Hard and Fast

by Kathy Lyons

  “That’s amazing, Connor. But that’s not about your sister. That was—”

  “For a trip to Disney World for Cassie. We went on that trip. Mom and Dad didn’t go, but the three of us did, as well as half my baseball team plus their families. It was the best trip I’ve ever had. I hung out with my friends and Cassie fell in love with the Animal Kingdom. I think that’s where her interest in biology began. She started sparking in the sciences, and all of it was because of Sophia.”

  I didn’t know what to say. In my mind, Sophia was a lying, manipulative bitch, but it was clear she’d also been a loving sister and had done a lot for her siblings. She’d been there when her parents couldn’t be. And I wanted to admire her for that. I just couldn’t reconcile that Sophia with the attention-starved witch I knew now. “What happened to make her change?”

  “I think it was that trip,” Connor continued. “We had a great time. Everyone loved it. Everyone thanked her—me, Cassie, my teammates. But you know who didn’t say a word? You know who didn’t seem to notice at all?”

  “Your mom was sick.”

  “Yeah, she was. I can forgive her for that, but Dad never acknowledged all the work she’d done. He didn’t even thank her. She got nothing except, ‘Get me another beer.’” He exhaled. “I think that’s what broke her.”

  Ouch. It sounded horrible to say, but I thought it was a good thing his dad was dead. Otherwise, I might be tempted to give him a piece of my mind. Sure, his wife had been dying, but he’d still had three kids. How could he totally abandon them like that?

  “Sophia was everything to us, our entire lifeline. I should have called my uncle. I should have reached out to someone, but Dad was so against it. And we were doing okay. I had baseball, and I just didn’t see anything but that.”

  He was a kid. It wasn’t on him to save them from disaster. That was his father’s job. But it was all water under the bridge now.

  “I get that she helped you both, but you shouldn’t be held hostage to—”

  “I’m not her hostage!” he snapped as he tried to sit up. He didn’t get far. He hissed in pain, clutched his thigh tight, and then eased back down on the bed. I went to grab his bottle of painkillers, but he waved me away. “Gia, listen to me. I’m not her hostage—I’m trying to help her. I’m giving her a lifeline now. What kind of brother would I be if I just cut her loose? The money is nothing to me. And it keeps her away from Cassie.”

  I could see it now. I could see that he was still trying to support the sister who saved him, way back when. That whatever disaster she was now, he would help her, no matter the cost to him and his career. He was trying to give Sophia what she needed.

  Except what she needed was a swift kick in the ass, not blind financial support.

  But how did I say that to a man who was loving his sister the only way he knew how? Especially when he obviously had reasons to be grateful to her. He had loved her, and now wanted to share his good fortune with the sister who’d made it all possible.

  I didn’t know how to answer, so when he tugged on my fingers, I went willingly. I lay down against his side and settled my head on his shoulder. I held him then, just as he was holding me. But the longer I stayed there, the more my silent voice of anger grew in volume. Eventually, I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

  “I get that you love her, and that you have reason to be grateful to her.”

  “We wouldn’t have made it without her.”

  “Well, you might have landed in foster care, like I did. Then again, that could have been a good thing.”

  “We would have been split up.”

  “Probably. But Connor, you’re not kids anymore. And you’re not helping her by letting her get away with this kind of bullshit.”

  “You said she’s helping my career.”

  “If she doesn’t get caught. That’s a big if.” Especially since Sophia was the kind to push her luck. One little lie now meant a bigger one tomorrow, and an even bigger one the day after that. Until somewhere, somehow, she’d get caught. And that would spell disaster for anyone attached to her. Someone like her very famous brother.

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Stop her.”

  “How?”

  I took a breath. “Cut her loose. Fire her. You’ve more than paid her back for what she did for you as a kid—”

  He shook his head, obviously hoping I’d stop. Too bad.

  “Connor, whatever need is driving her is only going to get worse. If your support was going to help her, she’d be better by now. She wouldn’t be spinning lies and creating drama outside of hospital ERs.”

  I felt him wince. “She called the reporters?”

  I’d verified that as soon as he’d left the ER. “Yes, she called them and promised them a great human interest story. Local hero saves—”

  “Yeah, I got it.” He clearly understood what she’d done. “But how did she know about it in the first place?”

  I sighed. “She’s got to have someone planted in the ball club. Any idea who that might be?”

  “I think she pays one of the janitors to feed her information.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” He sighed. “This isn’t the first time she’s had news before anyone else. She likes to keep tabs on me.”

  I pushed up from his side. “And you let her?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? I don’t do anything. If she wants to waste her money that way, then let her.”

  “Until now. Until she spun this story out of nothing.”

  He groaned and pulled me back down. “Yeah. Until now.”

  I stayed silent, feeling his arm around me. I pressed my palm to his chest, felt the steady movement of his breath, and heard the thump of his heartbeat. Quiet things, human things, that I enjoyed because they were part of the man I loved.

  I took a breath and absorbed that thought.

  I loved him. I loved Connor Hart.

  That was the real problem I had with Sophia. Lots of people had conniving bitches in their lives. I still worked with them, laughed with them at parties, or even extended a sympathetic hand if they needed it.

  The difference was that Connor had allowed his toxic sister to destroy our relationship. That he called me a liar when the reality was that he couldn’t face his own sister’s problem. He couldn’t find a way to fix her, so he doomed us. That was the issue. And if I didn’t force him to face it, we’d never make it.

  I knew, too, that this was the best moment to talk to him about it. He might be on the Disabled List, but I wasn’t. My work was only going to get heavier in the coming days. So if we were going to have this discussion, it had to be now. It was the worst timing, but hell, I was also fast losing my nerve. I liked lying in his arms. I liked talking with him. And I liked all those other things we did in his bed, too. How easy it would be to just ignore my hurt. We’d go on having hot sex and nothing else…until it completely destroyed us. So I knew I had to say it.

  “I love you,” I said.

  He jolted, rising up in bed to stare at me, but I pressed him back down. I kept talking, though the words burned my throat.

  “I love you, but I’m not going to be with you.”

  “What?”

  “Not if you keep thinking I’m just like your sister.”

  “I know you’re not!”

  “But you do. How many times have you implied that I’m a liar?”

  “Gia—”

  “Can’t you see that you’re letting your issues with your sister color how you see me? She and I are not the same.”

  “I never said you were.”

  I snorted. “Yes, you have. Maybe not in as many words, but you do see us as the same.” I pushed away from him and sat up. It was hard to leave the peace of his arms, but he had to hear me. “You’ve got some complicated emotional baggage going on with Sophia.”

  “She was a good sister.”

  “Yeah, she was. But she isn’t anymore.”

  He squared
his shoulders until he sat facing me. “I’m not going to abandon her. She’s my sister.”

  “But you’re not helping her, Connor. You’re enabling her. And it’s destroying us.”

  “You don’t know what she did for me. For us.”

  I didn’t argue. There was no point. Sure, she’d helped them when they were kids, but whatever darkness was inside Sophia had hurt Cassie deeply. And it was eating away at Connor, too.

  “She needs to face the consequences of her actions.”

  He swallowed, and I could see that his eyes glittered in the lamplight. “Are you telling me I have to choose between you and my sister? You call that love?”

  I swallowed. “Yeah, I do. You might think that you’ve got Sophia under control, but I’m here to tell you, she’s destroying my love for you.” I didn’t dare say “our love.” He hadn’t said anything about returning the feeling.

  “You’re the one issuing the ultimatum.”

  “Yet, how many times have you warned me that she’ll destroy my career? Just because we’re together.”

  His eyes widened. “Has she tried anything?” He gripped my hand. “What has she done?”

  “Nothing new. Just bad-talked me to Joe, tried to take credit for my work.” I arched a brow at him. “She doesn’t sound like a very nice person, does she?”

  He ground his teeth together. “She’s my sister. That matters.”

  “And she did a lot for you as a kid. But now, she’s hurting you and destroying us.”

  “No, you are. You’re making me choose.”

  We were talking in circles. He would not see how he was coddling Sophia, and how it was spilling over into the way he saw me. God, how could his love for his sister destroy our relationship? How could it end my feelings for him?

  It couldn’t. Honestly, the fact that he tried so hard with Sophia tugged at my heart. But I couldn’t sit by and watch it destroy him. So I stood up, pulled my hand out of his, and backed away from his bed.

  “It’s late,” I said. “We’re both tired.”

  He looked up, his jaw hard, but when he spoke, his voice was laced with alarm. “We can’t leave it like this. Not… not after what you said.”

  “That I love you?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited. He needed to say the words back to me. He needed to give me hope that he would fight as hard for me as he did for Sophia, but he remained stubbornly silent. And eventually, I lost hope.

  “I need to get some sleep,” I said as I turned around.

  “You’re the one making me choose.”

  I hesitated, but I didn’t turn around. He was right. I was forcing him to pick. But maybe I’d been wrong about the timing. He’d wrecked his knee right before the pennant race. He was doped up on painkillers, and now, I’d just hurt him even more, all on a night when he needed comfort.

  God, I sucked.

  I turned back to him and said the only true compromise I could see. “You don’t have to decide tonight. I’ll still be around tomorrow, and the day after, and probably the day after that.”

  His expression narrowed. “Probably?”

  I shrugged. “I won’t wait forever. I love you, but I won’t climb into the Sophia prison with you.”

  “You’re exaggerating. That’s just what you marketers do. You exaggerate and—”

  “Lie?”

  He buttoned his lip, and my heart broke at the sight. He wasn’t going to face this. Maybe he couldn’t. Childhood patterns went deep, and this was a doozy. So I gave up for the night.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” I promised. “Try to get some sleep.” Then I gathered my keys from the counter and went home, where I cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Connor

  I couldn’t sleep after Gia left. I wanted to blame it on the pain, but honestly, as long as I didn’t move, that wasn’t so bad. What was more agonizing was the argument I’d had with Gia, the anger I felt toward Sophia, and the fear I constantly battled for Cassie. It all swirled together, adding to the shitstorm of missing out on what could have been the best year of my career. I wanted to plant my fist through a wall. I would have headed for the scotch bottle, but that was a bad idea with painkillers. And besides, I would have to get out of bed to find it.

  All in all, it was a shitty night. It got worse when I tried to get up the next morning…er, afternoon. Everything had stiffened up. And yeah, I was supposed to go support the team, but I was too depressed to do more than turn on the TV.

  We lost, which made it even worse. Normally, injured or not, I’d be in the locker room trying to keep team morale up. But I was stuck in bed, steeped in a pity party that was best indulged alone. Then Cassie showed up with a pizza and ruined even that.

  She got me out of bed and into a shower, grabbed some ice for my knee, and then stuffed me full of pepperoni. That started to turn my mood around. Even better, we watched her volleyball game together—which they won—but she was unusually silent about it. She was more worried about a political science paper, so we talked it through until Gia showed up.

  Then Cassie escaped. Gia smiled at me—of course, she did—and that lit up a dark place inside me. But I noticed how worn down Gia looked. And when she opened her mouth to talk, I just shook my head.

  “Can I just hold you for a while? Let’s not talk. I’m too depressed.”

  She nodded, and the relief on her face took away my guilt.

  We watched stupid sitcoms. I stuffed her with the remaining pizza and even rubbed her feet while she moaned loud enough to get my dick sticking up through my shorts. She noticed right away, but I couldn’t read her expression.

  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” I said.

  “But I do want to.”

  And that was it. We made love on the couch, with her doing all the work. I got to watch her glorious body rise and lower on me. I got to fondle her breasts and thumb her clit until she screamed. And when I finally came, the orgasm wiped away all my pain. All of it, except one.

  I hadn’t told her I loved her. I wanted to. God knew it was on my tongue for most of the evening. But instead of saying it aloud, I kissed her. I nibbled and licked her until she screamed my name. And then I pulled her close until we both fell asleep.

  She brought me water when I needed more painkillers, and she made breakfast for me in the morning. I still couldn’t say the words, not even when I realized that this was how I wanted every day of my life to be—cuddled up with Gia in the evenings, Gia in my bed at night, and waking up to Gia each morning. Nothing else mattered to me but her.

  And yet, I still didn’t say the words.

  We lost the second game of the series, and I figured I’d wallowed long enough. My knee was healing, so I grabbed my crutches and caught a cab to the stadium. It was hard getting inside. I was an athlete, but crutches made even my shoulders ache. Thankfully, I got inside before the guys went home, and I did everything I could to make them feel better.

  Gia didn’t come that night. She was supervising a special party for Joe’s friends. I missed her, but it gave me more time to hang with the team.

  I didn’t travel with them for games three and four, but I made sure I kept in contact with those who wanted to hear from me. We won both games, with Rob hitting a grand slam home run to finish up the fourth. Then they were back in Indianapolis, and I was determined to be with them every step of the way. It felt good to be in the locker room, especially since the swelling in my knee had gone down. I was still using the crutches as a precaution, but I could walk without them if I needed to.

  When we won game five and six, securing our place in the series finals, everyone was flying high. I joined in both the celebration and the don’t-get-too-cocky talk. And then I went to find Gia in her office, hoping that we could celebrate in our own way. I didn’t find her. Instead, as I rounded the corner, I saw Sophia snooping through Gia’s desk.

  “Get out!”

  I barked the two words fro
m the doorway, and she jerked in reaction. She shut the desk drawer but then rushed forward with every appearance of glee. “You’re up and walking! I’m so happy for—”

  I didn’t let her hug me but held out my hand to keep her back. And then I set the crutches aside and stood solidly on both legs.

  “Why do you think it’s okay to dig around in someone else’s desk?”

  “What? Oh, Gia and I have been working together. There’s some stuff I needed, and she said to just grab—”

  “Bullshit. You’re not working together, and she’d never let you in here alone.”

  Sophia laughed as if I’d just made a bad joke. “Don’t be silly. I’ve been helping her with the articles about you. Didn’t you see? The features are continuing. Thanks to me, you’re going to be bigger than ever, once you come back.”

  I was aware of the articles, but I sincerely doubted Sophia had done any of the work. Because I wasn’t playing, the promotion had shifted to the number of home runs hit by the entire team. And though my social media feed was filled with wishes for a speedy recovery, there’d also been some blowback from those who hated that I made myself out to be a hero.

  “Have you been reading the media feed?” I asked, my tone hard. Then I thumbed on my phone and read some of the tweets I’d saved for just this moment. “@ConnorHart thinks grabbing a boy at a birthday party is the same as leaping from a burning building with a kid in his arms. #HeroFail.” I scrolled to the next one. “How tiny is @ConnorHart’s penis to—”

  “Stop it! You know the haters are going to hate. And besides, there is no such thing as bad publicity. They’re talking about you. That’s—”

  “Wrong,” I said, my voice hard as I held up a graphic cartoon with the caption “Connor’s version of heroism.” It was gross, and I hated that I’d even saved it to my phone, but I needed to show Sophia that people noticed when she lied.

  “Ewww,” she said as she waved my phone away.

  “Exactly. You can’t lie, Sophia. It always gets out.”

  “Really, I’d be worried if you didn’t get some ugly publicity. It’s all a sign—”