CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Hardy
I t’s taken me long enough to track her down.
And that’s only made the thoughts of peeling her out of that red dress and laying her down tenfold.
I hate these ostentatious events. They’re boring. They’re pretentious. They’re something my mum and Monty live for. And the fact that Whitney bowed out said so much about her character.
You commit to the wrong types. To women who want the spotlight with you and who crave the attention you attract ... What’s so wrong with seeing what it’s like with someone who is real and who has a life in a sport you love but in a different capacity? One who doesn’t care about the flashing lights around you?
Lennox’s words ring truer than anything right now as I stand before her in her hotel room. The red dress is now lying over a chair and she’s wearing a white, fluffy hotel robe. Her hair is up, but her makeup is gone. She erased part of tonight—the mask—but not all of it.
“You don’t have a shirt on,” she says with a huff, her gaze struggling to stay on my face.
“Because I was in my room when Ari finally texted me back with what room number you were in. It’s not like you were answering me or anything.”
“So, what? You stripped your shirt off and ran over?” She rolls her eyes, but I love the way she swallows forcibly and how her eyes lose the battle and dip down.
“Yes. That’s exactly it.” My words drip with sarcasm, but it was more that I was impatient and needed to see her.
“Why are you here?” she asks and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You said you had a question for me. You didn’t ask the question so I’m waiting to hear it.”
Please . Pretty please say it’s because you fucking want me. My balls tighten at the thought, and my muscles tense. But her sudden hostility says it’s far fucking from that.
She struggles with whatever the question is. If there were a foosball table here, no doubt her hands would be braced on it even if she was still wearing that red, fucking addictive dress.
“I know you coming to the academy was a PR stunt to make you look better, to soften up your image, but is that what tonight was too?”
“Pardon?” That’s the last fucking thing I expected out of her mouth. Not after the evening we just had.
“You heard me. Cinderella story. Me being whisked away from my poor roots to the big city. The prince waiting to open the car door and usher her into his world. The press waiting mercilessly to capture all of it and put it on blast to the world. It certainly made you look like the hero with me clinging to any and everything you are to have a better life.”
I burst out laughing and then it fades when she simply lifts her eyebrows. “You’re serious.”
She nods. “Is it?”
“No. Absolutely not,” I say as she takes a step closer. “You think that’s why you’re here tonight?”
“I think you’re so used to everything revolving around you that you never once thought about the collateral damage of that. Like my life spilled into the ether for public consumption. The poor orphan. This trip here and the whole Cinderella narrative. I’m neither of those people, and yet that’s who I’m being pegged as.”
“You’re both of those women and then some,” I say gently to which her lips fall lax. “Why not use all of it to your advantage?”
“You lied to me about tonight.”
“How?”
“You said you were here to be my date. Then you said you were contractually obligated to be here.” She groans and covers her hands with her face. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
“Why?” Talk about a one-eighty with her demeanor. Angry one moment. Embarrassed the next.
“Nothing. Let it go,” she says and then lifts her eyebrows. “I wasn’t too aware of how stalkerish that sounds until the words actually came out. Ugh.”
I take a step toward her, fighting the urge to touch her when that’s all I can think about doing...even when she’s mad at me. My smile is automatic as I try to remember what it felt like when the media first got its hooks in me. That first oh-shit moment when I realized privacy was a thing of the past. I asked for that when I signed my first contract way back when. She didn’t. “Look, I’m sorry your life is out there. It sucks. I know how it feels more than most. There’s nothing I can do to fix it. But yes, I told Ari to get you here.”
“For the staged photo op or because you thought showing me your flashy world might get you laid?”
“Looking for a fight isn’t going to fix the fact that you want the latter option to happen as much as I do.” I take a leap with the comment, but no man would ever fault me for trying. And aren’t we well past the point of lying?
“And yet you don’t answer the question,” she challenges.
“You want the truth, Whitney? I’ll give it to you.” I take a step toward her, and she takes a step back, almost as if she doesn’t trust herself to be in close proximity of me. I don’t trust myself either. “I wanted you here. Plain. Simple. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have been here. So bloody sue me for taking that step we’ve been dancing around.”
“Dancing around?” She snorts and retreats another step, but her eyes run up and down the length of me like they do every time they see me. There’s desire in her eyes when they meet back with mine again. It’s undeniable. “Have you forgotten that first night we met and the words I said to you?”
“What’s that?”
“I will not sleep with you.”
My smile is as lopsided as my desire is strong. What do I have to lose? “And yet you’re standing here in a robe with whatever lingerie the stylist gave you to wear beneath your dress, peeking out and taunting me on the off chance I decided to show up here after the party tonight.” I take another step forward. “You’re mad at me, yes. But you were also hoping I’d show up. You might have even taken a shower, lathered in lotion, and double-checked what it all looked like in the mirror.”
“You’re out of your mind,” she laughs out.
“You wouldn’t have answered the door otherwise.”
“I have more respect for myself than to wait around hoping some man will come knock on my door.”
“Really? So, what? If you want him then you go after him yourself?” I challenge because God knows the woman needs her control.
“Something like that. When I have an itch, I scratch it. Then I move on.”
Sounds like every man’s dream so why do I not like how that sounds right now?
I lean my arse against the credenza, watching the rise and fall of her chest, and notice her pulse pounding at the base of her throat. Does she have any idea how gorgeous she is right now? Or any time? She’s real in a way so many I meet aren’t, and it adds a confusion to the lust-laced desire I can’t quite shake.
“Mmm.”
“I have principles. I have standards.”
I smirk. “Are you telling me I’m beneath your standards?”
“No. Yes.” She pulls at the chest of her robe where it’s fallen open, and I’m treated with the glimpse of something black and lacy. “I made myself a promise.”
“Which was?”
“To not sleep with you.”
I pull a hand down on the back of my neck, well aware that I’m flexing my abs and biceps as I do. She most definitely looks as I’d hoped. “We wouldn’t be sleeping, Whitney.”
“Fine.”
“But the idea makes you wet, doesn’t it? Knowing I want you does even more so.”
I love the stutter of her breath and the shift of her feet. No doubt she’s feeling that wetness right about now. But she lifts her chin and holds her ground. “Would you rather me say I’m not fucking you ?”
I groan. How can I not when she stands there looking like that and saying words such as those? “Bloody hell, that made me hard. I can offer proof if you’d like.”