by Lauren Layne
So she just threw it.
“I was serious the other night when I said we should have a party.”
He blinked and stared at her as the waitress set a beer in front of him. He took a sip. “Come again?”
“A party. A cocktail party. For your colleagues. Remember?”
“Not really. I was staring at your boobs. Why would we have to have a party?”
“Because two of them hold your future reputation in their hands,” she said simply. “This Penelope and Cole, they’re getting a hell of a story. Jackson Burke breaks his silence . . . it’s going to be huge.”
“Thanks for that. Not like I wasn’t dreading it enough.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said eagerly. “You don’t have to dread it. If we can convince them to like you . . .”
Jackson choked on his beer. “You don’t think they even like me?”
“I’m sure they do,” she said soothingly. “But if they’re anything like me, they’re probably thinking you’re going to run back to Texas first chance you get.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that when you smile, it doesn’t reach your eyes. It means that you can’t go five minutes without complaining about the pollution or the noise of Manhattan. It means that you treat your Oxford job as just that, a job. There’s no passion, no interest. You never talk about it. Half the time I think—”
She broke off, but he held his hands out to the side. “No, no, keep going. You’re on a roll.”
His voice was tense but not angry, so she took a breath and forged ahead. “I just think that you’re never going to be happy here until you let yourself be happy here.”
There was a moment of silence. “I see. And you think that hosting a party is going to fix everything?”
“No, of course not. I was just thinking that you have such a nice place, and it would be good for you to make friends, and, well . . . it can’t hurt for them to think positively about you, you know?”
“I don’t think serving them fine champagne and top-shelf liquor is going to erase the fact that I still have a few skeletons in my closet. It’s not going to stop them from asking about the accident. Or the affairs. Or Madison.”
“How can you sound so calm about all of this?” she muttered. “You’re going to have people digging into your life, and you’re all . . . chill.”
“First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been chill a day in my life. But you’re the one who just told me I need to move on from all the shit of the past year. Maybe this is how I start.”
“And that’s why you’re doing this interview?” she asked. “To move on? To move . . . past everything?”
Their waitress appeared before he could answer—along with two other servers, since Jackson’s massive order was too big for any one human being to carry.
“Holy crap,” Mollie muttered once all the food was on the table. “This actually smells kind of amazing.”
Jackson put a hand over his heart. “I didn’t think it was possible, but congratulations, Mollie Carrington. You just got hotter.”
She smiled. “Does this mean you’re going to share?”
In response, he tore off a juicy rib from a rack and held it out to her. She plucked it from his fingers, noting the way his eyes locked on her mouth as she took a not-so-delicate bite of the deliciously saucy meat.
Jackson slowly licked the sauce from his thumb as he watched her chew, and Mollie felt an odd little thrill as she realized they were accomplishing the impossible: they were making barbecue sexy.
It was only after they were tearing their way through the various dishes, arguing over whether baked beans or coleslaw made the better side dish, that Mollie realized Jackson had never answered her question.
He’d never told her why he was doing the interview.
Chapter 21
Jackson’s good mood lasted all the way until three o’clock. His meetings were done for the day, he had barbecue in his belly, and he and Mollie had engaged in some very dirty sexting.
But just as he was sitting down to get some writing done, it all went to hell.
His desk phone rang, the caller ID indicating it was the reception desk.
“Jo, my darling. You’ve decided to marry me?”
He got a snort in response. “Hardly. There’s a woman here to see you.”
Jackson grinned automatically, figuring it must be Mollie. He wondered if he could talk her into sex on his desk.
Continued Jo, “It’s Madison Burke. She says she’s your wife.”
Jackson froze, suddenly all too aware what people experienced when they said their blood ran cold.
“Shit.” Jackson closed his eyes. “Tell her I’m gone for the day. Or in a meeting. Or—”
“Hello, darling.”
Jackson’s eyes flew open to see his ex-wife standing in the door.
“Sorry, Jackson,” Jo said quietly. “She sweet-talked one of the interns into taking her back, and I—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Not your fault the woman’s a manipulative bitch.
“Madison,” he said, hanging up his phone and refusing to stand. “What can I do for you?”
Her eyes scanned him. “Mmm. You always did look good in a suit.” She came into the office and closed the door behind her.
He stood and walked over to the door, deliberately opening it again.
Her lips pressed together in irritation for a half second before she resumed her placid smile. She was dressed in a red sweater set and black slacks. The basic black pumps were feminine without being overtly sexy, her makeup and jewelry demure as ever. The woman really had mastered the art of faking classiness—“faking” being the key word.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, keeping his voice pleasant but dismissive as he went back to his office chair.
“I came to see you.”
He stared at her. “Madison, you live in a different time zone. This makes twice now that you’ve flown to another state to see me, and it’s starting to feel a little Fatal Attraction.”
She sniffed. “For the record, the first time I flew in to see my baby sister. This time I flew in to get some shopping done.”
“Shopping? Are you fucking kidding me, Mad?”
“What can I say?” she said, giving him a pretty smile. “I’ve got some extra cash lying around.”
“Yeah. My cash,” he muttered.
He and Madison had signed a prenup. He wasn’t that dumb. The only way she’d get a dime in the divorce was if there’d been infidelity on his end.
So she’d made sure that there had been. Several times over.
The real shitter was that he hadn’t even cared about the money. He’d have handed it over just to be done with her. But he didn’t think it would have made a difference—she still would have paid off all those women to lie about him having an affair.
Madison had known full well that being a cheating wife wouldn’t go well with her image. So she’d changed the story in her favor.
“You’ve been avoiding me ever since our dinner,” she said quietly.
“How is that a surprise? We have nothing to say to each other.”
She gave him a sad smile. “We had plenty to say that night.”
He looked away, realizing that he didn’t have an argument for that. Conversation had flowed easily that night once he’d gotten over his initial anger. For a couple of hours it had been surprisingly easy to forget the antagonism. The betrayal. The pain.
She met his eyes steadily, their gazes colliding for several tense moments. He was unsettled to realize that there was zero agenda on her face. He knew all of Madison’s various looks, and at the moment she was determined, yes, but also confused. She really couldn’t seem to understand why he wouldn’t want to talk to her.
“Madison,” he said quietly, “you divorced me. Remember? You left me for another man, filed the papers, initiated the end of our marriage. And you’re confused about why
I don’t want to be best friends?”
She opened her mouth, but before she could respond, Cole Sharpe appeared in Jackson’s doorway.
“ ’Sup, Burke.”
“Cole.”
Cole’s eyebrow lifted slightly at the tension in Jackson’s voice, and his eyes shifted to Madison before he grinned knowingly.
“Mollie?” he mouthed.
Unfortunately, Madison chose exactly that moment to turn around.
“Mollie?” Madison asked.
Shit.
Cole’s smile slipped, giving Jackson a briefly panicked expression before he glanced down at the cell in his right hand. “Sorry, gotta take this,” he said, pointing down to the completely blank screen.
Jackson gave Cole a withering look, and the other man apologized with his eyes as he lifted his cell to take the imaginary phone call.
Jackson closed the door with a slam before turning back to a cold-eyed Madison.
“Why would that man think I’m Mollie?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jackson said, rubbing a hand over his face and going to sit across from her. “Maybe because she’s my roommate?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Only because you were using her to get to me.”
He had to laugh at that. “You are a fucking piece of work. How can I make it clear that we’re over? That my actions stopped being about you a long time ago?”
She ignored this. “I approved Mollie moving in because I thought it would be good for her to have family in New York.”
“She’s been in New York for years, and you haven’t given a shit. Plus, she’s twenty-eight. She doesn’t need your approval.”
Madison huffed. “You’ve always been so ready to defend her. Perfect, genius Mollie could never do anything wrong in your eyes.”
A lightbulb clicked on. This was why Madison was trying to sink her fangs into him. Not because she wanted him, but because she didn’t want anyone else to have him, least of all her sister.
He gave her a slow smile. “That’s always bothered you, hasn’t it? My friendship with Mollie?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t expect that she’d be all buddy-buddy with your colleagues.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Jackson asked. “You don’t get to fucking divorce me and then pop up whenever you want, digging into my life. And for what it’s worth, Mollie’s never even met these guys.”
Madison folded her arms over her chest. “And yet they know her name. Which means that you must talk about her.”
“Yeah, I talk about her. In fact, I tried to set her up with one of them.”
Madison’s eyes went from annoyed to curious. “Mollie’s dating?”
“It didn’t work out,” he said gruffly.
“Oh. Well, no matter,” Madison said with a little wave of her hand. “I didn’t come to talk about Molls.”
Of course not. Your sister’s only as relevant as whatever she can do for you. “Maddie—” he began wearily, already regretting his decision to give her an opening.
“No, hear me out,” she said quietly, eyes pleading. “You don’t have to say a word. I just need to get this off my chest, okay?”
He grunted, not really sure if he was giving consent or not, but she took it as such and kept talking.
“I want you to give me another chance.”
He stared at her. “A chance for what?”
She licked her lips nervously. “A chance for us.”
Hell. He couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d known on some level that this was coming. But hearing it out loud he felt . . . nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Your new guy dump you?” he asked.
She ignored the question. “I love you, Jackson. I’ve always loved you. And you love me.”
“So far from it, Maddie.”
“I think you’re wrong,” she said quietly. “We’ve both made mistakes, but doesn’t every couple? Doesn’t every love story go through a rough patch?”
“A rough patch?” he asked incredulously. “You slept with my best friend and God knows how many others. Then when you got caught, you tried to dodge that scandal by making up a different one. You told the media I was the one having an affair. Dozens of them.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you dare lie to me about this. Everyone from your sister to my own mother thought I might have been having an affair. Do you have any idea what that does to a man?”
“But—”
He leaned forward, giving vent to some of his anger. “You wanted to talk, let’s talk. Here’s something I’ve always wanted to know: how is it that the very same women you named came forward and confessed to an affair? Women I’d never heard of, much less met. Much less fucked.”
She swallowed.
“Did you pay them, Maddie? Did you pay women to say they’d slept with me?”
She didn’t answer, but to her credit, she didn’t look away, and he knew he was right.
“Fuck,” he breathed slowly. On some level he’d always known that was how it had gone down. It was the only explanation. And yet having her all but confirm it . . . “You hate me that much?”
“No,” she said, scooting to the edge of her chair and putting her hand out toward him before letting it drop to her lap. “I made a mistake. A horrible mistake. And I am sorry, so sorry—you have no idea. But I panicked. You were pulling away, our marriage was falling apart.”
“I was pulling away?” he asked. “When? After I saw you sucking my best friend’s dick?”
She winced. “No, before that. You were always busy, and you only cared about football. And then you’d get home and be distracted. It got better for a while when I had the show—”
“God,” he muttered. “Not that fucking show.”
“That show was the only thing that made me happy!”
He stared at her. It shouldn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt. And yet . . . “Jesus, Mad.”
“You know what I mean,” she snapped. “At least then I could be someone other than Jackson Burke’s wife.”
“You were only on the show because you were Jackson Burke’s wife! The show was literally about being the wife of a famous athlete.”
“I didn’t come here to fight,” she said, pressing her lips together.
“I know. You came here to get me back, and I’m trying over and over to tell you that it’s not happening.”
She glanced down at her lap. “You’re not blameless in all of this, Jackson. The man that I agreed to marry—he was a football star, yes, but he was also my friend. He was a man as well as an athlete. But then you quit seeing me.”
Jackson itched to call bullshit. Madison had always been skilled at playing the victim card, and he was sick of it. And yet . . .
In this, at least, there was a sting of truth to her words.
He wasn’t taking blame for her actions. Not for the affairs or the lies or the way she’d served him papers while he was in the hospital. But Jackson was man enough to admit that she was right about him being self-absorbed toward the end.
“Fuck,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s too late for all of this, Mad.”
“Why?”
Because I think I might be falling for your sister. “That part of my life is done,” he said quietly.
“What if it doesn’t have to be?”
“What?”
Her eyes dropped to his shoulder. “You may not be able to play, but you can still be a part of that world. You’d be a fantastic coach.”
Jackson froze. How had she known? How, of all the people in his life, could it be his ex-wife who was able to zero in on his deepest, most gut-wrenching desire? He hadn’t told a soul about the possibility of going back to the Redhawks as a coach. Not his parents. Not his former teammates. He’d even gone around his agent.
He hadn’t told Mollie. He couldn’t tell Mollie. He couldn’t possibly tell the woman he’d practically begged to give him a chance tha
t he checked his personal email account twenty times a day in hopes that his old coach would give him the green light. That he lived in fear he’d never set foot on a field again—and was hoping against hope that he would.
But Madison . . . Madison knew.
And suddenly he was desperate to talk to someone about it. Anyone.
Even her.
“I’m trying to be,” he said gruffly.
Her nose wrinkled. “Trying to be what?”
“A coach.”
Her lips parted in surprise before a wide smile spread across her face. A genuine smile.
“I’m so glad, Jackson. Truly. For the Redhawks? I bet Jerry is dying to have you.”
He shrugged. “Not really. Wants me to get my image cleaned up. Seems he’s worried that my shitty rep means the guys won’t listen to me.”
Her smile disappeared. “So if you don’t get this, it’s because of me.”
“You and your lies,” he said. “Pretty much.”
Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry.”
“You could fix it, you know,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “You could go to the press. Tell them you lied.” She looked away, and he laughed. “Yeah. Thought so.”
“Jackson—”
“Don’t worry about it, Mad. I’ve got my own plan for damage control.”
Her eyes narrowed just slightly before she resumed a placid smile. “How?”
“I’m going to tell my side of the story.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’m doing a tell-all interview.”
She snorted. “You’ve always had a firm policy against talking to the press.”
“Something you counted on when you spread your toxic lies, huh?”
For the first time since entering his office she lost her smooth control and her eyes went a little wide in panic. “This is ridiculous. Too much time has passed. You’ll just look like you’re shoveling pathetic excuses. Nobody will believe you.”
She was spitting her sentences out rapid-fire, and he gave her a soothing smile he knew would piss her off. “If nobody will believe me, why are you so worried?”
Madison didn’t respond. Her scarlet nails were tapping against the arm of the chair, and he knew her well enough to be aware that her mind was racing.
