CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Dublin
“This was a terrible idea,” I say quietly as I run my clammy palms down my pants.
Cole looks up from where he’s refilling my glass of wine, completely unfazed. “You’ve said that three times.”
“Because it’s true and you’re still not reacting to it.”
I angle my head toward the front windows of the restaurant, where the soft glow of candlelight reflected on polished glass does absolutely nothing to hide the reality happening outside of it.
There are people waiting out there with phones in hands and cameras at the ready. Paparazzi angling for the shot that’ll pay the most. Casual fans who stumbled upon the scene and decided to stay to clip a quick picture. Influencers hoping to turn my unraveling into something viral.
“Why do you need a reaction from me?” he asks, leaning back in his chair, and a ghost of a smile playing on his lips as he studies me.
“The article is shit, yeah, but without it, I never would have been able to take you to a nice restaurant like this. We’d still be sneaking around.
Takeout. Closed doors.” He waves his hand toward the windows.
“So yeah, it’s a shitshow out there but it also gave us freedom we wouldn’t have had otherwise. ”
“Freedom?” I bark out a laugh. “More like thumbing our nose at everyone.”
“Yes, to both.” He dazzles me with his smile, easy and unbothered, and for a second, I forget everything waiting for us outside those doors.
He looks at me like this is simple. Like this is manageable.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I say, even though my lips betray me with the beginning of a smile.
“And you’re beautiful.”
My smile comes automatically, instinctively, like my body recognizes it before my brain has time to argue with it. My life is upside down, but then he says something like that and I want to melt.
“You’re laying it on thick, Valor,” I say, trying to pull myself back into something resembling control. “You feeling okay?”
“Always.” He flashes a grin. “I met your replacement today.”
Oof. That’s not exactly the best way to help me relax. “And?” I ask, trying not to show how much hearing that sucks.
His mouth twitches. “We’ll just say that he’s definitely not you.”
“Meaning?”
“Certainly not as hot.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Well, that’s what got us into this mess, so I hope not.”
“Worth it.” His answer comes too quickly. Too honestly. He watches me for a beat before leaning back in his chair. “But seriously, he just asked questions. Wanted access to film and schedules and medical reports. You know the drill.”
“I do.”
“I gave him access to whatever he needed, but I can see why you’re Marcus’s number one.”
“What?” The comment surprises me and I shouldn’t care about the comment, but I do.
“You came in prepared with the ability to handle a surly athlete and ready to battle.” He watches me above the rim of his glass as I quietly preen at the praise regardless of how bittersweet it is. “He has the personality of a wet noodle.”
“That’s a compliment, I think.”
“It’s definitely a compliment.” His eyes drag down to my lips, to my chest, and then back to meet mine. “Enough about work.”
“Not technically my work anymore.”
“Temporarily,” he says, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Why’d you pick me that night?”
I do a double take. Talk about a subject change. “What?”
“In Cabo. Why me of all the guys in that bar?”
The question catches me off guard, but I still remember.
He was standing on that riser, drink in his hand, completely unaware of the way the entire room bent toward him. Like gravity shifted and everyone else just followed it.
“You were charismatic in a way I’d never seen before. I don’t know. I looked at you and saw everything I never thought I could be.” I smile, the memory clear as day because the man across from me is even more so now, if that’s even possible.
“Hmm.” He pauses, the lines etched in his face softening. “And then you went out and became it.”
I roll my eyes, but there is no real bite behind it. “Far from it.”
“Not from where I stand it isn’t.” He shrugs.
I shake my head and try to ignore the way his words settle somewhere deeper than they should.
“You know I tried to approach you before that, right?” he says.
My head snaps up. “What?”
“At the bar. You were leaning against it, talking to your friend.” He smiles. “Yeah, I saw you.”
It shouldn’t matter, but it does. “You didn’t come over.”
“I was heading your way,” he continues, a faint shake of his head like he still doesn’t quite believe it. “And then you were gone.”
I frown. “Gone?”
“Restroom? Needed some air? I don’t know, but you were gone, and I figured I’d missed my shot.” He smiles. “And the next time I saw you, you were walking straight up to me, telling me you wanted me.”
“Oh my God. It did not go like that . . . exactly.” I blush.
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “How I remember it, it did.” He smiles and murmurs more to himself than to me, “Trouble.”
“Maybe, it was closer to your version than to mine, but I’ll never admit that.” I laugh.
He takes a sip of his wine and looks at me over the rim. “I knew you weren’t asleep.”
I scrunch my nose up and make a noncommittal noise. Need more wine STAT.
“I was tired,” I lie.
“Your pulse was racing. I could see it in your neck,” he says. “Your breathing was off. Your eyes fluttered like a little kid pretending.”
I groan. “Please stop talking.”
He chuckles, but it fades gently. “Why? You changed your mind,” he says. “It was your right to and as much as I wanted you, I wasn’t going to push you into something you weren’t sure about.” He reaches across the table and links his fingers with mine. “So I let it go.”
“And then probably went right back out to the bar and found someone else to have fun with.”
He shrugs without shame. “I was twenty, single, buzzed, and because of you, horny.”
“That’s a yes, then.” I laugh because I’d expect nothing less of any other guy in that situation. No hard feelings at all.
“That is a yes,” he says but then stares down at his wine for a beat before looking back up to meet my eyes. “But I won’t lie and say I didn’t hope to maybe see you again at the pool or bar.”
“Because your ego was bruised?” I tease. “I mean that had to have been hard having one, lone female be immune to your charms.”
“Completely brutal.” His smile is a slow crawl over his lips that heats up parts of me. “And then you show up five years later to complicate my career and bruise my ego again by acting like that night in Cabo never happened.”
“Because it didn’t happen.” I chuckle. “Not really.”
“Well . . .” He shrugs. “I didn’t forget.”
I swallow. His words hit me in a way I never expected they could, and mixed with our current situation and circumstances, mean more than he’ll ever know.
“And now we’re here,” he says.
“In a restaurant with people peeking in through the windows.”
“We are.” He nods. “Funny how life works sometimes. Besides, we gave them a few days to stir up all the drama they can create, and then we made the decision to go out and let them see we don’t care what they say.”
“We made the decision?”
His mouth twitches. “Last I recall, you did walk in here on your own volition.”
I level him with a scathing glare. “I was ambushed. There was a lot of cajoling. A lot of promises—”
“And that thing I did with my tongue didn’t hurt either.”
I squirm in my seat just thinking about his masterful tongue. “I wouldn’t exactly call holding my orgasm hostage until I agreed an even playing field.”
His grin is devilish. “And yet, here we are. I’d say we both got what we wanted in the end.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you were a great appetizer.”
“Cole.” I gasp and look around to make sure no one heard him. That’s the last damn thing I need to be published.
“God, I love when you blush.” He takes another sip. “My thought process was that you’ve been working hard, been stressing harder, and you could use a break.”
“A break. From what exactly? The career implosion? The public humiliation? The part where my name is trending for all the wrong reasons?”
He sets his glass down, unfazed. “It’s only public humiliation if you hide, Trouble. We’re not hiding.”
I stare at him for a second, trying to decide whether he’s serious. Of course he is.
“That sounds great in theory,” I say and lower my voice as a server passes, “but there’s a line of reporters outside who would love nothing more than to document how I’m handling said break.”
He glances toward the window, waves absently, and then looks back at me. “Then I guess your steak’s making the evening news. I told you it was a travesty for you to order that thing well done, and now we’ll find out if the world agrees.”
“My steak is the least of my problems. Maybe they’ll zoom in when I have another glass of wine, labeling me an alcoholic and declaring me unfit for society.”
“Bold of you to assume they haven’t already decided that.”
“Wow. Supportive of you.”
“Very.”
I shake my head, but I lose the battle fighting a smile. It’s impossible not to when he’s around, trying to lighten the mood, and acting like this is just a blip on the radar.
God. This is absurd. All of it. Sitting here like this. With him. Like nothing has changed. Like everything hasn’t.
“In all seriousness, how are you doing?”
I look down at my glass, tracing the rim with my finger as I try to find the right answer. “I feel . . . disassociated. I think. You don’t realize how much a part of you your job is, until it’s not there.”