by Julia Bright
Fuck! Of course, she was. Roan closed his eyes and absorbed the magnitude of that blow.
With a pit in his stomach, he went back to Blaine’s Instagram page, wondering how that whole gay thing had gone down. He and Presley were still friends if that picture of them together said anything. After another few minutes of searching, Roan found Blaine’s Twitter profile. The guy was crazy active on social media, nothing more though with Presley, but Roan found that Blaine had a company, he DJ’ed now. According to the calendar of events, Blaine had a gig tonight at a local LA club. Roan clicked the site and it turned out to be a gay club.
With so many unanswered questions, Roan didn’t let himself overthink things. He also didn’t bother changing clothes from the cargo shorts and T-shirt he’d worn all day. He left the television on as he went for his bedroom. Roan toed on his sandals, grabbed his keys, and his wallet before heading straight out the garage door toward his car.
Even for a night early in the week, it took a solid hour before he entered the front doors of the club. The place was nice, looked to have a dress code, but the bouncer had looked him up and down, possibly with recognition, but definitely a look Roan didn’t fully understand, and moved aside to let him enter.
He’d have thought he could have come up with some sort of game plan on the hour-long drive. That hadn’t happened, so he decided to wing it. The place was reasonably packed for the hour. He headed straight for the bar. He weaved through a maze of high-top cocktail tables surrounding a packed dance floor, dodging at least five come-ons en route to the bar. That alone narrowed his game plan down to the idea of finding Daniels as soon as possible and asking direct questions.
At the bar, he anchored on arm on the edge, digging his wallet out of his back pocket. For the first time since he’d entered the club, his gaze scanned the dark room until he saw the small DJ booth on the opposite wall.
“Hey. What can I get you?”
Roan spotted Blaine in the booth and took a good look at the guy before he turned back to the bartender. “I need a 7-UP.”
“That it?”
He nodded then pulled out a five-dollar bill and waited for his drink. When the bartender pushed it in front of him, and the money exchanged hands, he asked, “When does the DJ take his break?”
“Sometime soon. You know Blaine?” the guy asked, having to yell now over the thump of the new song playing.
“Can I get a message to him?” Roan ignored the question, throwing out one of his own.
“Sure.”
Roan reached for a pen on the cash register and wrote out a quick note on one of the cocktail napkins. He folded it and handed the napkin over with another five-dollar bill.
“Hey.”
Roan looked over to see a guy standing right beside him. Under normal circumstances, it was nothing out of the ordinary to have men standing shoulder to shoulder at a bar, waiting for a drink, but with this guy’s bright smile and full attention centered on Roan, he decided this wasn’t that and looked away.
“Not interested,” he said, maybe a little too menacingly, but the guy took the hint and moved away. He honestly hadn’t spent too much time with openly gay men, but if they were anything like straight men, they were constantly on the prowl and nothing really phased them.
“Hey.”
Seriously, these guys needed better pickup lines.
“Yeah, not interested.” This time, Roan didn’t even look the man’s direction. Instead, he lifted his soda for a sip and watched Blaine take the note, bend to the light to read the napkin, then look his way. He couldn’t see Blaine well, but Roan found himself bowing up, standing to his full height. Blaine was the enemy—always had been—and that aggression was just part of the package. He couldn’t see ever being all right with Blaine Daniels. As much as a minute passed before Blaine went to the microphone and said something about a power jam. Roan tracked every move he made. He let the booth door slam and headed directly to Roan, cutting through the gyrating couples on the dance floor.
Every vibe Blaine let off made it clear he was coming at Roan with a hostile attitude; Roan just wasn’t sure why. Even if Presley had told him about their night together, why in the hell would he care? Roan had been the one she’d dumped. She’d picked Blaine. He had no right to be upset.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Blaine shouted, still a good fifteen feet away from him.
Roan forced himself into an easygoing stance, with his back resting against the bar top and his arms crossed over his chest, still holding his drink in one hand. He let Blaine come within a couple of feet, not answering him yet, assessing all that rage directed his way. Deep down, he’d questioned the truth of what he’d seen online. Blaine was the guy always hitting on the hot girls—any female for that matter—but this man in front of him had changed. He was different, and that complicated everything.
“I saw you were here so I stopped by. You know, for old times’ sake,” Roan said, not entirely sure why. He’d decided on the direct approach, but whatever was up Blaine’s ass, didn’t seem overly fond of him. He wanted to know the reason behind the hostility.
“You’re a dick. You better fucking leave her alone.” Blaine stepped all the way in, shoving a finger in his face.
Okay.
Well, Blaine definitely knew about him and Presley. The better question was why he called Roan out when he’d clearly done far worse to her.
“You still in a relationship with her?”
Blaine stepped forward, leaving no space between them. The anger turned to rage as he bent in to get within an inch of Roan’s nose and spit out his next words.
“Stay the fuck away from her. She’s better than you, and I’ll use every resource I have to keep that girl safe.” Blaine didn’t budge a muscle, totally spoiling for a fight. Since Roan had to have sixty pounds of pure muscle on this guy who looked ready to fight to the death to protect Presley, he didn’t engage in the battle of brawn and concentrated on all this pissed off anger coming at him.
What the fuck was Blaine even talking about? The bottom line to it all was that Roan wasn’t the one who’d hurt Presley. She had destroyed him. His pain churned in his gut. The tic in Roan’s jaw bounced as he clamped his mouth closed and talked himself down while trying to understand what he was missing. Besides, the headlines wouldn’t be good if Roan got arrested for fighting inside this club, but if gay-boy didn’t back the fuck down, neither his lack of understanding nor worry about the media was going to matter for long. The bouncer near the bar got between them, pushing Blaine away.
“Back off, guys.”
“Fuck you. Get out of here,” Blaine yelled heatedly to Roan, the bouncer’s arm holding Blaine back. Roan weighed his options while watching Blaine turn more aggressive, both the bouncer’s arms wrapped around Blaine, holding him back. Roan lifted his hands, tossing in the towel. He’d be the bigger man. He didn’t want to be here anyway. He pushed off the bar and set his glass on the ledge.
Roan forced himself to stay casual, even when every eye in the place turned toward them. He sauntered to the front doors, realizing that he had even more questions about Presley Adams now. Roan pushed through the exit and didn’t look back as he fished the keys from his front pocket. Somehow, in his quest for answers, things just got a hell of a lot weirder. He hit the key fob and got behind the wheel, not immediately starting the car.
Why would Blaine need to keep Presley safe? Roan had never done anything that would make Presley fear him, maybe leave her pissed off but not afraid. After a second more of staring out into the dark night, Roan started the car and drove the traffic-laden hour home. Nothing made sense no matter how many miles he put between him and Blaine.
Chapter Ten
For the third time in the matter of a few minutes, Kady started over on the sentence she tried to edit, and like each other time, she lost her focus halfway through. She continued reading the hastily written article while thinking about nothing more than the emailed background report si
tting in her inbox. She’d gotten the facts on Roan. He’d been recently traded, made a silly amount of money in the move, and had bought a pretty little house on a golf course in Orange County. He hadn’t yet sold his Chicago-area condo, but the property just hit the market. His net worth was valued at more money than anyone she’d ever known in her entire life. Not that she knew a lot of wealthy people, but that seemed like a whole heck of a lot of money to Kady.
Attached to the report were two articles written in the last year. One, from the local newspaper—they focused on Roan’s career football stats and why the trade was such a good move for LA. The other article was a small piece from a Chicago online gossip magazine stating Roan and Elle Whitman had broken off their engagement.
All the facts of Roan’s recent life were there, but not the reasons of why or how he’d gotten to this point. Did she risk calling him for an interview? The idea Roan might remember her from college was laughable. But even the slightest chance that he’d put two and two together didn’t seem worth the risk. Having Presley anywhere on Roan’s radar would only put Maddie in possible jeopardy, and as much as Kady thought that little angel needed a father figure in her life, she saw how freaked out Presley had been last night. Kady’s gut tended to agree.
Roan was a callous, shallow man. She didn’t see someone like him ever considering Presley’s or Maddie’s ultimate well-being. Just like so many celebrities she had met along the way, he was a self-involved prick. A vengeful loser of a man. In all the years of trying hard to move up the corporate ladder, never once had she met a successful man who truly cared about anything other than himself and the money he flaunted. Roan certainly fell in that category.
Kady didn’t agree that Roan might fight for custody of Maddie. She actually thought he’d publicly deny Maddie, going to the press as a hurt, used professional football player who was being scammed by a gold digger. That would ruin Presley’s reputation while bulldozing his way over Maddie too. She couldn’t let that happen. Her best friend had defied the odds. Presley had worked her way through college as a single mom with a baby on her arm. Presley had sacrificed so much to improve her daughter’s life and was finally seeing the light at the end of the dark, lonely tunnel. Nothing needed to get in her way, and Roan had the power to destroy her.
Sitting back in her chair, Kady picked up the ballpoint pen that lay forgotten on her desk and began to click the top. That bothered the other minions sitting near her—the twenty or so grunts who sat in her same dismal room crammed with as many desks as could fit in the open space they called an office. They were all just like her, trying to get ahead in this stupid industry of entertainment news. The clicking would be irksome to their concentration, but she didn’t care. It gave her natural state of suspicion, a trait only made worse by her career choice, a release while she thought everything through.
The phone on her desk rang, jarring her out of her downward spiraling thoughts. She picked up the landline before the second shrill ring would have her co-workers throwing things at her. First, the noise of the pen then the overly loud antique desk phone from the 1980s—two strikes against her, both right in a row.
“Yes,” Kady answered, forgoing a more professional greeting, because, seriously, who used landlines anymore?
“I’ve called you like ninety times. Why aren’t you answering your cell?” Blaine skipped any nice introductions on his end.
“It didn’t ring.” Kady immediately rose in her chair to check her cell phone, and a loud squeak from a rusty spring resonated through the room. A chorus of groans sprang up around her, and a wad of paper hit her on the side of the head, landing on the desk in front of her. That was strike three in the irritating noise tolerance levels.
“Sorry! I’m sorry,” she called out to the room, waving a hand in the air as an apology and looked at her cell phone lying on her desk. Blaine had called multiple times, along with the manager of yesterday’s boy-band disaster interview. Touching the side bar with her thumb, she found she’d silenced the phone by accident. “I turned my ringer off. What’s up?”
“Roan came to the bar last night.”
“What?” she said louder than her apology and had to stick her finger in her ear for all the yelling from her co-workers. Two more paper wads came from various directions, hitting her in the face.
“He showed at the bar last night and had some bullshit attitude. I told him he better stay away from her,” Blaine declared menacingly.
“Did he say he wanted to see her?” Kady asked, surprised. This upped the whole ante in the urgent need to figure all this out. The best she remembered from all those years ago, Roan had never liked Blaine. The only people who hadn’t seemed to catch on to that blatant fact were Presley and Blaine.
“Fuck no. He was a jerk, being all sketchy. I’m not stupid. I know what he wanted to know.”
Kady didn’t challenge that piece of intel as she thought over the possibilities. Maybe Roan was gay? He’d gone to a gay bar. Maybe it was an accident that he just happened into the place Blaine was DJ’ing last night. Could be possible. Probably not though. That was too big of a coincidence. She couldn’t believe he’d first accidently stumble into Presley then just happen into Blaine.
“Shit, Blaine. Pres thinks she saw him while on a fieldtrip to the stadium. I found out he got traded here by Chicago,” Kady said, now whispering in the phone to ward off the mob-like uprising forming around her.
“If he starts poking around, she needs to take him to the cleaners on back child support,” Blaine declared boldly.
“Her gym doesn’t need the bad press, and there will be bad press, I promise,” Kady countered. Her industry loved any and all gossip, and since Roan was in the central hub of starving reporters who stirred any pot they could find, the reporters could turn into a feeding frenzy at Presley’s expense.
“Why’s he even here?” Blaine finally asked, losing some of his steam. He had to see that there would be no good possible outcome from this horrible turn of events.
“That’s what I’ve been wondering too. Maybe he won’t care.”
“He cares. He wouldn’t have come to the bar last night if he didn’t care.” That was an excellent point and very telling. She agreed. Roan had to be poking around for a reason.
“Don’t say anything to Presley yet. She’s freaked out already. She’s picking up Maddie this weekend. Until then, you and I will have to keep an eye on things and talk later,” Kady instructed firmly. Presley had two days left of classes then she’d head home to Maddie. Surely Roan would stay at a distance long enough to get Maddie to town and under their watchful eye.
“Okay. But, Kady, this is bad,” Blaine reinforced.
“Roger that.” She disconnected the call, grabbed her cell phone, and left her desk to the cheers of her peers. She shot them the finger as she went straight to the magazine’s legal department. There had to be a better way to help Presley. She just needed to figure it out.
For the first time in years, Presley had gotten up late, which set the stage for the disaster she called the rest of her morning. Everything that could go wrong did, making her well over half an hour late for work. When she finally managed to get inside her classroom and relieve her vice principal of monitoring her students, concern replaced the irritation on her boss’s face. He took Presley aside and told her very clearly that whatever had happened to cause her to lose her sparkle needed to be rectified, and she had fifteen minutes to do it.
Now, standing in front of the mirror in the teacher’s designated bathroom, Presley stared at her exhausted, frazzled self. In her rush this morning, she’d haphazardly pulled her hair off her face and left her makeup undone. Her clothes were barely more than khakis and a pullover, and it looked like she had begun to tuck the shirt in, but stopped halfway through. She never dressed like this for class.
On a deep sigh, she could feel herself unraveling from the inside out. She’d barely slept more than a few hours last night, and much to her horror, when she di
d sleep, she had dreamed over and over of her one single night with Roan. The tender care he’d taken with her. His constant kindness and consideration. The way he gently took her and loved her. The look of wonderment on his anguished face seconds before he found his release and orgasmed.
Presley wrinkled her brow and bit her lower lip.
What was wrong with her? Roan was the enemy. She wasn’t the same broken-hearted young woman. Roan had dumped her on her ass. Used her then left her behind. Now that same man was making a reality out of her biggest fears. She knew in her heart, no matter how much Kady tried to say that Roan didn’t want Maddie, he would. She was the best child on the planet, and she happened to look just like her father. Roan would want Maddie, taking her into his wealthy, pretentious life, changing her sweet disposition forever. Presley wouldn’t be there to protect Maddie, and that scared her to death.
That set the pace for the remainder of the day.
Presley stayed a step or two behind in everything she did, including the early cleanout of her classroom that afternoon. It seemed what should have taken a few hours, took the whole evening to complete. It wasn’t until her car was packed with her supplies to store over the summer and she was driving home in the darkness of night that she finally had a stern talk with herself.
She would leave immediately after school tomorrow and drive straight to get Maddie. She’d come back to LA on Saturday morning where she could coach her cheerleading classes and keep an eye on anything related to Roan Westfield. No one knew the address of her apartment in LA. Everything official she could think of was directed back to her mother’s house or her gym. She and Maddie would keep a low profile, and she’d absolutely stop borrowing worry. One brief sighting didn’t mean anything. The facts were clear: Roan didn’t want her and didn’t know about Maddie. She had tried to reach out, and he’d blown her off. She had gotten over that a long, long time ago. She just couldn’t understand why her heart hurt so badly right now.
