“I missed you,” I say with a low growl.
Her gray sea-glass eyes look up into mine. “I missed you too.”
Pushing in, I press my lips against hers. It’s a kiss that I’ve been dreaming about for days and it rattles my bones just like I thought it would.
“Are you ready for a night of debauchery?” I ask as I press my forehead against hers.
“Ooh, is that what tonight is?”
“It could be.” I kiss her again.
“In that case, yes,” she says in a low, seductive voice. “I’m totally ready.”
“There’s nothing sexier than the word yes,” I say in a low growl as I place my hands on her curves. “Can’t we just stay here?” I moan.
She smiles. “We can do whatever we want.”
Her hands caress the back of my neck.
“Riley Jamieson, don’t tease me like that.” I kiss her again.
“But it’s so fun,” she whispers. Her breath feels warm against my neck.
Her hands get adventurous and move down my belly. She’s just about to touch my pants and feel what’s in my pocket when I pull back.
“Come on,” I say, trying to hide how abrupt I just acted. “We should go if we want the good appetizers.”
I have no interest in pulling away from her, especially when she smells and looks like that, but I can’t spoil the secret. Not yet. Tonight is going to be a night to remember and I have to keep my cool.
During the car ride, I share stories about the game in Sacramento. Riley stays awfully quiet and I think I know why.
When we arrive at the restaurant, the clouds are rolling in. We make our way inside where the celebration dinner is taking place.
As usual, Blades management has spared no expense. The party has delicious appetizers, tall glasses of champagne, and live jazz. The media is there asking questions with oversized microphones as flashbulbs go off all around us.
I look around at the hundreds of blurry faces. My forehead feels heated. I can feel the ring box in my pocket pressing against my thigh.
Riley looks at me with big gray eyes.
I take her dainty hand in mine.
“Are you okay?” She squeezes my hand.
Wanting to keep her from becoming suspicious, I give her an abrupt nod. “There’s a lot of people here tonight… including the voting committee for the Corazon.”
Her smile disappears. My palms are getting damp.
“Where’s the bar?” She asks, looking around. “I need a drink.”
“Hey.” I pull her back. “Let’s dance first.”
Riley looks around uncomfortably. “Okay.”
I pull her onto the dance floor and place my hand on her waist as we dance to slow jazz.
“I missed you,” I say.
She smiles. “I’m right here.”
I hold her close and take a deep breath.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’ve got you.”
She smirks. “What are you gonna do about it?”
I take a deep breath. “I want you to know that no matter what happens over the next few weeks, I’ll be there to support you. And I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”
“Logan—” Riley looks away.
Her tone feels like a cold hand gripping my heart.
“I think I know what you’re about to say,” I say.
“No,” she says. She takes a deep breath and looks into my eyes. “I need to know if this is real.”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”
“You said something the other night, and again tonight, that makes me think the contract isn’t over—”
“Oh.”
Confusion reigns as other couples dance around us.
“What did I say?”
She swallows. “That it would look good for your Corazon award campaign if I was here with you.”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes!”
“Riley, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that—” I can’t find an explanation in time and it’s enough to incriminate me. Her eyebrows knit together.
“Is this all for show?” Tears start welling up in her eyes. “Am I just a piece of PR jewelry for you?”
“No, of course not.” This night is going south fast. “I didn’t bring you here for that.”
She pulls away from me and walks off the dance floor. I follow her to a quiet corner of the restaurant.
When she turns around, her face is red and her arms are crossed.
“Do you know how much it hurts?” She asks. “To commit yourself to someone only to hear that you’re only there for show?”
“Riley, I wasn’t thinking. We both know I’m not the smart one in this relationship.”
She doesn’t smile. Instead, she exhales sharply and looks away, her jaw clenched.
“This relationship,” she repeats. “What exactly is this relationship?”
“It’s real.” I take her hands in mine. “And I want to be with you. No matter what happens in our future, I want to be with you.” I look into her eyes. “This is real, I swear.”
“Then why doesn’t it feel that way?” Her big gray eyes look up at me as her chin wrinkles. Tears begin crawling down her face. She turns away.
“Riley—” My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it. “Riley, please—"
I reach for her but she pulls away.
“I just need a moment to breathe.” She walks to the exit and out into the parking lot.
I exhale in exasperation. As I follow her, my phone continues buzzing. I pull it out and check the screen. There’s a text from an unknown number.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Send me one million dollars or this pic goes viral.
“What the—"
I check the attached picture. My body goes cold when I see a snapshot of the contract, completely intact as if it had never been ripped.
“What the fuck?”
My heart is racing and heat rises to my face. I look up and run outside and across the parking lot after Riley.
“Riley!” I call out as I catch up to her.
She looks up, her eyes are red and her makeup is smeared from crying.
“What?” She asks.
“What is this?” I ask.
She instantly looks confused.
My hands are shaking as I hold the phone up, showing her the message.
She looks at the screen as her eyes grow wide. “What the hell?”
She looks up at me. I shake my head.
“You really think I’d do this?” She asks.
“Well, you had the contract the whole time. It was in your possession. You’re the only person who could have taken this picture.”
Riley is staring at me in a way I’ve never seen before. “Do you really think I’d sabotage my reputation to destroy yours? Do you really think I’d want to destroy yours at all?”
“You’re telling me you didn’t tell a single soul about this contract?”
“Of course not!”
“Not even Jane?”
She opens her mouth but closes it without saying anything. The guilt in her eyes tells me everything I need to know.
My heart sinks. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Jane wouldn’t tell anyone,” she says. “I swear. She was the one who told me about the app to begin with! If it weren't for her, I would have never met you. There's no reason she'd blackmail us. I had to speak to her about this because I didn’t know—”
“Didn’t know what?” I keep my gaze locked on her. Rage is starting to bubble up inside me.
“I didn’t know if this was real.” She looks at me. “Is it real? You’re still talking about impressing everybody so that you can win the Corazon. Behind closed doors, everything makes sense, but out here nothing makes sense. So please tell me because it’s driving me crazy. Is this real?”
I stare into those big sad eyes.
My first instinct is to tell her this is real, that I’d marry her if it meant keeping her hand in min
e. But the annoyance of betrayal bubbles through me.
My silence lasts a little too long. I pull my gaze away.
“Look at me, Logan.” Her voice is shaking.
My gaze darts everywhere but her. Finally, I force myself to look at her. My heart is buzzing in my chest. Riley is clenching her jaw tight. Tears glisten in her eyes.
“Real couples are supposed to trust each other,” I say.
“I didn’t do it. And neither did Jane. I promise you.”
“You had one secret to keep for me. One. And you couldn’t even do that.” My voice is shaking. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“There’s no way she would have done this!”
“How can you be so sure?” I ask scathingly. I can hear how angry I’m getting. I look away and force myself to breathe.
Music is pouring out of the restaurant as the door is propped open by bystanders. People are starting to gather and watch us as we argue in the parking lot. Some of them even have their phones out. Crap.
“We’re making a scene,” I say.
Riley shakes her head. “That’s all you ever care about, isn’t it? You just want people to think you’re some amazing guy. But in reality, you’re such a fucking coward.”
“Riley—"
“You’re too afraid of real relationships so you push everyone away. You lost Harrison Cooper, you lost the Crushers, and now you’ve lost me.” Tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m stupid for believing this was real, and for believing that a guy like you could have loved someone like me.”
She pulls away. Feeling defeated, I let her leave.
Looking back, I see the crowd is still standing near the door. Allowing some time for my nerves to calm, I stay outside. The cool breeze relieves my heated skin.
My life unraveled in five short minutes. I can’t go back inside. Being at a party alone after a public breakup is not a good look. And there’s a text on my phone threatening to end my career.
Why did she tell Jane?
Who else would it be? They were the only people who knew about the contract. Was this a long-con? A way to get money for the two of them?
Riley couldn’t be the one to do this to me, right? Or maybe I was wrong this whole time. Maybe she’s just like the other women who’ve screwed me over in the past.
I sigh as I start walking to my car.
I told myself not to trust anyone. I told myself not to put down my defenses. And this is where it led me.
As I walk, I feel my phone buzzing against the ring box in my pocket.
RILEY
What an asshole.
Tears stream down my face as I make my way back to the university campus as fast as I humanly can.
I’m such a goddamn fool.
I catch a bus and find an isolated seat in the back. I pull out my phone, half expecting to see a text or a missed call from Logan. Instead, I see notifications about our very public breakup. I turn off my phone and shove it in my purse.
How could he blame me for all this? Didn’t he trust me?
The rejection. The humiliation. I hide my face when I get to campus but that doesn’t stop the whispers and the stares.
I don’t care. The pain is pulsing in my chest like the aftermath of a bomb that just exploded. Everything inside me is empty. My heart is gone.
Making my way up to my room, I push the door open to see Jane on her bed listening to ethereal music and reading a magazine. She looks up and instantly reacts to my disheveled state.
“Riley.” She tosses the magazine aside. “Are you okay?”
She rushes over to me.
I shake my head as the tears start streaming again.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong?”
“The contract,” I say between sobs. “Did you take a picture of it?”
“What?” Her face contorts in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Through heavy sobs, I explain everything to her – the text, the accusations from Logan, the breakup.
She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t even see the contract!”
It’s true. I kept it in my wallet from the moment we signed it and it stayed there until Logan and I ripped it up.
“Besides,” Jane continues, “why would I do that to you? You could just as easily expose me if you wanted to.”
I nod. She’s right. Why would she blackmail me when she’s in the exact same position that I am? Besides, she has more than enough money from her fake relationship with Rupert. She doesn’t need more from Logan.
I sigh as I collapse onto my bed. I wipe away mascara-stained tears and let myself cry. My chest rises and falls with each sob.
“How could he accuse me of that?” I ask.
Jane sits next to me and pats my back as I cry.
“How could I let myself get so invested in him? How did I let it become so real? I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest.”
“Oh, Riley.” Jane hugs me. “I’m so sorry.”
“He cares more about his reputation than anything else. I should have known.” I shake my head. “I should have known that a guy like him could never fall for a girl like me.”
I bury my face in her shoulder.
“I know, I know.” Jane rubs my back. “Damn, I wonder how that blackmailer got that contract.”
“I must've left my purse unattended at some point. Maybe in class or at the library.” I sigh, annoyed at my own negligence.
“Are you gonna try and figure out who it was?”
“Does it matter?” I slump deeper into the bed. “The damage is done.”
“I’m so sorry, Riley.”
I look up at her and sigh. “Me too. I guess I can go to New York now, guilt-free."
Jane smiles. “That’s the spirit. And you know what else we should do guilt-free?”
“What?”
“Ice cream. Come on, my treat.”
I shake my head. “I feel like death. No, worse than death. I feel like a rat that’s been through the washing machine.”
Jane laughs.
“Trust me,” she says. “You’ll feel a thousand times better going to get ice cream with me over crying in bed and feeling sorry for yourself. Come on, it closes in fifteen minutes.”
After some more convincing on her part, I drag myself out of bed and put on some comfortable jeans and an oversized blue hoodie.
As we walk to the ice cream parlor down the block, I think about everything that happened.
Even though I’m mad at Logan, I want to believe deep down that he didn’t mean to accuse me of blackmailing him, or of being unfaithful in this way. But I can still hear his accusations in my head. I can still see the betrayal in his eyes. And even before all that, I could see just how nervous he was to be there upholding his Corazon persona in front of all those journalists. He never cared about me at all.
The stress of it all manifests as a lump in my throat. I try to push it down with a few scoops of mint chocolate chip, but even the ice cream can’t numb the pain.
***
“Just this way,” Clara, the smartly dressed blond, leads the way through the lobby of the New York City lab.
I follow along with ten other interviewees.
“Being hired by us means an extremely competitive salary and two weeks of vacation days to start. We like to treat our researchers with the highest respect we can. That’s how we expect to get the best work out of our employees.” She smiles. “Let’s turn right and take a tour of the atrium.”
We follow her through the brightly lit hallways.
“This place is amazing,” a short woman next to me says. “I’d love to work here.”
Clara points down the hallway. “The cafeteria is just down that way, with some amazing sustainable and plant-based options. Do you guys think you’d like working here?”
Everyone else nods. I force a smile and nod along with them.
As Clara continues talking about the benefits of working at h
er lab, I stare longingly out the window at the New York City skyline. A part of me feels defeated. I never imagined myself moving away from Seattle but at this point, it’s an inevitability, whether I get this position or not.
“Hey, do I know you?” The short woman asks. “You look familiar.”
“Oh, it must be a coincidence.”
“No…you were dating that hockey player! What was his name? Logan something…”
“Logan Drake,” I say. Saying his name feels like saying a dirty word.
“Right! My brother is a huge hockey fan.”
“Well, we’re not dating anymore.”
Her face goes solemn. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She smiles, the light appearing in her face again. “It’s probably for the best, right? Now you can move to the big apple!”
“Yeah.” I swallow past the lump in my throat which still hasn’t quite gone away.
I’ve spent the last week hating Logan so much. Even just saying his name fills me with anger. How could he rope me into this mess? How could he blame me when it was clearly his psycho ex-girlfriend who messed this all up?
Or at least I think it was Catherine…
She’s the only person who was near my unattended purse when the contract was still in my wallet. She’s also the only person I know who’s vindictive enough to sabotage a relationship. How could it be anyone else?
I sigh. Does it even matter? Even if Logan wasn’t blackmailed, we would have had to break up anyway. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about a whole host of alternate scenarios, none of which involve me being single in New York.
The other interviewees and I follow Clara down a corridor to the atrium. The large rounded room is full of plant life, and the stained-glass ceiling tints the sunlight with jewel-toned blues, reds, greens, and yellows. This small paradise separates the hospital and the laboratories.
“We have revolutionary equipment that will be the future of sports medicine,” Clara says. “By working here, you will work with experts who will teach you decades of experience. Our labs are fully stocked and ready to be used. With New York’s various elite sports teams, there will be several professional teams needing our services.”
Clara smiles as she looks at me, clearly excited that I’ve had experience with sports medicine.
Logan Page 16
