Logan’s brow furrowed. “Okay, I think she’s great, and she makes me really happy, but…”
“But what?” I asked.
“But I’m not thrilled with how public she makes everything,” he answered with a shrug. “I get that she’s an influencer—whatever the hell that means—but does the world really care what she has for breakfast? Or what I had for lunch? Does she have to post moments I think are private?”
“Nope,” Cannon answered, which earned him my glare.
“But then again, that’s her job, right? She’s paid to post stuff. She literally makes her living posting shit on social media. She would never show up at the rink and tell me how to do my job so how can I tell her how to do hers?”
“Well, your job doesn’t really involve exploiting her,” I said slowly, hoping it wasn’t about to lose me my friend.
He blinked, then moved like he was going to speak, only to stop and blink again. “You think that’s what she’s doing?”
“Exploiting you?” I clarified.
“Yes,” Cannon answered. “She boosts her following by using your fame. You refuse to model, which is what-the-fuck ever, but people like to look at your face for some reason, and she has the monopoly on you. People follow her to see you. Of course she makes you happy, she can’t afford not to.”
Logan sat back and let his head fall against the couch. “Yeah, I know.”
“You know?” I asked.
“I’m not an idiot. I know she’s...used me to get ahead, but I have to ask myself how much I care, I guess.”
Cannon narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Say that again.”
“If she makes me happy, then I should be the one to determine if the cost is too steep, right?”
“I can’t argue with that.” I shook my head.
“Right. She’s never hurt any of you, and she hasn’t hurt me, either. Do I have concerns? Sure. But I’m not blind to them.” He looked at us in turn, making sure we understood his point.
“Got it,” I said. “Subject is closed.”
Cannon sighed and went back to his book.
“Gentlemen.” Coach rubbed the skin between his eyebrows as he approached. “Grab your bags. We’re staying the night. We’ll get out first thing in the morning, but FAA says we can’t fly in this.”
We all collectively groaned.
So much for getting home—for getting to Annabelle tonight.
“Hey, lass. I’m starting to really worry that something has happened to ye. I’ve called a few times, and texted, but you’re not responding. I thought maybe your phone was dead last night, but now it’s today and you’re still not picking up. God, I’m just hoping everything is okay.”
“Sir, you need to hang up for take off,” the flight attendant lectured with a frozen smile.
“Okay, we’re finally getting ready to take off, so I’ll come straight to you when I get home. Just text and let me know where you’ll be. Please?”
“Sir.”
“I love ye and I’ll see ye shortly.”
“Sir!”
“I’m off!” I snapped, and swiped my phone into airplane mode.
Fuck. What the hell was going on? Was she hurt? Wouldn’t someone have called me? Why wasn’t she answering? Had I made her angry by insinuating that I wanted to crawl into bed with her when I got home? Had she changed her mind about me? About us? Were the away games too much for her to handle?
My thoughts raged the entire flight home, and by the time we landed in Charleston, I was a balled up mess of raging nerves and fear.
“It’s just the phone,” I assured myself as I drove toward Sweet Water in the caravan of hundred-thousand dollar cars that made up the Reapers. “It went dead. She threw it. Arnie stole it.”
She wasn’t hurt. She wouldn't be. Even Sawyer said that Echo had been too busy at the bar to talk much, but if something had been wrong with Annabelle, Echo would have said something.
I pulled into my drive and felt about fifty years of stress fall off me as I spotted her white Volvo in the drive. She was here. Thank God.
I parked in the garage and didn’t even bother to close the door before I flew into the house.
“Annabelle!” I called out, throwing my keys on the counter.
There was a rustling—she was coming down the stairs.
I walked into the foyer with a smile on my face. “God, I’ve missed ye, lass. What happened to your phone? I’ve been calling and calling—what the hell?”
Annabelle came down the stairs wearing jeans and a t-shirt, which was enough to alarm me, but she was carrying a box.
“Glad you made it home safely.” Her voice was as cool as the look she sent my way before walking straight past me. No smile. No kiss. Nothing.
“Annabelle? Love?” I followed her to the front door. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” she answered.
“But I just got here…”
“Which is why I’m leaving. I honestly thought I’d have my stuff out by now, but it proved a bit more difficult than I thought.”
“What am I missing?” I asked slowly, trying to get my brain to recognize what was causing my heart to bleed out on the hardwood.
“Missing? Well, I guess that would be me. I’m leaving.”
“The house?” I guessed, hoping she didn’t mean what I thought she did. The nausea churning in my belly told me it was exactly what I feared.
“No, Connell. I’m leaving you.”
Forget bleeding out, my heart disintegrated on the spot.
18
Annabelle
“Annabelle,” Connell said my name like a plea as I dropped the box on his porch and spun around, heading up the stairs to get the last one. I shuffled around his bedroom, throwing the last of my things into the final box. “Annabelle, I deserve to know what the hell is going on,” he said, stepping into my path to halt my progress. His touch was like a brand, and I jerked my arm from his hand.
I gaped at him, the only emotion I allowed myself to show at the moment. “You’re going to pretend like you don’t know?”
His eyes widened. “I have no idea what would cause you not to take my calls or spur this reaction.” He tapped the box in my hands.
Pain rippled through my already shredded heart. Why was he still playing me? I shook my head, shifting the box to my hip to fish my cell from my pocket. A couple clicks, and the article and photos were up. I tossed it at his chest, and he caught it with fast reflexes.
The longer he scrolled, the longer her read the article, the more that muscle in his jaw ticked. The more I thought he would break my phone from clutching it so hard.
He carefully handed the phone to me, taking a step backward. “Please listen to me,” he said. “You know I’m crazy about you. This is—”
“I said this would happen from the beginning.” I scoffed, shaking my head. “I kept saying it. I told you all about my ex and what happened in Atlanta from long distance. Told you I would never be put in that situation again. And you…you had the nerve to tell I was wrong. To make me believe—” I cut my words short, pressing my lips together.
No. If I went down this line with him, all the walls I’d constructed would crumble. They’d already suffered an astounding blow at the sight of him—wild and frantic, his scent filling the air with a painful sharpness.
“Annabelle—”
“Stop,” I cut him off. “Please stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” He challenged, taking a step closer to me. “Like I love ye?”
Tears coated my eyes, and I nodded.
He sighed, his breath warm on my cheeks he was so close. My body vibrated from the battle of wanting to run away from him and toward him at the same time. He dared to reach a hand up and wipe a traitorous tear from my cheek.
Despite myself, I leaned into his hand.
“It’s not true,” he said, and reality crashed over my head.
I pulled away and walked past him, collecting the last set
of pajamas from my dresser drawer across the room. I set the box atop the dresser, now filled to the brim with things that suddenly didn’t seem so important. My entire relationship, summed up in the scraps of silk and lace I’d left at his house. Scraps—just what we were now.
I sucked in a sharp breath, mustering the courage I needed to say the words.
“Goodbye, Connell,” I choked out, reaching for the box.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, the primal tenor in his tone reverberating inside my soul.
I spun, eyes wide. “Don’t I dare?” I glared at him. “Connell, do me a favor.” Good. Anger was much better than the heartbreak.
“Picture me,” I continued. “Picture me with Cannon. Or Logan. Hell, picture me with those two rookies, at once. Their hands on me. Their lips on my skin.” He flinched, but I kept going. “Now picture me laughing about it. Imagine reading a text where I explain how it doesn’t count if you’re not in the same state. Hell, not the same city.”
I stepped closer to where he’d turned into a statue, the box forgotten behind me. His muscles rippled beneath his skin as he folded his arms over his chest. Pain—real and raw—flickered in his blue eyes. I ignored it, not certain what he was so upset about. Getting caught? Certainly, it wasn’t over losing me or he wouldn’t have done what he did.
“Feel that?” I asked, stopping a breath from his body, the tension curling from him and settling on my skin. “Now imagine how I feel thinking about you being with other women and then bragging about it?”
“I. Didn’t. Do. It.”
Exhaustion settled in my bones. My heart ached with the want to believe him because the pain I’d been living with for the last two days was just too much.
“You didn’t do what exactly?” I asked slowly.
“I never touched those women—at least not in any way that wasn’t strictly professional. I haven’t put my hands on any other woman out of desire besides you since we met. I did not cheat on you.”
His eyes were so sincere that I couldn’t help but believe him. But if he didn’t cheat on me, why would he run off at the mouth that he had?
“You didn’t say those things? The reporters just made it up?” I edged, hating myself for opening the door for him to crush me completely.
He visibly swallowed.
And I felt the lack of denial in my chest like a punch. I stumbled back a step, then another.
He followed me, arms outstretched between us. My back hit the dresser, and he dropped his hands at the glare in my eyes. “I did say those things,” he admitted, and somehow a new fresh wave of pain sliced through my soul like an axe dropping.
Some, stupid, hopeless part of me wanted it all to be a lie. For him to be suing the reporters for slander.
“But it was a joke,” he said. “I was trying to put this jackass in his place.”
I tilted my head. “A joke?”
“Sarcasm,” he clarified, raking his hands through his hair. “I was pissed off at his implications about me. About all NHL players. I lost my temper and made a joke—”
“A joke?” I narrowed my gaze. “Lost your temper?” I repeated. “By saying you loved to cheat while you were draped with a handful of half-naked, perfect women?” I hugged myself, tearing my gaze away from him.
“First off, they were far from perfect, and second...not my most clever move,” he said. “But I was only repeating what he implied. Go talk to him! He’ll tell you.”
I swallowed hard. “There are ten other tabloids that have run the same article. Who exactly would you like me to speak with, Connell?”
“The scunner who started this bullshit,” he snapped.
“Scunner?”
He rubbed his palms over his face. “Irritating piece of shit,” he clarified.
“You didn’t cheat on me,” I said the words aloud.
“Never,” he said on a loosed breath. “I would never.”
I cleared my throat, hugging myself tighter. “You just think so little of our relationship that you thought it would be funny to say those things. Things you knew would hurt me, cut me to the quick.”
“Annabelle—”
“No,” I cut him off. “This is almost worse.” I swiped at the tears in my eyes. “Because you may not have cheated on me, but you clearly think so little of me, so little of our relationship, that you saw fit to use it as a joke. You didn’t respect me enough to keep your mouth shut, for once.” The words poured from me, sharp and stinging on their way out.
Connell flinched again, then glared at me. “That’s not how it went down.”
“Oh, really? You didn’t turn our entire relationship into tabloid fodder when you could have simply said that you would never cheat on the woman you love?”
“I did! I told him that I am in a committed relationship, and then I told him that ye trust me, which obviously ye don’t!” He backed away as he shook his head at me.
“Trust? I trusted the words you said yourself!”
“Bloody hell, woman! That was one line...okay, a few lines out of the interview! The rest of it I talked about how much I loved ye. That I don’t know a single Reaper who would cheat on his woman.”
“Then why would he only print this?”
“Because he’s a reporter!”
“That you gave the quote to! You’ve been around enough reporters to know they’ll take whatever they want from an interview, and you gave it to him.”
“I was pissed! I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I was pissed.”
“Really?” I scrolled through the interview and then turned my camera to face him. “Because you look really pissed here with all those mostly-naked women spraying you down with champagne. So pissed.”
His jaw ticked. “That was after he left.”
“Uh. huh.”
“I was happy that I’d given the arse a piece of my mind! It’s a national men’s magazine, and I thought the only soundbite that would come out of that interview would be that we’re not the unfaithful jerks they assume we are.”
“God, she was right,” I muttered, tucking the phone into my back pocket.
“Who?”
“Ginger Levenson.”
“What the hell does Ginger have to do with this?” He motioned between us.
“She’s your ex, right?”
“Sure, from about five years ago.”
“She told me that she was never enough for you. That you always had to have more attention and exposure for your career. And she was right! God, I should have listened to her, and there I was, so smug that—”
“Enough.” He ran his hands over his hair. “Ginger and I dated for a few months, and we broke up because I didn’t love her, and she wanted me to. She wanted pieces of me that I wasn’t ready to give away. Pieces that I’ve only given to ye. She doesn’t know anything about the man I am now. Or am I to take the word of your ex about your current choices? That’s not fair.”
“Well, apparently she still knows you pretty well, because you did exactly what she warned me about! You wanted exposure? You got it. Now you’re on the cover of every tabloid website.” My stomach hit the floor. “A national men’s magazine?”
“Aye. Men’s Quarterly. That’s where the original article is published.”
I took in measured breaths as my face heated. “You’re telling me that when the October issue hits stands across the country, this article saying that you love to cheat on me will be on every grocery stand in Sweet Water? In Charleston? Around the country?” Oh no, no, no. Internet articles were a flash in the pan, but print was forever.
“Well, yes. I guess, so.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I only meant to make the point that assuming I was some playboy wasn’t fair. He took my words completely out of context!”
“You made your point at my expense!” I jabbed my finger toward him. “My mother will see that magazine! My father! My friends! Everyone I work with and for. Everyone in my life who knows I fell in love with you will know that you didn’t! God, it wa
s awful knowing that they could stumble onto it online, but...I’ll never live this down!”
“Annabelle, I love ye. That was never my—”
“You don’t love me! You just publicly humiliated me for what? A soundbite? So you could feel better about yourself because someone dared to make an assumption? You turned what we have into a quick sarcastic comment because you couldn’t resist? That’s not love! Love would have been giving him a serious answer instead of having to make everything a damned joke!”
“I never thought—”
“You didn’t think about me! About us! God, my mother will hear about it at the salon. The grocery store. Everywhere. My sister already knows, since she called a few hours ago, and it’s only a matter of time before Dad has to endure pitying glances at the hardware store that his silly daughter was stupid enough to fall for the NHL star who found her convenient.”
“God, Annabelle, I made a mistake, but why do you care so much about what other people think?”
“I care what you think, and you told the whole world in that interview! I’m done. Because clearly, there is no other way it could’ve gone. And you had to have known it would end like this, right here. With me in shattered pieces, heart fully, properly broken over a man who apparently was never truly mine.” My soul shuttered at my own words.
“You know me,” he said. “Whether you believe it or not. You’re not giving me a chance. You’re making me out to be him and I’m not! You’re not even going to try to find the truth.”
“Why should I?” I snapped. “You already admitted to saying those things! And the fact that they could leave your mouth speaks volumes about how you actually feel about me.”
“You know how I feel about you, Annabelle. I love you. I never loved anyone like I—”
“You don’t,” I cut him off before he could turn me to ash. I grabbed the box off the dresser, looking at him over my shoulder. “Because if you did? We wouldn’t be here.” Tears rolled down my cheeks at the distance between us. “I wouldn’t be broken and bleeding with no cure in sight, and more coming the minute that goes to print.” I choked back a sob, putting one foot in front of the other.
Connell (Carolina Reapers Book 3) Page 17
