“There’s just one,” he said, thinking of Izzie and wanting to do more for her even though she insisted she could handle his scuffs. “She said she’s okay with it. She’s resilient like that.”
“Resilient doesn’t sound like Tabitha,” his agent commented.
“It’s not Tabitha. I never had with her what I’ve got going with—” He stopped himself, right on the brink of screwing up. “With the woman I’m seeing now. She keeps me guessing, gives me peace of mind. She knows she’s sexy, but she can’t see how completely beautiful she is. She’s okay with my problems.”
“Damn,” George said, looking around at the other men, “you have a woman like that and you’re keeping her name in the vault? I wouldn’t.”
Would you, if she was your father’s fiancée?
Milo redirected the conversation to his dead career. He’d revive it or reincarnate it. He couldn’t let himself give up. He and Luca weren’t that much alike. “I want to open the discussion. Let’s talk alternatives,” he said to George.
“I’m glad you said that. You’re not getting back into a jersey and helmet, and you don’t want the suit-and-tie desk job. You want a place in the NFL, on the turf.”
“It’s where I’m meant to be.”
“So hear me out—this is million-dollar advice. You were a leader in offense and you pushed your men for fourteen seasons. You’re smart and Jimar Fray’s hit didn’t scramble your brain. I’m confident your chances of returning to the game have just reversed, if you’re open to coaching.”
***
A coach—him, now?
Milo drove to his place, split between defeat and optimism. His career as a player truly was over. The reality sank in slowly as he entered his condo, turned on the electric fireplace, and collapsed onto the sofa. Was he capable of channeling his passion for the game into an ability to direct his men on the field? Or would he live vicariously through them and always feel deprived of a dignified retirement?
Would he move forward or remain a goddamn prisoner to the past?
Izzie arrived carrying a gift bag. “Last week I was looking around and decided your place isn’t green enough.” He’d bought the condo furnished, hadn’t been interested in pretending it would be a real home. There was a total of one plant. “So I brought you something low-maintenance to get you started.”
He opened the bag to find a Chia Pet inside. “A pig,” he said.
“The pig is my favorite, so by default…” She shrugged, smiled. “Do you hate it?”
“No, I don’t hate it. Or detest it. Or dislike it.” He kissed her cheeks, lips, the side of her neck, and he got nice and comfortable there. He’d come to rely on her cottony-clean scent and how she moaned when he gripped her neck and held her still for his kiss.
“C’mon,” she said, setting down the gift bag and holding his hand as they rushed to his bedroom. She stripped down to her panties and playfully fell backward onto the bed. Her white skin contrasted with the dark blankets.
Milo lay beside her, stroking her from breasts to pussy and lingering there before he yanked her onto her side, facing him.
“Hey,” she said, the word barely a breath, “you seem kind of stormy. You okay?”
“It’s football. I’m not going to play again.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re retired.” She paused. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”
“I was in training this past year. I wanted a comeback.”
Izzie’s chin dropped, and she looked up at him through her lashes. “That explains the body. Training for a comeback? To Arizona?”
“Anywhere—at least that’s what I was thinking. But it’s been confirmed that the injury and my age aren’t going to make it a safe bet. No team’s going to want the risk.”
“What about the risk to you? ESPN played the footage from that game against the Villains. It was awful. I wouldn’t want to see you broken on the ground. You’re wealthy in your own right plus the heir to a fucking fortune. You don’t need the salary.”
“It’s not about the money, Izzie. It’s about getting back what was stolen.”
“Sometimes when we lose something, it really is gone. You take too long to accept change. I’m the same way.” She smiled encouragingly. “So you’re not a football player anymore. Get over it. I’m not in my twenties and engaged anymore. I’m getting over it.”
She was frank and sweet and she was right.
“My agent suggested I open up to other possibilities. Coaching.”
“I think your agent is a very smart guy.” Then she kissed him. “I’m figuring out that people should try to open up to things that might be a better fit as they change. You couldn’t play forever.”
“I wanted to change the way I left the NFL.”
“Nothing’s going to erase the fact that you were injured and can’t suit up again. So maybe your comeback will be different. You’re coming back in a different role. You have the technical skills. You were in line to inherit a franchise.”
She was making too much sense and making him see his stubbornness for the self-defeating roadblock it was. “What about you and me, Izzie? We weren’t right for each other when we met.”
She made a noise of agreement. “We were chasing the wrong things. Now I’m different and you are, too. So we’re…hmm…a better fit. A good fit. A matching set.”
“Lock and key.”
Laughing, she said, “Precisely. Are we going to keep doing this? Seeing each other?”
“We can keep doing what feels right. Fucking you feels right.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”
“You could try and then you’d stop once I put my mouth on your cunt and make you come screaming.”
“Or I could put my mouth on your cock.” Izzie wiggled down and then she was curled at the foot of the bed, snuggled against him and perfectly positioned to undo his pants. Getting his cock out, she stroked his shaft and fit her mouth over the head.
Looking down, he smoothed her hair back and watched her suck him in as far down as she could. He felt his balls tightening, knew he was hardening in her warm, wet mouth.
“Wait for me,” she told him, using her hand to pump as she straddled his thighs and got into position. Her other hand clumsily tried to pull the crotch of her panties aside and she attempted to rock onto him—
But he felt the tension in his cock ease, and, swearing viciously, he said, “Son of a fucking bitch. It’s not going to happen.”
“It’s…it’s okay,” she said after a moment, moving her hands up his chest and lying on top of him. “It can’t always be the way we had it on the island.”
“My doctor recommended a urologist and sex therapist. I didn’t want to go that route because I know where it’ll lead—to a point where I have to swallow down a pill every time I want inside you.”
“A PDE inhibitor could work. Wouldn’t you want to know if there are infertility problems?”
“Sounds like you’ve been doing some research.”
“I have,” she said firmly. “I’ll cop to that. Because I’m worried about how it’s affecting you to not being able to perform the way you want to. I don’t need PIV sex every time, all the time. I need to know that something can take off the pressure and let you concentrate on what you feel and who’s making you feel it.”
Izzie Phillips would fight this fight with him? How could he have loved someone who didn’t have her guts and persistence?
“There are workarounds, Milo. Sex isn’t the only way to make love.”
“Which are we doing?” he asked, even though he was as ill-prepared to answer the question as she.
The doorbell rang, and had his body not turned against him, he would’ve ignored it. But since he’d backed them into a corner with that question, he was only too relieved that Izzie slid off him so he could get up.
Zipping his pants, he went to the door. His brother was on the other side, and instead of wa
iting to be allowed inside, Jeremiah swaggered in.
“Waverly’s in the car. We’re taking you out. VIP access—”
“Thanks, but I’m going to stay in tonight,” he said.
“That’s sad as hell.” Jeremiah was about to say more, but he looked past Milo and narrowed his eyes at the purse on the leather sofa. “You have somebody here?”
“Yeah, I do.” As Milo pushed the purse farther back on the sofa, he bumped a key chain and it released a mechanical meow.
“A cat key chain? The thing’s eyes just shot out beams.”
“I, um, think it’s a flashlight key chain. That, um, meows.” Shrugging, he turned around and met the angriest look he’d even seen on his brother’s face.
“Whose purse is that?”
“What the fuck does it matter to you?”
“How many women do you fuck who have cat flashlights hanging off their bags? I know only one woman who’s into novelty shit like that. One.”
“It’s Izzie Phillips’s purse.”
“You’re fucking Izzie? What the…?” Jeremiah grabbed his head, let go, swore. “What the hell is happening to our family? Dad’s been missing for a month and now you’re smashing his ex? She called herself our stepmother. That’s not right.”
“Actually,” interrupted Izzie, stomping across the wood floor naked except for her panties, “we were in the middle of smashing, but now I’m going to make s’mores.”
Jeremiah averted his eyes. “Christ. Tell her to put something on over her tits or I’m going to give her my jacket.”
Izzie shook her head and vanished into the kitchen.
“Jeremiah, this isn’t some scheme. We’re not together to hurt you or fuck with Dad. I want Izzie in ways I didn’t even want Tabitha. She knows me, Jeremiah. Really, she knows me and she’s with me.”
“What’s in this for her?”
“We’re not together on a deal.”
“So all of a sudden, after being enemies, you’re lovers?”
“She was on the Seychelles on some trip Dad let her plan a while back. I went looking for her because I thought she knew where Dad went. She didn’t, but she agreed to come back to Vegas with me in case he tried to make contact with her. It’s strange, the fact that he didn’t have the trip canceled when he broke things off.”
“Can you trust her, Milo?
“I do trust her. I’ll regret it later if I have to, but this is working for us.”
He saw Izzie appear in the kitchen doorway, now wearing an apron over her bare tits.
“There’s something you need to know, then you both can make up your minds about whether or not you trust me. Luca gave me about two million euros to keep in a deposit account on Mahé. He’s always been a big spender, and he’d told me that we were going to be married by the time of the vacation, so I really didn’t think it was all that odd.” She looked at Milo. “The day after Valentine’s, I emptied and closed the account. I donated the money to a conservation society on the Seychelles. It can be verified. As broke as I am, I still didn’t want to bring his money back with me.”
“Two million,” Jeremiah said, his head rocking side to side. “That much money? It sounds like storage.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he’d had you put so much in the account?” Milo asked her.
“I thought it was ridiculous that Luca would use me and a Valentine’s vacation to get himself out of Dodge. And I didn’t know if you really would protect me. We had sex, but we didn’t put all our cards on the table. So does that answer your question?”
Jeremiah shifted, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. And he cringed.
“After I found out somebody disabled the security system at the villa, I didn’t feel safe, and decided I should leave.”
“It was disabled?” Damn, and he’d accepted that she’d simply forgotten to set it. He should’ve been on sharper alert. How else had her privacy been compromised on that island?
Besides you going out there with her entire history memorized.
“Yes, completely unarmed. So I checked out, emptied that account and…” She lifted her hands, dropped them. “I still think you’re wrong about his plans. It’s been a few weeks since then and he hasn’t tried to contact me.”
“Jeremiah?” someone called out, knocking before pushing open the door. Waverly Greer walked into the condo. “Did you convince your brother to come with us to— Oh, God. Izzie Phillips?”
Izzie waved then looked to Milo to explain.
But Jeremiah beat him to it. “Milo and Izzie decided it wouldn’t be fucked up at all for them to screw each other.”
Waverly turned on her heel. “We should leave, Jeremiah.”
“Congratulations on the engagement,” Izzie said to the pair. “Milo told me a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t leak a word of it to anyone. So yes, Jeremiah, to answer your earlier question, he can trust me.”
Jeremiah and Waverly left, and Milo hesitated to lock the door. “Are you leaving, too, after what they put you through?”
Izzie ran to him, kissed him hard. “You defended me to your brother. He’s all the family you have left right now, and you faced him down to defend me.” She hugged him. “Why don’t we open up your new pig plant? It’s not an expensive night out with VIP access, though.”
“Fuck that. The only thing I want VIP access to is your body.”
***
“ESPN’s legal analyst is on, talking about Luca Tarantino.”
Izzie, who’d been inspecting the leaves on her windowsill plants, set aside her magnifying glass and gardening kit and followed her roommate’s voice—absent of its usual singsong cadence—to the living room. Perched on an arm of the sofa, Toya held her son against her chest and tipped her head toward the television.
“Breaking news.”
“Did they find him?” Izzie made a motion to clear the coffee table of its usual accumulation of designer accessories, baby toys, dishes, books, and plenty other random things her friend touched on a daily basis, but it’d already been cleared. Not only cleared, but cleaned and lemony-fresh polished. Preoccupied, she sat on a corner of the table and listened to the analyst sandwiched between two sports anchors speak while she quickly read the information scrolling across the ESPN Bottom Line.
“…FBI has confirmed that Tarantino’s former legal counsel is cooperating within the confines of the confidentiality agreement he signed last year. Attorneys Chuck Constant and Waylon Spencer are expected to issue a statement by the end of the week addressing the unauthorized release of call records allegedly between Tarantino and former Las Vegas Villains defensive lineman Jimar Fray. A representative of the firm has acknowledged this as an internal action, though it’s yet to be confirmed whether or not the action was deliberate.”
“Shit,” Izzie said, gnawing her bottom lip. “Former counsel. Did you catch the beginning of this, Toya? Did the analyst clarify whether someone in the office leaked the resignation decision as well as the records?”
“It was on, but I didn’t hear everything until the name penetrated. This is really getting strange. The man’s been missing for over a month. What about Antony Grimaldi? He’s being hunted, too, isn’t he?”
“No one has been able to get anything to stick without Luca to give him up.”
“How certain are we that this is a suspect-skips-town story? What if there was—” Toya twisted around to give Izzie a sympathetic look through her cat-eye glasses “—foul play.”
Please, don’t let it be that. Luca Tarantino had handled her carelessly, and she wanted him to face the consequences of his illegal activities, his abuse of power as an NFL team owner, and, particularly, his cruel choice to pay someone to injure his own son. She didn’t wish him well, but she didn’t wish him death, either.
She thought of Anne Tarantino’s name in the cross tattooed on Milo’s biceps. Would he add his father’s name, if…
Izzie stood up.
“Toya, I need to go.”
“Somewhere?” Though evidently concerned, Toya asked no more than that.
“Be home soon.”
Izzie texted Rick Smoltz from the apartment building’s parking lot, and this time she did meet him in his corner office. This would be their final meeting, and she would not be joining The Vegas Beat.
She wanted out. In the beginning she’d wanted security, a chance to find her footing in the workforce, but to find that security by betraying someone she cared about seemed irredeemable and as dirty as anything she’d ever done.
“What I told you about Luca Tarantino’s lawyers dropping him—did you release that information?” Izzie asked, sitting across from him.
Rick, who hadn’t done so much as to stand or signal her to enter the office, watched her wordlessly from his taller, wider chair. On that side of the desk sat the superior; on the other side the inferior. “Walk around to this side of the desk, Izzie,” he said, and his voice made her think of frost. “Look at The Beat’s homepage.”
Izzie did, and reviewed the new stories as he scrolled to the bottom and then to the top. “I don’t see anything involving Tarantino.”
“We didn’t jump on it. At your request, I waited. I thought you’d get me more. Now ESPN and some third-rate sports blogs have fucking phone records. Did you know about the phone records?”
“No. I saw it on TV.”
“What do you have for me? Give me something significant. I need a competitive edge here—everyone’s on this now.”
“I’m not doing this anymore, Rick.”
“We have a deal.”
“Not anymore. I don’t want to be on your staff. I don’t want to be a double agent, either. This is a real family we’re targeting. I don’t want to get a job this way.”
“They’re all celebrities. Collateral damage.”
“Not to me.”
“Is this eleventh-hour change of heart out of respect for Luca, or because you’re letting his heir fuck you?”
Izzie put some space between them. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
The Hook: The End Game Series (Book 4) Page 16