by Violet Duke
“I figured you’d be happy not to have to babysit me all day long.” Her voice dropped. As did her gaze. With an inquisitive peek out from under her lashes, she asked casually, “Do you have any big plans for this weekend? A hot date?”
He pinned her to the spot with a silent response meant to answer her question unequivocally.
But just in case she didn’t catch his meaning, he shook his head gently and repeated his earlier statement so she’d be clear on what exactly he’d be doing this weekend, “Like I said, I’m going to be here missing having you around. I’m pretty sure that’s going to keep me plenty occupied until you get back, sweetheart.”
Chapter 14
For Leila, Sunday morning brunch with her sister and mother felt a little like she was having an Alice in Wonderland tea party with the Queen of Fairytale Land and the Duchess of Bonkers.
They were both replaying that god-awful video of Grant being a lying asshat at his political rally, gushing about how romantic it was. All the while, making extravagant plans for a wedding even though Leila was going blue in the face insisting the damn thing wasn’t going to happen.
As the two continued to talk as if she wasn’t even there, it hit her like an avalanche of wet cement. Whereas at one point in her life, she’d simply felt different from her sister and mother, now, not only did she feel like they had nothing in common, she felt…tired. Her mother and sister had never once tried to be remotely okay with the choices Leila had made for her life, the paths she’d traveled, the successes or the heartaches. All her life, Leila had done at least that for them. More than that, she’d loved them unconditionally.
But they’d never bothered, never even pretended to bother.
And now here they were, trying to push her to marry a man who had hurt her countless times, plotted a future she didn’t want with her father behind her back with an utter disregard for her goals or feelings, and displayed on many an occasion, a complete lack of respect for all the things that were the most important to her.
Grant was, basically, a younger version of her father.
And she was tired.
Tired of smiling through the vast number of press photos at her sister’s birthday party wherein she’d had to watch her father “light up” when he saw her and do an impressive impression of a father having a joyous reunion with his momentarily noteworthy prodigal daughter.
Tired of trying to act like it didn’t bother her when her father dropped the act the very second the cameras were turned off.
Tired of letting her mother and sister treat her like their lives were so much better and worthier than hers.
Tired of getting let down time and again by all the people she trusted to love her, and support her, who should want to share in her life with her.
So tired was she, that when Grant showed up unannounced at the restaurant a few minutes later—camera crew in tow—Leila felt herself…snap.
Her narrowed gaze lasered on him as he walked up to their table.
“What are you doing here, Grant?”
He faltered for a second over her directness but recovered with a syrupy smile. “You and I haven’t gotten a chance to spend time together this weekend, honey bear.”
She fought the urge not to throw up the tiny little finger sandwiches her mother had ordered for her so Leila could lose enough weight and not look so “curvy” anymore.
“Grant, I’m here with my mother and sister. Please respect that.”
Her mother plucked the last teeny finger sandwich out of her fingers. “Leila, sweetie, your sister and I are fine here.”
“Yes,” agreed Stacey, bobbing her head emphatically. “You two go on and catch up.”
Traitors.
Before she could come up with another halfheartedly polite brush-off that he was undoubtedly going to ignore again, Grant already had his hand on her elbow, gently squeezing the way he used to whenever he’d usher her along when she wasn’t moving in the direction or at the speed that he wanted.
She’d always hated that.
But she stood and followed him. To end this ridiculousness once and for all.
When they were far enough away from the majority of the prying eyes, she stopped and yanked her elbow out of his grip. Looking him right in the eyes so he’d see she meant it with every fiber of her being, she hissed, “Grant, just stop this. All of it. You and I are never going to get back together. Get that through your thick skull.”
“Just give us a chance, honey bear. One chance. I’ve missed you so much.”
It wasn’t lost on her that while she loved it when Jackson called her by a pet name, when Grant did it, she felt her skin crawl. “Well, I’m sorry, but I haven’t missed you one bit. Breaking up with you was the best possible thing I could’ve done for my life back then.”
“Sweetie, is it because of that little incident your junior year? Because I’ve apologized for that over and over again.”
“Incidents—plural. You cheated on me with more than a dozen women. That I know of. And not to mention the ‘incident’ where you called me everything under the sun from ugly to stupid all for the vile whims of an awful girl you were going down on at the time who ended up blackmailing you and then leaking the damn video anyway.”
“I know, and I will live with the pain of that for the rest of my life. Knowing that I hurt you. Honey bear, I am so sorry. I love you so much. And I completely understand your not wanting to forgive me just yet. But I’m willing to spend every day until I die making up for my mistakes and earning back your love and trust.”
God, he was such a politician.
And apparently, a hard-of-hearing one. “Grant, I’m going to say this one more time. Please stop listening to that voice you have in your head—that undoubtedly sounds like my father’s—and just hear me. You and I are never going to happen. You just need to accept that and move on. There are countless women all around who would love to be with you and live the life you have planned out for your wife. They may not come with all the political promises my father does, but at least they won’t despise and pity you the way I do. This life you want, I will never, ever accept.”
For the first time in all their incessant back-and-forths on this, he looked…mystified. And lost. “But Leila, you and I belong together. We’re political royalty. There are plans under way for both our futures that exceed even your wildest imagination. How can you not want that?”
The man didn’t care one bit about what she thought, let alone what she imagined. Enough was enough. “Look, Grant. I don’t know what you and my father have been plotting, but it ends here. I’ve tried to be polite about it, but that also ends here. If you continue to pursue me, I’ll stop being polite and get a restraining order. From this moment on, leave. Me. Alone.”
She stormed back to her table, not caring about all the faces staring at her in shock. But when she got there, one glance at her mother’s and her sister’s expressions of disappointment and disapproval effectively cut the last tether in her life as she saw it to this world they existed in with her father and all the Grants they made excuses for. Leila had never really been a part of this world, but she’d wanted so much to be a part of this family.
She just wished they’d felt the same.
Cutting that final tether brought with it a surprising revelation—that this last tie had been rooted in her heart, not her DNA, held on by sheer hope instead of the feelings of obligation woven into her family genes. And that’s both what made the final cut so much worse, and yet profoundly freeing at the same time.
She gave both of them a quick hug. “I love you guys. I really do. I’m just a phone call away if you ever want to truly talk to me, as your sister, or your daughter, or a friend. You will always, always be welcome in my life, even if there isn’t room for me in yours.”
Then Leila turned around and again walked away from the roots to her past and the life that wasn’t hers. While it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as her exit three years ago, this time, she was ce
rtain that it was permanent.
And for the first time that day, she found a true and content smile stretching across her face.
Three hours later, Leila was settling into the tiny seat of the tiny aircraft she’d exchanged her later ticket for. She didn’t want to wait another minute to return to her future, her life.
And during the short flight from Utah to Arizona, Leila’s thoughts were focused on one thing and one thing only.
Jackson.
Chapter 15
As soon as she got off the plane, Leila quickly pulled out her phone and practically sprinted to the airport parking lot to get to the privacy of her car.
What she was planning to say to Jackson, she wasn’t sure.
She’d replayed it on the plane at least a thousand times.
In her mind, it sounded a little like: “Hey, Jackson, you know that picture you have for your dream life? The one that made one of my ovaries practically faint because it was so amazing? You know, the cute ankle biters to help you spoil your wife, and vice versa? How about you try me on for size for the mom of your kids? Sound like a plan?”
But of course, classier and far less insane.
She supposed she could start with just dinner and a movie.
Not that that was really much less anxiety-inducing to suggest.
Before she lost all the fearlessness that was still pumping in her veins from that one-way ticket she’d just ridden away from her past, Leila dialed his number.
“H’lo?”
“Jackson?”
Pause. “Hi, Leila.”
The tone of his voice made her stop in her tracks. He sounded…weird.
“Is everything okay? You sound…different.”
“Leila, we’ve been trying to reach you. We need you to come in to the office right away. Are you already back in Arizona?”
She blinked, startled. “I just landed. But wait a minute, how did you even know I was back from Utah already?”
—
Jackson pulled the phone away from his ear again and shut his eyes for a beat, needing a moment. When he looked back at his phone, he checked the ridiculous thrill he got over seeing Leila’s face on the screen. It was a grainy black-and-white company photo that had auto-filled as the caller ID image for her number.
And he’d stared at it more times than he could count over the weekend.
Funny how much can change in a few short hours.
“Hello?” called out Leila into the silence, clear concern shading her voice.
“Leila, have you not checked your phone or the Internet for the past few hours?
“Why do you keep doing that?” She sounded confused, a little alarmed even.
Frowning, he asked, “Doing what?”
“You keep calling me Leila. Why?”
Irony of ironies. He checked the impulse to say her name again to force himself to keep his focus on the problem at hand and the needed distance between them as they dealt with that problem. Interpersonal Business Communications 101 on keeping things strictly business.
He needed to do it. Because if his life had been merely complicated before, it would become cataclysmic if he didn’t protect it from the devastation that a verified betrayal on Leila’s part would bring.
So he stayed the course, to protect his…life.
Instead of answering her question, he simply said, “Leila, we’ll be here waiting for you. In the meantime, I suggest you Google your name and your ex’s before you get here. There’s…another video.”
And with that, he murmured a quiet goodbye and held silent until she hung up, not able to hang up on her regardless of what she may or may not have done.
He reentered the conference room shortly after to rejoin the five grim, corporate faces looking at him expectantly.
“Was that her?” asked Lloyd.
“Yes. She’s coming from the airport. She should be here in half an hour.”
“Well, then let’s figure out our next move.” The network legal head pulled out his laptop to begin taking notes.
“How the hell did a gambling site get into our house without us knowing?” asked Perry, the head of public relations.
“It’s not a gambling site,” clarified Jackson sharply. “The site Leila is running is an NFL and college locks-and-picks site. No betting takes place. She simply makes calculated determinations on game winners for straight-up gamblers and other picks for those who do fantasy football.”
The head of legal looked optimistic. “So no money’s involved.”
“No, there’s no gambling involved on her site,” he replied. “But there is money exchanged for her services. Leila does have some free ‘locks’ of the week—easy winners or a no-lose bet—but the rest of her picks are essentially strongly researched recommendations that gamblers use to help them make their bets. She charges for her picks by tiered monthly subscription, along with one-time purchases and customizable packages. According to her site, she handles everything from point spreads to estimated yardage for those who play the smaller fantasy football leagues. And she also does higher-priced individual reports for more specific or difficult picks for high rollers.”
“What kind of money are we talking?” asked Lloyd, looking like he was suffering a massive migraine.
“No way to know without looking at her books, but some of the big sites—hers is reputed to be among the best—can rake in a hefty salary.”
“But it’s not gambling, right? So we won’t be sanctioned?” argued one of the senior VPs.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it still looks shady as hell for us as a network,” replied Lloyd.
Unfortunately, Jackson agreed. This was bad. A sideline reporter who had just broken two big stories during the NFL Draft, now being outed as the owner of one of the more popular lock-and-pick sites on the web?
An effing PR nightmare is what it was.
His thoughts kept crossing over to how he was planning on breaking the news to Skip about all this. Hell, that man looked at Leila like a daughter now.
If Skip found out that she used anything from that war room he’d let her into for financial gain…
Well, then there would be two men who would end up being profoundly and irrevocably disappointed in her.
“You think we should fire her?”
Dread drilled him in the solar plexus at the suggestion.
It hit him then, like a bullet to his heart. A feeling he almost forgot that he knew existed. One he never thought he’d experience again.
There was a very good possibility that she’d get fired here today. But he held on to…hope.
Blind, trusting hope.
Absolutely baseless though it was.
Completely ungrounded in facts or evidence of any kind.
Jackson realized in that moment that he wanted to believe in her, believe she was…different. “Let’s just wait and hear her side of things before we start thinking the worst of her,” he answered finally—the complete opposite from what history has taught him to do until now.
His suggestion fell on deaf ears of course since he was just an analyst. He was her supervisor, but powerless against the big boys on the top floor.
All he could do was believe she’d make it through this.
Believe in her.
So for the next half hour, while the higher-ups all did their thing and discussed damage control and all the ways to save their own ass, Jackson was doing his best to ignore the black-and-white evidence for once, and just believe.
Chapter 16
Leila felt like throwing up.
She’d waited until the ringing in her ears stopped and the sense of skin-crawling dread subsided a bit before doing the Google search.
The resulting video made her livid to the point of blinding nausea.
“That’s right. Ms. Hart and I, unfortunately, have parted ways, and she’s headed back to Arizona. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on certain key things. Now I want to note that nothing she has done with her website is illegal. Please
don’t feel that I’m disappointed in her because I’m not. I will always love her, and I wish her the best. But again, we just had a difference of opinion. That’s all I will be saying on this matter.”
And then the bastard blasted the url for Gridiron Locks and Picks Weekly across the screen. The business she’d been running for the past few years to pay off her student loans and save for a house. He’d portrayed it like it was some tawdry site that deserved his scorn.
She wondered how long he’d been holding this in his back pocket. Years probably.
Bastard.
This time, she wasn’t going to take it lying down. He would pay. The only question now was how big of a payback to dish out.
And the answer was sitting on the other side of the door to the conference room where she and Jackson had first agreed not to divulge their deep, dark secrets.
Oh, the irony.
Entering the conference room felt a little like walking into an execution.
Her own.
“Thank you for coming in so quickly, Ms. Hart,” said Lloyd, as formal as can be.
Ouch. Regressing all the way back to last name pleasantries? This was not sounding good.
That’s when she saw Jackson lean forward and offer her a small reassuring smile. He didn’t look like how he’d sounded on the phone.
That gave her hope.
“Ms. Hart,” began the head of legal. “Have you seen the video that your ex released a little while ago about your glpweekly.com website?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied in interrogation mode, before sitting and waiting for the next question.
Lloyd exhaled in exasperation. “So do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Genuinely and completely perplexed, she answered truthfully. “I’m not sure I even understand what all the fuss is.”
Another small smile from Jackson. She held on to it like a lifeline.
“We have to determine if you need to be terminated,” replied the head of legal.
She jumped out of her seat. “What? Why?”
“Leila, you do realize, don’t you, that anyone in an employment capacity like the one you have, with access to privileged information, cannot participate in anything related to insider information that will result in gambling over football?”