by Mia Watts
“Why were you drafted in favor of Aster?” she asked with just as much determination. “Your numbers aren’t as good, you’re older, and you have more injuries. Aster was our primary. What about you knocked him off that spot and got you drafted in his place?”
Ian’s gaze skidded to the side. The muscle in his jaw ticked. “How should I know?”
“But you do,” she said, standing. In a moment of clarity, she knew she was right. “You do know why you were picked instead of him.”
“Who cares? I’m here. What about the faeries?”
“Screw the faeries. Sterling has something to do with you being here. It has something to do with him. It has something to do with wanting me humiliated, and accusing me of unethical behavior with the players, and Deeks, and…” She’d been ticking them off on her fingers when she felt like she’d been slapped in the face with her past. “And Wilks.”
Guilt washed over his features. He had the decency to blush.
“Sterling and Wilks. That’s a combination I understand,” she said, choking on the words. “Sterling got you hired by appealing to Wilks. Wilks wants payback and Sterling promised to deliver using you as bait for whatever lie Wilks told him.”
“You’re screwing the team and the coaches. Who else would he use but a new cock?”
She pressed a hand to her stomach feeling instantly ill. “So that was the actual lie Wilks told Sterling. Sterling went along with it because he’s always wanted my job. If he succeeded, you’d be on the team, Wilks would owe him, and he’d have my job.”
“He’s more worried about you blackmailing Deeks than anything else.”
“I haven’t blackmailed anyone,” she snapped. “Not ever. Not even when I could have sued that bastard Wilks for assault.”
“Flora, I don’t care about all that. Whatever you’ve done doesn’t seem to affect the way I feel about you.”
“How grand of you for graciously forgiving me for crimes I’ve never committed.”
“What? I believe you. The faery thing? I believe you.
Chapter Twelve
The conversation seemed to be falling apart, degrading faster than he could secure the loose threads of contention. This was supposed to be an easy admission. He meant to go to her office, tell her he believed her about the faery thing even though he didn’t understand it. It would progress to telling her how much she touched his daily life and that he loved her no matter what happened past, present, or future.
She was going to smile and glow with love, maybe flash him some boob and agree that it was all stupid. They’d hold each other, whisper about the future, figure out what to do with her blackmailing past and he’d help her come clean, convince everyone that she wasn’t doing that anymore, and they’d make love all night.
That’s what was supposed to happen.
She was not supposed to turn into a raging vixen of self-righteousness.
“I’m saying it’s all right. We’ll work it out, together,” he soothed.
“There is no together. Congratulations on expanding your mind into the possibility things exist outside your perception of reality. Too bad you can’t apply that philosophy to real life!”
“They’ll hear you,” he said, calmly.
She blinked at him, stupefied for a second, then picked up her pen and flung it across the room with a growl.
“You’re yelling and they’ll hear you,” he repeated.
“I don’t give a shit what they hear. Your uncle lied to you, or Wilks lied to him. Either way, this isn’t my problem. It’s yours. So if forgiving me makes you feel like a big man, then you were a smaller man to begin with than I thought.”
“Bobby has proof.”
“Oh he does, does he?” Flora stepped around her desk and breezed past him.
“Where are you going?”
“To the source,” she snapped.
Ian followed her, barged in on Bobby with her when she plowed through the meager defense his secretary put up. Then he hung back to watch, because Flora Harper, in full wrathful glory, was a sight to behold.
Her dark, black hair streamed down her back in loose curls, her amber eyes flashed righteous fire, and her cheeks glowed with color. Fuck, even her nipples puckered proudly beneath her silk shirt as each tense part of her body prepared for a fight.
She didn’t realize she was wrong, yet—that she didn’t need to go through the proof bullshit. He’d stick with her. Life without her would be too boring to consider. She’d made an impact on him and if she was willing to work through the attention seeking behavior, he’d be there every step of the way.
Ian’s chest filled with nurturing pride.
Yeah, he’d stick through it with her, prove to her that her past didn’t matter to him.
“Sterling,” Flora bellowed.
Ian winced, reached behind him, and swatted the door closed. It clunked satisfyingly into place.
“Harper?” Bobby asked.
“Blackmail?” She folded her arms across her chest. Ian moved closer, wanting to be part of the discussion.
Bobby sent an asking glance at him and Ian nodded. “I told her what I know. She wants to hear what you have to say.”
“I’m not really at liberty,” Bobby hedged.
“Bullshit. You’re accusing me of blackmail. I have more right than most to know what the hell this is all about,” she argued.
Bobby picked up a paperclip, unfolding it and twisting it until finally it snapped, he sighed and stood. “I don’t have anything to add.”
“You’re a piece of work,” she accused.
“Tell her what you told me. She knows I’m on the team because you got me here,” Ian said.
“Why the fuck did you tell her that?” Bobby swore, put his hands on his hips.
“I’m that good a lay,” Flora snapped.
Bobby looked her over. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Just tell her,” Ian demanded, tired of the snipping word play. Uncle Bobby’s appreciativeness of Flora’s form may have irritated him a little, too.
———
This ought to be good, Flora thought. Nothing Sterling could say would justify a claim like this one. She looked askance at Ian. Nothing Sterling could say would justify Ian believing it either. She didn’t know if she was more angry or hurt.
Sage would tell her she hid her hurt with anger. He’d be right.
Damn Ian for making her fall in love with him.
Sterling puffed a beleaguered sigh and fluffed his buzz cut by running his open palm against the bristly tips. “You’re not going to be proud, boy-o. I did what I had to. You’re family.”
She watched Ian’s expression go from concerned smugness to wary doubt. After all he’d put her through, seeing the smile wiped off his face should have pleased her. Her heart went out to him. She’d learned some things about Ian in the last week, learned some things in her Internet search. If what she’d read was correct, Sterling represented the entirety of Ian’s family. He had no one else.
“Wilks came to me with a compromise. He’d bring you on the team, if I helped him get Flora fired.”
What Sterling had done would hurt Ian far more fundamentally than a simple accusation. It would strain the only familial link Ian had left. Family, even fucked up faery family, helped define her. What did it do to Ian?
“Why would you do that?” Ian asked, his voice sounding constricted.
Sterling looked away from his nephew.
She tracked the way his expression softened when Ian looked at her, how he glanced cautiously at Sterling who had begun to tell him his side of the story. Her pride had taken a blow. It would recover. Uncovering Sterling’s lies for Ian to see would sooth her ego, but it would put a permanent ding in his relationship with his uncle.
She couldn’t do that. Not to Ian. He’d find out eventually. Hopefully by then, she’d be far enough distanced from him that she wouldn’t be tangled up in the mess. Hopefully, Sterling would see what could have happened, what s
he meant to preserve for them, and leave her alone after this.
That’s what she wanted, she thought. Well, she’d wanted Ian, but looking at him weighing the validity of her words against his uncle’s, she loved Ian enough to step out of the picture.
“Never mind, Sterling.” Though she spoke to the older man, she kept her eyes on Ian.
Maybe when they healed, she’d see if they could still find that spark. If there’d ever been one besides his need to please Sterling by offering her up on a silver platter. She should feel sad. What she felt instead was numbness taking the sting from her anger, and providing a blank canvas for the pain which already began to burn her chest with loss.
“I want to hear this,” Ian said, quietly.
“Ian, it’s not necessary,” she said.
“It’s not only necessary, it’s a requirement.” His gaze met hers. “He used me to get to you, and I let him. God, Flora, I’m so sorry.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she didn’t cry. “Then enough has been said.”
He shook his head, looking at her in disbelief. “He’ll tell me the entire story because I need to know. I won’t let his ass being on the line mess up what we have.” He winced. “What we could have. The lies stop here, with him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted.
“It does.” Ian stepped closer, cupped her cheek. “I look at you and I see my future. I haven’t represented myself well, but I swear to you, I’ve never tried to record you or get you caught with me. If I’d wanted to do that, I would have called attention to you at every opportunity.”
“You believed the worst about me,” she pointed out.
“Stupidly. I still want to hear the truth.”
Bobby flopped back into his chair. “Wilks knows your history, Harper. He showed me an article from several years back. He didn’t have to. Most of us in the business heard about the scandal that cost him the head coaching position in Florida.”
“That was you?” Ian asked. “They never released the name of the girl.”
Flora’s argument froze on her tongue. His expression, the sincerity in his words sounded as though he were sorry for how the scandal had affected her. Had she understood him correctly?
“The girl in that scandal was underage. That story must have devastated you,” he whispered. “No one interviewed her after the story broke to see how she had handled the publicity feeding frenzy.”
She swallowed past the lump forming in her throat and the burn of tears that didn’t seem to want to go away. How did he do it? How did he know to say exactly the right things to her?
“I—I graduated with my head down.”
“You?” he murmured, fondly. “I can’t imagine you hiding from anyone.”
“She didn’t hide. Wilks lost his career and was sued with a gag order,” Sterling blustered.
“I have brothers,” she said.
“What actually happened that day?” Ian asked. He gave her space, released her cheek to put his hands in his pockets.
This time, she knew he’d listen. His whole demeanor had changed, humbled, opened. Flora had buried the memory the best she could. Seeing Wilks at the same company years later had been the source of more tension headaches than she could count, yet Wilks had always left her alone. Til now.
Would Ian believe her? He said he believed her faery heritage and that part was critical. Telling him that piece, needing him to understand how her abilities manifested, mattered in the overall explanation of what had happened that day. That’s why she’d started there. At the beginning. If he doubted that, her story would be chalked up as another lie among the many that Wilks had spread.
“I was a seventeen year old senior in love with the head football coach of our high school team. At first, saying hello in the hallways seemed normal—like something a teacher or coach should do. I hung around the football field with my girlfriends and Wilks must have figured out that I wanted to see him.” She laughed harshly. “No accounting for taste, right?”
Ian smiled encouragingly.
“It was a slow seduction at first. He’d squeeze my shoulder or put his hand on my back and walk with me a short way in the hall. I was flattered that an older man found me so interesting. It didn’t hurt that he had the attention of most of the high school girls. One day, he kissed me. He apologized, but he did it again a couple of days later. It escalated like that until right before the Homecoming game. He pushed it a little farther than I expected.
“Things got heavy. He asked me to quit being a tease and go down on him. I panicked, disappeared.” She gave Ian a significant look.
Ian nodded. “I understand. Keep going,” he murmured.
Her gaze darted over his face. In the years since the incident, media talked about the shame he suffered and the loss that his coaching abilities to the professional circuit. The young girl who had hidden herself for fear of recriminations hadn’t given the media a single sound-bite to hang either of them with.
“Wilks got caught with his pants down and the pre-game news crew caught it, plastered it in the headlines. The coach of the year wound up with charges of indecent exposure with the intent to assault a minor,” she finished.
“His career ended instantly, while you got away without exposure,” Ian said.
“Being a minor, they kept my name out of the news. When he tried to come after me, blame me for what he’d done, my family made sure he wouldn’t keep trying.”
“The gag order,” Sterling concluded.
She’d almost forgotten he was in the room. “That’s right.”
“That must have been hell,” Ian said. He reached for her, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight against his chest. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Wilks said you were blackmailing Deeks,” Sterling said, confusion making his words pitch higher.
“I’ve met Deeks exactly four times. Three of them at press conferences. One of them for a charity shoot. None of them were alone or outside the professional arena,” she said.
“And all the players you slept with?” Sterling asked.
“The team has nothing but respect for her. If you talked to the players once in a while, you’d know that without asking.”
“You believe me,” she said.
“One hundred percent,” Ian answered.
“I owe you an apology, Harper.” Sterling stood uneasily. “I wanted Ian close by, and after all the injuries he’d had—especially the concussions—I knew he wouldn’t be a top pick. Some of those injuries I could leave out of the hiring stats, but they’d have surfaced one day.”
“I can’t believe you rigged my draft,” Ian said.
“You didn’t know?” Flora looked up at him, her chin resting on his chest.
Ian smoothed the hair off her temples. “No, baby, not until after the fact. I had the same questions, but Wilks said my experience got me the job. I love football. You cheated me, Bobby. I didn’t get drafted on my own merit.”
“I wanted you here,” Sterling said, shrugging. “Wilks offered to pad the report he sent to Deeks and told me that if he drafted you, it would give us a prime opportunity to expose Harper as a blackmailer. If I got her job as a kickback, I didn’t think it was such a bad trade off—you know, thinking she was guilty and all.”
“I think I’m going to finish out this season and retire,” Ian mused, still stroking Flora’s temples and cheeks.
“Why would you want to retire?” she asked. “What about your contract?”
“I’m a free agent, so my contract is written with an out clause. I’m sure Deeks wanted it in there to get him out of a bad deal if I didn’t pan out. In this case, it’s going to free me from renewal.”
“But, but, your career,” Sterling protested.
“My career is over if I keep getting injured. I’m hoping,” he said, smiling at Flora. “That Flora lets me apologize for doubting her, over the next indefinite number of years.”
Ian’s gorgeous blue eyes h
eld hers. She saw tenderness, acceptance, and the same emotion she’d seen when he’d made love to her. Flora rose up on her toes. She kissed his perfect lips, wanting to see his expression up close, see the banked desire lurking in the sapphire depths.
“I think I can draft up that contract for you Mr. Tate. I’ll warn you, though, I don’t put out clauses in my contracts.”
“So you’re in love with her,” Sterling concluded.
Ian grinned widely. “I’d say the way I feel about Flora is faery surprising.”
“Oh, that’s bad,” she groaned.
“Get me Wilks,” Sterling barked.
She jerked her head to see him holding the phone to his ear.
Sterling covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Do either of you know how long a gag order lasts? No? Doesn’t matter.” Uncovering the mouthpiece, he waited a moment before continuing. “Wilks. Sterling here. It’s come to my attention that you have a gag order involving Ms. Harper. No, shut up and listen. If I hear a peep about you and anything involving Ms. Harper in the future, I’ll see to it that you’re standing before the judge, jobless.”
A pause.
“You’re right. I had a part in it and that’s what I’ll tell Deeks tomorrow morning. You’ll leave her alone. With the witnesses I have and the emails you’ve sent, I have more than enough to get you on slander. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Asshole.”
Sterling slammed the receiver down and held his hand out over his desk. “I’m sorry for my part in your harassment, Harper. He won’t be bothering you, again.”
Flora shook it.
“Welcome to the family,” he said.
“A bit premature, don’t you think?” she replied. She grinned, knowing the heat to her cheeks meant she wore a spectacular blush.
“Nah, my boy-o knows a good thing when he sees one.”
“Quite spilling my secrets, Bobby.”
“Sorry, kid.”
———
Ian held the elevator doors for her. Hooking her arm, he drew her to the back of the car behind the other passengers and pulled her ass to his groin. His hard length only made her anticipation increase.
