Rules of the Game by Nora Roberts

very kind, loving people. I just never felt a part, because I always knew it would be temporary, that my sister or brother of the moment was real and I was . . . transient. As a result I was difficult. Maybe I challenged the people whose home I was placed in to want me—for me, not out of pity or social obligation or the extra dollars my living with them would bring in.
    â€œMy last two years in high school I lived on a farm in Ohio with a nice couple who had an angelic son who would yank my hair when his mother’s back was turned.” A quick grimace. “I left as soon as I graduated from high school, worked my way cross-country waiting tables. It only took me four months to get to L.A.” She met Parks’s quiet, steady look and suddenly flared. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
    The ultimate insult, he mused, taking her rigid hand in his. “I wasn’t. I was wondering how many people would have had the guts to try to make their own life at seventeen, and how many would have the strength to really do it. At the same age I wanted to head for the Florida training camps. Instead I was on a plane heading for college.”
    â€œBecause you had an obligation,” Brooke countered. “I didn’t. If I had had the chance to go to college . . .” She trailed off. “In any case, we’ve both had a decade in our careers.”
    â€œAnd you can have several more if you like,” Parks pointed out. “I can’t. One more season.”
    â€œWhy?” she demanded. “You’ll only be . . .”
    â€œThirty-five,” he finished with a wry smile. “I promised myself ten years ago that’s when I’d stop. There aren’t many of us who can play past forty like Mays.”
    â€œYes, it’s obvious you play like an old man,” she returned dryly.
    â€œI intend to stop before I do.”
    Taking a straw, she began to pleat it while she studied him. “Quit while you’re ahead?”
    â€œThat’s the idea.”
    That she could understand. “Does giving it up with half your life ahead of you bother you?”
    â€œI intend to do something with the second half, but at times it does. Other times I think about all those summer evenings I’ll have free. Do you like the beach?”
    â€œI don’t get there often, but yes.” She thought about the long, hot commercial she’d just filmed. “With occasional exceptions,” she added.
    â€œI have a place on Maui.” Unexpectedly he leaned over, caressing her cheek with fingers that were whisper soft and undeniably possessive. “I’m going to take you there one day.” He shook his head as Brooke started to speak. “Don’t argue, we do that too much. Let’s go for a drive.”
    â€œParks,” Brooke began as they rose, “I meant what I said about not getting involved.”
    â€œYeah, I know.” Then he kissed her long and lingeringly while she stood with her hands filled with paper plates and cups.

Chapter 5
    It was three days before Brooke heard from Parks. She was aware that the last four-game series in the regular season would be played out of town. She knew, too, from what she told herself was simply a casual glimpse at the sports section, that Parks had knocked in three more RBIs in the first two games. In the meantime, she was busy looking over the storyboard for his first block of commercials.
    The word had come down that the first thirty-second spot would be filmed before the league play-offs, in order to capitalize on Parks’s exposure in the competition. That left Brooke little time to prepare, with an already demanding schedule of studio and location shoots, editing and preproduction meetings. But challenge, like food, was vital to her.
    Closed off in her office, with a half an hour’s leeway before she was due at the studio, Brooke ran over the final script for the