One thing at a time. I couldn’t tell Wes about that now. Could be a total false alarm. But I couldn’t help it. My hand went to my stomach, wondering if there was a little life there. Had Wes and I made a baby? My chest clutched with anxiety at the thought. We couldn’t be parents. And not now, with this scandal falling from the sky.
I walked down the jetway, stopping to find my luggage before locating the sign with my name on it. Ever since I left Wes’s apartment with a new security detail, I felt the need to look over my shoulder. I didn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t strike up a conversation with the lady next to me on the plane who babbled on and on about her twins. What if she tweeted something about me? What if she tried to weasel out some personal detail about Wes?
This level of scrutiny had made me paranoid, and it had only been a few hours since the news broke.
The driver took me downtown to one of the hotels on the water. It was the perfect San Diego scene. Romantic and magical. The lights sparkled on the water. But all I could think about was what Wes and I had to face. He was waiting for me. He had actually said on the phone that he needed me.
I straightened my shoulders and walked through the revolving door.
I knocked softly on the door. It opened, and Wes’s massive shoulders filled the frame.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Doc.” He pulled me inside, crushing my mouth with his lips. “Welcome to San Diego.”
I didn’t want to let go. I hadn’t seen him in days, and it felt good to be in his arms. To feel his strength wrap around me. He was warm and safe. I forgot about the storm brewing outside and just listened to his heart beat against his chest.
“I missed you.” I tipped forward on my toes to touch his lips again.
“It’s been a hell of a week here.” He took the bag off my shoulder and rolled my suitcase into the bedroom. “I already have a glass of wine for you.”
I twisted my lip. “I don’t think so. Maybe some ice water. Still feeling a little queasy from the flight. We had a lot of turbulence.” I couldn’t believe I had made that up, but I wasn’t going to scare him for no reason.
“Uhh, okay.” He dropped a few cubes and poured water into the crystal glass. “Here you go.”
“So, what’s the latest? What did your agent say?” I sat on the couch and waited.
“Lennon, I have to tell you. I want to tell you all of it.”
“Okay. What’s the plan?”
“I’m not talking about the plan and how I’m digging myself out of this fucking hole. I’m talking about the truth. The truth you asked for weeks ago.”
I stared at him. His jaw was set in determination. “I’ve been taking HGH. Injections in my thigh.” He sat next to me. “And I had a procedure done by a doctor to fuse my bones together with a gel.”
“Oh my God.”
“I know. I know you think I’ve crossed a line and I did. Hell. I knew what I was doing. And I didn’t care. I wanted to win. I wanted to be here at the Super Bowl. It was all I could think about. All I could dream about.”
“And now? Do you still think it was worth it?” I asked quietly.
“Maybe.” He hung his head. “That’s the thing. I still want to win. And if it wasn’t for this damn reporter, I wouldn’t think anything about it. I’m only worried about being caught. I’m not sorry about the drugs or the procedure.” He cupped my cheeks between his hands. “And I want to be able to tell you I’m sorry. I know you think it’s wrong. And I play dirty. I cheated. I only care what you think about me. I don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. But I don’t want you to look at me thinking I’m a liar. Because with you, I’m not.”
“Are you going to admit what you did?”
He dropped the warmth against my cheek. “No. Why would I do that?”
“To own up to it. To be honest with the AFA and your fans.”
“Before I left Sunday, we said something to each other.”
I’d never forget it. The way the word had rolled off his tongue. The moment I knew he owned more than just my body.
I nodded my head.
“And I do. I love you, Lennon. But you can’t ask me to do this. I’m not going public. My agent has a way to kill the story and the investigation. It’s going to take a huge chunk of my savings, but I’ve got new endorsements lined up. I’ll recover the money in three months, tops.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re not serious. You’re going to live with this lie?”
“It’s done. My hand is healed. I deserve to play in the Super Bowl. If I confess, it will ruin every man’s life on the Wranglers. Their kids’ lives. Their wives’ lives. I’m not going to do that to them just because you think it would make me an instantly morally acceptable man.”
I closed my eyes. This wasn’t the way I thought it would go. I thought the plan would be to hold a press conference and explain the medical transformation that had taken place. I thought he would want honesty and forgiveness.
“I guess I shouldn’t have expected you to change. You warned me, didn’t you?”
My hand gently tapped my stomach. What if I was pregnant? Could I have a baby with a man who lied to the world? A man who would cheat just to win? What kind of mother would I be if I let a liar raise my child?
I stood and walked into the bedroom. I couldn’t look at his beautiful green eyes another second. He wanted acceptance from me. He needed it. And I couldn’t give it.
Wes followed me, and I felt the nausea rising higher in my throat.
“Lennon, I need you. Baby, you’re the best thing in my life. I see it. I know it. But you have to realize…”
He was going on about how I had to buy in to his gray world of winning and losing, cheating and lying, when I rushed to the toilet, lifted the lid, and threw up.
“Shit, are you okay?” He stood behind me.
I wiped my mouth and looked up at him. “I think I’m pregnant.”
27
Wes
“Pregnant?” I dropped to the tile floor next to her. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah, holy shit.” She heaved into the toilet bowl a second time, and I held her hair.
When she was finished, she stood and walked to the sink. I stared at her while she brushed her teeth.
“I haven’t taken a test yet, but I’m late. I’m never late. And I’ve been nauseated. And then there’s the vomiting.”
I nodded as if I knew the pregnancy symptoms. What I knew was pregnancy threats. Women who showed up at my door, wanting money. But there were never any babies. Just money-hungry whores.
“So what do we do?” I crossed my arms.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t going to tell you like this. Not until after the game. But it feels like everything is so screwed up already, so why not? Right?”
God, I looked at her. Her cute nose, and those hips that had me on my knees. The woman who had taken the control from my grasp. And she was carrying my child. My baby. Our baby.
I walked toward her. “You’re so beautiful to me. Sexy and smart. And to know that we made a baby together…” I felt a lump in my chest. An overwhelming need to protect her and our new family. “You’re fucking incredible, you know that, Doc?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Mad? Hell no. You know how hot you’ll be when your tits swell up. And when your belly grows with my baby.”
“Our baby,” she corrected me.
“Right. Our baby.” I pulled her against my chest. “Everything is working out. This day started out like shit and now it’s perfect. All I need now is that Super Bowl ring, and I’ll have everything.”
She looked up at me. “How exactly are you getting out of the investigation?”
I scooped her up in my arms and carried her toward the bedroom. “Let’s talk about that over breakfast.”
“Wes, tell me.” She whacked me on the chest, but I wasn’t letting her go, and I wasn’t going to ruin the night with a bunch of legal jargon about the players’ union and lawsuits.
“You still want me? Like this?” she asked, with hurt in her voice.
I lowered to kiss her. “I’ve never wanted you more.” I dropped her clothes on the floor. I thought she was sexy before. But nothing was hotter than fucking the woman I had given a baby. We weren’t careful. I knew that, but it didn’t seem to matter. I wanted to be buried in her. I wanted my seed in her, and this was why. She was carrying my child now.
Her legs wrapped around me as I pushed inside her.
“Fuck me, Wes,” she moaned. “Like the first night.”
I slid into her. “Oh, this’ll be better than that.” I sucked hard on her nipple. “Because now I don’t just love fucking you. I love you.”
We both paced in front of the bathroom counter. Lennon sat on the edge of the tub and then was up again. We couldn’t be still. She walked over to the stick lying next to the sink.
“This is the longest three minutes of my life,” she sighed.
“No shit.” I was horrified and excited.
I had a messenger deliver a pregnancy test to the suite first thing this morning. Neither one of us needed the press spotting us in a drug store with one of these things.
“I think it’s time,” she announced.
I held my breath while she read the test. In an instant, I was terrified it would be negative. Getting her pregnant wasn’t the plan, but with the possibility this was a false alarm, I realized how much I wanted her to have my baby. How much I wanted this together.
I tried to read her expression. “God, you’re killing me, Doc. What does it say?”
She lowered the stick. Her blue eyes were clear and certain. “I’m pregnant.”
I grinned. “I knew it.”
She laughed. “I knew it too.”
I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her on the forehead.
She looked up at me. “Can we go back to bed now just for a little nap? It’s not even 6am.”
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s get some more sleep.”
With enough money, anyone can be bought off. I learned that when I made my first million. My agent had learned it too. Jenny Nichols took her money and changed her story before the next morning’s headlines. She reported that her source was a phony and she had x-rays to prove that Wes Blakefield’s injury had in fact been a sprain all along.
Lennon and I read the headlines in bed.
“I can’t believe this.” She scrolled through her tablet. “There’s not a single mention of an AFA investigation. Why aren’t they looking into it?”
I smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “I told you we had nothing to worry about.”
“Not really the point.”
“Can’t you be happy we’re not being interrogated? It’s going to be old news.”
I knew she was still mad I hadn’t done the honorable thing. And now that I was going to be a father, that would have to change. I wasn’t going to let my son or daughter grow up the way I did.
I wouldn’t be the kind of father who pushed them regardless of the rules. That meant I was going to have to start following them.
My hand snaked under the covers to Lennon’s flat belly. In a few months, her body would be different. I was going to love every second of it. The ice cream runs. The trips to the doctor. All of it. Normal dad stuff that other guys did.
“You know you could still come forward. You don’t have to wait to get caught.”
“I know that’s what you want me to do, but I’m not putting you through that stress. And before you say anything, that’s not just an excuse.” I stared at her hard. “You’d be interviewed. They’ll check all your previous prescriptions. Investigate your case histories. It could go on for months. You don’t deserve that. You did everything right, Doc.
And you’re carrying our baby. So I need to know… can you live with this lie? Can you be with me, knowing what I did?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to say yes, but I can’t say no to you. But I have a condition.”
“Name it.”
“If you ever get hurt again. Ever. You heal like a man. You let your body work and heal for you. No substances. No broken rules. No lies to me or the AFA.”
“See, this is why I need you.” I cupped my palm over her navel, feeling her quickly inhale at my touch.
“What do you mean?”
“To help me be a better man. To be a good father.”
I saw the softness sweep over her. “Wes, you’re going to be an amazing father. I know it.”
“You know, this baby is going to be here at the beginning of the season.” I eyed her.
“Don’t look at me. You’re the one who knocked me up.”
“True.” I rolled her on top of me and she giggled. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Not sick yet.” She smiled.
“Don’t move,” I ordered. I scooted to the end of the bed until I was between her legs. My favorite place to be. She spread her thighs for me and tilted so my tongue could slide inside her.
“Oh God, Wes.” She buried her face in the pillow while I sucked and lapped at her. I could make her come all day. As the vibrations slowed, I rolled out from under her, tilted her hips up, and eased myself into her wet heat. I loved taking her like this. Looking down at the roundness of her ass, while her tits rubbed against the sheets.
“Tell me,” I commanded.
“Fuck me until I’m yours,” she whimpered.
“You are mine, Lennon. God, you’re mine.”
She panted and wiggled as I pumped in and out of her. We both knew things were different. The sex was still fucking hot. But there was love between us now. And that love had made a baby.
I didn’t know what was going to happen in two days at the Super Bowl, but I realized Lennon’s one mission had finally been accomplished. As I held her in my arms, I realized there was more to life than winning a game. There was more than adding points to the scoreboard. There was more than being carried off the field as a hero. Because in my arms, I already knew I had won everything.
Epilogue
Lennon
One Year Later
I closed the door and tiptoed down the hall, clutching the monitor in my hand. I watched it the entire way to the living room.
“She’s asleep?” Wes asked.
“For now.” I sighed.
“Come here.” He folded me in his arms as I sank into the couch to join him.
I thought pulling long shifts at the hospital was exhausting, but nothing compared to all-nighters with this little one.
I had gone back to work part-time two weeks ago, and I was still trying to figure out how to balance the sleep deprivation. This was a completely different level. I was sure my patients wouldn’t be interested to know I was running on fumes.
“Let me take that.” Wes wiggled the monitor from my hands. “She’s a pretty cute kid, Doc.”
I smiled. “She is, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “A year ago we were at the Super Bowl and now look at us.”
“Yeah, we have a four-month old who runs our lives.”
Wes laughed. His broad chest shaking as he held me closer.
I traced my fingers over his wide knuckles, drawing strength from his hands. I circled over the Super Bowl ring he wore on his right hand. It was ornate, encrusted with diamonds and the team name with champs engraved under a dark blue stone.
I thought about what Wes had put himself through to get that ring. The lies, the deceit, the injections. The center stone was smooth under my fingertips.
“How upset are you that we’re not in Miami for the game tonight?” I looked into his green eyes, knowing I’d be able to read anything that wasn’t the full truth.
His fingers laced through the back of my head. “I’m not giving up on another Super Bowl. But, this wasn’t the season.”
&nb
sp; I twisted my lips together. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“We made it to the playoffs. Besides, I get to watch the game with you tonight.”
I studied the crease in his brow. I knew I was pushing him. He was upset he wasn’t there. He wanted to defend his championship status. More than anything I think he wanted to prove to both of us he could win without cheating.
But I had come to realize that over the past year. Wes was the kind of man who wanted to win, but something he had changed. The first time he held Charlotte I could see it. He wanted to be a different kind of man. He wanted to be a father she could be proud of. She was his chance to start a new chapter in his life. One that included honesty.
“What time are your parents coming over for the game?” I asked.
It was my idea to invite them. We spent every Sunday together in Wes’s box. It seemed fitting we would watch the Super Bowl together. They couldn’t get enough of Charlotte.
Wes looked at his watch. “We still have two hours.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And the baby’s asleep.”
I was exhausted to the deepest parts of my bones. My muscles were weary. I could barely keep my eyes open. But with one look Wes had awakened every nerve in my body. The hammering in my chest made my breathing quicken.
“But you have to be very quiet, Doc.” He pressed a finger to my lips.
I nodded. “I can do that.”
“Are you sure?” He smiled wickedly. “Because I don’t plan on gentle fucking.”
My knees shook, and there was a quivering in my core that was already spiraling. Yes, that’s what I needed. I needed him to take me to bed and remind me I was his. That despite the whirlwind we had been swept up in this past year, I was still his.
“God, yes,” I whispered in his ear.
He lifted me from the couch as his mouth descended on my lips. I sucked greedily, wanting him to know that I wanted everything he could give me.
He laid me on the bed, stripping my jeans over my hips. His eyes flickered with lust.
Beauty and the Billionaire Bad*ss Page 27