by Violet Duke
She shrugged modestly. “I was just lucky Nick texted me to get me an in.”
“Bullshit. He knew you were the only field reporter with the chops to be able to figure all this out in time before the Vipers got on the clock. I bet you dollars to doughnuts you’ve just made a loyal connection with Coach Preston…which would bring the total up to two head coaches in your growing fan club.” He smiled. “Skip called me after you left earlier. Not only was he impressed that you figured out what a dozen flashy sportscasters had been speculating about—inaccurately—from the moment the Hawks made their first round pick, he caught you muttering under your breath five moves into the future on the chess board of the upcoming picks and trades while watching the Draft on your phone.”
She slapped a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t even realize I was doing that.”
“Skip thought it was cute, and impressive, to say the least. I’m pretty sure the old guy wants to adopt you.”
“Oh my God, don’t get me started. I’d let him adopt me in a heartbeat. Seriously, I still can’t thank you enough for getting me some time with him outside their war room today.” Her voice instantly turned swoony—enough to make him a little jealous. “Did Skip tell you,” she practically sighed, “that he yanked me inside the belly of the beast to say a quick hi to all his assistant coaches and analysts after they’d made their selection for the night?”
Stars drifted into her eyes. “Those were the eight most eye-boggling seconds of my life.”
Jackson grinned at her affectionately. “He did tell me. And then I chose not to tell him that you have basically a photographic memory when it comes to stat boards.”
“Oh sweet lord, I kid you not, I’m probably going to be dreaming all night long about my own war room for fantasy football drafts in August.”
The woman just had no idea how adorably sexy she was.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Jackson was starting to picture it all again. The wife, the kids.
The future. Free of the complications embedded into the DNA of his life.
Dangerous thoughts that were so far out of reach it was laughable.
Even so, he didn’t shove the picture away like he normally did when it crept up on him.
Because for the first time ever, the woman in the picture wasn’t hidden in the shadows, but rather, standing right there in the sunlight looking up at him.
With shining, amber eyes and a Marvel-worthy superheroine smile he wouldn’t mind spending an uncomplicated lifetime staring at if he could.
Chapter 12
After spending all of Sunday sleeping off the exhausting, thrilling three days of the NFL Draft, Leila had returned to work expecting it to be just another Monday morning.
Sure, her interviews had headlined on loop on all five affiliates of the DBC Sports Network, and quotes from her interviews had been written in half a dozen newspaper articles as well—which she’d admittedly cut out and ziplocked just in case she ever picked up scrapbooking.
Heck, even her father had called with a message congratulating her—apparently, she’d made him look good on the Utah evening news for a change.
But never in a million years would she have expected to hear from her sister and mother as well. Never had the women ever expressed anything above curious, borderline sympathetic dismissal of her interest in football. So getting congratulatory texts from both women on Monday morning while she was just getting settled at her desk had been surreal.
When her sister proceeded to follow up her exclamation-filled text with an actual phone call punctuated by ear-piercing squeals of congrats, Leila finally began wondering if she’d wandered into a parallel dream world somehow.
“Ohmigosh, Leila! I just saw the video! Are you just cartwheeling with happiness right now? I’m so excited for you.”
Yep, definitely an alternate universe.
Leila looked at her reflection on her desktop screen to see if she looked different in this crazy new planet. Glancing around at the dream aliens around her—who looked exactly like her co-workers—Leila replied with the truth for this rather delightful doppelganger of her sister, “Of course I’m excited. Over the moon, actually.”
“I knew it! All these years, you were playing the long game. Go you. I didn’t understand your strategy at first, but now I see you’re a secret relationship ninja.” Another giddy squeal. “OMG, do you think you guys are going to have a June wedding?”
Wait, what?!
Momentarily so lost that she had to put a pin in the flashing image of Jackson that the word “wedding” had inspired in her mind. “Stacey, what the heck are you talking about?”
Her sister just continued bubbling over like a fountain about what color matron of honor dress she wanted to wear and what the theme of the wedding would be.
“Stacey!” she nearly shouted. And then hushed back down when her co-workers—not alternate universe aliens—all turned her way. “Stacey,” she began again, “what video are you talking about, because I’m fairly certain we’re talking about two different things.”
Leila could almost hear the big-sister frown she’d spent a lifetime pretending didn’t hurt. “Why, Grant’s video where he gushed about you, of course. He basically said he was going to propose to you this weekend.”
Grant.
As in the ex who’d cheated on her with something akin to a harem of women. As in the ex who she’d finally thought she’d gotten rid of after more than three years. As in the ex who had been her main impetus for leaving Utah in the first place.
That ex?
And her sister was congratulating her for ninja-snagging that prized asshole?
Somehow managing to quell her anger and not-all-that-surprising disappointment in her sister, Leila muttered a half-cocked excuse about needing to get back to work before quickly disconnecting the call.
Barely keeping the string of expletives on her tongue at bay, Leila booted up her desktop computer and yanked the keyboard forward, angrily clacking out Grant’s name and hers—even the act of typing the two names together burning her fingers something fierce. She scrolled through the Google results of old pages they’d made news headlines with in the past, down half a page to a YouTube video with yesterday’s date.
Seeing the annoying, egotistical uploader name she recognized well—NextUSPrez—she mentally gagged a little and then clicked play on the “crowd video” of a political rally in Utah. Right, sure. Grant had been posting videos from his “fans”—aka his campaign manager—for years. Honestly, the fact that it took three years of dating and his cheating on her for her to figure out what a weasely little scumbag he was filled her with no small amount of embarrassment.
The video started up and the object of her embarrassment was front and center chuckling at some question he’d just gotten through answering. When one of the not-very-many press folks asked him about his ex-girlfriend Leila’s sudden rise to fame as a sports reporter, he turned doting eyes at the camera.
Ugh, really?
“Yep,” he replied chipperly, “I’ve seen the interviews she did, and I’ve heard all the praise that has been coming from our very own Utah Miners fans.”
A cheer rang out from the crowd. She wouldn’t put it past him for laying a sound bite of exaggerated crowd cheers as another layer to this whole circus act. “I am so amazingly proud of her. You all know I’ve always been her biggest fan.”
At this rate, her eyes would roll right out of her head.
“We’ve both been working hard chasing our dreams the past few years—she was finishing up her MBA while I’ve been pounding the political pavement here.”
Though it pained her to admit it, aside from these embellished press video charades, Grant really was a fairly popular up-and-coming politician. At twenty-seven, he was already being groomed for a long career in politics, with rumors of him becoming one of Utah’s youngest senators on record no later than ten years from now.
Not that she was following his
career. She absolutely wasn’t.
The same couldn’t be said for her dear father, however.
For three years, her father had been tireless in his efforts to convince her to “come to her senses” and come home to marry Grant. Keep the political bloodlines running strong in the family. Funnily enough, Congressman Hart had never once thought that either of his daughters would be the ones keeping those political bloodlines going. Nope, he’d always hoped for a politician son-in-law.
When Stacey’s husband had turned out to be a dud where voters were concerned, Leila’s father had set his sights on Grant, turning a blind eye to all that Grant had done to betray Leila’s trust. The cheating, lying, getting recorded saying drunken, hurtful things about her to whatever blackmailing slut he’d been trying to bang that weekend.
Her father’s response to it all was a condescending, “Leila, you’re making too big a deal out of this. It’s not cheating when you two are simply dating in college. Grant was just sowing his wild oats quickly so he could be ready to settle down with you, sweetie. Can you blame him for having found the love of his life so early in life? He was simply trying to get it all out of his system before you two marry. So he could be faithful to you for the rest of your life.”
There were simply no words.
After trying to pitch that insulting load of crap on her, Leila wasn’t at all surprised to see the congressman in question standing off to the side looking proudly at Grant as the dolt continued with his verbal sewage. “Leila and I have remained close the past few years. I really wanted her to focus on her studies, and now her career.”
Ha!
There was a chance that exclamation had left the silence of her brain and had exploded past her lips, but she was too far sunken into the shock and disgust over this farce Grant was concocting for the press. After doing a politician chuckle that sounded identical to her father’s, Grant gave another doting look to the camera. “But it’s been getting harder for us to be apart. Leila’s flying home this weekend, and I have a few more surprises up my sleeve to spoil her while she’s back by my side.”
A short chuckle was followed up by a look of sickeningly sweet adoration. “Yes, you all caught me, I said ‘more’ just now. I’ve already sent her a surprise out in Arizona to show her how overwhelmingly proud I am of this milestone in her career and how much I want to continue to share and support her amazing achievements. Her amazingness, period.”
“Awww,” gushed an adoring female voice from behind Leila’s chair.
Chapter 13
Leila almost jumped ten feet into the air, before scrabbling to shut off the offensive video.
“That is so sweet, Leila. So your mysterious boyfriend is a politician? OMG, you’re such a lucky girl to have a great guy like that,” gushed the super young, super-bubbly intern from the college football wing.
Leila’s entire body convulsed in an epic shudder of revulsion over the last statement.
Which everyone mistook for shivers of happiness, of course. Gross. Looking around, she saw at least a half-dozen folks smiling at her, and two more women with their hands to their chest nodding dreamily, and a few guys giving her approving big-brother nods.
Fan-freaking-tastic.
While setting them straight was undoubtedly a top priority, at the moment, Leila wasn’t thinking about any of them. She scanned the room to find the one person she was thinking about.
It took her only a second to find the set of quietly intense hazel eyes she’d been seeing with increasing frequency whenever she closed her own eyes at night.
Right now, those eyes were hooded, closed off, and expressionless for the first time since they’d met. She quickly stood to head over to his office and clear everything up. But her path was blocked by a ginormous bouquet of several dozen lavender roses.
Her favorite.
Or at least that’s what Grant had kept telling her the entire time they’d dated.
Truth be told, flowers weren’t really her thing. Never had been. And the fact that Grant had used a bouquet very similar to this one to apologize for his cheating and all the humiliating comments he’d made behind her back just sealed the casket shut on her ever changing her mind about jumping on the floral band wagon.
Leaving the delivery boy standing there in utter shock, she simply shook her head at him to decline the delivery and bee-lined it over to Jackson’s office.
—
A tidal wave of jealousy was crashing over Jackson as he shut himself in his office.
That goddamn political asshat had gone on camera and hinted at proposing to Leila this weekend.
The fact that Leila had looked mad enough to spit nails over the video had only managed to calm Jackson down a fraction. He felt unhinged. The very idea of Leila marrying someone else was…unbearable.
Jackson knew he was the last person in the world that had any right to be reacting like this—how could he fault a man for being able to offer something he’d never be able to?
Never had he ever felt the need to keep anything in his life as his and his alone. Not since he was a child. All it took was one unknowing moment, one scar born of naiveté, for a person to learn to never touch the blistering hot coils of a stove. It would burn you every time. Despite every measure he took, however, the universe, in all its cruel tests, saw fit to lance him with scar after scar. Betrayal after betrayal.
For longer than he could remember, there had always been someone standing in his circle of trust to take everything he held of value. Everything he loved.
Fighting off the injustice of it all for just the sheer hope of laying claim to something, someone, was no longer something he ever chose to put himself through. There simply was no room behind his armor for such a hazardous, double-edged sentiment.
He harbored nothing resembling baseless hope, nothing that wasn’t grounded in facts. Stats.
He did not get attached.
Or so he thought…
“He’s my ex,” came a quiet voice from behind him.
Jackson spun around in surprise. He hadn’t even heard the door open.
“The video,” explained Leila. “That guy is my ex. As in past tense—thankfully and nonnegotiably in my past.”
On some basic level, he’d of course figured that out. But it didn’t matter; his brain, his entire damn body had needed to hear her say those words. “So you’re not going home to Utah this weekend?”
“I am. But it’s for my sister’s birthday party. I leave Friday night and come back Sunday night.”
He kept his voice modulated as he asked the question burning his gut, “Will this ex of yours be there?”
She sighed with what sounded like undiluted disgust. “He’s a family friend so I’m sure he will be.”
Another rush of jealousy clobbered him as he continued roughly, quoting the video, “Where he plans on ‘spoiling’ you.”
Even the sentence sent every cell in his body into a violent rage, his entire being physically rebelling at the notion of another man spoiling Leila.
“I’m not Grant’s to spoil.”
Damn straight.
You’re mine to spoil.
It was the furthest thing from a warranted demand, or even a rational thought. But it felt so mind-wreckingly right that it took all his control not to demand she think and demand the same thing, too.
Knowing he’d never be able to hold back the words—not without her looking up at him with all those silent questions in her eyes that he was certain she didn’t even realize she was asking—he walked over to his desk drawer and pulled out a gift he’d gotten for Leila.
Wordlessly, he held it out to her.
And felt the whole damn world tilt on its axis when she gifted him with the most expressively delighted smile he’d ever seen grace her lips.
“You got me a cigar?” A laugh that sounded born of pure wonder and joy tinkled out of her at the end of that question.
And just like that, all the jealousy boiling in his marrow fade
d away.
All that existed was her smile. Her laugh.
Her.
“You mentioned you’d enjoyed a few puffs at your buddies’ poker games in the past, but had never had the chance to light one up on your own…so I got you one.” A small smile escaped him. “I figured you could light it up at your fantasy football draft this summer and remember this past weekend—how hard you kicked ass at the NFL Draft.”
The smile disappeared. As did the laughter.
And in its place was a rainbow of emotions in colors he’d never seen before. “Jackson, it’s…perfect. It’s the most perfect gift anyone has ever given me.”
Though the sentence sounded like fodder, especially following the huge rose bouquet that had arrived at her desk not ten minutes ago, her tone of reverence defended the truth behind her words, said in a whisper that sounded like a shared secret for his ears only.
And the way she was looking at him right now…Hell, that one look filled him with a fierce desire to give her a lifetime of perfect gifts. For every single day of her future, and every single day of her past where she should’ve been cherished in that way.
She rushed forward before he could make her promises he couldn’t keep. Hugging him quickly, she murmured softly, “You’re amazing, Jackson.”
“The feeling’s mutual, sunshine.” He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Have a good time with your family this weekend.”
An incredulous laugh shot out of her. “I doubt that’ll be possible, but I’ll try.”
With a stuttered breath, she just stood there a bit, her shoulders lifted as if she were trying to find the exact way to phrase her next thought.
He waited until she could find the words.
“It’s going to be…weird. To be there. And not here, I mean.” She chuckled and squeezed her eyes shut for a beat at the redundant clarification.
Jackson didn’t even hesitate before admitting quietly, “I’m going to miss not having you around.”
It was true. They’d been working six days a week, sometimes seven, for weeks now. She’d become a regular fixture in his life.
