Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Cat
“Looks like we’ll need to work on your manners,” I said after I forced myself past the flinch. And the hurt.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll be perfectly polite with everyone. Except you. With you I can behave as my usual crass and undeserving self. You get to see my dark and dangerous side while I behave nicely for the public at large.”
I laughed bravely, if unsure. Of course he was joking. Or trying to intimidate me.
“Right. You’re a regular Big Bad Wolf. I get it.” I feigned nonchalance while my heart beat wildly, glad we weren’t in the same room.
He chuckled low and soft. “Tell me you’re not afraid. Just a little.”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things, Hunter, but not you. I know who you are. For real.” I believed I did. I knew things I shouldn’t know and it was best I not forget. But I could never let him know I knew. I was afraid he wouldn’t trust me, think I was a nasty little spy or something.
Well, I was a spy, but there wasn’t anything nasty about it.
I’d been doing my job, investigating. It wasn’t as if I was using my knowledge to undermine him or to gossip.
It wasn’t as if I’d been looking for dirt on him.
Quite the contrary. I wanted to find out all the hidden good stuff about him I could.
And I’d found out quite a lot of that. I smiled.
He snorted into the phone. “Get on with it, Cat. Why did you call? Or was it only to torment me?”
His words made me shiver with a sense of excitement and . . . power. I torment him?
“You shouldn’t give your hand away so easily. Now maybe I will torment you.”
He disconnected the call. My face flushed all at once as if I’d had an embolism of heat explode in my head.
I should know better than to play games.
Not even harmless word games were harmless with him.
It wasn’t something I was good at and he was .
. . dangerous after all, if unwittingly.
Now he would think I’d called for phone sex.
Again. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t meant to torment him.
He was the one who had the power to torment me, to hurt me. Because I cared about him and he couldn’t care less about me. The chip on his shoulder and the vault around his soul were too big and hard to get past.
Except for the tinderbox of sensual chemistry we had—that part he couldn’t hide away.
And neither could I, though it would be my undoing if I didn’t watch it.
In my deepest secret soul, I’d wanted to have a fling with him, but that had always been out of the question.
I’d be risking my job, my father’s respect.
My own self-respect. Because in spite of my stated desire for him, deep down, in my soul, I knew I wanted so much more.
It was ridiculous to contemplate. Foolish.
Adolescent to have such a deep crush on a man I hardly knew, only knew from afar really. Up until now.
Now I knew he was dark and angry and everything with any value in him was locked up tight.
I took a deep breath. Self-respect won out over fear of inciting his anger.
I could play the fall guy, absorb all his anger if that’s the way he wanted it.
Let him take out his frustrations at being so misunderstood, so beaten down by everyone.
His former team, coaches, and the media.
I would stand by him in spite of whatever he threw at me.
I punched the Reply button on my phone. It rang three, then four times and I blew out a sigh. But before I tossed the phone aside, as I stood in my bedroom, his voice sounded and it wasn’t a recording. The idiot didn’t even have a recording.
“What the hell do you want? It’s late.”
“I want to meet you tomorrow after practice—outside the locker room.” I wasn’t taking any chances that he’d show up at my office.
“Like hell.”
“I’ll need to check you out of the hotel room and pay the bill. Then we’ll turn in your rental car and get you a new car—unless you’re having a car shipped from LA”
There was a beat of silence while he contemplated her reasonable plan. She held her breath and waited him out, squelching the impatience, her need to prompt him.
When he spoke, his voice was low, as if he were with someone and trying not to be overheard. Belatedly I realized my mistake in letting him go anywhere on his own. I should have seen him back to his hotel room, made sure he talked to no one else along the way . . .
“You’re not worried about gossip? If you show up at the locker room and we leave together?”
“Not even a little. Where are you?”
“At Wyatt’s. I’m moving in tonight. I’m assuming you have the address.”
If I ignored his sarcastic tone, these were the first reasonable words he’d said to me tonight. Breathing deep, I needed to be reasonable too, to answer his concern about gossip.
“As for the gossip, I think my father made it clear to everyone on the team what the consequences of gossip about me would be.”
He blew out a whistle. “You are so damn na?ve if you think—”
“I know that there will be nothing to gossip about. I’ll see to it. You do your part.” We were back to clawing angrily at each other, incited by less than a cinder.
“I’m trying to do my part. Trying very hard, but your dear daddy put us in an awkward position.”
Guilt flooded me knowing it was my idea, not Dad’s, that we’d argued about it for two days until I convinced Coach that the assignment should be mine. Knowing that my job was at stake just as much as his.
“There’s nothing awkward about it.” I lied my ass off. Then waited through several more beats of silence.
“I don’t have any choice, do I?” Now his voice sounded cold and more than angry.
“That’s right. You let me worry about gossip.”
“I hate gossip. And gossipers”
“Not as much as I do.” I meant it. Getting my head straight, I stood straight and said in my most professional voice, “I’ll meet you outside the locker room after practice. No extra reps.”
“Fine.” He disconnected the call. I knew he thought the plan was anything but fine. And I wondered if maybe he didn’t have a point about the gossip. But I could take care of that. I would make sure everyone knew it was strictly business.
How the hell I would do that, I had no idea. But I would think of something. By tomorrow.
Too restless to do anything but pace, I found myself doing circles in my smallish kitchen two hours later as I popped another chocolate in my mouth.
Chocolate hazelnut Lindt truffles. My secret addiction.
Before I made another circle and wound up finishing the entire bag—a half a pound of extra calories I didn’t need except to fuel more pacing—I picked up my phone from its silent spot on the island.
I needed to call in help, the kind a sorority sister couldn’t help me with.
I needed a man. But it didn’t need to be a manly man, only a handsome man.
Jason Jones was the exact person I needed to play the role for me.
He was an actor, after all, wasn’t he? He could play my boyfriend after practice tomorrow to throw off any suspicion that there was anything between Hunter and me.
The fact that Jason was gay didn’t matter.
He could play a straight guy when he wanted to—he’d played this role for me before back in undergrad at Boston College.
Punching in his number as fast as my fingers could go before I changed my mind, I hoped he would be available and wondered how much I’d owe him for this.
The phone rang twice before his booming happy voice greeted me.
“Jason, how are you? I’m good.”
“You calling to give me tickets to Sunday’s game?”
“If that’s what it takes to have you do me this favor—what are you doing tomorrow around six p.m.?”
And just like that, I had a plan. A really good plan to dispose of the gossip problem. The best part was that I could call on Jason any time for a recurring role and all it would cost me was a pair of tickets to a game.
The next afternoon, Jason came to my office at four so he could prep for the role.
I was fine with that since as my “boyfriend” it would be perfectly normal for him to show up at my office on occasion, wouldn’t it?
In truth, I had no experience in these things.
The only issue I could foresee was my dad.
People in the office would tell him I had a young man purporting to be my boyfriend show up, if the security man didn’t notify him first. I’d have to let Coach know that it was a casual relationship and there was no need for an introduction at this stage.
Other than that minor, curable bump, the plan was perfect.
“Knock, knock. Your erstwhile boyfriend reporting for duty.” Jason, tall and fit, stood in the doorway to my closet office.
“Jason, it’s so good to see you.” I launched from my chair and gave him a hug. “You look absolutely fabulous. You working out again?”
“Gotta stay in shape for the men’s underwear commercials. Lately I’ve been getting more modeling assignments than acting, but a paycheck is a paycheck.”
“I thought you were doing a play.”
“It closed. That’s why I’m available for this role.” He flashed a smile. “Can’t wait to meet the infamous Hunter Quintanna. Is he as hot in person as he looks on TV?”
“Hotter,” I said. “Now that’s enough of the real Jason, you need to get in character and stay there. You’re supposed to think I’m hot.”
“Baby, of course I think you’re hot. I’m not a blind man.”
I laughed. This would work and it would be fun too.
“I have a question, though. Since Hunter ain’t no blind man, I know he thinks you’re hot too, and I need to know if I’m being set up for a punch in the face.”