Know When to Hold Him

by Lindsay Emory

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Since he first met the woman, she’d never been one hundred percent honest, always skipping out, avoiding direct questions, and leaving out huge portions of the truth. Like the fact that she played him in New York, manipulating her contacts to make sure Troy went first, making him think she was screwing him over.

  While screwing him.

  Fuck.

  Liam felt like the air had been punched out of him.

  Spencer was just like every other woman when faced with an athlete and a couple million on the table. She was going to lie, cheat, and steal to get hers. And when that didn’t work, she’d just sell herself.

  The memories of the last few weeks assaulted him, tearing up his insides with a machete. He should have known it was all too good to be true.

  She was too good to be true.

  Pissed at the pain she was causing him even now, Liam reminded himself that he was lucky. Troy had an amazing organization behind him. The test had come back negative.

  If he’d listened to George Clayton, Troy would have been really screwed. Or not, if they’d given Dalynn enough money.

  Still, truth was the ultimate defense. And Liam would rather have that beautiful medical piece of paper than anything.

  Almost anything.

  Liam’s phone had been ringing off the hook, and, when it rang again, he checked the caller ID. Jared.

  “Hey, man.”

  “Look, I was thinking. I got all this research up here about Troy’s crazy exgirlfriend. Do I need to do anything with that?”

  Liam rubbed his eyes. Public relations and press management was sometimes a necessary part of the job, but he was so glad the Renegades’ front office was handling this one. “Sure. Just send it all down here.” Liam gave Jared the name of the woman handling the press.

  “All of it?” Jared asked. “’Cause Clayton had sent me some stuff too…”

  “Yeah, all of it.” Whatever. Let someone else worry about Dalynn’s grades and her dating history. She had declared war on Troy. What happened next was on her. And on Spencer.

  …

  Spencer sat on her couch with a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn and watched the end of the nightly news. Troy Duncan had not been mentioned. She wondered if she should check ESPN. She could check online and see if the story was still hot in San Antonio, the home of the Renegades.

  Spencer took a sip of wine and reminded herself of her new mantra. Not my problem. Rainey and Nora had been right. She had to focus on re-building, networking, and re-establishing her credibility. This was not their mess to clean up. Not their circus, not their monkeys. This was Troy’s, it was Franklin Mahoney’s, it was Dalynn’s problem.

  It was Liam’s.

  Damn him. Spencer hadn’t called Liam. He hadn’t called her. She wasn’t sure what would happen next. Who would take the next step? Was it over, just like that? Spencer crunched her nose at the little pain that grew behind her forehead at that possibility. Surely, it wasn’t over. Not over something this stupid.

  But radio silence from Liam Connelly? Hadn’t happened before. They’d been hard-core opponents, and he’d still wanted to date her. Maybe she should face facts. Maybe it was over.

  The Blackberry next to her on the couch rang. The caller ID said it was Roberta, her friend at the news station. A queasiness boiled in Spencer’s gut. She hadn’t called Roberta with any kind of story. And it was late at night. Roberta had just finished the late news broadcast and wasn’t calling about an impromptu tennis date. Whatever Roberta was calling about, Spencer wasn’t behind it.

  After Spencer answered, Roberta jumped right in. “I hate to do this, girl, but I got some information and I thought I’d better check it out first with you. They wanted it on tonight, but I said, ‘Spencer is my girl and I’m not going there until we get confirmation’.”

  Roberta’s information was all about Dalynn. Dirty laundry, character assassination, all probably true, all avoidable.

  Spencer dropped her head as Roberta spewed the facts as they’d “uncovered” them. They hadn’t been uncovered by dogged investigative journalists. The smear campaign had been dropped in their laps, tied in a bow, with a card that read, “From OPM. Or from the Renegades.” Spencer should know—she’d played that move often enough.

  A wave of helplessness engulfed Spencer. It didn’t have to be this way. She could have saved Dalynn, handled things so that no one was hurt. But Dalynn had been hurt anyway, and she’d lashed out, as hurt people did. Spencer could only pray that Dalynn found her peace—that, one day, she could accept all the shit that was raining down on her. Lord knew, Spencer had tried long enough for that goal.

  Roberta paused, and Spencer waited as the news anchor dangled the other shoe, threatening to drop it.

  “What?” Spencer asked, wary of surprises. Was it Dalynn again? Troy? Another client? There was a slightly-too-long pause. “Roberta?”

  “This part’s about you.”

  “What do you mean, it’s about me?”

  “The rest of the story. It’s about you.” A roar crashed in her ears as Roberta said, “Dimitri Korolov” and the words, “assault” and “security” and “prostitute.”

  “T-That’s crazy,” Spencer managed.

  “Okay, that’s what I thought,” Roberta said. “But I’m not doing my job if I don’t call. Especially when it involves a Senator’s daughter and a playboy millionaire. But I should also know shit when I smell it.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Spencer heard herself saying. “But just so I can deal with any disgruntled clients, who was it? Who called you?”

  Roberta hesitated. Probably over some journalistic ethical thing, Spencer thought. “Well, since we’re friends…it was from someone at OPM-the sports agency? Sounds like maybe there’s some bad blood with that Duncan story. I mean, you and I know that you didn’t send out that press release, but they must be mighty pissed at you.” The roaring started up again. Then the bile rose. In the distance, Roberta rattled off a name, and then Spencer automatically said goodbye.

  The Blackberry fell to the floor. Then Spencer joined it, falling to her knees in disbelief.

  It had been a long time since Spencer had experienced such a spectacular defeat. The pain was sharper than she had expected, more solid.

  So this is heartbreak. Country singers weren’t lying. It was fucking serious. For a few minutes, she lost herself, just swallowed up by the earth. She had wondered whether it was over with Liam, and this was her definitive answer. He was done. They were done. He’d sold her out.

  She should have known. Her entire life, raised in politics, she had seen the essential nature of people, of herself. For a brief, shining moment, Liam Connelly was the exception. The man who could be big enough to love her no matter what, no matter the stakes.

  But no one could be that big.

  A good cry was therapeutic, Spencer concluded an hour later. After the tears stopped, the long, hot shower helped her recover her strength as she remembered that crying was not the only thing she could do. She was an adult, not a child. She took care of things her way now. And when she picked up the phone and pressed Liam Connelly’s number, she pushed down the pain and was gratified when anger rose up in its place. Because she needed anger. She needed a lot of it.

  He answered just after the first ring. “Spencer.” His voice was cool, when it used to be warm. It made her want to scream.

  “Don’t. Don’t you dare. Not after what you did.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “You had no right.”

  “No right to what?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t get a call, Liam? I know everyone in this town. Of course they’re going to call me first when they hear a ridiculous story about Spencer Hightower being assaulted by Dimitri Korolov.”

  She heard the quick inhale of breath. He had been caught. He’d better be scared.

  “I know it came from OPM, and you are the only other person who knows
anything. This didn’t come from Dimitri; he’s not that stupid…”

  “Spencer,” Liam repeated her name, as he did the night they’d met, as if it was some sort of mantra meant to console and soothe. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “It’s fine, okay? I get it. You’re getting back at me for this whole damn thing. This is why I didn’t want to fall in love with you. Because…because….” Spencer’s strength faltered. “Because someone always gets hurt, and I will not be hurt. I will not be beaten. I will not fall over someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?” Liam echoed her words, and Spencer flinched when they shot back at her. It hadn’t come out like she’d meant it, but it was there.

  “I should’ve never let my guard down. I should have realized that I can’t trust anyone. You thought I was bad. You thought I was too competitive? You thought I couldn’t separate the personal from the professional? I would’ve never, never, lashed out at you personally. I do have standards. You make me sick. I never want to see you again.”

  And with a click, the connection was broken. Along with her heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  After hearing the ragged, raw pain in Spencer’s voice, he’d stayed up nearly the whole night, What Ifs and Maybes racing through his mind. Time and again, he reminded himself of the games she’d played, the lies she’d told. But the stone he called a heart kept returning to one sickening conclusion: Spencer believed what she had told him, believed he’d betrayed her.

  The next morning, Liam headed straight to the Renegades’ offices and charmed some old records out of an administrative assistant. One question had been bothering him, since Spencer had sworn that Dalynn’s press release wasn’t her doing. There, in a file containing every PR memo and document relating to the Renegades’ stadium, Liam found out that Spencer had told the truth. Every document from Hightower & Associates was printed with a draft date that corresponded with the date of the e-mail or fax. And Dalynn’s dates didn’t add up.

  Shit.

  Dalynn had gone rogue.

  If Spencer had sent the press release, she would have owned it. Maybe she would have spun it, but she would have owned it. And if Spencer had been right about Dalynn…

  He headed to the airport to catch the next flight out of San Antonio, back to Dallas.

  Back to her.

  Spencer’s condo was just ten minutes from Love Field, and Liam soon found himself standing in the parking lot. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and Stuart appeared as fresh as a daisy for the day shift.

  The grimness on Stuart’s face told him Liam wasn’t getting upstairs to the twenty-second floor.

  “I need to see her.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Stuart responded. “But I can’t let you up.”

  “What did she say?” Liam fought the urge to go to the door anyway. Stuart was in his sixties. Liam could take him.

  “She told me I can’t let you up anymore.”

  Liam thrust two hands in his hair and made a frustrated noise. “She’s not picking up her phone. How am I supposed to explain…?” Liam didn’t finish the question. He wasn’t even sure what he was explaining. That he didn’t leak the Dimitri story? The problem was, he knew he hadn’t. But he wasn’t sure who had.

  “That you didn’t screw up?” Stuart finished the question for him, in a blunt way.

  “Yeah.” Liam clenched his fists and took a swing at the “NO UNATTENDED VEHICLES” sign.

  “You think that’s going to do any good?”

  Liam shook his fist out and squinted at Stuart. “I’m not going to just let this go. I have to fix this.”

  “Then fix it, dumbass.”

  Stuart’s blunt approach was starting to piss Liam off. Liam stalked toward the doorman, his right hand clenching and unclenching. “I’m trying to. You’re in the way.”

  “No, you’re not trying to fix it. You’re trying to apologize. And women like ours? They don’t want to hear our sad sorrys. They want us to be a man and do something about it.”

  That got Liam’s attention. “Is that what she said? Did she tell you that?”

  Stuart shook his head. “Nope. She said, ‘Stuart, call a courier and send these to Mr. Connelly.’” Stuart reached behind the doorman’s podium and handed Liam two items. The first was a black suit jacket on a hanger. The second was a small brown paper bag with a handle from the local gourmet food store. Inside was a Blackberry with a flashing light indicating that there were messages. She hadn’t read his texts.

  He swore colorfully and crumpled the brown paper in his hand. Liam hung his head in defeat, again calculating how fast Stuart could move. But it wouldn’t matter. If Spencer was even at home, he knew she would have no problem calling the Dallas PD to get him out of the building. And he liked Stuart. Liam really didn’t want to knock him down.

  “What if I can’t fix it?” Liam finally asked the older man. “What do I do then?”

  Stuart considered Liam. “Is there another woman?”

  “God, no,” Liam spat.

  “Did you steal from her?”

  “No!”

  Stuart frowned. “Then it’s fixable. Whatever it is.”

  …

  Liam was shown into JT’s office after being made to wait an interminable length of time. He wasn’t sure if that was a sign, but, as soon as he saw JT’s glum face, he knew it was. JT and Spencer had talked.

  Liam knew what JT was going to say. “Don’t say it,” Liam threatened.

  “Fine.” JT lifted his hands. “But I told you so.”

  “I told you not to say that.”

  “Well, I like being right. It happens so rarely, I like to memorialize the occasion. I might get a plaque. Right now, it’s just circled on my calendar.”

  Liam leaned over JT’s desk, hands flat on piles of paperwork. “What did she tell you?”

  “You fucked up. She doesn’t want to see you. I’m not supposed to put you two in the same room, even if you ask. She did say that I could still be friends with both of you, though, which I think is big of her.” JT leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “So the answer is no.”

  “I didn’t ask you anything,” Liam snapped, as he paced in front of JT’s desk in a circle eight formation.

  “I had this weird hunch you were about to ask me to help you with Spencer.”

  “She won’t take my calls. She told Stuart not to let me up.”

  “Who’s Stuart?”

  “Her doorman.”

  “Ah.” JT thought for a moment. “Phil will probably beat your head in if you try to go to her office.”

  Liam’s mouth flattened. “Yeah. Thought about that.” Phil was a big guy.

  “So you came here to ask for mediation.”

  Liam paused in his pacing and faced JT. “She’ll listen to you.”

  JT sat up in his chair. “I’m sorry, are we talking about the same woman? Tall, blond, pissed as hell? She doesn’t listen to me when she’s in a good mood.”

  “You’ve known her for a long time…”

  JT waved that off. “What do you want me to say? ‘Hey Spencer, Liam’s not as big of a jerk as you think he is, give him another chance’?” JT shook his head. “I’ve known her for long enough to know that she doesn’t bend that easily. For that matter, she doesn’t get pissed off easily. Whatever you did, it was serious. She didn’t grow up like you and I. The Hightowers are political animals. They’re used to bad press and people slamming them. They get back up and knock someone else down.” JT grimaced. “That’s why I stay on their good side.”

  Something JT said caught Liam’s attention. Political animals.

  Liam stared at JT. “You’re right. She’s a political animal.”

  JT stared back. “Yeah…is that what y’all are fighting about? Politics? Because that would be dumb. You should always agree with a woman about politics. They take that stuff personally.”

  “She’s ruthless. She burns the bodies, buries them, makes sure the
y don’t come back from the dead.”

  JT cocked his head. “Um…why are you talking about bodies? As a potential candidate for Attorney General, I don’t know that I need to hear about this…”

  Liam rocked back on his heels and rubbed his palms together. “I have to be a fixer. Tie up all the loose ends. Bury the bodies.”

  “Okay, seriously. I don’t want to know about burying anything, especially a body. It’s called plausible deniability.”

  Liam wasn’t feeling hopeful, but a plan took root. He knocked on JT’s desk. “Thanks, buddy,” he barked before running out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The first piece of the puzzle was in the research Jared had collected. According to Jared, George Clayton had volunteered a dossier of information on Dalynn Kay…and her representative, Spencer Hightower.

  Anticipation coursed through Liam’s veins as the pieces fell into place.

  Like George had said…every skeleton had been shaken out of the closet: Dalynn’s grades, her credit history, an arrest for drunk driving, a history of relationship updates on Facebook. There was less on Spencer: a brief bio and clippings about the presidential election.

  George had even included a Newsweek headline calling Spencer’s accident the event that “Brought Down a Political Dynasty.”

  Damn. No wonder she was so determined to win everything. She never wanted to be blamed for bringing down another dynasty. Headlines were brutal and unforgiving.

  According to the file, Liam hadn’t been the only person who called the security team at the White Rock Belle Mansion. But George Clayton had been the only one who had followed up with Dimitri.

  The research file had a short statement from Dimitri that named Spencer and didn’t name Liam, who was described as a “burly bodyguard type.” Liam wondered if George had tried to figure that one out. Probably. He didn’t seem like the type to let a loose end go. Kind of like Spencer.