by Roz Lee
Jessica smiled at Antonio as if she hadn’t just shattered Clare’s world and put his career in jeopardy. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I like you, Tony. I think you’ll be a great addition to the outfield this season. The last thing I want is to see you throw it all away on the likes of someone like her.” She stepped up, placed her palm flat on his chest. “I’ll show you my charm, if you show me your tattoo.” She winked at him, turned on her heel, and walked away, dragging a Louis Vuitton roll-on behind her.
Her body had become a solid block of ice. Any movement might cause her to shatter into a million pieces. She should have told him about her uncle, but keeping the secret had become so natural it hardly ever occurred to her to mention the connection. And in her own defense—not that she really had one—he had started all this by coming up to her at Jason’s fundraiser. If her being the team manager’s niece was a problem for him, then the fallout from his pursuit of her was his fault. She would have gone on crushing on him from afar, perhaps wouldn’t have ever gotten closer than an introduction if he hadn’t outbid her on all the auction items.
“Is that true?” he asked, turning to face her.
“Is what true?” The spiteful witch had thrown out so many shocking revelations, Clare wasn’t sure which one he wanted verified first. Not that it mattered. They were all true.
“Doyle Walker is your uncle?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders squared, and he looked away from her.
She rushed to put his concerns at ease. “But I have no intention of telling him about us or…anything.”
“Come on.” He grabbed the handle on his bag and started walking. She followed, pulling her bag along with her.
The limo driver who met them when they’d first deplaned stood at the curb holding the rear door open for them. They left their luggage with him and ducked into the car.
He didn’t speak again until the door closed, sealing them inside the private compartment. “I can’t believe you told that woman I’m a member of the club.” His gaze was as cold and sharp as his accusing words.
Clare reeled. After all they’d done together….
“You think I told her?” Her voice was unsteady, but disbelief was steadily growing into anger. “What kind of idiot do you take me for? Jessica is a mean, vicious woman. I do my best to be civil to her when I have the misfortune of running into her in a public place, but I. Do. Not. tell her anything—much less something I don’t want the world to know. She feeds on gossip. And spreading it is why she gets out of bed in the morning, or crawls out of her cave.”
She sank back in the seat, exhausted from…everything. The weekend, the sex, the emotions, the travel, meeting up with the one person in the world she truly hated. And now this. Arguing with Antonio, and knowing deep down Jessica had accomplished exactly what she had intended. She’d driven a wedge between her and the man she loved.
She couldn’t take much more.
“Well, she had to find out somewhere, and there aren’t that many people who know,” he accused.
“Read my lips,” she said, sitting up to face him. “I. Did. Not. Tell. Her.” She collapsed back into her seat. “Maybe it was one of the women you ran the bases with. Did you think about that? Or maybe one of the guys on her team told her. I don’t care how she found out, but I know this, it wasn’t me.”
“When were you going to tell me Doyle is your uncle? After you ran the bases? Is this some sort of sting? Wrangle an invitation, get inside the club, so you can hand over our names to team management?”
“What are you talking about? You came on to me. I had no idea you were a member of that club until….”
“Why didn’t you tell me the night we met?”
No longer afraid of breaking, she was just plain mad…and hurt. “Really? Did you hear anything I said to you? I had a crush on you for years, so yeah, the first thing that entered my head when you came on to me was to tell you about my uncle.” She put as much sarcasm as she could muster into the statement. “You wouldn’t have come near me if I had, and call me pathetic, but I wanted your attention.”
She vibrated with anger and a pain so deep it was a wonder she wasn’t bleeding all over the seat. Tears welled in her eyes, and she turned her head so he wouldn’t see.
The car moved out into traffic and, with each silent passing mile, carried her further into herself and away from Antonio. She was right, and he couldn’t deny it. He didn’t even try. He wouldn’t have given her a second look if he had known.
When they arrived at her apartment, she paused before stepping out of the car. “I suspect Uncle Doyle already knows we’re seeing each other. You took me home from the Press Dinner. Remember? He’s not the kind of man who would deny his niece her happiness, and he isn’t the kind of manager to hold it against you that things didn’t work out between us. I wasn’t going to tell him about your involvement with the club, and I won’t. I’m the least of your worries. If you value your career, don’t turn your back on Jessica. She knows, and if she thinks hurting you will hurt me, then she’ll sell you out in a heartbeat.”
Tony clenched his fists around the edge of the seat to keep from grabbing Clare and dragging her back inside. He felt like a part of him was leaving with her, and the possibility scared the shit out of him. She’d gotten under his skin, and stolen his heart.
She’s Doyle’s niece.
“Shit,” he mumbled as the car pulled away from the curb.
That bit of news sent shockwaves down to his toes, but he’d had nearly an hour since the bombshell exploded to get used to the idea, and he’d come to one conclusion. He didn’t give a flying fuck if Doyle approved of him associating with his niece or not. Clare was a grown woman. The decision was hers.
And he was pretty sure his own stupidity had just insured he would never see her again.
He didn’t know what made him blurt out the sting operation thing. It was the first stupid thought that had popped into his head—and like the first pitch, good or bad, he’d swung without thinking. Stupid. He deserved to strike out.
She was right—he had approached her, not the other way around. No one, least of all him, could have anticipated the way he’d felt the instant he saw her at Jason’s fundraiser. For all the world knew, he liked his women pencil thin and gum eraser dumb. If anyone was setting up a sting, they most likely would have employed someone like Jessica Roach to approach him.
Which brought his thoughts around to the most disturbing news. His secret was in the hands of a woman he didn’t trust. It hadn’t been necessary to warn him. He’d decided Jessica was bad news at the Press Dinner when she’d rattled Clare. The woman had venom in her veins, and she was on a mission to destroy someone. Bullies always were.
They zeroed in on people they perceived wouldn’t fight back and asserted their authority over them in heinous ways to boost their own sense of self-worth. Funny how bullies didn’t see for every notch their self-worth went up, their human worth went down ten. As far as he could tell, Jessica’s human worth was somewhere around zero.
He’d have to find a way to, if not stop the woman’s bullying entirely, deflect it from Clare, and at the same time insure she kept her mouth shut about Bases Loaded. She had no real proof of his connection to the club. Maybe she knew one of the women he’d played the game with, but it would only be hearsay, not solid evidence. But in a world that lived for rumors like Major League Baseball, it could be enough to do serious damage to his career and the careers of every other member of the club.
The press would have a hay-day with the information. One report based on what Jessica did know—presumably the names of the players in her game, plus the players, like him, she believed were part of the club—and no telling how many more women wanting their fifteen minutes of fame would come forward. No doubt, innocent athletes would be dragged into the scandal as well. They always were.
Look at what happened to Jason Holder. He’d been wrongly accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, and t
he accusation had come close to wrecking his career.
He would have to find a way to silence the cockroach and end her bullying before she unleashed a shit storm of bad press for everyone. The only problem was, he didn’t have the first clue how to go about it.
Too bad he couldn’t just spray a can of insecticide on her and be done with it.
* * *
Clare canceled her classed for the Monday following Thanksgiving. Most of the students wouldn’t be back anyway, and she was in no shape, mentally or physically, to teach. She was sore all over. Even her jaw hurt. The pain could have been a delayed reaction to sucking on the dildo gag or from clenching her teeth all night long. She didn’t know which, and what did it matter? The result was the same. She was miserable. And dehydrated from crying.
She’d held it together the night before until she passed the threshold of her apartment, and then the floodgates had given way. After collapsing to the tiny square of tile that constituted her entryway in a heap of sobbing misery, she’d made her way to the bedroom, eventually crawling into bed where the tears continued through most of the night.
The mirror told the ugly story all too well. Her eyes were puffy, red, and as fuzzy as tennis balls. Her lips were swollen, and a streak of dried drool trailed from the corner of her mouth down her chin. She’d wiped her sniveling nose on whatever had been handy—her sleeve, the bed sheets—and the abuse was obvious.
Turning from the painful visage, she stumbled her way to the kitchen. She needed coffee and ice. The first to kick-start her defeated body and other to ease the throbbing in her temples.
It took two cups of caffeine before she had enough strength to pop two slices of bread into the toaster. The combination of food, aspirin and the ice pack helped ease the headache and the soreness in her jaw. A shower was beyond her ambition, but she managed to get out of the clothes she’d had on since the day before. Wearing her second most comfortable set of clothes—the most comfortable being the ones she’d put on to dissuade Antonio on the night of the Press Dinner, and thus not an option today—that memory was too much to bear—she plugged her iPod into the speaker system and curled up on the sofa.
If ever there was a day she was entitled to a pity party, this was it. As horrible as last night had turned out following the confrontation with Jessica, she couldn’t stop thinking about the weekend before.
It had been perfect, and then Jessica had shown up at the airport—Clare’s rotten luck—and ruined everything. Antonio hated her now. She had a list of should’ves, would’ves, and could’ves as long as her arm. That’s where her stupid fantasies had led her, into a sea of regrets without a boat, or so much as a life jacket.
No matter how she twisted the last few weeks with Antonio, it all came down to her fault. Sure, she’d laid the blame on him last night, but she never should have agreed to do a single one of those things with him. From the outset, she’d known it wouldn’t end well. He might be her perfect man, but she wasn’t his perfect woman, and she never had been.
She woke to ringing of the doorbell. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but what did it matter? She walked softly to the door and looked through the peek-hole. Her friend and fellow professor, Laura, stood outside. Clare dropped her forehead against the door and sighed. She didn’t want to see anyone, but knowing her friend, she wouldn’t go away unless Clare opened the door.
She wiped sleep from her eyes and turned the knob.
“Hi,” Laura said, sweeping past her hostess without invitation.
Clare shut the door. “Did I invite you in?”
“No, but look what I brought you.” She stood with her left hand behind her back. Bringing it around, she held out a thin crystal vase containing one perfectly beautiful long-stemmed red rose in full bloom.
Clare automatically reached for it. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, taking in the lovely fragrance with a long sniff.
“I didn’t. I mean, I’m the delivery person, but I didn’t buy it for you.” She dug in her purse, pulled out a white florist’s envelope. “Here. This came with it. It was the same delivery guy, and when I told him you called in sick today, he wasn’t going to leave it. But we’re old buddies now, he and I, so I told him I would make sure you got it. He was okay with that.”
She rattled on, and Clare only half-heard what her friend said. There was only one person who had ever sent her flowers. Antonio.
“Is it from the same guy? The baseball player? Oh, man. He must have done something really stupid. If that’s not a cry for forgiveness, I don’t know what is.”
Her uninvited guest plopped down on the sofa and Clare joined her.
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
“It’s in full bloom—his heart is open. What else could it mean?”
“I have no idea.” After the way they’d parted last night, it could mean anything, but she didn’t dare hope Antonio was asking for forgiveness. No, that was too much to wish for.
“Well, open the card. I’m dying to find out.”
Clare looked down at the forgotten envelope in her hand. She placed the vase on the coffee table and slipped the card from the envelope. Her heart split wide open, and though she had been certain there wasn’t another tear left in her, one slid down her cheek.
“What is it?” Laura placed a comforting hand on Clare’s arm. “Let me see that.” She grabbed the card from Clare’s numb fingers. “I hope you like roses,” she read aloud. “There’s one for every day until you forgive me. I’m an ass. Love, Antonio.” She turned the card over as if expecting to find more on the back. “Oh, hon. What did he do?”
Clare leaned into her friend’s offered embrace and let the tears flow. Laura patted her back and murmured soothing things until Clare finally found some control.
“He…I…we argued. It was my fault. Mostly.” The whole story spilled out, minus the secret club, and that he had accused her of setting him up. She left Keith’s involvement out as well. It was one thing to tell your girlfriend you’d had the most spectacular sex of your life, but mentioning a third party to that sex might be going too far.
Laura made herself at home, fixing a fresh pot of coffee and rummaging until she found a half-eaten box of cookies while Clare filled her in on the weekend. As her friend bustled around her apartment, taking care of her without having been asked, Clare thought she really did need more friends like Laura in her life. She was as different from Jessica as a person could be.
“Thank you,” she said when she brought coffee and cookies and sat down beside her. “You didn’t have to come over and do all this for me.”
“Yes, I did. You should have called me, and I would have been here sooner.” She sipped her coffee. “So, are you going to forgive him?”
“Probably, but it won’t change anything. It’s over. He won’t trust me again since I lied to him. I don’t blame him. I should have told him the night we met.”
“Clearly,” she said, waving a hand toward the bloom, “he doesn’t think it’s over.”
“He will. He just hasn’t thought this through very well. Once he does, he’ll come to the same conclusion I have. A relationship between us can go nowhere, so ending it now is the best thing for both of us.”
Chapter Twenty
Tony pocketed his car keys and entered the stadium. He’d called ahead, and Doyle had agreed to carve out a few minutes in his schedule for his new centerfielder. It had been three days since Jessica Roach dropped her load of shit on his head in the airport. Three days of hell.
Clare hadn’t spoken to him—and rightfully so. He’d stepped into the shit and compounded the problem by spreading it all around in places it had no right to be. Like on Clare. And their relationship.
He’d spent the last two days replaying the encounter in his mind, and just like a blooper reel, it never got any better.
Blame it on lack of sleep, a sex-addled brain, or just plain stupidity, but what it added up to was he’d behaved like an ass. Oh, he’d th
ought he was handling it well. He hadn’t yelled at anyone in public. He hadn’t confirmed or denied his involvement in Bases Loaded. And, he’d gotten Clare out of the airport before that Roach woman could say anything else or cause a scene.
She’d said plenty—enough that he was voluntarily going to put his career on the line rather than wait for her to throw another load of shit at the fan. From what little he knew about her, she might be the type to do just that. Sixty hours of contemplation, and his best option was to be forthright. Get it out in the open, and in so doing, diffuse the shit-bomb hanging over his head.
“Doyle,” Tony extended his hand. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”
The Mustangs manager clasped Tony’s hand in a firm grip then ushered him to the comfortable arrangement of sofas and chairs on one side of the room.
“Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Water?” he asked.
“No, but thanks.” His palms were sweating so much he would need batting gloves to hold onto anything breakable right now. Back when he’d joined Bases Loaded, he’d sort of known it could come back to bite him in the ass someday, but he’d been green, and horny, and young enough to believe himself invincible.
He’d changed over the years and come to realize a few things—one of which was his career existed at the whim of team management. He could have the best stats in the League, and if management wasn’t on his side, he could be watching the next season from a barstool in Brooklyn and selling insurance with his old man.
The team manager settled into one of the plush armchairs while Tony chose a seat in the center of the sofa. A large wood and glass coffee table topped with a pottery bowl filled with baseballs separated them. Over Doyle’s shoulder was a plate-glass window overlooking the baseball field. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be wearing a Mustangs uniform come spring or if he’d be lucky to be selling hotdogs in the stands. It could go either way.
“What brings you here today?” Doyle asked.
