palm against her forehead.
    “How am I supposed to improve my defensive game if you can’t even get the ball over the goddamn net? You’re paid to challenge me, not practice your crappy serve. How many times do I have to—”
    “Time-out.” Ben gestured for both women to join him on the sideline. Ivona approached with her shoulders slumped, while Regan crossed her arms and scowled, not moving an inch.
    He couldn’t stop his smirk as he met her dark stare. Turns out coaching a pro wasn’t that far off from working with fourteen-year-olds after all.
    “I’m so sorry,” Ivona gushed in her heavily accented English when she reached him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Let’s call it a day and start fresh tomorrow.”
    To his dismay, her lower lip began to tremble and her blue eyes filled with tears. “You’re not going to fire me, are you, Mr. Percy? I can do better, I swear.”
    “I’m sure you can,” he assured her, deliberately evading her question. He knew all too well what it was like to flounder financially at the bottom of this expensive sport, but he also had a job to do. Ivona would have to be replaced.
    “Please give me another chance. I’ll be like a different player. You won’t even recognize me.”
    “Come back tomorrow and we’ll see.”
    “Oh, thank you, Mr. Percy!” Without warning Ivona flung her arms around him and squeezed with all the strength one might expect from a six-foot-tall Eastern European raised in the High Tatras. His hands flew to her shoulders as he gasped for air. After a few strangled seconds, he was able to pry her loose and hold her at arm’s length.
    “Okay, that’s enough,” he wheezed. “Time for you to head home.”
    “Yes, of course. Thank you again. I won’t let you down, I promise!”
    As Ivona gathered up her equipment and fled from the court, Ben looked to where Regan still stood, already rolling his eyes in expectation of a shared moment of amusement.
    Instead she was glaring at him as if he and Ivona had just stripped naked and had sex right there on the green clay.
    Ben shook his head as he started toward her. Talk about wishful thinking. As if pro tennis’s most notorious ice queen would ever look at him as anything other