Set In Stone

by K. M. Scott

  Summer frowned. “Why would that woman say it was him if it wasn’t? She’s his ex, right? Did they have a bad breakup or something and she’s trying to punish him?”

  I sighed as my brain tried to process all the questions we had. “I don’t know. It makes no sense to me. He says they haven’t seen each other since they broke up last February. It sounds strange to me that she’d wait nearly a year to do something to him to retaliate for their breakup. Revenge is a dish best served cold, but that’s practically frozen. No, you and I know the truth is far more likely to be the easiest answer.”

  For a moment, I stopped talking because I didn’t want to say the words. When I finally spoke them, they hurt just as much as I knew they would.

  “He slept with her when the team had their game in LA in September. For over two months, he’s been walking around here pretending to love me when he knew he’d cheated on me.”

  Then a more horrible thought rushed to the front of my brain. “Oh, my God! Has he been cheating on me all the time since September?”

  I tried to remember where he said he was anytime we weren’t together. He’d been out of town for games since then, but where? I couldn’t remember the damn cities where the away games had been held.

  Summer took my hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Tressa, don’t do this. Look at me. Don’t do this to yourself. You’ll drive yourself insane thinking about this. You know what you know and you did what you had to do. Don’t spend any more time dwelling on what ifs. That’s a road you don’t want to travel down.”

  Hanging my head to avoid facing her, I said quietly, “I’m so embarrassed. I thought we were so happy together. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “You weren’t stupid, Tressa. You were in love.”

  “I was stupid in love, and now I feel stupid because I still love him.”

  “It’s never stupid to love someone.”

  No matter how much I wanted to believe she was right, I hated how much regret had seeped into what I felt for Killian. I had been happy, truly happy, and now all that happiness was gone, replaced by sadness and regret.

  The sound of my front door closing startled me, and I sat bolt upright in bed. Killian still had a key to my penthouse, and even though I hadn’t heard from him in the past three days, I didn’t put it past him to use it. But I couldn’t handle seeing him so soon.

  As I sat in bed, frozen in place, I heard a voice say, “Tressa? Are you here?”

  A man’s voice. It wasn’t Killian. It was my father.

  I hurriedly threw on a robe and pushed my hair off my face. Rushing past a mirror as I walked out to meet him, I saw I looked like death warmed over.

  “Dad?”

  Walking into the living room, I saw him smile at me like he did every morning when I saw him at his office. Was there a problem at work? Was that why he was here to see me?

  “I think I got a bug,” I lied, hoping it worked on my father better than it had on Summer. I had to look worse than I had two days ago, so maybe he’d buy it.

  He nodded and looked around before saying, “I came over to see your sister for lunch, so I thought I’d stop up here to see you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Dad. I had planned to take a few days off this week, so it’s all taken care of at the office. Boyd knows to call me if anything happens that needs my attention. I’ll be back in a few days as soon as I get over whatever this is.”

  My father took a step toward me and smiled. “I’m not here as the CEO of Stone Worldwide, Tressa. I know you have everything handled at work. You always do. I’m here as your father, honey.”

  Oh, God.

  He could have said anything else and I would have been able to keep my emotions under control, but when he said that, I felt all that sadness and hurt I’d been working so hard to keep in check start to unravel inside me.

  Covering my face, I sobbed, “Oh, Dad…This hurts so bad. I loved him.”

  Strong arms enveloped me as I cried harder than I had since I watched Killian walk out my front door days before. I pressed my cheek against my father’s chest, loving the familiar feeling of his dress shirt against my skin as he held me to him like when I was a little girl and he comforted me after I skinned my knee playing tag or fell down roller-skating in the driveway.

  Above me, he whispered, “It’s okay, honey. Let it all out.”

  “I loved him, Dad, and I thought he loved me. I thought he loved all the things no other man had ever loved.”

  There, standing with my father in my living room, I needed the first man who loved me in my life to reassure me I deserved love. For all his coolness, my father had been my knight in shining armor for twenty-seven years, and as he held me while I cried for all I’d lost, his strength helped me feel stronger.

  “Of course he loved you, Tressa. I don’t know why this happened, but I saw the way Killian acted. He loved you.”

  That answer only made me cry harder. “Then why did he do this to me? To us?”

  Holding me close, my father whispered what I wished wasn’t the only answer I had. “I don’t know, honey. People make mistakes, and those mistakes can hurt a hell of a lot.”

  “This hurts so bad. I don’t know what to do now,” I sobbed quietly against him. “What do I do?”

  We stood there quietly for a long moment before my father answered, “You remember how strong you are. I know this hurts now, but you’ll be okay. It just takes time. You’ve got all of us here for you if you want us to be.”

  “Is Mom coming up now too?”

  He kissed the top of my head and chuckled. “No. You and I know how your mother is. I figured you didn’t need all that just yet. She’s at the house out in her studio. She has been since she heard about what happened. I suspect the art she’s creating will have a heavy touch of anger to it.”

  Looking up at him, I smiled. My father knew me better than anyone else in the world, and he was right. As much as I loved my mother, she’d want to talk about things, to get them out of my system as she liked to say, but I wasn’t like her or Ethan or even Diana.

  I was like my father, and when we hurt, we didn’t want to talk or lash out. We just wanted someone strong there to quietly remind us that no matter how bad things were, we were loved and we’d be okay.

  “Thanks, Dad. Tell Mom I love her and I’ll call her when I’m feeling a little better.”

  “Of course. Now what do you plan to do once you decide to leave the house?” he asked with a smile as he looked down at me and slid the pads of his thumbs over my cheeks to dry my tears.

  I attempted to fix my hair after days of lying in bed, pressing it to my head to smooth it out, but it was no use. Wallowing in heartbreak had a certain sad look to it, and I had it in full force. “I must look like a bus hit me. Well, no leaving today, but maybe tomorrow. Not that I’m looking forward to having to deal with the crowd of reporters I’m sure is camped outside.”

  My father nodded as he rolled his eyes. “They’re still there. I suspect they’re going to be there until they figure out you won’t be giving a statement.”

  “You’d think they’d know that already. Anyway, I’ll be back at work on Monday like I planned, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “I never worry about work and you, honey. You’re just like me in that respect. I hear the London redesign is shaping up to look pretty damn good. Maybe a trip to see how that’s going might cheer you up?”

  He gave me a sly look like he didn’t want to come right out and suggest I leave town to lick my wounds, but beating around the bush wasn’t necessary. I’d already thought about what I wanted to do.

  “I was thinking maybe I’d move on to the next hotel I want redesigned. The Richmont in Barcelona needs a redo even more than the London location, so I thought I’d head there for a week or so. The designer and I have come to a meeting of the minds after that initial rocky start, so I’ll see when she’s available and move from there. If she’s busy with another project, perh
aps I’ll still go to the Barcelona hotel and get a feel for what I want to do there.”

  In truth, I’d known what I wanted for that hotel for nearly a year, but I loved the idea of hiding away in Barcelona where nothing would remind me of Killian, unlike in this penthouse where everything felt like him.

  “I like that idea a lot. I’m sure your mother will think it’s a splendid plan. I’ll probably have to hold her back from jumping on the plane and heading straight to Barcelona herself,” he said with a smile.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Tell her to come visit me if she wants to. I can’t hide away alone forever.”

  He opened his arms to hug me again. “I better go. I’ll be sure to tell the rest of the family that you’re going to be fine. I love you, honey.”

  “I love you, Dad. Thanks for coming over and saying all the right things.”

  After giving me a gentle squeeze, he stepped back and pushed my messy hair away from my face. “You’re going to be okay, Tressa. I worry the least about you out of all three of my kids because you’re like me. No matter how bad things get, we can handle it. You’ll handle this. I know it.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I just hoped that would be true this time. I’d made a career out of being able to handle things, but nothing the business world had ever thrown at me had hit me like this.

  He turned to leave and then looked back at me. “You know you’re always welcome to come back to the house if you don’t want to stay here anymore. The carriage house could give you some privacy, and I’m sure if I spoke to your mother, she wouldn’t visit too often.”

  With a wink, he chuckled and added, “Well, I can’t promise that, but I can tell you from experience that having your mother around when you feel down is a good thing. She does most of the talking so you don’t have to say much, and she has a way of making you see that even in the worst of times, you’re not alone.”

  He didn’t wait for me to respond and left me standing there knowing one sure thing. I had the best family in the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Killian

  Three days of trying to get Eden to talk to me had resulted in nothing but her away fucking message being practically tattooed on my damn brain I’d heard it so many times. I’d spent seventy-two hours watching my world spiral out of control like some kind of goddamned bystander unable to do anything as shit just got worse and worse.

  Every minute of those three days I thought about Tressa and what she must have been going through. The gossip and sports channels couldn’t talk about Eden’s claims enough, running stories and commentary every hour like my personal life deserved the kind of coverage the news gave to real events like wars and elections. I just hoped Tressa didn’t watch any of it.

  Even the team had gotten in on the act. Not twelve hours after the story broke on that damn gossip site, my coach and owner called me in for a talk. Nothing like having to face people you respected after your bare ass had been displayed across the goddamned world.

  And after all of that, Eden still avoided talking to me, despite the fact that she had no problem lying to that reporter and handing over pictures of the two of us that I still couldn’t figure out. I’d stared at the two of us in that dim light in those grainy pictures until my eyes hurt, and I had no clue how she’d gotten me into a picture supposedly taken in September when I hadn’t even seen her since February.

  I knew they’d been doctored some way, but the bigger problem was she and I never took pictures of us in bed. We’d dated for a few months, had some good times, and then parted ways because neither of us saw it going anywhere. Hell, we’d only slept together not even half a dozen times because our schedules never meshed. In truth, neither of us made much of an effort to get around our scheduling problems, so when I told her I wanted to end it, she didn’t put up even the slightest fight. No tears or recriminations at all.

  So why the fuck was she doing this to me now?

  I paced back and forth through my apartment like a caged animal as the minutes ticked by. I needed to fix this fucking mess, but if I couldn’t get Eden to talk to me, that was going to be difficult.

  Frustrated, I called Sherilyn for the second time in two hours to see what she’d found out. Usually helpful, she seemed utterly lost with this problem, though.

  Her smiling face popped up on the screen in front of me beaming her happiness that had to be for some other client. “Hi, Killian! I didn’t expect you to call back so soon. What’s up?”

  “What’s up? What the fuck do you think is up? The same thing that was up yesterday and the day before. The problem that’s turned my goddamned life upside down.”

  That ridiculous smile of hers faded away, and she nodded like she finally understood how pissed I was. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to keep a positive outlook, Killian. I know this has been difficult, but Mike tells me the team isn’t upset about the publicity, so you should be fine there. In the end, remember there’s no such thing as bad publicity. You just do the honorable guy thing and don’t lash out about what’s happened and your stardom will only get bigger because of this.”

  “I don’t care about my stardom. All I ever cared about was playing football, Sherilyn. I’ll admit I liked being famous and having the press all over me twenty-four seven, but I’m thinking Tressa was right. That life is shit. Look what it’s done to me and the woman I love, for Christ’s sake. What have you found out about Eden and why the hell she’s doing this?”

  My head began to feel like it would split open from the stress I’d been dealing with since I first saw those pictures and found out what Eden was claiming. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in as Sherilyn yammered on about having a hard time finding her.

  I opened my eyes in amazement. “What do you mean you’re having a hard time finding her? I’ve never seen you have a hard time finding anyone. You’re a fucking publicist. You’ve made it your life’s work to know where famous people are at all times. Eden is a fucking actress. Are you telling me it’s hard to find an actress now?”

  “Well, she’s not at her house in Malibu. I checked there. She hasn’t answered any of my calls, and her agent says she’s indisposed for an indeterminate time.”

  “An indeterminate time?” I said, repeating Sherilyn’s ridiculous words back at her. “She didn’t get into a fucking spacecraft and fly to goddamned Mars. She’s a famous actress, for God’s sake. How hard can it be to find her? I want to talk to her today. Do you understand me? Today! She’s not answering my calls, so you better find a way to get in touch with her or…”

  I held back the threat to fire her that sat in my brain ready for me to act on. I hadn’t appreciated how my publicist treated Tressa, but she’d been useful in other ways and Tressa had told me she could handle whatever Sherilyn threw at her. Now I regretted that. Her usefulness shouldn’t have been more important than how she treated the woman I loved.

  Love. I needed to make sure I kept that word in the present tense. Nothing had changed for me because of this fucking mess Eden had created, and when I fixed this all, I intended on marching back to Tressa to convince her we weren’t over.

  Sherilyn’s eyes grew wide and full of fear at my unspoken threat to fire her. “Killian, I always do everything I can to help you and your career. You know that, don’t you? I’ve been with you for longer than anyone else. I love you like you’re a part of my family.”

  The sadness in her voice triggered something in me, and my mind returned to how Tressa sounded that night. Waving away Sherilyn’s concerns, I began pacing again.

  “Just find Eden and figure out what’s going on, okay? I’ll be here.”

  “Okay, Killian. Please don’t worry. Everything will work out. This won’t hurt your career. I’ll make sure of it.”

  The screen went black as her words rang in my ears. This won’t hurt your career. The problem was I didn’t give a fuck how this affected my career. My ability to throw a ball and lead my team to the championship affected my career.
This affected the rest of my life, the important parts that made everything worth it.

  This affected Tressa.

  Two hours later, I still paced back and forth through my apartment and hadn’t heard back from Sherilyn. A knock on my door broke me out of my thoughts about the mess my life had become, but I welcomed some reprieve from thinking of Tressa and how hurt she’d looked staring up at me like I’d betrayed everything we were.

  I opened the door and stepped back in shock at who stood there in front of me. “I have to admit I didn’t expect to see you on the other side of this door.”

  Tristan Stone slowly nodded as his steely gaze studied me. “I think we should talk. May I come in?”

  Stepping back out of the way, he walked past me like he owned my apartment, not turning around to face me but looking around like he wanted to inspect where I lived. The man had a presence about him I had no choice but to respect.

  He was also the father of the woman I loved and who at this very moment was heartbroken because of me.

  “I’m not thinking this is you coming to see me because of how the New Orleans game went,” I said as I walked around to stand in front of him.

  “No, it isn’t. I just went to see my daughter, and now I want to talk to you about what’s going on,” he said in a low voice that sounded more than a little ominous.

  “Did she…” I began to say and then stopped. “How is she?”

  Tristan arched a single eyebrow and leveled his gaze on me. “I think you know how she is. She’s devastated.”

  Hanging my head, I wished I could be there to make her smile. “I’m sorry. I never wanted anything like this to happen.”

  “She loves you, and I believe you love her. Tressa is a private person, and seeing the man she loves in all his glory with another woman for all eyes to see isn’t exactly something that makes her happy.”