Like a deer caught in headlights, he’d frozen. Then he’d said the first Kristen-shielding thing he could think of.
He could only hope Kristen understood. And that he could get to her before she saw it on Facebook or some shit. Unfortunately, the one thing they hadn’t done last night was exchange contact information.
Kristen glanced out of habit at her phone when it buzzed on the edge of her desk, even though she was letting calls go to voicemail today. She had enough on her paperwork plate without giving people opportunities to add to it. But when the Firewall Bar & Grill’s number showed up on the screen, she reached for it.
She had the number saved in her contacts for the occasional night she just wanted to grab takeout on her way home, but Zach had never called her before.
“Hey, Kristen. Sorry to bother you when I know you’re at work, but gray Henley shirt is here looking for your contact info, and he says it’s urgent.”
Will? “Did he say why?”
“No, but he’s standing here, and he’s thinking about trying to take the phone away from me. I adore you, but he’s a big boy, so if it comes down to a telephone tug-of-war match, I wouldn’t put money on me.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
During the seconds it took for Zach to hand over the phone, Kristen took a deep breath to calm herself. It was ridiculous, but as soon as she heard gray Henley shirt, her pulse had quickened, and she could feel the hot blush across her chest.
“Kristen?”
The low, sexy timbre of his voice saying her name did absolutely nothing to soothe her nerves. “Yeah. What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to you.”
There was nothing light or flirtatious about his tone. “Okay.”
“Can you meet me for lunch?”
Startled, she looked at the clock. “That’s basically now.”
“I know. If you can’t, then let this guy give me your number so we can talk privately, at least. It’s pretty urgent.”
She couldn’t imagine what could have happened between last night and this morning that would put that almost-panicked tone in his voice. He hadn’t even had time to get an STI diagnosis he’d be forced to share with her. Shuddering, she mentally reviewed the work left to do, but curiosity trumped duty.
“I can do lunch, but it has to be very soon and close to my office.” She named an intersection that was well-known and close enough to her building to give him an idea of where she was. “Give me your cell number and I’ll text you an exact location in a few minutes.”
He rattled it off and had her read it back to him. “Okay, I’m in my car now. Text me where to meet you.”
The line went dead before she could say goodbye, and his sense of urgency made no sense to her. A conversation that was both an emergency and required privacy? Sighing, she mentally reviewed the lunch options in the area and then called to reserve a table at a spot her boss frequented often for sensitive conversations. She didn’t feel the need to explain Stan wouldn’t actually be joining her.
She texted Will the restaurant’s location, and he responded that he was on his way and would see her soon.
After straightening her desk in a futile attempt to settle her nerves, she claimed a personal emergency she had to see to and slipped out of the office. It only took her a few minutes to walk to the restaurant—and she knew, since he was coming from Firewall, that he’d be another ten minutes at least—but she didn’t mind having some time to settle into the small table in the semiprivate alcove next to the kitchen.
By sitting on the edge of the seat and leaning forward, she could watch the door, and the second Will walked through it, she could feel her need for him like a low, constant hum of electricity through her body.
Hers wasn’t the only head turned as he moved through the restaurant with purpose. Will was a big guy, and the intensity in his expression and his movements—along with the bruising along his jawline—made him look like a predator as he followed the hostess through the maze of tables to the few booths at the back that were surrounded by paneling and vegetation, which offered the closest one could get to privacy in a Boston restaurant at lunchtime.
When their eyes met, Will smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and his jaw was tight. He bent and gave her a quick and very polite kiss on the cheek before sliding into the bench across the table from her.
She would much rather he’d kissed her like he wanted to devour her and then sat on the same side of the table, sliding in next to her and working his hand between her thighs.
What was the point of a semiprivate booth if they didn’t do anything you couldn’t do in public?
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said after accepting the menu from the hostess and asking for a glass of ice water.
“To say it sounded important would be an understatement.”
“Yeah.”
Their server appeared with his water, and Will downed a third of it while Kristen ordered a bowl of soup. She wasn’t sure she’d have much of an appetite after Will told her whatever he had to say, based on the tension emanating from him in waves, but this was the only lunch break she’d have. And as close as they were to the kitchen, there would be no wait for the soup.
“I’ll have the same thing,” he told the server, but Kristen wasn’t sure he’d even heard her order.
“So, what’s going on?”
He took a deep breath. “Something happened today, and I want you to hear it from me first.”
A frisson of fear made her spine tingle. “You didn’t hurt Erik, did you?”
“No.” The look on his face when she said her brother’s name made it clear he’d like to, though. “I got a little ambushed by a sports reporter today and told him you and I have been dating for a while.”
Her mind went blank, because of all the things he could have said to her, confessing to lying about them being a couple was the last thing she would have expected.
The server chose that moment to show up with her tray, of course, and Kristen stared silently at Will while she set their soup bowls down and asked if they needed anything else.
“We’re good, thanks,” Will said, before snapping his napkin open and draping it across his lap. Once the server walked away, he looked back at Kristen. “On second thought, maybe I should have discouraged you from ordering the large bowl of very hot liquid you might want to throw in my face.”
“You told a sports reporter you and I are dating. And have been dating for a while.”
“Yes.”
She unfolded her napkin and smoothed it across her lap, turning this unexpected development over and over in her head, trying to make sense of it. The most obvious explanation was that this man wasn’t well, was going to fixate on her, and she was going to end up at the police station, starting a paper trail.
The gut instinct she’d always believed in had possibly let her down this time.
“The reporter knew about you and me. He knew Burke did this.” He waved a dismissive hand toward his jaw. “He had the story of Cross Lecroix having sex with Erik Burke’s sister and being punched before he showed up all in my face.”
That made no sense to her. “How did he know?”
“I don’t know. Somebody in your building? Maybe Burke went out with his buddies all pissed off and ranting about it and somebody talked. But he knew about us. And when he asked me about it, I could only think about what you said about your boss and your promotion. I couldn’t do anything about the story being out, but I could kill the one-night stand angle and make the story less…”
“Sordid. Salacious. Scandalous.” She could come up with all kinds of s-words for it.
“Sensational. Sexy. Satisfying.” When he grinned at her, she couldn’t help grinning back. “I guess I went off the theme there.”
She picked up her spoon and drifted it through the vegetable soup, watching the chunks swirl in the dark broth. “You couldn’t just deny it?”
“Since the source was most likely somebody v
ery close to your brother and I was standing there with a pretty noticeable bruise on my jaw, I thought that might make the whole thing worse. I didn’t want them trying to get a statement from you or digging through our garbage or showing up at Firewall or your job, asking questions.”
“You’re a hockey player, not a movie star.”
“True. But even though you try to ignore hockey, you’re a Burke.” He paused to grimace dramatically to make her laugh. “Sorry. That’s just hard to say. Anyway, Burke and I make headlines on the ice. This would definitely make headlines because they’ll get site traffic out of it, even if we’re not plastered on tabloid covers. It might be on a smaller scale, but how much coverage would it take to get back to your boss?”
“Not a lot,” she muttered.
“So I figure your boss might not be super impressed you’re dating a professional athlete, but at least you’re dating him and didn’t just drag him back to your apartment for one night of the best sex of his life.”
Hers too, though she wasn’t in the mood to stroke his ego or any other part of him right now. He was right about her boss. Stan wouldn’t approve of a hockey player, but as long as she played to misogyny and let him believe she was just trying to get a husband and babies, she might not have to kiss the promotion goodbye.
Her phone chimed, and she pulled it out of her bag. It was from Erik, of course. What the hell, Kris?
She sighed and flipped the phone around so Will could see the screen. “I guess the news is out. That didn’t take long.”
“That’s why I had to talk to you.” He chuckled. “Zach might have nightmares for a while, but I didn’t actually threaten him. Just so you know.”
“I wonder if Dad knows yet. I’m guessing he doesn’t or he’d be blowing up my phone but…holy shit, he’s going to be pissed.”
She typed in a response to Erik. I’ll explain later. Talk after practice tonight? Until you talk to me, don’t say anything to anybody, even Dad. NO COMMENT. I mean it.
Ok for tonight. Let me know when and where.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Will said. “I’m sorry.”
She looked across the table and lost herself in his dark gaze for a moment. He was sincere, she knew that. And his first instinct when ambushed by a reporter hadn’t been to thump his chest or trash-talk his rival. It had been to protect her and the thing she’d told him was important to her.
“I can handle my dad,” she said. “It won’t be easy.”
“What are you going to tell him? The truth?”
“Ah, that would be a definite no. I’ll tell him what we’ll tell anybody else who asks. We’re dating. And I’ll probably let Erik believe it, too. His mouth got us into this, and the more people who know a secret, the faster it becomes anything but a secret.”
“And you think he’ll suddenly be okay with us dating?” His voice was heavy with skepticism, which made sense considering they’d spent years hating each other.
“For me? Yes. He won’t like it, but once the shock wears off, he’ll try to respect my boundaries where you’re concerned.”
“Okay. I am really sorry about this, Kristen.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” She shrugged. “And I was planning to go to Firewall tonight. If you were there, you were coming home with me again, anyway. I guess I wasn’t done with you.”
“I was going home with you again, huh? Just like that?”
She extended her leg just enough to brush the inside of his calf and make him jump a little. “Would you have told me you had other plans?”
“Hell no.” He shook his head, chuckling. “Dating Erik Burke’s sister.”
“Fake dating,” she said, just to be clear.
“With benefits,” he added, with a look that raised the temperature in the restaurant at least ten degrees.
“Fake dating with benefits, until this mess blows over.”
Maybe she’d have gotten her fill of him by then.
5
Kristen didn’t want Will walking her to the front door of her office building, so he was forced to say goodbye to her outside of the restaurant and watch her walk away. Not that he minded the view, but he would have preferred to escort her back to work.
In part because he was a gentleman, but mostly because it would have given him a few more minutes with her.
The first text message arrived a few minutes after he slid into the backseat of an Uber back to his hotel. It buzzed twice more in the time it took him to get the phone out of his pocket to respond to the first message.
Clearly the news had broken in Baltimore.
He ignored the other two and pulled up the first because Mitchell was not only his teammate but had become his closest friend in Baltimore. They’d been picked up by the Harriers a year apart and been inseparable since.
WTF R U doing? A few seconds later, a follow-up message appeared. EB’s sis? DUDE.
It’s a long story.
U been there like a week. How long can it B?
It was a valid point, and Will stared out the window for a few seconds while he considered his response.
The problem was the promise he’d made to Kristen. They weren’t going to tell anybody the truth. It had sounded simple enough at the time, but every member of the Harriers organization knew how long he’d been in Boston. While most of them might buy the lie that he and Kristen had been seeing each other in secret because of just this situation, Mitchell wouldn’t. He’d be the one guy Will would have confided in.
I’m in an Uber. Typing on the tiny keyboard was a pain in the ass, and it certainly wasn’t a conversation he wanted to use dictation for with the driver a foot away. I’ll call you later.
He wasn’t sure what he would tell him, but at least he’d bought a little time to come up with something.
When the car pulled up in front of the hotel Will was temporarily calling home, the driver made eye contact with him in the mirror and smiled. “A nice tip would go a long way toward healing that broken heart you guys gave me in twenty-fifteen.”
Will laughed. “I’d apologize, but…you know.”
The Harriers had not only brought the Stanley Cup home that year, but they’d had the pleasure of being the team that knocked the Marauders out of contention. He did tip the guy very well, though, but more because he’d been cool about having Cross Lecroix in the backseat of his Hyundai and had neither talked his ear off about the sport nor dumped him off on the side of the road in the cold.
Will had just engaged the security bar on his door and was in the process of taking a deep breath when his phone vibrated again, but this time with a call. And when his dad’s name showed up on the screen, he leaned his head against the wall for a few seconds before answering.
Apparently the news had reached Ontario, too.
“Hey, Pop,” he said, giving in to the inevitable. Some people could be put off, but not his dad.
“Jesus Murphy, kid. So many people have called me in the last hour, I thought I’d won the lottery.”
Will winced. “I should have called you first, but it got hectic here.”
“I would have waited, but your mother wants to know if your face is okay and if you put ice on it right away.”
“Of course I did.” Frozen Brussels sprouts were close enough. “How close is she right now?”
“I can feel her breath on the back of my neck,” his dad said, and his words were followed by an annoyed sound from his mother and a chuckle from his father. “I tried to call while she was digging around for her passport and thought it was safe when she dumped an entire file box on the floor, but she caught me.”
“I’m okay, Mom.” It didn’t matter that he wasn’t on speakerphone. His dad always had the volume jacked up so high, everybody in the room could hear both sides of any conversation he had.
“How long have you been seeing this girl?” she demanded.
“Not long. It’s kind of a recent thing.” It was vague, but also not a lie, so he
tried to keep the conversation moving before she could try to pin down more details. “You don’t need your passport, Mom.”
“The hell I don’t,” she snapped, and he had absolutely no trouble hearing her. “When I have to find out from your father who found out from Donny Jacobs who found out from the internet of all places that my son not only got in a fight—off the ice—but has been dating Erik Burke’s sister without telling us, I am absolutely going to find my passport.”
Will closed his eyes, imagining his mother and his younger sister showing up in Boston to check up on him. “I swear Hometown Hoser made it sound like a much bigger deal than it really is. Kristen and I are casually dating, and her brother and I had a bit of a communication issue that’s been resolved.”
“You couldn’t get a date with a woman who’s not Erik Burke’s sister?”
“Mom.” He didn’t roll his eyes because history lent some validity to the idea she would hear it in his voice. “I didn’t know who she was when I first met her. It’s just not that big a deal.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Didn’t you put your passport in your jewelry box so you wouldn’t lose it?” he heard his dad say, and then after a few seconds, he spoke to Will again. “That’ll buy us five minutes, tops. This is quite a situation you’ve gotten yourself into, son.”
“Yeah, it’s a beaut.” He wanted to keep talking and just tell his dad the entire truth of the matter because that’s what he did. When he had something on his mind, he talked it through with his dad.
But if there was one thing Jack Lecroix wouldn’t do, it was keep secrets about their children from his wife, and the truth of what was going on between Will and Kristen would be even harder for her to wrap her mind around than what she thought was happening. Not telling anybody was the right decision, no matter how hard it was.
“I need you to convince Mom to relax, which I know is asking a lot. But that sports journalist made it sound like there’s a lot more to it, and other bloggers will pick it up and probably embellish a little. The truth is pretty boring.” Okay, that was a lie, and he felt bad about it. Spending time with Kristen was anything but boring.
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