Her Secret

by Bloom, Penelope

  And that was what made it so hard to shut down my wandering thoughts. If he’d been like Derrick and made his interest open and plain, it wouldn’t have been so hard. Instead, he had to veil it behind walls of mystery. He had to make me desperately curious about what was going on behind those icy eyes, or why a stale non-fiction writer was secretly carrying around post-it notes with character notes for a thriller.

  I hopped off the bed and went to my suitcase. I needed to stop torturing myself with thoughts. And most of all, I needed to be fully dressed when he came out of the shower, because I clearly wasn’t in the proper state of mind to make level-headed decisions.

  I was fully dressed and brushing the tangles out of my hair when Peter came out of the bathroom. The bastard just had a towel wrapped around his waist when he went to kneel in front of his duffel bag to fish out some clothes.

  I tried not to sare—I really tried. But I was sure people also tried not to take that fatal gasp of water when they were drowning. It was useless. My eyes locked onto his back and the two shelves of smooth, angular muscle that spread on either side of his spine. Jesus. There was even a little patch of muscle on his lower back, like a two-pack for his back, because apparently that was a thing. And there was his ass. Those two, glorious globes of hard muscle. They beckoned to me like sirens, tempting me to step over the edge to my undeniable doom, and all for one little squeeze.

  I really was about to look away just before he turned and caught me staring.

  “Pervert,” he said. Then he took his clothes back into the bathroom and closed the door.

  I blew out a frustrated breath and then let my forehead fall to the table in front of me. What the hell was I even doing here?

  Making sure I kept that hundred thousand dollar salary, was what. I just wished that didn’t sound like such a hollow excuse, even to myself. I needed to get a handle on this. Take control. I’d get my own room, and I’d put a stop to all this half-naked Peter business.

  12

  Peter

  I pulled the plastic off the grip of my new racquet and dropped it in the trash. We were using the indoor tennis courts a block away from the hotel. Getting distance from that place had seemed like the best possible idea, even after I’d helped get Violet set up with her own room. I could hardly believe how far I’d pushed it back there.

  There was just a way about the woman that made me want to defy all good sense. She was so effortlessly sexy, and she almost had me convinced that she really wasn’t plotting to destroy my life. But I was too good at reading people to miss the signs. Violet was hiding something from me, and my past had taught me to assume the worst.

  She wore one of the outfits I’d grabbed off the clothing rack for her, and I suddenly wished I’d grabbed a size bigger. The shirt was long-sleeved and skin-tight, and the skirt she wore over the electric blue leggings was so short that it just barely covered her ass. From the way she kept tugging at it, she wasn’t exactly comfortable, and I did feel a pang of guilt for that. I wouldn’t even blame her if she assumed I’d done it on purpose.

  I cracked open a new can of balls and had a moment of nostalgia at the smell that came puffing out of the pressurized can. Damn. It really had been too long since I played.

  “So,” I said as we walked to either side of the net. The facility was a large indoor center with over ten courts and upstairs viewing areas, but there was only one other court in use at this time of night. “Should I expect to get my ass handed to me, or do I need to go easy on you?”

  She laughed. “Um. Something in between?”

  “You should probably take the packaging off your racquet, by the way,” I said.

  “Huh?” she looked at her racquet and gave it a slow spin, as if she couldn’t see that there was clear plastic covering the grip.

  “Here,” I motioned for her to come closer and pulled the plastic off. “Better, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. Her eyes darted away from mine when I looked up at her. She was a hard one to figure out. One minute, she was defiant and fiery. The next, she was shy and quick to blush. Unfortunately for me, the mystery only made me more curious about her.

  “I also expect you to stick to your promise. No running, remember? You literally stand in one spot and I hit the balls to you. Got it?”

  She waved off my concern and hobbled her way to the baseline on her side of the court. “It’s a mild sprain, mom,” she said with a grin. “I’ll be fine. I’m honestly more worried about your concussion that we’re ignoring.”

  “Alleged concussion. I feel fine.”

  I fed a ball her way. Violet immediately dropped into an over-exaggerated ready position, made a hilariously serious face, and then swung and completely missed.

  I winced on her behalf. “Close,” I called out.

  She glared back in response. “I’m not used to playing with the boot on,” she shouted.

  I wanted to laugh, but I could already tell she was competitive, and she hadn’t come out here to make a fool of herself and have a few laughs at her own expense. I carefully fed the next ball so that it would bounce right in her strike zone, and she managed to make solid contact. It flew a little wide, but she clearly was happier with the result than the previous shot.

  Little by little, her nerves seemed to loosen up and we could at least keep a rally going as long as I didn’t try anything crazy. I had more fun watching how seriously Violet was taking the whole thing on her side of the court. She was thankfully careful enough with her injured ankle that she was staying still like we’d agreed, but she was glaring at every ball like it was the championship point at Wimbledon.

  I accidentally hit one shot wider than I intended, and Violet’s competitiveness got the better of her. She tried to push off her injured ankle to go after it and ended up crumpling to the ground.

  Shit. I knew this had been a bad idea, and I mentally kicked myself for thinking this wouldn’t happen.

  I vaulted the net and came skidding to a stop at her side. For a second, I thought her face was contorted with pain, but then I heard her laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “My ankle is fine. It was just that my pants split,” she said.

  I couldn’t help looking to confirm it, and sure enough, the leggings she wore under the barely-there-skirt had torn right down the seam on her ass. It probably should’ve been an entirely comical sight, but the glimpse of her pink panties beneath the leggings made my dick stir. I forced my eyes away and helped her to her feet. Whether I was looking or not, I was imagining her milky soft skin and the way those panties would cut across the roundness of her ass.

  “So this whole time, all I had to do to get you to laugh was humiliate myself?” she asked as I helped her hobble back to the bench at the side of the court.

  I was about to answer her when I saw who had just walked into the building and was setting up a few courts over. She hadn’t noticed me yet, but there was no denying it. She wore her silky black hair short, her fake tits high, and her obsessively gym-sculpted ass tight. She was the prototype of the kind of woman that universally earned glares from other women no matter where she went. She was what women thought men wanted, and I inwardly groaned to think I’d been one of those idiotic men for a while.

  Violet followed my gaze. “She’s pretty,” She said a little sadly.

  I shook my head and looked away. “Sure,” I said distantly.

  “Do you know her?”

  “Used to.”

  Violet sat down, tucking her skirt under her butt to hide the split leggings. "Is she an ex-girlfriend, or something?"

  I nodded. “That’s Kristen. We were together about a year.”

  “What happened?”

  “We broke up. Come on. We should get out of here and get you a pair of pants. I think there’s a back exit that way.”

  “Was it that bad? You don’t even want to walk past her? Or are you just worried she’ll think something is going on if she sees us together?” With
the wrong tone, Violet’s questions could’ve seemed annoying—almost accusational. But I thought she was honestly just curious, and I realized I was only making things harder by trying so hard to keep her in the dark. Maybe knowing a little bit about what Kristen did would actually make her understand why it was so important for me to keep her at an emotional arm’s length from myself.

  “I thought it was serious,” I said finally. My voice sounded calm, but my heart was pounding. I could hear Kristen talking to the group of guys she was with as they warmed up and started hitting together. It made me think of all the times she and I had played tennis together, and it reminded me of why I’d abruptly stopped playing after the breakup. “To make a long, boring story short, she was using me. She got what she wanted and then she left.”

  Violet was watching me with a surprising amount of sympathy. After the way I’d treated her since hiring her, I wouldn’t have blamed her for enjoying the thought of me getting made to look like a fool, but she didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the idea. “Does she live here? In Annapolis? Is that why you wanted to make it to this convention so badly?”

  “No. She lives in New York, too. She’s here for the book convention. She’s… She’s an author,” I said through gritted teeth. “She’s probably staying in a hotel nearby, too. Maybe even the same one as us.”

  Violet nodded, and from the way she was glaring toward Kristen, I thought she was brewing some sort of stupid idea.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’m just thinking we should definitely walk right past her on our way out. Let her think we’re together and see how she likes that.”

  I laughed. “I appreciate it, but I doubt she’d care. And I’m not interested in getting her back. I just want to move on and forget her.”

  Violet shook her head. “Sometimes, bottling something up just means it’s going to explode down the line.” She seemed to consider her own words for a few seconds, then looked back up to me. “Come on. All we have to do is walk by her. It doesn’t have to be some big, dramatic thing. If she sees us together, she’ll assume. It’s harmless.”

  I chewed my lip. I hated to admit it, but the idea of pissing Kristen off did sound a little enjoyable. I also wasn’t thrilled by the thought of sneaking out a back exit like some kind of wounded dog afraid of getting kicked.

  “Fuck it. Fine. Let’s go,” I said.

  I helped Violet to her feet, slung my tennis bag over my shoulder, and started leading her toward the exit—which meant we'd be walking behind Kristen's court. Violet and I had worked up a slight sweat from the little bit of playing we'd done, and something about having her leaning against me and our sweat mingling was extremely hot. It didn't help that the exertion only seemed to enhance the way she smelled, which was undefinable and irresistible at the same time. I didn't doubt it was what she'd smell like if I took her to bed, and that was a dangerous line of thought.

  She kept tugging at her skirt, no doubt afraid that her split pants would be visible, even though nobody was behind us.

  “Peter?” Kristen called out as soon as we started moving across her court. She was hitting with three athletic guys who looked to be in their twenties, but they all seemed content to hang back as she approached us.

  “Kristen,” I said.

  She put her hands on her hips and pushed her chest out while she made a show of taking Violet in from head to toe. I felt a shameful tinge of satisfaction when she looked back to me, clearly irritated.

  “Are the book sales so far down that you’re resorting to giving tennis lessons for a little extra cash?” she asked.

  “No. I’m not giving tennis lessons.”

  Kristen side-eyed Violet and then rolled her eyes. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you at the convention tomorrow? Will your little friend be coming with you, or does her fee not include public outings.”

  I could hardly believe how petty Kristen could be. This was obviously a mistake. “Violet is—”

  “His girlfriend,” Violet said quickly. “Free of charge, actually.”

  Kristen laughed and put her hand on Violet’s shoulder like they’d just shared some hilarious inside joke. Her laughter faded in an abrupt, unnatural way. “Well, and this is just a pointer, but next time he convinces you to let him dress you in some skimpy little thing he picks out, you’re allowed to say no.” She looked Violet up and down again with a condescending little smirk.

  “I dressed myself,” Violet said.

  “That’s cute. She even stands up for you.”

  “Yeah,” I grunted. “And I think we’re both going to go before either of us decides to do something stupid.”

  “Right,” Kristen said, even though she had to raise her voice as we walked away. “Because the great Peter Barnidge never does anything stupid.”

  Once we were outside, I looked to Violet and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known it was going to be like that. I can’t believe I went along with—”

  “It’s fine. But I also hate that woman. I hope she dives for a ball and both her implants pop on impact.”

  I let out a surprised chuckle. “Damn. I was about to say remind me not to cross you, but I’m pretty sure I already did.”

  “You did. And I know where you sleep.”

  “Speaking of sleep. We should both get back to the hotel and get some rest before the convention tomorrow. Is your ankle okay?”

  “Yeah. I think my pride took a bigger hit.”

  I had her stop so I could kneel down and look at it. The boot covered most of her foot, but I tried to get a look at her ankle anyway. “Does that boot come off? You should probably find out if it’s swelling, at the least.”

  Violet was looking at me a little funny when I stood back up.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It catches me off guard when you get so worried about my ankle. That’s all. Dawson never—” She cleared her throat and frowned.

  “Dawson?” I asked.

  Violet just shook her head. “It’s nothing. I think the cold is getting to my head is all.”

  While I didn’t buy that for a second, it was cold outside and I doubted her small coat was really doing much to help. “I think the cold is probably getting to your ass, too,”

  She glared. “Funny.”

  I made a mental note of the name. Dawson. It seemed obvious that she had been talking about an ex. Though, I guessed he could’ve been a family member or a friend. Dawson never… Never what? I puzzled over what she was going to say the whole walk back to our hotel, and the only thing I was able to conclude was that I wanted to punch this Dawson character in the jaw for her. Obviously it was a sore memory, and I wondered if her advice about not bottling up my feelings was coming from some of her own bottled up problems.

  There was more to Violet than sassy comebacks and determination. That much was clear. As much as the idea frightened me, I thought I was starting to feel my unwillingness to trust Violet slip away from me. I wanted to trust her. Maybe I’d been wrong when I assumed she was just tricking me from the start.

  One thing was for certain. A certain part of my body was already prepared to throw caution to the wind, even if it just meant gaining an hour of having her to myself.

  13

  Violet

  Peter helped me into my room, where he pulled my tennis gear out of his bag and set it on the table. The room he’d arranged for me was excessive, though not as extravagant as his own. I expected him to make a quick exit once I was situated on the couch—where I could thankfully stop stressing that I was giving anyone a view of my split leggings, which the constant blasts of cold had refused to let me forget until we made it into the hotel lobby.

  My cheeks still burned when I replayed those last few minutes at the tennis courts. It had been going as well as it could before I fell. And before I concocted the idiotic plan to claim I was his girlfriend in front of his ex. I was still waiting for the moment when Peter would bring that up, but so far he seemed content to pretend it
hadn’t happened.

  “Well,” I said in the universally understood tone that was used to end conversations and somewhat awkwardly imply it was time for people to leave your space. I even patted my palms on the couch and raised my eyebrows to make the message loud and clear.

  Peter was either oblivious, or he didn’t care. “You need to take that boot off. I want to make sure the ankle isn’t swelling before I go.”

  Part of me wanted to sigh with exasperation, but the other part enjoyed the way he worried after me. Combined with the way he had actually been much less rude to me as the day had worn on, I was really starting to like the attention. So I obediently reached to undo the velcro, but my calf tightened with a cramp when I stretched for my ankle. “Ow,” I said, wincing.

  “Here, let me.” Peter knelt in front of the couch and gently put my foot on his thigh. He fumbled with the straps for a few seconds before figuring it out and easing the boot from my foot. He touched my ankle with extremely tender hands, rolling up my leggings to get a better look.

  I tried not to think about my oversized feet, which he had been so kind to notice in the tennis shop. I’d been self-conscious of them since middle school, when they’d decided to go ahead and do about ten year’s worth of growing in one summer.

  He took my other ankle and lifted it until it was side by side with the sprained one. “Yeah,” he said. “You need rest, ice, compression, and elevation. R.I.C.E.”

  I smirked. “Okay, coach.”

  He didn’t look amused. “I’m serious. You irritated it, whether it was walking around all day or falling on the court. Your body is flooding the area with blood, which is causing it to swell, which is going to make it worse. You need ice to stop the swelling.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “I don’t know if there’s any ice in here, though.”