Damn! It didn’t work.
The attorneys addressed me. “How long has your assistant, Hannah, been in your employ? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention her name before.”
I swallowed hard. What was he talking about? I didn’t realize I had to inform my attorney’s about who I employed. “I don’t know. A while, I guess. Why?” I asked.
My attorneys exchanged uncomfortable glances, each deferring to the other to offer me a response.
“What’s up? Why are you asking about her? I haven’t seen her in days. She’s a bit of a dumb broad and has trouble remembering who pays her bills,” I said by way of an explanation. What did she have to do with any of this?
Isla cleared her throat, asserting herself. “Did you find out some troubling information about his assistant? Is that why you’re asking about her? I can tell you right now, she’s not much of an assistant because I’ve never even met her.” She gave me the side eye as she leaned back in her seat, making a point to dig her heel into my toes.
I didn’t take the bait. She wasn’t going to make me scream until I was good and ready. I posed the question again. This time with more authority because they were wasting my time and beginning to kill my vibe. “Why are you asking about her? You called me here for a reason; so why don’t you come on with it already?”
Another uncomfortable moment was shared between my attorneys.
“Well?” Now, they were making me angry. “What the hell is going on? I don’t have time for this shit! Is someone going to fill me in or do I have to hire someone else to take care of my legal affairs? If that’s the case, say goodbye to your fancy cars and your mortgage payments,” I threatened them.
“It seems your problems are bigger than we thought,” my senior attorney said.
How much worse could things possibly be?
Chapter Eleven – Isla
“We have to stop meeting like this. Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t ever want to stop meeting you this way.” Beck pulled me in for a hug, making me feel even more safe and secure than I already felt since finally allowing myself to give into the truth – admit to myself how much I cared about him. Who would have known I would have fallen for the man, only a few months ago, I would have avoided like the plague? He was everything, I never knew I wanted.
“If we stop, it will be over. I mean, there will be no pretending we’re friends. I can’t. I don’t know how to and I’m not interested in trying to figure out how it would work,” I said, thinking about how horrible I would feel if it ever happened. I’d have to move – again.
He showered me with soft, tender kisses – a stark contrast to the night of wild lovemaking we’d shared. “You wouldn’t want to be my friend? Wow; that hurts,” he whispered, sounding sincere.
I had been weighing a question in my mind, mulling over it, almost afraid of asking, but still very much wanting to know if it was the truth or not. “So, remember when you told me the story about how you never brought a woman to your bed…”
“I never said that,” he answered, nearly crushing my heart into a million pieces.
Well, how was I supposed to follow up? I couldn’t very well ask him now or could I?
“Tell me,” he cajoled me, using his alpha male guile.
“I’ll tell you if you’ll get your tongue out of my ear,” I teased, reluctantly squirming out of his embrace.
Beck laughed freely; it surprised me every time I heard him do it. He sounded completely unlike himself – unlike the persona he tried to portray for the media and the legions of fans who followed his every move. “I can’t help it. It’s like my hands or some other part of my body needs to be in constant contact with your body. It’s like a magnet. The kind of poisonous magnet that feels so good, but will ultimately hurt so bad, but you won’t care because you’ll be gone by then.”
I nudged his arm, resisting the urge to run my fingers up and down his smooth skin, tracing the outlines of his many tattoos. “Okay, here goes; of all the thousands of women you claim to have bedded, how come or how is it possible, you never once brought one of them home to your bed? This bed?” There I’d asked, but now I was terrified of what his reply would be. Was I really ready to hear about his escapades with other women?
He smiled, shifting up to lean on his elbow and look me in the eyes. “It’s possible because it’s true. And, so you know, I’m a… well, I was a ladies’ man, but I didn’t bang thousands of women. At the most, it was a couple of hundred.”
Like that was supposed to make me feel better. By comparison, his exploits made me look like a virgin. I might as well have joined the convent. There was no way I could compete.
I’d grown up feeling like a confident woman – a confident black woman – but this revelation somehow managed to make me feel inferior, like I could never possibly be enough for him. What was he doing with me? Why did he bother?
I had to ask him. “Where are all these women now? Or, maybe I’m asking the wrong question; do they know about me? Are they wondering what you are doing with me?” I felt like an ass for asking those questions, but if I was truly going to have a child or relationship with this man, I needed some kind of information.
The response I’d braced myself for wasn’t the one I received. He hesitated to answer. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning. One eyebrow quirked up sharply as if thinking about it pained him in some way. “You’re different,” he said, not explaining any further.
I kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Don’t ever forget it either. I’m not like any of those little skinny bimbos you paraded all over the world with. I’m not some…”
The seductive laugh again. “Besides the fact you talk way too much, you’re a lot more to me than some dumb broad.”
I shrugged, pinching one of his nipples between my fingernails. Did he call me a dumb broad? “Say it again,” I dared him.
He shifted onto his back, grabbing me, taking me with him. I landed on top of him, laughing at the sudden movement and relieved by the lighter moments we’d been sharing as of late. “You’re not a dumb broad. That’s not what I said. Are you listening to me or do I have to send you an email to explain it to you, Miss Public Relations Lady?”
After a few moments of playful kisses and caresses, our eyes started to close, not because either of us was tired, but I hoped it was because we were finally feeling comfortable with each other.
“You’re special. You’re like real. More real than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s like everyone I’ve ever met since I signed the contract wanted something. Money, fame, a helping hand or whatever, but you… well, you’re different. You never asked me for anything…” His voice trailed off.
I appreciated what he said, but he still hadn’t answered the question. “I’m not going to let you off the hook. There are some things I can’t compromise on and one of those is having information. How am I supposed to move forward with you, if I don’t know anything about your past?”
He swallowed, caressing my hair. “I told you about my past. You know about my mother and my grandmother. You know where I grew up. Most important of all, you know how good I make you feel; isn’t that enough?”
I didn’t mean to go all ghetto on him, but who did he think he was playing with? When I want to know something, I do whatever it takes to get the information. I rolled over onto my back, pulling the sheet with me to cover myself. No need for me to let him see or touch my cookies again until he answered these questions or any other questions I had.
“Isla? Really?” Beck sighed, putting his hands to his head.
I waited, shaking my foot so hard the bed shook with it.
He sat straight up, looking down at me. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but after this, can we please never talk about this again? If I start spilling my secrets to you, everyone will want to know. It’s not good for my image.”
I raised my eyebrows to rest under my hairline. “I’m not playing with you, Mr. Alexander.”
He kept his eyes locked o
n mine, but I could tell his focus wasn’t on me, but on whatever was floating in the big, old beautiful head of his. “I don’t bring them here because I don’t need them here. They don’t matter. They are using me as much as I’m using them. So, you see, what good would it do to bring them here?”
I liked his response, but I could tell there was more to it.
Beck sighed again. “Okay, stop looking at me that way.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Promise me this will never leave this room, this bed.”
“Okay,” I answered.
“No, promise me. You have to say the words or I’m not talking,” he warned me, raking his hands through his hair again.
Part of me thought I should take my questions back, but now he had me feeling more curious than ever. “I promise. I’d never tell anyone anything about what happens between us. It’s none of anyone’s business. Okay, so there; tell me everything.”
Whatever it was he was making me swear confidentiality for must have weighed heavily on his mind. I wondered if he was about to reveal a deep, dark secret that would send me running right back home to my mother. With the luck I’d been having lately, I didn’t think it was too far of a stretch of the imagination.
“I had a kid once,” he said it so fast, I thought I’d misunderstood him.
Giggling nervously, I said, “No, you didn’t.”
He looked at me more intensely, pain evident in his eyes. “Isla, listen closely. I really don’t want to say this again, so please don’t make me.” He took a couple of deep breaths. “I had a child once. I had a…”
My heart leaped into my throat. “You had a wife? Is that what you were going to say?” I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out. This was not happening! How could I have not seen this coming? “So, where is your kid now? Where’s your…”
“I didn’t have a wife. I’ve never been married. I never wanted to get married. Isla, listen closely to me. I had a kid, but I don’t anymore,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
If I was confident, my legs wouldn’t have failed me, I would have gotten up, gotten dressed, and marched out of there with my tail between my legs.
“You’re shaking. I knew this was a bad idea.” Beck grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me. “Hear me out, please.”
With no other choice but to sit there and endure what he had to say next, I let my body go limp in his arms, all of my concentration on his words. It’s all I had the energy for.
“A long time ago… a long, long time ago, there was a woman, a woman in my bed. Not this bed, but another one. We were together a long time. Long for me anyway. Like a year or so. She got pregnant, but she didn’t tell me,” he explained.
My heart threatened to rip out of my body.
“She left me. Not a note. Not a phone call. Nothing. Everything was good. Suddenly, she was gone and I had nothing.” His eyes moistened with tears. “A year later, she came back with this kid – a little boy. She said he was mine. I hated myself. I hated her. I hated everything.” He exhaled slowly.
I had to work up the nerve to say something. He was in pain. “Then, what happened?” I braced myself for what he’d say next.
“I did everything. I let her move into my place. I was going to do the right thing. That kid needed me. He needed a father. I had a lot of time to make up for, so I did everything I thought a father should. I gave him and her everything I had,” he explained.
“She left you again, didn’t she?” I thought I knew how this story ended and then I began to understand why he behaved the way he did.
He let go of me and got up, standing stark naked and vulnerable, yet gorgeous at the same time. “I messed up. I got scared. I’d just signed the contract. There was a lot of money and even more women coming at me from all sides. Everyone wanted me. I’d never had it before – not at that level. We started fighting. She’d see news clips and read stuff in the tabloids and get pissed off. I mean, I guess she had every right to, but it didn’t help matters. I treated her like shit and she…”
“She got tired of it and left?” I assumed.
Beck shook his head. “No, she stayed. No matter what I did to her, she wouldn’t leave. I’d make her cry and she’d stay. Pretty soon, she was asking for stuff, demanding stuff. Holding my behavior against me. It was ugly. Toxic.”
“And your son?” I asked.
“He got sick. Real sick. He had a lot of doctor appointments and tests.” He paused in frustration, hitting his fist on the wall. “He had some genetic testing. I don’t remember why, but when the blood work came back, he wasn’t… he wasn’t…”
Oh my God! “He wasn’t yours? She lied to you?” I couldn’t believe someone would do that to another human being. I knew Beck dated some real skanks but never imagined one would be so devious. What a horrible wench!
Beck turned his head, scrubbing his tear-stained face with the back of his hands. “Yeah, apparently so. I can’t blame her. I was a prick. I probably deserved it.” He rubbed his hands together. “Lesson learned. The hard way.”
My heart ached for him and what he’d been through. “Beckham, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for you. I mean, how do you even begin to recover?” I had so many questions. I’d known many foul women in my life – fake pregnancies, fake miscarriages – but I’d never met one who knowingly let a man think he was the father of their child when he wasn’t. That took a special kind of crazy.
He shrugged it off, saying, “I’m good now. It was no skin off my back. Besides, I had plenty of sexy women lined up begging to lick my wounds for me.”
I heard his words, but I didn’t believe them. I couldn’t fathom going through what he’d been through and somehow emerging unscathed. He may have been a superstar on the football field, but he wasn’t immune from heartache. It made me sad for him. He put this brave face on and played all these games with women, lavishing in the attention, while secretly haunted by what some sick bitch did to him.
“Don’t lie to me. You don’t have to do that,” I begged, extending my hands out to him.
There was a moment of pause. I waited, knowing he was searching himself for the right words, the right thing to do.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. The point is, I got burned. I brought a bitch home and she burned me, so there. That’s why I don’t bring women home with me.” He spat his words at me.
“But you brought me here. Why? How do you know I’m not going to hurt you?” I asked.
He looked at me with a mixture of sincerity and paranoia. “I guess I just knew. I can’t explain it. You’re different. I can feel it in my bones. I can see it in your eyes. The way you look at me… well, I guess I see love when I look at you.”
Chapter Twelve – Beck
“Alexander, where the hell is your head at? It’s not in this game; that’s for sure,” Coach Lawson had been riding my ass all day long. I was sick of it and ready to knock the shit out of him.
“What the fuck do you want from me? I play hard. I play hard every day and today you have a problem?” I challenged him, not caring about the consequences.
Coach Lawson lunged for me like he was going to do something. Like he had the balls to do something to me, a man two times his size. He had to have lost his mind.
“Enough!” Jared stepped in between us, pushing me back. “Don’t do it, man. Don’t do it.”
I shoved him, pushing him back. “I’ll beat his ass. He wants to talk to me like he owns me? Well, he doesn’t; I own him! I own all of you. I made all of you and don’t you ever fucking forget that.”
Foaming out the mouth like the dog he was, the coach wrestled out of the stronghold some of the guys had on him and lunged for me again. “Get off my field. You’re done! Go!”
We both knew it wasn’t true. The team needed me. I was this team. I made the team and everyone involved a lot of money and they all knew it. I walked off, but not because he told me to, but because they needed
to feel the full brunt of what would happen to the entire franchise if I was no longer a member of the team. They’d be screwed. Fans would revolt and I’d come out smelling like roses.
“Beck, come on, man,” Jared called as he jogged to catch up with me. “What are you doing? You don’t want to leave. You don’t want to throw it all away over some dumb shit, do you?”
He was right. I didn’t want to throw it away. I’d worked too long and too hard to have all that I had, but I needed time to get my head together and time for them to learn a lesson.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, yanking my arm from the grip he had on it. “I’ll be alright. Now go on back before he sanctions you or does some other dumb shit.”
Jared stopped, his hands going to his hips as he thought about his next move. “You let her do it to you, didn’t you?” He asked.
This guy – always trying to be the funny guy. I should have punched him in the mouth, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t turn out well. I’d have yet another court case to deal with; not to mention, Isla would be all over me about the whole thing. I’d never hear the end of it.
I slammed my way through each set of doors until I reached the locker room. By the time I was done with it, nothing in the room was left unturned. Every ounce of anger that had built up in my body over the years, spilled out of me like a sieve – slow and methodical, but with enough force to mess up everything in its path.
While I sat dripping in sweat, trying to catch my breath, the team remained outside, practicing as if nothing had happened. They were oblivious to my anger and all that had been bothering me. They continued playing as if that’s all that mattered in the world.
The doors opened behind me. I fully expected to hear Cole’s voice, but instead, it was Isla’s soft voice I heard. “I hear you’re making friends on the practice field.”
She thought she was being funny. As angry as I was, I couldn’t be angry with her. She was the only light in my life these days.
Bedding the Bad Boy (Bad Boys of Football Book 1) Page 9
