The problem with Tyce Duke was that he was very, very good at getting people to say yes.
"I just don't trust people who don't sweat, Emmy," Tyce said. His voice came through her speakerphone rich and unhurried, laced with the kind of lazy confidence that came from being a two-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist. "I've been the Head Pro at the Commonwealth for a week, and the membership committee keeps sending me these... porcelain dolls. I need someone real. Someone who understands the game."
"I assure you, Tyce, we are far from porcelain," Emmy said, stopping at her standing desk to type a furious note on her laptop. She was trying to project athletic energy through thephone, even if she was currently wearing heels. "We believe in chemistry. In movement."
"Movement." Tyce repeated it like he was tasting it. "I like that. You know, that's my issue right now. I'm trying to settle in, get a feel for the courts before the members descend on me this weekend, but I'm dying of boredom, Emmy. Climbing the walls."
"Surely the other pros can hit with you?"
Tyce laughed, a low, dismissive sound that was somehow still charming. "The other pros are all fifty-year-old men named Gary who want me to sign their visors and critique their serves. I can't get a workout in if I'm giving a seminar. And frankly, none of them are as pretty as you."
Emmy faltered, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. "I—well. That's a unique social criteria."
"It's a quality of life criteria," Tyce corrected smoothly. “And if you think it’s unique, you haven’t been in this business long enough. Don't get me started on the members. The tennis moms here are terrifying. They look at me like I'm a T-bone steak. It's making me miss the tour. I need a distraction, Emmy. I need someone fun."
Emmy's brain did a rapid calculation.
Fact: Tyce Duke was one of the most eligible bachelors in Boston.
Fact: Grant had explicitly told her to stay away from him because he was a shark.
Fact: Tyce was bored.
She recognized the frequency. The restlessness of someone too smart for the room they were in, too wired for stillness, desperate for a problem worthy of the processing power. A bored client was a malleable client—but a bored person was something she understood in her bones.
He just needed a playmate.
"I play," she blurted out.
The words left her mouth and immediately turned around to stare at her in horror. She hadn't held a tennis racquet since the Obama administration. Her high school "career" had consisted primarily of standing in the back of the court gossiping about the JV coach's calves while balls sailed past her head.
But the word was out there now. Hanging in the air. Impossible to retract.
"You play?" Tyce sounded delighted in a way that made Emmy's stomach drop.
"I mean, I'm no tennis mom," Emmy laughed, a light, breezy sound that concealed the fact that her heart had just stopped beating. "But I enjoy the court. It's..." She searched for the right word—something that sounded athletic but vague, something that wouldn't peg her as completely out of her depth. "Meditative."
"Fantastic. Look, I'm booked out this week, but how about I have court time reserved at the club next Saturday at noon? Come hit with me. Save me from Gary and the tennis moms. We can talk about this matchmaking thing during the changeovers."
Emmy froze. That gave her a little over a week.
"Next Saturday?" she squeaked.
"It's just a light hit. Just keeping the arm loose. Come on, Emmy. Show me you're not just another suit with a database. How about this—if you can keep a rally going, I'll sign the retainer."
It was a challenge. It was a test. If she said no, she was just another suit. If she said yes, she was the cool, capable matchmaker who could keep up with Tyce Duke.
"I'll be there," she said.
"Great. See you on the baseline, beautiful."
The line clicked dead.
Emmy stared at her phone. The silence in her office was absolute.
"Oh God," she whispered.
She sank into her ergonomic chair, grabbed her phone and texted Harper.
