“I couldn’t tell,” Nate said, brushing aside the hair I’d left wild to answer the door, since the bell had rung before I could secure it into my standard puff. “So I just reacted. My bad.”
“It’s fine,” I told him, gently lowering my hand to my lap. “That was bound to happen sooner or later.”
Nate shrugged. “And now it’s over with.”
“Oh no,” I laughed, even though it really, really wasn’t funny. “It’s not over. Now we wait and see what happens.”
I didn’t have to wait long.
It was that very same day that an intern came to retrieve me from the practice field, letting me know that Eli Richardson wanted to talk to me. I had no idea what the conversation would entail, but I knew it couldn’t be good, especially based on the way Underwood avoided my eyes as I headed off.
More than likely, he, Garrett, and Eli had been talking.
And people say women gossip too much.
In any case, my head was held high as I traveled up to where his office was, wearing a wrist brace from the sprain his little friend had caused. When I arrived, his assistant sent me right in, and I found him at his huge picture window, overlooking the natural scenery behind the building.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked, already annoyed by his evident “power play” of feigning distraction when I arrived. He turned, scrutinizing my face first before his eyes fell to my injured wrist.
“What happened?”
“I think you know,” I countered, not bothering to adjust the agitation out of my tone. If I’d made a mistake on the field, my energy would be entirely different. But I knew – we both knew – that this wasn’t a business-related meeting.
It was personal.
And none of his business.
He seemed surprised by the way I’d countered him, raising an eyebrow as he moved to his desk. Once he was there, he gestured for me to have a seat, and I shook my head.
“I’d rather stand.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on, Ms. Brooks?” he asked, slow enough that I could tell his words were carefully measured. “You seem a bit on edge.”
I shrugged. “Just staying prepared for whatever missiles you’re about to launch my way.”
“Missiles? What makes you say that?”
“With all due respect, Eli… we can cut right to the chase. There’s no need for the games. You know what happened to my wrist – I can confirm that it was an accident. And you already know exactly which missiles I’m talking about.”
Pushing out a sigh, Eli came around to the front of the desk, taking a seat on the edge. “Fair enough. You want to cut to the chase, we’ll do it. You will stop dating my son.”
“You have no authority over my personal life,” I told him, without even giving myself a moment to think about it, because my answer wouldn’t have changed.
His eyes narrowed. “You sure that’s the answer you’d like to go with. You’re serious about this?”
“Serious as a heart attack,” I countered, pre-empting him. “Like the one your son saved me from. But I bet neither of your informants knew that part.”
“No,” he answered, with a tip of his head. “They didn’t. So I see there’s even more to this story to tell.”
I shook my head. “Oh no, there’s nothing to tell. Not to tell you, because again – this is my personal life. It has nothing to do with you, and nothing to do with this team.”
“It has to do with my son, so it has everything to do with it.”
“Eli, your son is a grown man.”
“A grown man ruining his life to be with a divorcee with nothing in the way of building a legacy to offer him.”
I laughed. “I will not sit here and be insulted. Especially not by a man who married a divorcee who was twenty years younger than him. The hypocrisy is thick.”
“It was not the same situation,” Eli answered, in a low, dangerous tone. “Mel wanted nothing from me.”
“And what the hell do you think I want from Nate? Or, better question – what the hell is it that you want for Nate?”
“The absolute best of happiness,” Eli snarled.
I raised my hands, relaxing back into my chair. “Then congratulations. You’re looking at her. Have you even talked to your son about this, or did you just decide you knew better than he does for his own life?”
“My son is easily swayed by… attributes that don’t exactly lead to a healthy future. I won’t begrudge the past, but it is time for my son to settle down and find a wife who can bear his child. And I think we both know that isn’t you.”
I smirked. “You know what else we both know? That your son wants to start and build a business, and now that he’s serious about it – he will do it. When is he going to have time for this wife and child you so desperately want for him?”
Of course, I left out the fact that I had wanted that for him too.
How much time had I wasted badgering him like his father had, to pursue something he didn’t even really want?
“He will come to his senses. He will work for this team. And he will inherit this business,” Eli countered, so matter-of-factly that I shook my head.
“No. If you keep this up, what’s going to happen is that you’ll lose your son,” I warned him. “Not to me – I’m not suggesting that he’d choose me over you. But I’m telling you that he will absolutely choose not having you in his life, if you can’t put your own dreams for him aside, and let him follow his own path.”
His frown deepened. “Ms. Brooks, do you presume to know my son better than his own father?”
“I presume that his father may not know him very well at all,” I said, with no intention of malice. Only the truth. And a deep, deep hope that I never felt a need to involve myself this deeply with Madison’s personal life, barring evidence that she was heading into something that would bring her real harm.
Although… was that what Eli thought of me?
How little he thought of me, that I was so far from good enough for his son that he felt strongly enough to demand I leave him alone?
“I think some things need to be set straight,” Eli said, veering from his course into some demanding ass tone that raised my irritation level even higher. “This conversation has turned into a back and forth, where none was required, so let me go back to my original statement. You will stop seeing my son. You will agree to it immediately, or you will not step back into the facility, or on the field with the Kings for another game.”
As soon as he finished with his threat, I stood, moving to step closer. I looked him right in the face when I asked, “Do you think I need this job, Eli? You may want to watch your step with threats, because I do not respond well to them, and I will call your bluff.”
“It’s not a bluff.”
I chuckled. “Oh, but it is. Because you see – I know you, Eli. And you’re a better businessman than this.”
“What the hell does this have to do with my business?”
“Nothing,” I smiled. “Which is exactly why you firing me because I’m dating your son is going to bite you right in the ass. These wide receivers’ stats are out of this world, and it’s because of me. I tried to save your star from a season-ending injury – Lou even said it in an interview, and now it’s well-reported. Even my peers who only tolerate me know that I am damn good at this job, so when you fire me, and I tell everybody who’ll listen that it’s because you simply didn’t want an older woman dating your son, the media is going to eat you and this team alive. I will take my ass on TV and cry my pretty brown eyes out over it, and it will undo every piece of goodwill you garnered with that statement promising that your players wouldn’t get in trouble for taking a knee. And the real kicker will be your son sitting right the fuck beside me. But if that’s where you want to go, Eli… let’s do it.”
Eli gave me a wry smile. “I should have known just how good you were at manipulation.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Me? I haven’t manipulated anything
, I’ve told you how I will respond to an unjust firing. You’re the one throwing down ultimatums and threats, not me. You’re the one trying to interfere in Nate’s life, not me. And you are the one who is only going to end up hurting him – not me.”
“I don’t understand you, Sloane,” he shook his head. “Any number of other players, trainers, front office staff, coaches – you’re an incredibly attractive, smart woman. Why can’t you just find someone else to have your affair?”
My eyes narrowed. “Because it’s not an affair,” I hissed, surprisingly offended by that assertion. “That’s what you think? That’s what Garrett told you?”
“What else could it be?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused, which only heightened my frustration.
“Love.” I swallowed hard after I said that word, trying to keep my composure. “Eli… I’m not just some stubborn cougar trying to corrupt your son. We… are in love.” I stopped speaking, to let that sink in, then told him, “You do whatever you want with that information, okay? Fire me, try to ruin my reputation, whatever. Say whatever the hell you want, you know? And I take it back – I won’t waste my time talking to the news about you. You and this team can burn, and I will be at my house, with my daughter, and with your son… living, and loving, and happy as fuck.”
I turned to leave, somehow feeling lighter than I had when I walked in. I was angry at his nerve, to attempt to force me to do anything, but when I thought about the toll it would take to try to fight him… it wasn’t worth it.
I didn’t have to fight anything.
I didn’t have to say a word.
I’d gotten hired.
I’d done my fucking job.
And I’d fallen in love.
At this point, I had nothing to prove.
“Are you going back down to practice?” he asked, with none of the previous disrespect in his tone. Obviously, he’d seen the light, done a bit of weighing the repercussions on his own, and decided he should reevaluate.
But I took no joy in that.
If my job was going to be threatened over some bullshit… I wasn’t even sure I wanted it.
“No,” I answered, not turning around. “I’m going home.”
Fifteen
She’d been crying, and that pissed me off.
We’d known there would be some type of blowback now that Garrett knew about us. He was too tight with exactly the right people, and I’d pissed him off too badly for there to not be a reaction. Now, between the brace on her wrist, her red eyes, and the whispers I’d heard of her storming out of my father’s office, I found myself wishing I’d just socked that motherfucker in the face and called it a day.
Just to make the point, very clearly, that I didn’t fuck around when it came to Sloane.
“You have to eat something,” I urged, running a hand over her back. She was draped across my lap, in the same position she’d been in for hours, staring absently at some ridiculous show about six black friends living in Detroit.
Instead of a verbal answer, she just shook her head, but now she’d declined one too many times. I hooked her under the arms, pulling her upright.
“Hey babe… you have to eat, so you can take your medicine.”
She let out a sigh, and turned to look me in the face. “Always the right thing to say with you, isn’t it?”
I raised a hand, stroking her cheek. “You already know. Now… why don’t you tell me what happened today with you and my father?”
“I thought I was supposed to be eating. Not rehashing pointless conversations.”
“If that’s your way of deflecting, it’s not going to work. What is it that’s so bad that you don’t want to say anything? You know you can tell me anything, right?”
She gave me a wry smile. “I do. But… it got a little ugly between me and Eli, honestly. And I am so far from interested in even the appearance of coming between you and your father. You want to know what happened, you talk to him.”
“Right now, I’m talking to you,” I insisted. “You left practice today, which is completely unlike you, and I know you’ve been crying – I see it. All you have to do is tell the truth.”
“The truth is that your father threatened to fire me if I didn’t stop seeing you. The details aren’t important. I called his bluff, he backed off, and I left anyway. That’s the whole story.”
My eyes narrowed. “What? He threatened to fire you over me… but not about keeping the heart attack from him?”
“I’m honestly not even positive he knows about the heart attack. He’s tight with Underwood, so I’m assuming at this point that everything is out of the bag. I’ll conduct myself accordingly.”
After that, she pulled herself from my lap, heading to the kitchen to grab a snack. I propped my elbows on my knees, head in my hands, trying to sort through the facts.
Not everything was out of the bag, but the fact that she and I were involved certainly was. It hadn’t hit the internet yet, and no one had been bold enough to ask me to my face, but the undercurrent was there, and would only be stronger tomorrow as the news traveled from ear to ear.
On the surface, people knowing about us didn’t bother me. It was barely a blip on my radar. But deeper than that, I knew it had potential repercussions for Sloane – she had a lot more to lose by publicly acknowledging our relationship than I did.
Her credibility.
Her reputation.
And her job.
Apparently, her job had already been threatened.
That was part of the story I was having trouble wrapping my head around, the fact that there had been hostility between the two, with both living to tell the tale. Sloane wasn’t a woman who took kindly to threats, and Eli wasn’t the type to idly give them. For him to have “backed off” as she claimed, she had to have come with heat herself. And for her to have called his bluff, when the stakes were her job – a job she cherished – there had to be a lot more to this than she was telling me.
I got up and followed her, entering the kitchen while she was ending a phone call.
“Retained Chloe McKenna… just in case,” she explained, gesturing with the phone. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know I want to be prepared.”
I nodded. “Probably a smart move, considering that he threatened you… which I’d like to get a little more detail about.”
“Does it really matter?” she asked, moving to grab a bowl of sliced cucumbers from her fridge. “What does having the details change?”
“Just indulge me.”
With her mouth full of cucumber, she shrugged. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what he said to you.”
“That his son needed a woman who could bear his children, so I needed to find someone else for my little affair. That he would fire me if I didn’t.”
I closed my eyes, trying my best to check the rush of anger that washed over me. But Sloane wasn’t finished speaking.
“And I… dared him to do it, basically. I reminded him of the shit storm that would follow, and threatened to talk to the media. And I told him… that you wouldn’t be happy with him, for doing something like that over you. That, out of anger, you’d probably be by my side during the interviews. Which wasn’t cool, because I don’t speak for you.”
“That doesn’t make it less true.”
“But still. In any case, I walked it all back anyway, because if he wants to fire me, whatever. My life is full, and beautiful, and no job is going to change that. I refuse to let anybody have that kind of power over me. Any job that can be snatched away because of who I love isn’t a job I need.”
“Snatched away because of… what?” I asked, not sure if I’d heard that correctly, and knowing that I needed clarity there.
Sloane’s gaze dropped to those cucumbers, resting there before she lifted her head again. “You heard me. Because of who I… love. But don’t worry, I’m not looking for—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish whatever
bullshit minimizing tactic she was about to employ, because I’d rounded the corner to sweep her into my arms, muffling the words with a kiss. She melted right into me, arms around me, eyes closed, just… reveling in it.
When we pulled back, there was no mistaking the happiness in her eyes, though she tried to hide it by making a big deal of getting back to her cucumbers. I let her do it, taking the opportunity to gather my thoughts for a bit before I spoke again.
“I’m going to talk to my father,” I told her, and she lifted her eyes from the bowl. “He went too far, and I… can’t let this ride.”
Sloane shook her head. “Nate, I’m fine. Underwood texted me, and Coach Lou called, making sure I’ll be back at practice tomorrow. As long as nobody fucks with me, I’m good, and even then… I’m still good. I don’t bow my head to anyone.”
“It’s not just that. He’s getting more and more aggressive with this director role in my life, and I can’t just let that ride, or he’ll never stop. The conversation is overdue.”
“I understand. I… can’t bring myself to offer much in the way of defending him after the way he treated me today, and I have no idea what he’s going through, but… just keep in mind that this is all because he loves you.”
I nodded. “Yeah. We’re going to have to do some fine-tuning on the way he shows it.”
“If anybody can handle it, I know you can.” She leaned in, pressing a kiss to my lips before she replaced the top on the bowl she’d been eating from, and put it away. “It has been a long ass day, and I’m tired. I’m taking my medicine and going to bed. You coming?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I grinned. “I’m just going to straighten up down here, and then I’ll be up to join you.”
“Okay.”
I followed her back out to the living room, where she headed for the stairs, and I moved to clear the glasses we’d used while we were sitting out there watching TV. She was halfway up the stairs when I looked up, feeling the sudden need to stop her.
“Sloane!”
She turned to look at me, her pretty face caught in a wondering expression that made me smile. A face, a smile… a woman I could never see myself growing tired of.
Pass Interference (Connecticut Kings Book 6) Page 22
