by Aria Scott
I stopped. I had no choice. Joe practically body-blocked me in his effort to keep me from going over to Clarke. I looked at him closely. He seemed pale--the skin around his eyes and mouth appeared pinched.
“Joe, you have bad news written all over you,” I observed, my voice quiet. Intense.
“Uh…” Joe stared at me with wide, apprehensive eyes.
My stomach sinking to my toes, I braced myself. “Why is John Clarke looking at me like I’m something he scraped off the bottom of his boot?”
Joe touched my tuxedo sleeve, then let his hand drop to his side. His lips worked, but he seemed unable to say whatever words were sitting inside his mouth.
My sense of impending doom deepened. At the same time, the best moments of the day flashed in my head, and I remembered how satisfied I’d been feeling, just an hour ago. How blessed.
I glanced at the clock. It had just hit 9 PM.
“Talk to me,” I urged, my voice terribly calm. Perfectly unemotional. And completely at odds with the dragging sensation that was suddenly whirling inside me and sucking me down.
“Clarke opened the email,” Joe said, his voice trembling.
“So?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“Dude--”
“What kind of mistake, Joe?” I repeated.
Just then, Aubrey stepped up to us. She was frowning, her face creased with concern. She gripped my arm. “Chase, is everything okay?”
I held up one hand to quiet her, but otherwise, I didn’t look her way. The world around me had narrowed to a single point which was focused on my agent. “Joe--”
“He read the contract,” he blurted suddenly.
“Yeah, so what? He was supposed to read the contract.” As I looked at him, I started to realize that his problem must be centered around Clarke’s response to my contract proposal. I drew in a ragged breath. “Did the terms piss him off?”
Joe barked out a laugh that had zero humor in it. “Yeah, you could say he’s pissed.”
Behind Joe, I noticed Clarke pulling his wife off the dance floor. “Why the shit is he pissed?” I asked. “He pretty much dictated the terms himself.” I frowned. “Did you change the terms, Joe? Did you try to get us more money? Goddamnit--”
“No, no, it's not that.” Joe cut in. He glanced at Aubrey, then returned his focus to me. He seemed slack with sorrow, and I understood then that he was going to lay one hell of a doozy on me.
“Then. What. The. Fuck. Is. It,” I bit out.
“I emailed him the wrong contract,” he admitted in a rush.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Fuck.” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. Still, this wasn’t so bad. Why did he look like the world was about to end? “Who’s contract did you send him--Tillman’s?”
“No, man.”
“Then who?”
Aubrey suddenly clutched my arm. She’d gone as white as her wedding dress.
“I sent him yours, Chase.”
I cocked my head. “I don’t get it.”
“I emailed him your fake marriage contract with Aubrey.”
I stood stock-still. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “My fake marriage contract?”
Aubrey made a little choking sound.
“I’m sorry, man. Somehow the contracts got mixed up. The file names got mixed up. I thought I’d emailed him the contract for the next season, but I’d accidentally sent him the terms you’d had Aubrey sign when you hired her to marry you.”
My panic suddenly went into the red zone. I swayed a little. I felt a weight pressing on my chest. I heard Aubrey gasp, as if from far away. I remembered the language in the contract between Aubrey and I, and realized that there was no way Clarke could mistake it for a prenuptial contract.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey breathed.
Suddenly, I felt a presence behind me.
“Chase, what’s wrong?” Dakota asked, her voice filled with alarm.
I turned to my sister, a roaring sound in my ears. “Take Aubrey home,” I choked out. “Now.”
“Now?” Dakota’s face registered her shock.
“Go,” I ordered, and then shoved my way past Joe to stagger toward Clarke.
I reached him just as he and his wife were putting on their coats. When he saw me, he turned away.
“Mr. Clarke, wait,” I begged.
Still not looking at me, he lowered his head toward his wife. “Go on outside, sweetheart, and have the valet bring our car around. I’d like to have a few moments alone to talk to Chase.”
His wife turned her silver head to look at me, and then her gaze quickly slid away, as if she’d been embarrassed by what she’d seen. Giving her husband’s arm a squeeze, she quickly exited the building.
Clarke pulled me aside. “Have you ever heard of a lucky accident, Chase?”
I shook my head no. I was afraid to speak. I felt my body flushing hot with shame.
“Well, I consider it a lucky accident that your agent sent me that contract you’d had Aubrey sign, because now I see you both for what you really are: world-class cons. Scam artists. You two really had me going, I have to hand it to you.” His tone deep and furious, Clarke shook his head.
“I...I…” I trailed off like an idiot.
He smiled angrily. “That’s right, there’s no excuse for what you did, and how you tried to deceive all of us.”
“Mr. Clarke, I know it seems bad--” Half-formed thoughts about how I’d fallen in love with Aubrey tumbled from my lips. I didn’t know how to express them.
“It doesn’t seem bad, Chase,” he said, after listening to me babble incoherently for a few seconds. “It is bad. Your behavior has always been reprehensible. I feel like a fool for actually believing you’d changed. For believing you deserve a place on my team.”
“But Mr. Clarke, I have changed--”
“No you haven’t,” he cut in. “This is one of the most devious, most pathetically desperate things I’ve ever run across in all of my years of professional football. Paying a woman to marry you, so we’d all think you’d turned over a new leaf? Pah! I’m disgusted.”
“Does this mean I’m off the team?” I asked in a dead-sounding voice.
He barked a laugh. “Are you kidding? I don’t want you within ten miles of the team. Consider yourself cut.”
“But...but…”
Clarke spun around and turned his back on me. “Goodbye, Wilder.”
I stood there alone, my hands open, my palms facing upward like a street corner beggar, only I didn’t needed a few bucks, I needed mercy. I needed understanding. And yet, clearly, Clarke wasn’t going to give either to me. He just walked away.
With him, he took my future. He took everything I’d ever believed in. Everything I’d worked for. And everything I’d wanted.
My shoulders slumped. I glanced backward, into the reception hall. Saw Joe standing with the rookie, Tillman. Tillman had a little smile on his lips.
What the hell...
All at once, I saw red. My eyes narrowed, I strode over to them. When I reached Joe, I poked him hard in the chest. “This wasn’t an accident, was it, Joe?”
He staggered back a little. Gave me a wide-eyed look. But I saw through it.
“Whatdayamean?” he asked quickly, the words slurring together--with fear, or drunkenness, or maybe both.
“You didn’t make any mistakes, here. You deliberately gave Clarke the contract I had with Aubrey, so that he’d cut me from the team.” I gave Tillman a hard glance, then returned my attention to Joe. “You sold me out so the rookie could take my place, didn’t you?”
“No, it was just a mistake…”
“Bullshit.” I clenched my fists. “What I want to know is why. Why did you throw me under the bus? Was it for money? Could you get more for Tillman than you could for me?”
“Chase, that’s not true--”
“Why don’t you just tell him?” T
illman cut in. “Why do you keep protecting him? He oughtta know.”
“Know what?” I paid little attention to the fact that the reception hall had gone silent, and most of the guests who still remained had gathered around us, and were listening with appalled expressions.
Joe glared at Tillman, then heaved a deep sigh. “Alright, I guess I should tell you. Clarke had no intentions of paying you even half of what you made last year. I can’t afford that. Ron, on the other hand, stands to make almost one and a half times the amount you originally signed for, back before you’d ruined your reputation.”
“So you gave Clarke the fake marriage contract that you drew up for me.” My blood was pulsing hot through my veins. I couldn’t believe how deep Joe’s betrayal went.
“You seem to be blaming Joe, here, for a situation you created,” Tillman interrupted, his tone full of righteousness. “If you wanted to stay on the team, you should have cleaned up your act, not tried to scam the team owner.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Tillman asked with a little smile.
I eyed a spot on Tillman’s chin.
“Hey, Chase,” Joe said. “Think about it this way. You’re a free agent now. You still could get signed by another team. You need to move on--find another rep, see who’s willing to sign you. I’ll bet you get picked up before the season starts.”
“Yeah, sure he will,” Tillman sneered.
Before even I knew what I was doing, I lifted my fist and clocked Tillman right on the chin. Tillman staggered backward, but then seconds later he came at me, fists flying. I grabbed him by the arm, pulled him in hard and landed a second punch in his kidneys, but then he kicked me in the thigh and pain exploded in my quad.
I went down.
“Jesus Christ, someone call the cops!”
Tillman was still upright, but swaying a few steps away. I struggled to my knees and swept him off his feet. We began to wrestle on the floor. As I blocked a kick to my balls, I felt his teeth sink into my bicep. I couldn’t believe how vicious he was, biting and kicking like a wild animal. It just made me even angrier. Crazier.
Just as I took a punch to the gut, I heard sirens. I didn’t care. I’d already disgraced myself. Now I just wanted to leave Tillman in puddle of his own snot. I punched at his head, his chest, his gut. He flailed back. And then someone yanked me off of him.
I turned, struggled, found myself in handcuffs.
The rest of it was a blur. Someone told me I was under arrest. One cop mirandized me. I heard another read Tillman his rights. Then we were both in the back seats of patrol cars--separate--ones, headed for the local precinct. As we pulled into the station and the cops yanked me from the car, I realized that I had just lost the one thing, and one person, who’d meant the most to me in life: football, and Aubrey.
Chapter 20
Aubrey
It had only been a few hours earlier when I had imagined my upcoming wedding night with Chase. I had fantasized a sensual and intimate evening, even one where I professed my true love and had those same feelings returned.
Instead, I was sitting in my wedding dress in the cold, institutional police precinct waiting for hours for the wheels of justice to turn, while shady characters and probable criminals sneered and made lewd comments to me as they shuffled in and out. Never could I have predicted a more dreadful wedding night.
After my brand new husband got hauled out of the reception in handcuffs, I had begged Gage to rush me to police station, while Mary stayed behind with Dakota to work on getting him a lawyer. Gage had wandered over to talk to the administrator for the hundredth time, leaving me alone with my heavy thoughts. I was still trying to process how this all happened. One minute Chase seemed to be on top of the world, the next he was plunged into hell. Somehow Chase’s agent had given the wrong contract to John Clarke, and now our fake marriage plan was exposed for everyone to see. It was a disaster.
Chase had sent me away before the fight broke out with Tillman, so I wasn’t sure what precipitated it. Did Chase just take out his anger on the first person who looked at him funny? Or was Tillman somehow involved? It was too confusing, and I was chewing my newly manicured nails into jagged edges just worrying about it all.
I was outlining the black grease stain on my insanely expensive wedding dress with my finger when Chase finally came through a door into the waiting area of the police station.
A man in a suit, who I supposed was his lawyer, accompanied him. “I’ll check with the processing of your papers. Let me get that squared away and then you should be free to go. I’ll have my secretary call you tomorrow.”
The two men shook hands and the lawyer left.
Chase turned to me. His eyes looked haunted. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean? I’m …” I choked back saying ‘I’m your wife’. It seemed ridiculous to say after the recent revelations had come to light. “Of course I came. Gage brought me. What’s going on?”
His jaw clenched. “Tell Gage to take you home. You’re in a police station, for fuck’s sake! In a wedding dress. This is all my fault.”
I flinched at the anger in his voice, but I wasn’t about to turn tail and run. “What’s going on? Please tell me.”
Chase sighed. “I talked to my lawyer. He said that I’d be out of here soon. They’re processing my release. He’s already talking to Tillman’s lawyer. Neither of us will press charges and this part should all go away without too much long-term consequence.”
“Thank God!”
I approached him slowly. I could see some swelling under his right eye and some reddening about his jaw. I reached up to tenderly touch his face. “You’re starting to bruise. Are you hurt?”
“Nah.” He grabbed my hand and drew it away from his face. “Not as much as I’d like to mess up that fucker Tillman’s face.”
“Chase!” I glanced around fearfully. “Quit being such an idiot! You’re lucky you’re getting out of here. Calm down before you screw this up.”
Chase practically growled at me. “Calm down? That asshole teamed up with Caifano to fuck me over so he could take my spot on the team.”
I had never seen Chase so angry. I tried to reason with him. “We could have worked this out. Starting a fight and landing in jail is not the way to impress John Clarke. Punching Tillman just proves to Clarke that all the negative character traits he accused you of are true. It wasn’t smart at all.”
Chase looked at me strangely - like I was betraying him. “You should have heard the weasel. He admitted outright how he and Caifano fucked me over with that shit-eating smile on his face. Right after you practically let him fuck you on the dance floor. He was just rubbing it in. I couldn’t help it.”
Even though I realized Chase was just lashing out, the jab about the dance floor hurt. After a long stressful wait, my patience was just about wearing thin. “Jesus, Chase! You have to be smart about this, or you’ll end up ruining everything.”
Chase looked incredulous. “Don’t you see? Everything is ruined already.”
His attitude was making me mad. Scarier still, it was making me nervous. I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “This thing with John Clarke is not the end of world.”
Chase shook his head in defeat. “Maybe not to you, but this is my whole life. You saw Clarke. I’m done.”
“There are other things besides football.” I said it softly, trying to console him.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. He tensed up. “How can you say that?”
I started getting a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was all going horribly wrong.
Chase repeated himself, getting more heated, until he was almost shouting. “How can you say that? Don’t you understand what happened? I lost my football contract. That was the sole reason we did this whole fucking thing.”
I was shocked. I understood that this was a huge blow to him, but a part of me was
screaming ‘this is our wedding night’. Didn’t that matter to him at all? He still had me.
I felt my pulse pounding in my temples. I tried to swallow back the question, because I didn’t really want to hear his answer, but it rushed past my lips like a bitter accusation. “Is that all you care about? Football?”
His eyes burned hotly. His tone was scornful, “what else would I care about?”
My heart sunk. It wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for. I’d been a fool thinking anything different. “Well, I guess that’s it then? Our cover’s blown and your football career is over.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll still get your precious money.” His face distorted with anger.
I gasped at the bitterness in his voice. His words hit me like a ton of bricks. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes and the painful lump in my throat kept me from answering. I turned away from him.
His voice hardened. “I’ll talk to my lawyer tomorrow and start the divorce proceedings. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”
I felt tears slip down my cheeks.
Chapter 21
Chase
I was out of jail, and back in my penthouse. That was about the only good thing that I could claim in my otherwise fucked-up mess of a life. At the moment, I was sitting at my desk in my office. I had my phone in my hand and was squeezing it—hard—so I wouldn’t throw it across the room.
So far, I’d called three pro sports agents I knew personally, and two that a few of my former teammates had recommended to me. All of the agents but one had said that ‘regretfully’ they would not be able to take me on. The one I’d finally signed with was second-rate...and he’d just dropped me too. He’d told me that the publicity surrounding my phony marriage, and my falling out with John Clarke, had made me untouchable.
Fucking untouchable.
Miserably I focused on the view of the Atlantic Ocean outside of the window. Sunlight glinted on the tops of the breakers as they hurled themselves into the beach, creating a thick layer of sea foam that bubbled atop the sand. The ocean was rough this morning. A few surfers were taking advantage of it by riding them as they curled, then crashed.