Playing Dirty

by C. L. Parker

  I looked up at him then, taking a page out of his own book when I said, “Now who’s making assumptions?”

  The cocky laugh was back again. “At least I can own my truth. Your lies run so deep, you don’t even realize they’re there.”

  With my chin set confidently, I met his challenge. “I know my worth, and that’s what matters.”

  “Yeah? So what’s the going price? A partnership?” Shaw leaned in so close I could taste the intoxicating aroma of his cologne with each breath I took. His lips grazed the shell of my ear, causing my flesh to pebble. “Just how far are you willing to go to win, Cassidy? Is Wade next on your list?”

  I snapped at the insinuation, shoving him hard with two palms to the chest and giving myself just enough room for the windup and release of a right jab to Shaw’s eye. The searing pain that shot through my wrist was crippling, but I didn’t show it; I was too pissed. My da would’ve been proud of his little girl, and Casey would’ve followed up with a left and a right and another left to finish him off for the insult. That was the way we did things back home. It was hard as hell to take the girl out of Stonington, but you for damn sure wouldn’t ever be able to take Stonington out of the girl.

  “Don’t you ever again insinuate that I’m sleeping my way to the top!”

  Shaw held his eye, momentarily stunned, but it wouldn’t keep his fat trap shut. “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t throw a stone. That was a right jab, asshole. Own that.”

  I’d had enough. Enough of being criticized for having a normal, supportive family, enough of being lied to, and enough of being called a slut. And I didn’t care if I ever saw Shaw Matthews again.

  A dramatic exit hadn’t been my intention, but I was acutely aware that I was a walking cliché in that moment. I wasn’t the only cliché, though. Shaw grabbed my arm to stop me, one eye clamped shut and the other doing its best to focus.

  “Unless you want two matching black eyes, I suggest you let me go,” I warned.

  “Tell me the truth now, and I’ll let you leave.”

  God, he just didn’t know when to stop.

  “What?” I asked with a huff.

  “Why did you come here? Am I supposed to think you actually care?”

  I rolled my eyes with an incredulous shake of my head. He wouldn’t believe the truth. After all the hurtful things he’d said to me, I wasn’t even sure I believed it myself. I certainly wasn’t ready to make any grand admissions out loud.

  “No, Shaw. I genuinely feel sorry for you.” With that, I pulled my arm free. “I hope you finally get everything you’ve ever wanted. But you should know that it’s going to be a lonely and miserable existence without anyone to love or to love you.”

  For the first time since I’d met him, Shaw Matthews didn’t have a witty retort. He just stood there, saying nothing. Dumbfounded. I honestly didn’t know if what I’d said had made a bit of difference. The topic of love was sincerely a foreign concept to him. How could he know the difference between something fake and something real when he’d never even known the love of a parent? A person like that was dangerous, capable of breaking many hearts. And not just those of his lovers. Anyone who ever gave a damn about him would fall prey. Well, I wasn’t going to be one of his casualties, and I wasn’t going to stick around to watch him crash and burn, either. So I left him staring after me as I turned my back and walked out of an apartment that was every bit as empty as its occupant’s heart.

  CHAPTER 18

  Cassidy

  I was still feeling raw from my conversation with Shaw the night before as the town car carried me to La Jolla for my makeup meeting with Denver at his place. Not having slept much, I was exhausted, and the sting of rejection from the conversation I knew was to come had already been playing havoc with my psyche. An emotional overload was imminent. Feeling like screaming one second and crying the next was the telltale sign. Or maybe I was about to start my period. Same difference.

  Denver was going to dump me. As his agent, not his girlfriend. Even though I wasn’t actually his agent … or his girlfriend. And I was going to have to dump him, as my not really boyfriend. Crap. Why did life have to be so confusing?

  Guilt seemed to be a running theme in my life lately. Not only did I feel guilty about having to let Denver down and making a rash judgment about Shaw, but all the tossing and turning and thinking during the night had led me down another road. I’d started to see the similarities between Shaw and me. I’d called him out for not being there for his parents, but how had I been any different? I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been home to see my own.

  And then there was Casey. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about him. Worse, I’d never stopped to consider how he must feel about our situation. I’d been so selfish. If I were honest with myself, I’d have to admit I hadn’t been any better than Shaw. So who was I to pass judgment on him and act so self-righteous? What he did in his life was none of my stupid business anyway.

  That old Stonington mentality was ever present, ingrained in the very fiber of my being, and it would not be denied. Where I came from, everyone knew everyone’s business and they all had an opinion about it that got crammed down your throat, whether you liked it or not. That was what I had done to Shaw.

  Resting my head against the cool glass of the window, I tried to let the scenic beauty of La Jolla’s hillsides distract me from my thoughts. Truthfully, I was glad Denver had sent a car to bring me to the privacy of his home so he could drop the atomic bomb all over my aspirations to represent him. It would have been embarrassing for me to be seen crying at the office.

  Was that where I was in my life? Had I worked so hard to become a no-nonsense, nothing-personal-about-it, get-the-job-done businesswoman, only to be reduced to a sappy puddle of emo girl?

  As we crested the hill, the car came to a gradual stop in front of a three-story Tuscan oceanfront estate that was absolutely breathtaking. Denver was standing in front of a mahogany wood door that dwarfed his frame, and the smile on his face rivaled the panoramic view surrounding him.

  “Here we are, miss,” the driver said. “If you’ll wait right there, I’ll get your door.”

  Screw that. I knew how to work a handle. As soon as Denver realized I was opening the door myself, he bolted forward. I had no idea why. It wasn’t as if he’d reach me before I could get out, no matter how impressive his forty-yard-dash time was.

  “Um, hey. So, uh … thanks for coming over,” he said with a nervous edge.

  I smiled to put him at ease, even though I knew he was about to demolish my hopes, because that was the sort of woman I was. Generous to a fault, mama bear by nature. Though for some reason, I simply couldn’t bring myself to be any of those things for Shaw. “Of course, Denver. Don’t be silly.”

  He beamed, but his delight never quite reached his eyes. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour.”

  And what a tour it was. The lifestyles of the rich and famous always involved a waste of money I couldn’t understand. Denver was a single man with no children, yet his home boasted six bedrooms with six bathrooms and two half baths, for a total of over eight thousand square feet. It was ridiculously big, with a state-of-the-art architectural design that had been carried out using the world’s finest materials. He was living in the middle of a work of art. Who could relax and unwind from their day when they had to be concerned about breaking something?

  Shaw wanted that. The status associated with the price tag was exactly his sort of thing. I shut down that line of thinking quickly; nothing good could come of it. My teeth had already begun to get their grind on, jaws locked tight to keep the insults from flying.

  Denver was clearly proud of his home. Who was I to take that from him? Besides, it really was beautiful. Maybe I was just jealous.

  The little she-devil on my shoulder kept whispering in my ear: But all of this could be yours for the low, low price of … your soul.

  Not
today, little she-devil. This was one wrong I knew I could make right, to free up my conscience for the other mishaps desperately in need of my attention.

  When we reached the master suite, on the top floor, I began to get nervous. Despite the early afternoon hour, Denver had this whole romantic setup out on a rather large deck, complete with a fire pit, twinkling white lights, and a bottle of champagne on ice. Crap. I needed to put the brakes on this, and fast.

  “Denver, look. I think maybe we need to have a talk,” I started.

  “Well, yeah. That’s why I brought you here in the first place, silly.” He laughed nervously, then gestured toward the wrought-iron chairs with overstuffed cushions. “I think it’ll be best if you have a seat.”

  I did as he asked, not bothering to get comfortable in case things got to be a little too cozy and I’d need to bolt to my feet. To my surprise, Denver remained standing.

  “Aren’t you going to join me?”

  He ran his fingers through his sun-kissed hair. “I can’t. I’m too nervous to sit.”

  Great. This was going to be worse than I’d thought.

  “Listen, before we do this,” he said, gesturing between the two of us, “there’s something I need to let you know.”

  When he loosened the first two buttons of his shirt, I panicked and jumped up. “Oh God … Denver, I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  He looked wounded and confused. “Why? You don’t want me anymore?”

  “What? No!” I paused and took a deep breath, rethinking my approach; I certainly didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “I mean, try not to take it personally, but I just don’t think it’s the best move for my career. You understand?”

  “No, I don’t understand. So all the time we’ve been spending together lately was about what?”

  I took my seat again, burying my head in my hands. “Crap! I know, I’m sorry. It was so wrong of me. I let things get entirely too personal because I really like you. I guess I thought we were having a good time, building a connection that would help solidify our working relationship.”

  Denver sat next to me. “But it did. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. All that time we spent together made me realize how much I really want you, but I don’t want you to agree to take the next step until you know the whole truth about me.”

  I looked up at him then, exasperated. He obviously had something very important to say. “What truth?” I asked, even though it wouldn’t matter. Before I left there, his feelings were going to be hurt.

  Denver took a deep breath. “The truth is, I hired that cameraman to film me with those strippers.”

  “What?” I shrieked. Could he actually envision a scenario in which telling me something like that was going to make me want to sleep with him? “That’s revolting!”

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, getting to his feet.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, good. Because I think you’re a twisted pervert who wants to chronicle himself behaving disgustingly with young, innocent women.”

  “Cassidy, it’s not like that at all. And, believe me, they weren’t innocent. I paid them, too.” The way he said it was like it was no big deal.

  I was appalled and nauseous. “Oh, my God! That girl was underage!”

  “But I didn’t know. She lied. I swear!”

  By that point I wasn’t really hearing anything he was saying—I was too busy being flabbergasted. How was it possible that the man who was so kind to my best gay friend could be the same man who acted like such a pig with women? I just didn’t get it.

  “And Shaw went to jail for you!” I gasped, the realization suddenly hitting me. “Was he in on it?”

  “No! No, no, no!” Denver said, his eyes wide. “He had no idea. I swear.”

  I shot to my feet. “Well, that makes it even worse! You left him in jail! Left him there! What kind of person does that?”

  Denver paced, his face tinged red with frustration or embarrassment, maybe both—then again, I didn’t care. He was an asshole, and whether he deserved it or not, he’d caught me on a very bad day.

  “I was so drunk, not in my right mind,” he said. “Then that fight broke out, and I knew it wouldn’t be good for my career.”

  What a selfish bastard he was for thinking only about himself, and that was exactly what I told him. Or, rather, yelled at him. “What about Shaw’s career? Have you any idea how damaging that could have been for him?”

  “I know. I’m a piece of shit for it.” Denver hung his head, but I didn’t care how bad he might have felt.

  “What were you planning on doing here today? Did you want me to see your little tapes? Is that it? Or did you think we were going to make one? Because that definitely is not going to happen, mister.”

  Denver stopped pacing, his head snapping up. “Huh?”

  I was on a roll. “I can’t believe you actually believe I’d want to be with someone who could do something like that. I mean, I have nothing against someone wanting to get their freak on, and I’m not exactly vanilla myself, but I just can’t be okay with all of this.”

  In the middle of my rant, Denver shouted something I couldn’t quite make out. Though maybe it had been loud and clear, because I fell silent as it resonated. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I’d just heard.

  “What?” I asked.

  He looked directly at me. “I said I don’t want to be with you … because I’m gay. There. It’s out.” His expression was a mix of relief and terror.

  “Oh. You’re … gay,” I repeated, still shell-shocked.

  Denver took a seat just in the nick of time, his resemblance to a newborn foal making it obvious his legs were about to give out. His hands were shaking as he ran them over his suddenly pale face, covering his mouth like he wished he could take the words back. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Hell, I’ve never even said it out loud to myself before.”

  He turned to peer over his shoulder as if he expected someone to be there, listening in on his confession. It was paranoia, of course. We were on the side of a cliff, with nothing but jagged rocks and churning water below.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I promised him; it looked like he needed that reassurance.

  “Good. Because you know as well as I do that it would hurt my career.”

  As much as I would’ve liked to be able to argue the point, I couldn’t. Mankind had made some serious leaps and bounds toward tolerance, but it was nowhere near where it should be. Equality for all sounded noble in theory, but society was still having trouble making it legal on paper. Homosexuals in the military and on the playing fields were at an even greater disadvantage.

  That was when everything started to click into place. “Wait—but you’ve been hitting on me and even kissed me.”

  Denver nodded, his lips pressed together. “Yeah, that’s true. I guess I hoped we’d be seen, you know? I needed to be seen with a woman.”

  Thinking back on the events leading up to his big confession, I saw the puzzle pieces start to come together. “So you hired the cameraman to film you with the strippers because …”

  Denver finished my thought: “I hired the cameraman and the strippers and tipped off the paparazzi so that my antics,” he said, forming air quotes, “would be leaked to the press. That way, no one would ever question my sexual preference. They’d just see me as a playboy.”

  “And things got out of hand?”

  “You could say that. I’d had my anxiety medication, and then, knowing I was going to have to touch women,” he said with a slight shiver, “I needed to be drunk to do it. I swear, I had no idea what would happen.”

  “Shaw was collateral damage,” I said, understanding.

  “God, yes,” he sighed, letting his head fall back to rest against the chair. “I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

  “I believe you,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. And then I laughed, feeling quite a bit of tension release into the air with the sound. “I have to tell you, I thought I was going to
have to break your heart today. I feel so silly about it now.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, you were going off. What were you planning on doing here today? Did you want me to see your little tapes? Or did you think we were going to make one?” he mocked me. “Damn, woman. I thought you were going to castrate me there for a second.”

  “Well, what was I supposed to think?” I said defensively. “You’ve been coming on to me since the day we met, and then you bring me here with this romantic setup.”

  Denver laughed then. “The champagne, the lights … they were about celebrating, not making out, goofy.”

  My cellphone chose that moment to start vibrating from the breast pocket of my blazer, giving me a start.

  “Celebrating what?” I reached inside my pocket and pressed the button on the side of the phone to send the call to voice mail. Whoever it was, they could wait.

  “I want you to be my agent, Cassidy. I just wanted to do the whole full-disclosure thing first to be sure you’d want to take me on as a client. I mean, because if it ever gets out, I’ll be a hard sell.”

  My heart nearly punched out of my chest with excitement over the victory that was propelling it. “You want me to be your agent? Even after I yelled at you?”

  My stupid phone started buzzing again, really trying my patience. With another shove of my hand into my pocket, I silenced it.

  He laughed again—amused by my childlike behavior, I was sure. “Yeah, even after you yelled at me. I need someone in my corner who’s not afraid to put me in my place. You sort of remind me of my mother, and no one takes care of you like a mother.”

  “Thanks, Rocket, but I’m not really that old.”

  “Aww, don’t be so sensitive. You know what I mean,” he said with a playful shove. “Besides, you’ve had my folks sold with all that Colorado talk. They really want me home, and I know you can do that for me. So what do you say?”