Dirty Player (The Montgomery Billionaires #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY

LEVI

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“Kaylee, stop. Where are you going?” I demand as she walks away from me down the alley full of dumpster bins.

“To find someone else to fuck.” She hisses over her shoulder.

I deserve that.

In my defense, I didn’t know she was there, and I was trying to get my brothers off my back.

“Go away Levi. I’m done.”

I follow her, catching up and grabbing her arm.

“Don’t touch me. You do not get to touch me anymore.” She yells a little insanely.

I curse.

I want to tell her my words were a lie, and that I’m a fucking coward, but I hope that she knows that. Surely she knows me well enough.

Now the truth is out.

My family knows the truth.

And that I lied to them as well.

Payton started talking and didn’t stop defending Kaylee, as I should have done, while I ran after her. That in itself is a loud statement of what’s really important to me. I didn’t stop to explain or wait for their reaction when I saw her face.

“Payton I swear to god, stay out of it.” Knox growls and I turn and find him and Payton behind us.

Goddamn it.

Why can’t they stay out of this?

“No. They love each other, but because of your stupid Montgomery family pride, he won’t tell her.”

Kaylee’s gaze moves from Payton to me.

She’s waiting for me to respond.

“She cheated on him,” Knox says, and I feel my jaw grind.

“I don’t care.” I say roughly into Kaylee’s eyes as tears fall down her cheeks. I brush them away, moving her body closer to mine. “I don’t care. I do love you. I’ve tried hard not to, but Kaylee, I fucking love you.”

She hiccups and simply watches me.

I can see the pain and distrust in her eyes.

“Say a word and I’ll render you incapable of creating any more children, Knox Montgomery.” Payton threatens.

“What happened to as if I’d seriously date a woman like her ?” Kaylee asks.

“Ignore him. He was being stubborn,” Payton interjects.

I turn and glare at them. “Knox, get your fucking wife out of here.”

“No. She stays,” Kaylee replies. “You say you love me but keep me hidden from your family and friends for months. A woman like her. What does that mean? What kind of woman am I like?”

Fuck.

“It’s just shit talk. It doesn’t mean anything,” I reply, wishing I had a better answer.

“You shit talk about the woman you supposedly love?” Kaylee shakes her head.

My heart pounds as I watch her pain.

I wish I could take back those words.

I wish I hadn’t cared so much about what my family thought. My damn fucking pride.

I can’t lose her

“I’ve always loved you, Kaylee. From almost the moment I met you, I think I loved you,” I say, cupping the side of her face. “Twenty-one and in love. It scared me. Then I saw you and Colby and figured that’s why you were with me.”

Kaylee’s eyes drop.

“I angrily told my family what had happened, and their loyalty kicked in. We wrongly accused you of being one of those women just wanting to date a professional athlete.”

“Then I prove you right by dating him.” Her eyes lift to mine once more.

“Yes.” I nod softly.

“Which you did,” Knox says from behind us.

Kaylee moves to the side and meets Knox’s stare. “Actually, I went on two or three dates with him and the media made it sound like it was a much bigger thing. We never even banged.”

Oh.

Probably not the right moment, but I’m doing a little dance on the inside.

“Knox,” Payton hisses. “Let’s go.”

I turn to face my big brother and see Atlas behind him. At least Dad stayed away.

“If Levi says he loves you, then he does. And his heart is bigger than all of ours put together,” Knox says, and I swallow audibly.

“Hurt him again and we won’t forgive you,” Atlas says.

“Guys.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “She’s five foot three and one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Not a damn gorilla. Please.”

Being the baby of the family never changes. They will always see me as their little brother.

“I never tried to hurt him. Colby kissed me.” Kaylee says, and her eyes land on me.

That’s the first time I’ve heard that.

She’s never said it before.

Except, I guess, in the messages I never listened to. God, I’m a fucking idiot. How much time have I wasted? And could I have forgiven the situation back then?

I don’t know.

“If my wife believes you, then you have my attention. One chance,” Knox says.

“Knock it off,” Payton says, and I hear her slap him. “Come inside and let them sort it out. They’re adults.”

I smile down at Kaylee, but she’s not returning it.

When there’s only silence and I’m sure they’ve gone, I cup her face again.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you truly loved me, Levi, you wouldn’t have cared what your brothers thought.” She shakes her head gently.

That’s not true.

“The two things can, and did, coexist, Kaylee. I’ve never been in love before. Seeing you and Colby together ripped my heart out.”

“I know,” she says sadly. “But he kissed me. I couldn’t stop him. You know how big he is. I wanted to explain.”

Colby pushed himself on Kaylee?

The fuck?

“You never gave him permission to kiss you?”

She shakes her head.

“So, why did you date him?” I frown.

She lets out a sigh. “Another bad decision. He’d offered me a signed cap for Dad—how he got me into the hall to start—then wanted to apologize and meet for lunch to give me the cap.”

Jesus.

“The media saw us, and he told them I was his girlfriend.” Her eyes fall to the ground, then back up to mine. “By then you hadn’t returned my calls, and I accepted his second invite, I think, out of spite. I was so upset.”

Goddamn it.

“Levi”—her soft voice tears me away from the image of me ripping Colby Wade’s head from his shoulders—“I thought you were going to break up with me anyway. You never invited me to that family dinner. So I thought...”

“You thought I was done with you?”

She nods.

“I wasn’t. I was trying to work out how I could have fallen in love at twenty-one and know you were the woman I wanted to spend my life with.”

Kaylee draws in a little breath, surprised by my words.

I wait.

I wait for her to tell me how she feels.

I wait some more.

But she doesn’t. She simply stands there, her breaths labored, her eyes roaming around us.

There’s something more she isn’t telling me.

“Kaylee,” I rasp. “I’m standing here with my heart on my sleeve...”

Still, she says nothing.

What the fuck is going on?

One of my fears was that my feelings for Kaylee were one sided, and here I am sharing everything. My family knows and they’ve given her their version of a blessing.

Nothing but fucking silence.

Anger blasts through me.

“Tell me. Tell me the truth. For once,” I demand. “You want my forgiveness. You have had the opportunity to explain. I’ve told you I fucking love you, Kaylee.”

Bang, bang, bang.

My heart pounds like a jackhammer as I wait for her response. It feels like an eternity as I stare down into her golden-brown eyes stained with tears.

When she finally speaks, my heart cracks into shards.

“I love you, Levi. I’ve loved you for a long time,” Kaylee whispers. “But this won’t—can’t—work. Too much has happened. Too many people have an opinion, and you need to focus on your career.”

“That’s not true.”

She tilts her head.

Cupping both sides of her face, I say fiercely, “It’s not true, Kaylee. I love you with every part of who I am. You and football.”

Suddenly, fear slices through me as I imagine losing this woman. That can’t happen. I do not want to live without her.

Not for a single day.

I knew it once and I know it now. She’s the woman I am going to spend the rest of my life with.

We met early.

College sweethearts.

Life just took us on a little detour. I had to do some growing up and realize my brothers’ point of views weren’t as important as what I thought.

I’ll work out my father later.

“Listen to me.” I pull her closer, brushing her tears with my thumbs. “Both of us have kept this from the other people in our lives. But now we’ll ease them into it. Show them how much we are in love.”

Her face crumples and I pull her to my chest when a song breaks through the silence, interrupting us.

I know what it is. Her mother’s ringtone.

Kaylee curses, pulls out of my arms, tugging her phone out of her dress pocket.

It’s late, almost midnight I think, and I’m almost certain both of us are thinking the same thing as she answers. Her dad...

“Mom?” Kaylee replies, then her mouth drops open, and she starts running.

Shit.

KAYLEE

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I DON’T KNOW where I’m going, but as Mom cries through the phone telling me Dad has had a heart attack and is in the emergency room, I just keep running.

When I find myself at the front of the convention center, I see a handful of cars and take a risk.

“Uber?” I yell into the window, and he lowers it.

“Where to?”

I tell him “the hospital” and he nods. By the time I’m climbing in, Levi is on my tail.

“Kaylee!”

I glance at him when I have one foot in the car, and freeze.

I can’t do this right now.

I know how much of a hypocrite I am, being angry at Levi for not telling his family and keeping me from them. I’ve done the same with mine.

Worse, I let them believe Levi was the one who ended it.

I’ve lied.

I didn’t want my father to see me as a cheater. Instead, I let him think Levi treated me like I was not good enough for him and his rich family.

I can’t let him come with me.

My parents would be furious and with Dad in the ER, this isn’t the time.

I’m not sure it ever will be.

How could I put his health at risk or confess to my mother the truth? That I lied to my father and now he’s dead.

If he doesn’t survive this.

What a fucking mess.

This won’t—can’t—work. Too much has happened.

I’ve lost the man I love because of my lies.

“Sorry. I have to go.” I pull the door shut when Levi’s a foot away, order the driver to drive, and press my eyes closed when I hear him slap the rear of the cab.

I’ve hurt him again.

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LEVI

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MOTHER FUCKING FUCKER. How dare Kaylee just run away like that?

I tell her I love her and when her family has an emergency, she pushes me away.

Why the hell would she do that?

It’s not like I was the cheater, and she has nothing to worry about when it comes to her family. Her father loved me for god’s sakes.

Fuck this!

I flag down a driver and give him the name of the hospital. Without wanting to sound cliché, I say, “Follow that cab.”

He looks at me like I’m joking, but when I don’t smile, he pulls out onto the road.

“Just tell me you aren’t stalking her, mate.” His accent is Australian.

“No.” I sigh. “We’re in love. Apparently.”

“Ah.” He nods. “Makes perfect sense.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking or totally gets it. Either way, I’m not letting her deal with this alone.

“Wait. Aren’t you Levi Montgomery?”

Christ.

I am not in the mood to talk to a fan right now.

“No.”