“My name is Kennedy Bailey, though you might remember me as the prom sacrifice.” Kennedy smiled in victory when the suspicious sneer on his face dropped and a worried frown replaced it. “This is the thing: I need to get to Ryan. He and I have some business to settle.”
“You must be crazy,” he growled, as he took a step back, his fingers running through his hair.
“Maybe I am,” Kennedy said coldly. “But I have a copy of your old score sheet. If you don’t get me access to Ryan in the next twenty-four hours, TMZ and every single gossip column I can find will also have a copy along with all the despicable details of your little United Tastes game.” She breathed a little easier, having done her research, and smiled sweetly at him. “And since I know you are about to sign a major deal with Adidas, I wouldn’t want to ruin that for you.”
He blinked, clearly taken aback. “I- I don’t understand. Is it money that you want?”
“No, I am more interested in a life. And I don’t care who I have to destroy to get it.” Kennedy couldn’t help the smirk on her face. For a second she wanted Matt Brown to feel just as helpless as the more than thirty girls that they had taken advantage of in high school. She felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t blown their game wide open back then; it was Kennedy’s fault that the United Tastes had been kept on the down low. But she had to think about Riley first—then and now. That’s why she was taking this risk. “You can either come quietly, or the next time I see a swarm of reporters around Ryan, I’m going to tell them the type of man he really is. I’m quite sure a family company like Adidas would rethink having him as their brand ambassador.”
“What do you want?”
“Let’s start with a cup of coffee.” Kennedy held the door open for him. “Shall we?”
Kennedy could see murder in his glare. But Matt had worked too hard to lose what he already had and what he was bound to make from his best friend’s success. She knew she had him by the balls. Taking a window seat, she ordered herself a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake. Kennedy hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She smiled at Matt while he scowled at her.
“Tell me what you want, Kennedy.”
“I want my coffee and cake first.” Kennedy smiled at the waitress. She was about to dig her fork into her chocolate cake when Matt pulled it out of the way. “Patience, Matt. Try to exact the same kind of patience you and Ryan had when you hunted me like a pack of hyenas before taking me down. Question: did you watch as the star quarterback of the Boston Rebels deflowered me?”
“Keep your voice down!” Matt hissed through clenched teeth.
“Then give me back my cake,” Kennedy cooed. She knew the more pleasant she sounded, the more she irritated Matt. He shoved the cake in her direction. Kennedy moaned with pleasure with each bite.
“I’m sorry about what happened. But that was so long ago. I know you were hurt when you found out. But it was high school. Years have passed; you have to move on,” he pleaded. “What do you want from him?”
“That’s none of your business. I just need to run into him at a function or something. I don’t want it to appear as if I was tailing him. You’ll arrange all that for me, won’t you Matt?” Her question was met by silence. “You want to keep wearing that Armani suit, don’t you? Keep the money rolling in for your star client?”
“Fine, give me your details. But if you hurt him—”
“Like you guys hurt me? Don’t worry, I’m not out for revenge. After I get what I want, I’ll disappear from your lives.”
Kennedy wrote down her number. She could see the conflict in Matt’s eyes. The man was loyal to a fault, at least. Not that it mattered.
She was determined to be in and out of Ryan’s life before he realized what was going on.
• • •
Kennedy stroked Riley’s back, her fingers following the stripes in his pajamas. His temperature had finally gone down and it hadn’t taken the hospital but a minute to escort them out when they found out about her insurance situation. Kevin had explained her situation to her supervisor. But the old goat had never liked Kennedy because she turned down his advances. He had finally gotten his excuse to fire her. It was a sad state of affairs today, when hospitals prioritized money over saving lives.
“Why are you doing this?” Rebecca stood, arms crossed, at the door. The scowl on her face told Kennedy that her mother disapproved of her method. Ever since she had explained her plan and told her about her visit with Matt Brown, Rebecca had shown her disapproval each chance she got. Her mother still believed she was the high school girl who had been bewitched by Ryan’s dazzling smile.
“I need to get Riley a stem cell transplant.” Kennedy buried her nose in her little boy’s hair and inhaled, the soothing scent of his baby shampoo spreading through her body. “You heard what the doctor said; I need cord blood for him. The only way I can do that is if I have another baby with Ryan.”
“Another baby? And how will you take care of that little one? It’s hard enough on you already with just Riley. It’s too expensive, and you don’t have insurance. Why don’t you just ask Ryan to donate bone marrow?”
“He would have to take time away from football, and he would never do that. He’s a selfish little…” Kennedy looked at her son, hoping that he was asleep. She covered his ears with her hands even though he couldn’t spell complex words yet, then whispered, “…b-a-s-t-a-r-d. He would never do anything that could jeopardize his career.”
“I don’t see any good coming from this.” The disappointed slump in her mother’s shoulders reminded her of when she’d confessed that she was pregnant. It still ate at Kennedy how her parents had taken the news, and that her father had died disappointed in her. “He’s probably been sleeping with the whole of Boston. What if he’s sick?”
“Matt said that he just had a physical. He’s clean, Mama.”
“You became a stranger when you got tangled with that boy. I don’t want that to happen again.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. But you need to trust that I’m not that naïve anymore. I only need one thing from Ryan. Then it’s over.”
But the loud thumping of Kennedy’s heart told her it was far from over. The anger and hatred that she had managed to squash throughout the years for Riley’s sake threatened to rekindle. Kennedy knew that she would have to show self-control that she wasn’t quite sure she possessed.
• • •
“She’s like a panther stalking her prey. Or like a snake slithering in the tall grass.” Matt made a hissing noise to make his point.
Ryan gave a half-snorted laugh at Matt’s joke. He watched with a scowl as Clara moved around the room, making her presence known. Great. Now there is no chance of me getting out of here early, he thought.
“I don’t know why you are still with her,” Matt muttered under his breath.
“Because I can be,” he declared indignantly. “I don’t think I can find a girl who just wants me for me. They all want Ryan Carville, the Rebels’ quarterback.”
“You don’t need to settle down.” Ryan winced as Matt clapped a hand on his shoulder while firmly tapping him on the chest. This was his way of driving a point home, “Have a little fun, play off the field, if you know what I mean. Unless you are in love with her.”
Ryan snorted again when he caught Matt’s suggestive wink. Cheating had never been something he was comfortable with. Sure, Clara had encouraged his sexual liberties back in high school, but everything was different now. He liked to think that he had evolved, or was evolving from that helpless little boy, caught beneath the thumb of peer pressure.
Besides, if he was spotted with someone else, the tabloids would stalk her. And while he was used to the attention—hell, Clara had even invited a dozen paparazzi along to their most recent Cabo getaway—it wasn’t fair to subject someone else to that spotlight.
“I don’t even like her. I tolerate her, because I don’t want to be alone. I’m an ass, I know.” He’d felt like an ass ever since his sen
ior year prom. No amount of charity work, or selfless giving could take out the stink in his soul. Ryan was angry at himself because he knew he should have severed his relationship with Clara a long time ago. But he was a coward, and she had a way of making him feel they were back in high school.
“If you were single, who would you take home tonight?” Matt asked.
I am single, he thought. Ryan shrugged his shoulders and let Matt propel him towards the bar. There he spotted a dark beauty in a silver, low-cut mini dress. Her chocolate legs travelled for miles into silver-studded stilettos. His heart pounded hard in his chest as his eyes skimmed over her body and up to her face. Her thick lips glistened with sheer gloss, and the intensity in her eyes burned through the light makeup that surrounded them.
“Walk away,” Ryan whispered to Matt.
“You like her?” Matt echoed softly. “Go get her, man.”
With an encouraging shove from his friend, Ryan took a bold step towards the beauty sipping a drink from the bar.
Chapter Three
Kennedy’s chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. She couldn’t believe she was actually here. Anger bit into her as she looked around and saw the life Ryan and Matt had managed to make for themselves. Karma apparently hadn’t caught up with them.
She sipped her martini, trying to wash the hate down. If she was going to convince Ryan that she was sweet enough to sleep with, she had to drown her tongue in enough booze so that it would comply.
“This is for Riley,” she muttered to herself over and over.
“Who’s Riley?”
Kennedy turned towards the voice that had haunted her dreams for years. Ryan Carville was actually here, standing in front of her. Her eyes took him in, and as much as she hated to admit it, he was still as beautiful as she remembered, if not more so. His shoulders were wide and defined and from under his suit jacket, she could see his thick biceps struggling to be set free. Ryan carried an indefinable aura of wealth and power and that set off a zing of awareness that zipped through her body. It took everything in her not to succumb to the warmth that welled up inside.
His handsome face spread into a wide smile, slow and seductive. She forced herself to smile back and could hear her jaw cracking from the effort that it took.
“Who’s Riley?” he repeated.
“Who’s asking?” Kennedy turned her body towards the bar, afraid that it would betray her and curl itself around the hunky man standing in front of her.
“Ryan Carville.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically nervous and unsure, and hearing it made her more confident.
“Bailey. And Riley is just a dear person to me.” She cleared her voice, trying to keep from betraying the emotions that cropped up just saying her son’s name. Sadly, she feared she’d failed and regretfully exposed a weakness.
“Is Riley here with you?” Ryan looked around the room and Kennedy could tell he was searching for a man.
“It’s ten o’clock, and if I know him as well as I think I do, he’s probably in bed by now,” she said with a smile.
Ryan didn’t appear bothered that there seemed to be another man in her life. She knew that he was taking her as a challenge. He was competitive, her past and present was evidence of that.
“So, do you like football?” he asked. Kennedy hesitated to answer the question. She disliked a lot of things that were related to Ryan a long time ago. “I’m a Rebel.”
Of course, he was going to use the “I’m a sports star” card. If he only knew he didn’t need it … Kennedy chuckled and Ryan’s eyebrows rose. Bet he didn’t get that reaction too often.
“I’m a Bruins kind of girl.”
• • •
Ryan couldn’t suppress a smile at the mysterious beauty’s unfounded challenge. So that’s how she wanted to play it? “Well, can a lowly quarterback buy you a drink anyway?”
“From the quality of your suit, I guess you can afford it,” her honey-glazed voice teased.
Ryan emitted a short laugh. “What are you drinking?”
“Martini, shaken not stirred.” Her lips had turned up into a sly smile and her voice, low and sultry, woke up every nerve in his body.
“James Bond-style,” he muttered, as his head lowered to hers.
“No, my style,” she said coolly. “And tell them to make it strong. I have a room upstairs, so I’m not driving anywhere tonight.”
“Are you sharing that room with anyone?” His mind raced as the tone in her voice had his erection fighting for freedom.
“No,” she pouted playfully, leaning into him and toying with his tie, “I’m all alone and so lonely.”
The sound of a glass shattering broke the spell. Ryan lifted his head to see the bartender watching them. The man’s face was flushed as he stared at Bailey with a look of complete sexual desire. Ryan wanted to shout at him to find his own girl, but truthfully, he couldn’t blame the guy.
A smile passed over her lips as her fingers combed through her wavy hair. Ryan wanted to do that. He wanted to do that and a whole lot more. “Would you like some company?”
“I would love some,” she smirked, then added, “but you’re a Rebel.”
“I hit harder than any clown with a hockey stick.” Ryan froze. Since when did he mix sports metaphors and sexual suggestions?
“Well, then—”
“Ryan!”
Frustrated and stymied, he whipped around to stare at Clara. Her hand was on her waist as her foot tapped the hardwood floors impatiently. He felt like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar by his mother. He was about to say something, when he felt Bailey’s hand graze his backside. Ryan stiffened, wondering if he’d imagined the caress.
“I can see the two of you have something to talk about,” Bailey said smoothly, as she rose off her stool. “How much for the drink?”
“Free of charge.” “It’s on me.”
Ryan groaned in annoyance when he noticed that he and the bartender had spoken in unison “I got it,” he insisted with sudden savagery.
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll see you later, Rebel.”
Ryan felt like a sad puppy as he watched Bailey walk away from him. Still, with this view he could see how the dress clung to her well-shaped body, molding to her like a caress. She wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t plus-sized either. She was delectable, he concluded.
“What were you doing?” Clara squeaked.
“I was flirting with a very beautiful woman,” Ryan said as he took Bailey’s stool. He needed a drink and then some if he was to deal with Clara’s hysterics that night.
“Why would you try to embarrass me like that?” she huffed in a jealous rage. “We are a couple!”
“Maybe you should have said yes when I asked you to marry me,” he grumbled.
“Well, I’m saying yes now.”
“Too late, I think I just spotted my new lover.”
“I’m your girlfriend!”
“No, you are not. I need us to be clear on this. You and I are not in a relationship and haven’t been in one for years. You tell people we are and I let you. For all these years I have never said anything to the contrary. I have even behaved like a choirboy. But enough’s enough, Clara. It’s time we stopped this façade,” Ryan growled, his last thread of patience tearing. He shifted on the bar stool, uncomfortable. It felt like something was digging into him, and when he reached into his back pocket, he found a room key.
“What’s that?” Clara asked.
“Nothing. Just the valet ticket,” he lied.
“But we arrived in a hired limo.”
“Matt didn’t,” he said, almost aggressively. “I think you should take the limo home, and I will stay with Matt tonight.”
“You’re just going to find your whore!” she spat out.
“And I think you should move out,” Ryan added angrily.
“It’s my apartment!”
“Then I think I should move out.” Ryan walked past her, Clara’s words echoing in his head. Was Bail
ey really a call girl He couldn’t imagine the sort of scandal that would follow if he was caught with a professional. But the room key card burned into his palm, and for a second, his senses left him. And it was in that second that Ryan made a decision that would change his whole life.
Chapter Four
“He’s not coming,” Kennedy groaned aloud to her empty hotel room, frustration making her pace in circles around the penthouse suite that Matt had booked for her. “Maybe I came on too strong. Or maybe that parasite Clara dragged him away.”
Kennedy had to control her physical response to cause Clara bodily harm. She had learned that Clara was the one who picked her out to be Ryan’s prom sacrifice from Matt. In Kennedy’s book, that made her just as guilty as the man who had robbed her of her innocence.
Meeting Ryan again in the bar had been maddening. The chemistry was still there. The pooling of heat between her legs, the tremble in her thighs, and the inability to catch her breath was proof enough. She didn’t want to feel all these things; she’d rather be aloof, indifferent. But just because she was doing this out of duty didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it. This time she was in control, and the only person that was going to be used this time around was Ryan Carville.
Kennedy’s heart jumped with a start when she heard a noise at the door. She took a step forward then stopped suddenly. She realized what would happen once she opened the door and let Ryan in. There was no turning back from this.
But wait, he had a key. She could let him come to her.
Kennedy sat back on the sofa and picked up her wine, kicking her bare feet up casually on the coffee table in front of her. She looked away from the door as it opened and stared out the window at the city lights. She caught a whiff of Ryan’s cologne. His scent had tortured her body and her resolve when she spoke to him at the. He had a natural musk amplified by the cologne, making him exude a strong healthy male animal scent.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
A nervous tremble began in her stomach and bled outward to her hands, and Kennedy had to put the wine glass down before she spilled the rich liquid on her rented dress. She got to her feet and walked towards the floor-length window, still not chancing a glance at Ryan.
The Rebel's Own (Crimson Romance) Page 3
