Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel)

by Novak, Brenda

  “No excuses,” Will said, meeting the other man’s gaze without flinching.

  “No excuses, no,” Mako said. “But reasons. There are always reasons, and you owe us those.”

  “Right.” Will swallowed. This was the gauntlet he had to run, so he braced himself, took a breath, and did it. “It wasn’t drink, or gambling, or Vegas. Wasn’t anything like that. It was my grandfather dying, I guess, that did it. Knocked me for a loop, and I didn’t even realize it until later.”

  “So you went to Vegas,” Mako said. “For the tryout.”

  “Felt like I had to do something, didn’t I,” Will tried to explain. “Decided to follow the money. Told myself I’d be seeing to my family that way, even though that wasn’t the way they needed me, in the end. I was thinking it might be easier in the States. Better money, easier on the body, and no pressure off the field either. Nothing expected but a good boot, and not being held to a standard I didn’t think I could meet. Sounds mad, I know. Sounds bad. But that was what it was.”

  He said all that, breathed again, and waited.

  “Nothing to live up to,” Mako said. “And this was part of that, somehow. Those photos, and that naff website. Putting yourself up there for all the girls to fantasize about, to write dirty stories about. Ego boost, maybe.”

  Will did his best not to wince. “Hope that wasn’t it. Just…seemed like the sort of thing a footballer would do, I guess. Life on the edge. Taking a stupid chance because you could. Least that’s the best reason I’ve got, because when I look back on it now, it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Mako nodded slowly, as if he knew. “And there was a girl.”

  “Yeh. There was a girl. That one,” Will found himself saying, “I can’t be sorry about. If I hadn’t done it, I would never have met her. And if everybody hadn’t found out, I would never have brought her over here. And I can’t be sorry about that, either.”

  Every gaze around the table had sharpened, and every eye was fixed on Will. “Think you’d better explain,” Nate said.

  Will’s heart was thudding. He hadn’t meant to say this. Why had he? Because he didn’t want the responsibility falling on Faith anymore, that was why. He couldn’t bear to keep casting her as the reason he’d done this, the seductress who’d lured him into it. There was no amount of money he could pay her that would make up for his mum looking at her like that, or having his teammates think of her like that, and there was no way out of it but the truth.

  He should have told his family before he’d left, should have trusted them to keep the secret. Leaving her had been bad enough as it was. When he’d been driving to Auckland the day before, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her face when he’d kissed her goodbye. About the way she’d smiled, her mouth trembling a little at the corners until she’d bitten her lip to stop it. About his last sight of her in the rear-view mirror, standing in front of the house, her arms across her chest, hugging herself. When he remembered that, his own chest ached in a way it shouldn’t have, not after a week with a girl. It wasn’t the first time he had driven away, because leaving was what he did. But it had felt like it.

  He should never have left her with his family with his mum still believing so badly of her. He couldn’t fix that, not now, because that wasn’t a conversation he could have over the phone. But he could tell Faith that he planned to tell them. He’d do it when they were together in Auckland again, before she left, when they talked about what they were going to do about this thing between them. If he could visit again, or she could. Or…what.

  He didn’t have a clue how that was going to turn out, but at least he could do the right thing here.

  “Because I lied about her,” he told his teammates. “It was all a lie.”

  He saw the startled expression pass over Mako’s face, saw it change to something else as he went on. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. She was a friend, least I thought so. I mean, I thought that was all she was. Having her come over here…that was a stupid idea my agent thought up, to make there be a reason for what I’d done, a reason beyond my own bad judgment. And…” He swallowed, then put it out there. “I paid her to do it. And I’m sorry about all that, sorry I didn’t tell Ian where he could shove his idea. Sorry I didn’t face up to what I’d done and take all the consequences, except that I can’t be sorry. She wasn’t just a friend, and maybe there was a reason I said yes, besides that I was afraid for my career. But I’m tired of lying about it, and I’m not going to do it to all of you. Not anymore.”

  Nate was exchanging a look with Liam, the seconds ticking by in silence. Five. Ten. And then Koti laughed.

  “Bloody hell,” he said. “That is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. Stupidest way to get a girl I’ve ever, ever heard.”

  There was some more laughter around the table. Disbelieving, maybe. Appalled, certainly. But laughter all the same.

  “What?” Will asked. “Nobody here ever had to pay anyone to pretend to be his girlfriend?”

  “Nah,” Hugh said, a smile splitting the dark stubble on his hard face. “Don’t ask us how many of us would’ve, though. Or how many of us have done some famously stupid things when it comes to women.”

  Mako brought them back to reality. “We’ve all done stupid things for one reason or another,” he said. “And yours isn’t the worst we’ve done, either. I know, because I’m still carrying that title. But this goes nowhere,” he told Will. “It stays right here with us, because nobody else needs to hear it. Long as you’re not lying now. Long as that’s it.”

  “That’s it,” Will promised. He hadn’t been planning to say it, not even close. But now that he had, he was so light with relief that he could have floated straight up to the ceiling. “That’s all for me,” he said again. “No more lying. No more pretending. No more secrets.”

  “One more thing.” Koti was speaking up now. “Hope you’ve rung Hemi and talked to him about this, done some major apologizing. I don’t know whose idea that name was, but if it was yours…”

  “It was mine,” Will said. Another secret revealed, that he’d been the one who’d named his dark, dangerous alter ego after his longtime predecessor in the All Blacks’ No. 10 jersey. Hemi Ranapia, family man, team man, and about the furthest thing from Hemi Te Mana it was possible to imagine. “I thought it was funny, and that it would be my own private joke, and no, it didn’t turn out that way, and that’s on me, too. I rang him about it straight away, yeh, soon as the whole thing came out. Right after I rang my mum. Nowhere to go but up after that, eh.”

  “And?” Koti prompted.

  “And…” Will laughed a little, ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “That wasn’t so bad, because actually, he thought it was a bit funny, too. Privately. But then Reka grabbed the phone from him, and…” He blew out a long breath. “If I don’t have any hair left on this side, it would be because she scorched it straight off me. Haven’t had an earbashing like that since I was a kid.”

  That one got some genuine laughter from everybody. “You got Reka backed into a corner, defending her man?” Koti said. “That wins some sort of bad-idea prize. Better you than me, cuz. I wouldn’t accept an invite to dinner anytime soon, put it that way. Likely to find her standing behind you with a steak knife, eh.”

  Nate smiled, then stood up, bringing the rest of the men with him. “I’d say we’re all done here. It’s over, and time to move on. And if you plan to be directing us around the paddock on the night,” he told Will, “we’d better get on the bus, get out there, and start getting ready. We’ve got a series to win.”

  Waiting and Hoping

  Faith sat down at the desk and opened her laptop. Seven o’clock Tuesday night, and Will had been gone nearly thirty-six hours. She’d had a text from him the day before saying he’d arrived in Auckland, that he’d had lunch with Mals before flying down to Dunedin.

  Talked about his marks. Time to get serious.

  Whether that meant Will getting serious with his brother, or tel
ling his brother to get serious about school, she didn’t know, but either way, the thought of him doing it, and telling her he’d done it, too, had warmed her heart. She’d texted him back, had had to erase and re-start a few times to get the tone right.

  Good for you. Good luck this week. Looking forward to watching you.

  Now he was getting serious in Dunedin, she was sure, which would be why he hadn’t called her. Well, that and that he’d never said he’d call her. He’d never promised her anything.

  She didn’t need to think about that now, though. She could set it aside and go to a better place, where the problems were so much bigger, but were under her control. Where there would be a happy ending, because she could make things turn out the way they ought to be instead of the way they actually were. A better world, where true love was real, and men didn’t leave. She opened her document and started to type.

  The minutes ticked by, one eternal second after another. Hope sat in an armchair that should have been comfortable, except that nothing could possibly be comfortable now, and waited. Because that was what you did in a waiting room.

  Her mind tried to skitter down into panic, and she began to count the petals on the flowers in the huge framed watercolor opposite in a desperate attempt to reverse it, or at least to stop it. That wasn’t going to help. She needed to stay calm. For herself, and for Karen. When Karen opened her eyes again, she was going to see a sister who was smiling, who was telling her that everything was going to be all right, and who could make her believe it.

  Surely it would be true. Surely it would be benign. The doctor had said benign. Probably.

  Probably.

  She yanked her mind back to the flowers again. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.

  “All right?”

  She dragged her gaze to Hemi, and he must have seen what she was trying so hard to hide, because he was closing his laptop and setting it down beside him.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he told her gently. One big hand smoothed over her hair, his lips brushed her forehead, and that was almost worse. She was going to cry after all, if he kept doing that. She was going to lose it.

  She pushed herself back from him. “I know,” she said. “I know, because Dr. Feingold is the best. I’m all right. Really.” Her hands were cold. Shaking. She pressed them together for warmth, for stability, like a desperate prayer.

  Brain tumor. When she had heard the words, she had nearly fainted.

  She hadn’t fainted, of course she hadn’t, because she’d been holding Karen’s hand. The doctor had pushed the box of tissues across the table, and Hope hadn’t taken them. She hadn’t fainted, or cried, or curled into a ball of fear when she’d told Hemi, either.

  She’d wanted to, though. He’d showed up, as always, when she had been at her most vulnerable. The evening they’d gotten the news, when he’d appeared with takeout for all three of them. He’d remembered that this was the appointment day, even though Hope had gone back to the office afterwards, had done her best to focus, to work, to maintain, the way she had all along, because she needed her job. When she’d told him the news, though, he’d made sure that Karen had the very best surgeon in New York, and that she was fast-tracked onto the schedule. And today, he was here with her.

  But he didn’t do long-term relationships. Even without Martine’s hints, Hope would have known that. Straight from the source, because he’d told her so more than once, at the beginning. He hadn’t told her since, but it would have been cruel to remind her of it in the midst of all this, and Hemi wasn’t cruel. He could be cold, yes. He could definitely be distant. But cruel…never.

  Even if he’d never said a thing, though, a few minutes of research in any business magazine would have told her. It wasn’t that there was gossip about his private life. It was that there wasn’t. There wasn’t any gossip, because he didn’t have personal relationships. He had…arrangements. But he didn’t have an arrangement with her. He didn’t do relationships, and she didn’t do arrangements. They had something that existed in an uneasy space in between, something she didn’t want to examine too closely, didn’t want to touch, because its balance was so precarious, the slightest breath could send it toppling and shattering.

  Today, though, none of that mattered. All that mattered was Karen.

  “Brain surgery is never routine,” the surgeon had said when she and her sister had been sitting across the big mahogany desk from him the week earlier. “But as brain surgery goes…” He had smiled. “It’s not brain surgery.”

  Karen had laughed nervously, and Hope had squeezed her sister’s hand and tried to smile back, although without much success.

  “That would be a surgeon joke,” he’d said apologetically. “Not good, huh? Fortunately, my surgical skills are better than my bedside manner.”

  Then, he’d handed Hope a couple of handouts. About Brain Tumors, she had read, and had had to stop herself from putting a hand over her mouth, from being sick. “And to answer your next question, the one I can tell is on the tip of your tongue—Yes, there are risks, of course. There are always risks. But I’m pretty good.”

  “What if it…isn’t?” Hope had managed to ask. “What do we do…then? What’s the…” She hadn’t been able to go on.

  “If it’s malignant?” he’d asked. Her mind had recoiled from the word, but it wasn’t going to help Karen for them not to address it. “We cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we aren’t going there, because I don’t think we’re going to need to, and because even if we do need to, there’s no point thinking about it now. Wait until we know something.”

  Now, she reminded herself of the words again, the ones she’d clung to ever since. I don’t think so. And I’m pretty good. No, he was very good. Hemi had seen to that. Hemi, who had to leave tomorrow, because Milan Fashion Week, where he would be unveiling his brand-new line of high-end leisurewear, wasn’t something he could reschedule, and it definitely wasn’t something he could miss. And yet he was here with her today all the same, setting all his last-minute preparation aside to support her. And to support Karen, too.

  How could two hours take this long? She looked at her watch. It hadn’t been two hours. It had been three. She battled the panic back once more, picked up a magazine, turned its pages without seeing a word, then set it down and went back to counting petals.

  Hemi looked up from his laptop again. “I’ll go get you a cup of coffee,” he said, and Hope nodded. Not that she cared.

  That was why he was in the little anteroom, though, when Dr. Feingold came out at last, the green scrubs covering him from cap to toes. Not looking worried, and not smiling, either. Looking perfectly…neutral. But something in his face…

  Her legs trembled as she stood up and forced herself to walk to him. And if the minutes she’d waited had been long, this walk was a hundred miles.

  “It went reasonably well,” he said, and her legs began shaking so badly, her knees were actually knocking together. Her arms had gone around herself, and even her lips were trembling, her teeth wanting to chatter, the cold fear grabbing at her heart and lungs. She couldn’t get her breath. And still she waited.

  “A little more complicated than we originally thought,” he went on, looking around. Looking for Hemi, who was finally there, his arm going around her, holding her up. “The biopsy is on its way to the path lab,” Dr. Feingold said. “No point in talking until there’s something to talk about, except to say that we got it out.”

  “Can’t you…” Hope tried to ask. “Couldn’t you tell after all?”

  “I’m still thinking we’re probably all right,” he said. “But I’m sorry, Hope. It’s not quite as clear-cut as I could have wished. We’ll have to wait for the results.”

  “How long?” Hemi asked.

  “Tomorrow,” the doctor said. “If it’s fast.” He exchanged a look with Hemi, and Hope knew what that look meant. That Hemi would manage, somehow, for it to be fast. So she would know. So she could cope, and help Karen cope, t
oo.

  But for now, all they could do was—

  An electronic warble broke the thought, and she jerked her hands from the keyboard, sat back, and tried to gather herself.

  Phone. Ringing. Where?

  She scrabbled under the papers on the desk, then finally realized that it was hiding behind the screen of her laptop. By the time she pressed the button, it had gone to voicemail.

  Another ding as she held it, and as she watched, a text came up from Will.

  u srsly need 2 call faith

  What? Another second, and a second text was appearing below it.

  Here I am doing it. Call me back.

  She was smiling as she pushed the button, and the phone rang only once on the other end before he was picking up.

  “Right,” he said, and she melted a little, just hearing that voice. She had it so bad, no matter what she told herself. “I know I want to call Faith,” he said, “but why do I need to? Specially seriously. Oh, pardon. Srsly.”

  She laughed, wishing she didn’t sound quite so breathless. “Was that Talia? Why?”

  “Dunno. Waiting to hear, aren’t I. Sorry I didn’t ring you sooner. Finally got a chance, once my roomie left to go find a quiet spot himself to have a chat with his partner. Hard to talk dirty to your woman with your big ugly skipper sitting on the next bed, if you know what I mean.”

  “Um…skipper?” Your woman.

  Stop it, she scolded herself. Stop it now.

  “Yeh. Hugh Latimer. My skipper on the Blues. Captain. My roomie. Never mind. Srsly? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Especially not srsly. Talia took me for that walk on the forest track after school, like you wanted to do, and it was fine. She seemed pretty good, to me.”