It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars Book 1)

Brian Hibbard shuffled the papers in his lap. “I apologize for barging in on you so soon after the funeral, Miss Somerville, but the housekeeper informed me that you were planning to fly back to Manhattan tomorrow evening. I hadn’t realized you’d be returning so soon.”

The lawyer was short and plump, in his late forties, with ruddy skin and graying hair. A well-cut charcoal suit didn’t quite hide the slight paunch that had formed around his middle. Phoebe sat across from him in one of the wing chairs positioned near the massive stone fireplace that dominated the living room. She’d always hated this dark, paneled room presided over by stuffed birds, mounted animal heads, and an ashtray cruelly made from a giraffe’s hoof.

As she crossed her legs, the thin gold chain encircling her ankle glimmered in the light. Hibbard noticed, but pretended he hadn’t.

“There’s no reason for me to stay any longer, Mr. Hibbard. Molly’s returning to camp tomorrow afternoon, and my flight leaves a few hours after hers.”

“That’s going to make this difficult, I’m afraid. Your father’s will is a bit complicated.”

Her father had kept her well acquainted with the details of his will, even before the final six months of his life, when he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She knew he had set up a trust fund for Molly and that Reed was to inherit his beloved Stars.

“Are you aware of the fact that your father had some financial setbacks these past few years?”

“Not the details. We didn’t speak very frequently.”

They had been completely estranged for almost ten years, from the time she was eighteen until she had returned to the States after Arturo’s death. After that, they’d met occasionally when he came to Manhattan on business, but she was no longer a timid, overweight child he could bully, and their encounters had been angry ones.

Although her father kept mistresses and married showgirls, his own impoverished childhood had made him crave respectability, and her lifestyle mortified him. He was violently homophobic, as well as being contemptuous of the arts. He hated the newspaper and magazine stories that would occasionally appear about her and declared that her associations with “fruits and flakes” made him look like a fool in front of his business associates. Again and again he ordered her to return to Chicago and take over as his unpaid housekeeper. If it had been love that had motivated his offer, she would have done as he’d asked, but Bert had merely wanted to control her, just as he’d controlled everyone else around him.

He’d remained tough and uncompromising to the end, using his terminal illness as a bludgeon to remind her of what a disappointment she had been to him. He hadn’t even let her come to visit him in Chicago when he was dying, saying he didn’t want any goddamn vigils. In their last telephone conversation, he’d told her she was his only failure.

As she blinked her eyes against a fresh surge of tears, she realized that Brian Hibbard was still speaking. “. . . so your father’s estate is not as large as it was during the eighties. He directed that this house be sold, with the proceeds making up your sister’s trust find. His condo isn’t to be put on the market for at least a year, however, so you and your sister can have the use of it until then.”

“A condo? I don’t know anything about that.”

“It’s not far from the Stars Complex. He—uh—kept it for private use.”

“For his mistresses,” Phoebe said flatly.

“Yes, well—It’s been vacant for the past six months, ever since his illness. Unfortunately, those are the only properties not connected with the Stars that he held on to. His financial situation isn’t entirely bleak, however.”

“I wouldn’t think so. His football team must be worth millions.”

“It’s quite valuable, although it, too, is having financial difficulties.” Something in her expression must have given away her feelings because he said, “You don’t like football?”

“No, I don’t.” She had spoken with too much intensity, and he was regarding her curiously. Quickly, she gave an indolent wave of her hand. “I’m more the uptown-gallery-dinner-at-Le Cirque-before-an-evening-of-experimental-theater type. I eat tofu, Mr. Hibbard.”

She thought the remark was pretty darned cute, but he didn’t even smile. “It’s hard to believe that Bert Somerville’s daughter doesn’t like football.”

“Scandalous, I know,” she said breezily. “But there it is. I’m allergic to perspiration—mine or anyone else’s. Luckily, my sainted cousin Reed has always sweated copiously, so now the family’s football dynasty can live on.”

The lawyer hesitated, looking distinctly unhappy. “I’m afraid it’s not quite so straightforward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Several months before your father’s death, he executed a new will. For the short term, at least, Reed has been disinherited.”

Several seconds ticked by as she absorbed this startling piece of information. She remembered how calm her cousin had seemed at the funeral. “Reed obviously doesn’t know about this.”

“I urged Bert to tell him, but he refused. My partner and I have the unenviable task of breaking the news when we meet with him this evening. He’s not going to look kindly on the fact that Bert is temporarily passing the team on to his daughter.”

“His daughter?” And then she thought of the teenager who was reading Dostoyevski upstairs and began to smile. “My sister’s going to make professional football history.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

“How many fifteen-year-old girls own their own NFL team?”

Hibbard looked alarmed. “I’m sorry, Miss Somerville. It’s been a long day, and I’m not making myself clear. Your father didn’t leave your sister the team.”

“He didn’t?”

“Oh, no. He left it to you.”

“He did what?”

“He left the team to you, Miss Somerville. You’re the new owner of the Chicago Stars.”

That night as Phoebe wandered through the rooms of her father’s ugly house, she tried to say prayers for the dead animals hanging on the walls. She tried to say them for herself as well because she was afraid she might be turning into one of those cynical people who hug old bitterness like a treasured bone to be gnawed over forever.

Why did you do this to me, Bert? Did you need to control me so much that you even had to bend me to your will from the grave?

When Brian Hibbard had announced that Bert had left her the Stars, she’d experienced a moment of such incredible happiness that she couldn’t speak. She hadn’t thought about the money or the power or even the fact that she hated football. She’d simply rejoiced that after so many years of animosity, her father had proved that he did care about her. She remembered sitting dazed while the lawyer told her the rest.

“Quite frankly, Miss Somerville, I don’t approve of the terms your father has put on your inheritance of the Stars. Both my partner and I tried to change his mind, but he refused to listen. I’m sorry. Since he was definitely of sound mind, neither you nor Reed can successfully challenge the will.”

She had stared at him blankly. “What do you mean? What terms?”

“I told you this inheritance was temporary.”

“How can an inheritance be temporary?”

“Setting aside the legal language, the concept is quite simple. For you to retain ownership of the team, the Stars have to win the AFC Championship this coming January, something that is highly unlikely. If they don’t win, you’ll get one hundred thousand dollars and the team reverts to Reed.”

Even the news that she might receive such an enormous amount of money couldn’t keep her joy from fading. With a sinking heart, she realized this was another of her father’s manipulations.

“Are you saying that I’ll only own the team until January, and then Reed will get it?”

“Unless the Stars win the AFC Championship, in which case the team would be yours forever.”

She pushed her hair back from her face with a trembling hand. “I—I don’t know anything about football. This championship game? Is this the Super Bowl?”

To his credit, Hibbard launched into a patient explanation. “It’s one step away. The National Football League is split into two conferences, the American Football Conference, the AFC, and the National Football Conference. The two best teams in each conference play for their conference championship, and the winners of those games meet in the Super Bowl.”

She wanted to make certain she understood. “For me to retain ownership, the Stars would have to win this AFC championship game?”

“That’s right. And frankly, Miss Somerville, their chances of even getting close are practically nil. They’re a good team, but most of the players are still young. Two or three years from now, they may do it, but not this season, I’m afraid. Right now, the AFC is dominated by the San Diego Chargers, the Miami Dolphins, and, of course, last year’s Super Bowl champions, the Portland Sabers.”

“Bert knew that the Stars wouldn’t be able to win this year?”

“I’m afraid he did. His will states that you cannot receive the one hundred thousand dollars unless you show up at the Stars Complex every day for work, for as long as you own the team. You would, of course, have to move to Chicago, but you don’t have to be concerned about not being prepared to run a professional football team. Carl Pogue, the Stars’ general manager, would do the actual work.”

A dull ache spread through her chest as her father’s intent became clear. “In other words, I wouldn’t be anything but a figurehead.”

“Carl doesn’t have the authority to sign legal papers. That’s the owner’s responsibility.”

She couldn’t quite keep the misery from her voice. “Why would Bert do something like this?”

That was when Hibbard had handed her the letter.

Dear Phoebe,

As you know, I regard you as my only failure. For years, you’ve publicly humiliated me by running around with all those fags and fairies, but I’m not going to let you defy me any longer. For once in your life you’re going to do what I tell you. Maybe this experience will finally teach you something about responsibility and discipline.

The game of football makes men out of boys. Let’s see if it can make a woman out of you.

Don’t fuck this up, too.

Bert

She had read the note through three times while the lawyer watched, and each time the lump in her throat had grown larger. Even from the grave, Bert was determined to control her. By removing her from Manhattan, he thought he could reshape her into the person he wanted her to be. Her father had always loved to gamble, and he had apparently decided she couldn’t do much damage to his precious team in a few months. Now he would finally have exactly what he wanted. Reed would end up with the Stars, while she danced to her father’s tune.

She wished she could force herself to believe that his motivations were based on love and concern. Then she might have been able to forgive him. But she understood too well that Bert knew nothing of love, only of power.

So she wandered the halls of her father’s house that night saying prayers for the souls of dead animals and unloved little girls, while she counted the hours until she could run away from this place where she’d known so much unhappiness.

Peg Kowalski, who had been Bert’s housekeeper for the last eight years, had left a single light burning in the large family room that stretched across the back of the house. Phoebe walked over to the windows that looked out on the grounds and tried to find the old maple that had been her favorite hiding place when she was a child.

Generally she tried to avoid thinking about her childhood, but tonight, as she stared into the darkness, that time didn’t seem so long ago. She could feel herself being pulled back into the past, to that old maple tree and the dreaded sound of a bully’s voice. . . .

“There you are, Flea Belly. Come on down. I’ve got a present for you.”

Phoebe’s stomach did a flip-flop at the loud intrusion of her cousin Reed’s voice. She looked down to see him standing beneath the tree that was her haven during those few times when she was at home. She was supposed to leave for summer camp the next morning, and she had so far managed to avoid being caught alone with him, but today she had let down her guard. Instead of staying in the kitchen with the cook or helping Addie clean the bath-rooms, she had escaped to the solitude of the woods.

“1 don’t want any present,” she said.

“You’d better come down here. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”

Reed didn’t make idle threats, and she’d learned long ago that she had few defenses against him. Her father got mad at her if she complained that Reed teased her or hit her. Bert said she was spineless and that he wasn’t going to fight her battles for her. But at twelve, Reed was two years older than she was and lots stronger, and she couldn’t imagine fighting him.

She didn’t understand why Reed hated her so much. She might be rich while he was poor, but his mother hadn’t died when he was four like hers had, and he didn’t get sent away to school. Reed and her Aunt Ruth, who was her father’s sister, had lived in a brick apartment building two miles from the estate ever since Reed’s father had run off. Bert paid the rent and gave Aunt Ruth money, even though he didn’t like her that much. But he loved Reed because Reed was a boy, and he was good at sports, especially football.

She knew Reed would climb up after her if she defied him, and she decided she’d feel safer facing him on solid ground. With a sinking sense of dread, she began descending the maple tree, her plump thighs making an ugly swishing sound as they rubbed together. She hoped he wasn’t looking up her shorts. He was always trying to see her there, or touch her, or say nasty things about her bottom, not all of which she understood. She dropped awkwardly to the ground, breathing hard because the descent had been difficult.

Reed wasn’t unusually tall for a twelve-year-old, but he was stocky, with short, strong legs, broad shoulders, and a thick chest. His arms and legs were perpetually covered with scabs and bruises from sports activities, bike accidents, and fights. Bert loved to inspect Reed’s injuries. He said Reed was “all boy.”

She, however, was lumpish and shy, more interested in books than in sports. Bert called her Lard Ass and said that all those A’s she made in school wouldn’t get her anywhere in life if she couldn’t manage to stand up straight and look people in the eye. Reed wasn’t smart in school, but that didn’t make any difference to Bert because Reed was the star of his junior high football team.

Her cousin was dressed in a torn orange T-shirt, cutoffs, and battered sneakers, exactly the kind of rumpled play clothes she would have liked to wear, except her father’s housekeeper wouldn’t let her. Mrs. Mertz bought all Phoebe’s clothing in an expensive children’s store, and today she had laid out a pair of white shorts that emphasized Phoebe’s round stomach and a sleeveless cotton top that had a big strawberry on the front and cut her under the arms.

“Don’t ever say I’ve never done anything nice for you, Flea Belly.” Reed held up a piece of heavy white paper just a little larger than a paperback book cover “Guess what I’ve got?”

“I don’t know.” Phoebe spoke cautiously, determined to avoid whatever land mines Reed was laying for her.

“I’ve got a picture of your mom.”

Phoebe’s heart skipped a beat. “I don’t believe you.”

He turned the paper over, and she saw that it was, indeed, a photograph, although he flashed it too quickly for her to absorb anything more than the vague impression of a beautiful woman’s face.

“I found it stuck in the back of Mom’s junk drawer,” he said taking an impatient swipe at the thick, dark bangs hanging in jags to his eyebrows.

Her legs felt weak, and she knew she had never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted that photograph. “How do you know it’s her?”

“I asked my mom.” He cupped it in his hand so Phoebe couldn’t see it and looked at it. “It’s a real good picture, Flea Belly.”

Phoebe’s heart was pounding so hard she was afraid he would see it. She wanted to snatch the photograph from his hand but she kept still because she knew from painful experience that he would simply hold it out of her reach if she tried.

She only had one picture of her mother, and it had been taken from so far away that Phoebe couldn’t see her face. Her father never said anything much about her except that she was a dumb blonde who’d looked great in a G-string, and it was too goddamn bad Phoebe hadn’t inherited her body instead of his brains. Phoebe’s ex-stepmother, Cooki, whom her father had divorced last year after she’d had another miscarriage, said that Phoebe’s mom probably wasn’t as bad as Bert made out, but that Bert was a hard man to live with. Phoebe had loved Cooki. She had painted Phoebe’s toenails Pink Parfait and read her exciting stories about real life out of True Confessions magazine.

“What’ll you give me for it,” Reed said.

She knew she couldn’t let Reed see how precious the photograph was or he would do something awful to keep her from having it. “I already have lots of pictures of her,” she lied, “so why should I give you anything?”

He held it up in front of him. “All right. I’ll just tear it up.”

“No!” She leapt forward, the protest slipping through her lips before she could stop it.

His dark eyes narrowed in sly triumph, and she felt as if the sharp jaws of a steel trap had just closed around her.

“How much do you want it?”

She had begun to tremble. “Just give it to me.”

“Pull down your pants and I will.”

“No!”

“Then I’m going to tear it up.” He clasped the top between his fingers as if he were getting ready to tear it.

“Don’t!” Her voice was shaking. She bit the inside of her cheek, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from filling with tears. “You don’t want it, Reed. Please give it to me.”

“I already told you what you have to do, Lard Ass.”

“No. I’ll tell my dad.”

“And I’ll tell him you’re a stuck-up little liar. Which one of us do you think he’ll believe?”

Both of them knew the answer to that question. Bert always took Reed’s side.

A tear dripped off her jaw onto her cotton top, making an amoeba-shaped smear on the leaf of the strawberry. “Please.”

“Pull down your pants, or I’ll tear it up.”

“No!”

He made a small tear at the top, and she couldn’t hold back a sob of distress.

“Pull ’em down!”

“Please, don’t! Please!”

“Are you going to do it, crybaby?” He lengthened the tear.

“Yes! Stop! Stop and I’ll do it.”

He lowered the photograph. Through her tears she saw that he had made a jagged rip through the top inch.

His eyes slithered down over her and settled on the point where her legs came together, that mysterious place where a few strands of golden hair had begun to grow. “Hurry up before somebody comes.”

An awful vomit taste rose in her throat. She worked the button at the side of her shorts. Tears stung her eyes as she struggled with the zipper.

“Don’t make me do this,” she whispered. The words had a wavery sound, as if her throat were full of water. “Please. Just give me the picture.”

“I told you to hurry.” He wasn’t even looking at her face, just staring at the place between her legs.

The bad taste in her mouth got worse as she slowly worked her shorts down over her tummy and thighs and then let them fall. They circled her ankles in a crooked figure eight. She was cold with shame as she stood in front of him in her blue cotton underpants with tiny yellow roses all over them.

“Give it to me now,” she begged.

“Pull down your panties first.”

She tried not to think about it. She tried just to take her panties down so she could have the picture of her mother, but her hands wouldn’t move. She stood in front of him with tears running down her cheeks and her shorts snagged around her chubby ankles and she knew she couldn’t let him see her there.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Do it!” His small eyes darkened with fury.

Sobbing, she shook her head.

With an ugly twist to his mouth, he ripped the precious photograph in half then in half again before letting the pieces float to the ground. He ground them beneath the sole of his sneaker and ran toward the house.

Tripping on her shorts, she stumbled blindly toward the ruined photograph. As she fell to her knees, she saw a set of widely spaced eyes tilted up at the ends just like her own. She gave a little shuddering gasp and told herself it would be all right. She would smooth everything out and tape it all back together again.

Her hands shook as she arranged the four crumpled pieces in their proper order, the top corners first and then the bottom ones. Only after the photograph was reassembled did she see Reed’s final act of malice. A thick, black mustache had been inked in just above her mother’s soft upper lip.

That had been twenty-three years ago, but Phoebe could still feel an ache in her chest as she stood at the window staring out over the grounds. All the material luxuries of her childhood had never been able to compensate for growing up under the shadow of Reed’s cruel bullying and her father’s scorn.

Something brushed against her leg, and she looked down to see Pooh gazing up at her with adoring eyes. She knelt to pick her up, then gathered her close and carried her over to the sofa, where she sat and stroked her soft white coat. The grandfather clock ticked in the corner. When she was eighteen, that clock had stood in her father’s study. She buried her pink-lacquered fingernails in Pooh’s topknot and remembered that awful August night when her world had come to an end.

Her stepmother Lara had taken two-month-old Molly to visit her mother in Cleveland. Phoebe, eighteen at the time, was home packing for her freshman year at Mount Holyoke. Normally she wouldn’t have been invited to the Northwest Illinois State football team party, but Bert was hosting it at the house so she had been included. At that time Bert hadn’t yet bought the Stars’ franchise, and Northwest football had been his obsession. Reed played on the team, and Bert’s generous contributions to the athletic fund had made him a highly influential alumnus.

She had spent the day both anticipating and dreading that night’s party. Although much of her baby fat had melted away, she was still self-conscious about her figure and wore baggy, shapeless clothing to conceal her full breasts. Her experiences with Reed and her father had left her leery of men, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but daydream that one of the popular jocks would notice her.

She had spent the early hours of the party standing on the fringes trying to look inconspicuous. When Craig Jenkins, who was Reed’s best friend, had walked over to ask her to dance, she had barely been able to nod. Dark-haired and handsome, Craig was Northeast’s star player and not even in her wildest dreams had she imagined that he would notice her, much less put his arm around her shoulders after the music ended. She had begun to relax. They danced again. She flirted a little bit, laughed at his jokes.

And then it had all turned sour. He’d had too much to drink and tried to feel her breasts. Even when she’d told him to stop, he hadn’t listened. He’d grown more aggressive, and she’d run outside in the middle of a thunderstorm to hide in the small metal shed near the pool.

That was where Craig had found her and where, in the thick, hot blackness, he had raped her.

Afterward, she’d made the mistake so many rape victims make. Dazed and bleeding, she had dragged herself to the bathroom, where she’d thrown up and then scrubbed away the signs of his violation in a tub of scalding-hot water.

An hour later, sobbing and barely coherent, she’d cornered Bert in his study, where he’d gone to fetch one of his Cuban cigars. She still remembered his disbelief as he’d run his fingers through his steel gray crew cut and studied her. She stood before him in the baggy gray sweat suit she’d climbed into when she got out of the tub, and she had never felt more vulnerable.

“You want me to believe a boy like Craig Jenkins was so hard up for a woman that he had to rape you?”

“It’s true,” she whispered, barely able to squeeze the words through her constricted throat.

Cigar smoke had coiled like a soiled ribbon around his head. He drew his shaggy salt-and-pepper eyebrows together. “This is another one of your pathetic attempts to get my sympathy, isn’t it? Do you really believe I’m going to ruin that boy’s football career just because you want some attention.”

“It’s not like that! He raped me!”

Bert had made a sound of disgust and stuck his head out the door to send someone after Craig, who had arrived minutes later accompanied by Reed. Phoebe had begged her father to send Reed away, but he hadn’t done it, and her cousin stood at the side of the room sipping from a bottle of beer and listening as she haltingly repeated her story.

Craig had hotly denied Phoebe’s accusations, speaking so convincingly that she would have believed him herself if she hadn’t known differently. Even without looking at her father, she realized that she had lost, and when he ordered her not ever to repeat the story again, some part of her had died.

She’d run away the next day, trying to flee from what had become her shame. Her college checking account contained enough money for her to get to Paris, the place where she’d met Arturo Flores, and her life had been changed forever.

Her father’s flunkies had visited her several times during her years with Arturo to deliver Bert’s threats and order her home. She had been disinherited when the first of the nude portraits had gone on display.

She rested her head against the back of the couch and drew Pooh closer. Bert had finally bent her to his will. If she didn’t do as he had dictated, she wouldn’t receive the one hundred thousand dollars, money that would let her open a small art gallery of her own.

You’re my only failure, Phoebe. My only goddamn failure.

Right then, she set her jaw in a stubborn line. Her father, his one hundred thousand dollars, and the Chicago Stars could go to hell. Just because Bert had set up the game didn’t mean she had to play. She’d find another way to raise the money to open her gallery. She decided to take Viktor up on his offer to spend some time at his vacation cottage near Montauk. There, next to the ocean, she would finally put the ghosts of her past to rest.