by Audra North
She stopped, swallowing hard. “Or at least, what I’d thought of as an opportunity. I was wrong, though. It was just that I was so desperate and-and stupid. I wanted it so badly, I didn’t think—”
“That’s right, you didn’t think.”
She was immediately silent. Fuck. He shouldn’t have interrupted her. She looked like a wounded puppy, all tucked into herself like that.
Finally, she managed to whisper, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It wasn’t about you at all, Ty.”
Well, now. That wasn’t okay. He glared at her. “Not at all? Really? Not even one little bit? Because at some point, it should have been about me. At some point, you should have told me.”
She nodded. “I know. I—there were moments when I tried . . .” She sighed. “I know I should have tried harder. And I’m sorry I didn’t. But I didn’t tell anyone about your dad. I didn’t. I made a promise to you and I didn’t break it. Gilroy told Alex that stuff—”
Gilroy.
How the hell did he know about the cheating with Youngtown?
Ty shook off the thought. It didn’t matter anymore. Cori had still deceived him. She’d just confessed as much.
“He called Alex while I was away with my mom . . .”
She stopped, her face contorting in pain.
Jesus.
She was still dealing with her mother’s accident. And he hadn’t been particularly gracious about that part when he’d called her the other day and yelled at her.
He made a sympathetic sound. “I’m sorry I accused you of lying about your mom.” He could at least give her that. She deserved to hear that.
She looked up, hope burgeoning, but he scowled again. “But that doesn’t mean I forgive you for playing me.”
She recoiled as though he’d hit her. “Ty, I didn’t tell him.”
As if that was what mattered anymore.
He stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me you didn’t get to know me in order to get information from me.”
She looked back, miserable and silent.
“Exactly.” He should have felt some righteousness in saying it, but all he could muster was a mild sense of depression.
“Damn you, Ty Riggs!” Her shout surprised him. She was shaking now, crying and looking angry at the same time. “I didn’t tell him! I was never going to tell him! No matter what the reason that I first got to know you, I decided early on that I wouldn’t go through with it. I decided to fight for you!”
She blinked at him for a second as though she was sharing a revelation about herself that even she hadn’t known until that moment.
Then her shoulders slumped and she let out a long, sad sigh. “For all that you talked about being angry at your father for not fighting the unfair accusations, you’re the one who is being a coward when it comes to me. I’m not saying that what I did was right, but I didn’t run away the second things got hard. I’m coming after what I want now because I realized what was truly important. Just like you realized that the truth coming out was more important than your dad wanting you to hide. You changed, and I changed, but you can’t see how it’s the same thing. But I wish you would because I love you and I know you love me. You are wonderful and smart and worth so much and . . .” She stopped on a sob. “I never . . .” sob . . . “lied to you” more sobbing . . . “about that.” She took a deep breath and looked at him, eyes shining with tears. “I never lied to you about loving you.”
About loving him.
She loved him.
But she’d called him a coward. She’d said he was still too afraid to fight for what he wanted.
That was rich. This from a woman who was willing to trick the man she supposedly loved. Why should he value her opinion?
Maybe because she’s right. Maybe you made a good decision in the end, but you still caused a lot of unnecessary pain by being afraid to hurt a guy who loves you. Because you were a coward, just like she said.
But he pushed the thought away and stared at her, his jaw set, and didn’t say a word.
It was fuckall hard while she was standing there, crying, though. It went on for a few minutes, and he was about to break and pull her into his arms when she spoke again. “I’ve quit my job. Right after that story came out yesterday. I drove straight there and quit. I don’t want to work somewhere like that anymore. I just wanted you to know so that, if you see stories about you in the future, they’re not getting any of that information from me. Because I might have wanted to be a journalist, but even that wasn’t worth hurting you.”
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. She held out a hand, palm up as though asking for mercy. Which she was, in a way. “I won’t ask for anything else from you, but I will tell you—and then I’ll leave—I’ll tell you that I love you honestly. I love you completely, no matter what you think I’ve done. I love you.”
He wanted to believe it . . . but he just couldn’t.
This time, she didn’t wait for him to ignore her. She simply turned and walked away.
And he didn’t call her back.
Chapter 19
Cori pulled into her driveway on Friday afternoon after the five-hour trip back from Charlotte. She’d been in her car practically nonstop for the past two days, and she was exhausted. She slowly dragged her body out of the car and up the front walk, pushing herself into her house by force of sheer will.
She wanted to fall into bed and sleep forever.
After all, she had nowhere to be. No Ty to wake up to. Why not just sleep?
She’d just switched on the light in the front hall when the phone rang.
Suddenly, she was wide awake, hoping with every fiber of her being that it was Ty. Her hands trembled as she reached for the phone, and when she saw it—Restricted number—she could barely breathe for all the hope that was flooding her chest.
Ty. Please let it be Ty.
She swiped the phone and put it to her ear. “H-Hello?” Christ. Her voice was shaky. Weak.
“Miss Bellowes?”
It was a woman’s voice.
Not Ty.
She nearly wept, but she was too dehydrated to even think about tears right now. Just dull, hopeless agony.
“Yes. This is she.”
“Oh, wonderful. Miss Bellowes, this is Rhoda McGhee from Channel 5 news in Charlotte.”
Cori straightened. Rhoda McGhee? She knew who that was. She was the anchor for one of the biggest news teams in Charlotte. Cori had seen Rhoda reporting while she’d been taking care of Ty when he was sick.
“Oh! Uh . . . hi.” God, that was pathetic. She walked toward the kitchen, hoping that a little movement would help to pull her out of her misery-filled stupor. “What can I do for you, Ms. McGhee?”
The other woman tsked. “It’s Rhoda, please. And I’m calling because we had an interesting conversation with one of the stock car drivers earlier today. Word on the street is that you’ve recently left Gold Cup Sports.”
A stock car driver? Had Ty called them?
“I—that is—” she stammered.
But Rhoda kept talking. “The team at Channel 5 has been really impressed by your work, so when Mrs. Colt told us today that you’d left, I immediately called.”
Cori’s heart plummeted. So it had been Kerri, not Ty. Ty had probably shut the door after she’d left this morning and hadn’t thought about her since.
“I wanted to ask you if you might be interested in interviewing for the sports reporter position down here. Mrs. Colt spoke very highly of you,” Rhoda continued.
Crap. Cori hadn’t been listening very closely. Sports reporter? For Channel 5? In Charlotte?
In Charlotte. Where Ty lived.
How could she do such a thing to herself? To him?
She didn’t want to.
And yet . . . she was out of a job. And this-this was a huge opportunity. Bigger than writing for a fledgling wire service. It was a break.
And hadn’t she been the one to be so critical of Ty just this morning, for being so rel
uctant to fight for what he wanted? How hypocritical would it be for her to not only have lied to him and betrayed his trust, but then belied her own words?
It would kill her a little every day, to be in the same city as him and not be with him. It would destroy her if she ran into him on the street and he turned away.
But she wasn’t going to let him down, just the same.
She took a deep breath. Closed her eyes. “I would love to interview with you.”
* * *
Two weeks later, Ty was sitting in the dark in his living room when Mom called. She’d been doing that a lot more lately, trying to check in on him. Things were still strained between him and Dad, but they were getting a little better.
The investigation had concluded. Riggs Racing had been cleared and Dad had explained in a public statement what had happened all those years ago. The outpouring of public support had been overwhelming, especially when it was revealed that Gilroy had been paid by Rick Matyzck as a frontman to dredge it all up again. This time, the investigative board had a paper trail of bank statement, e-mails . . . the works. And they’d published it all.
Gilroy was expelled from the racing association.
And now Ty was starting to put this program in place with Mike over at racing headquarters. It helped keep his mood from getting too dark, but it still wasn’t the same as how he’d felt when he’d been with Cori.
He’d been using her PR plan for the program, which didn’t help his getting over her at all. If anything, it made him long to see her again, to be able to hold her and kiss her again, to go back to the hot, heady moment when they’d met across a pressroom.
So much could happen in just a couple of months.
Mom’s voice snapped through the phone. “Turn on Channel 5 right now.”
“I’m busy.”
“Busy being a fool.” Mom sighed. “Turn it on, quick, or you’ll miss it.”
Miss what? Ty groped for the remote and switched on the TV. A few seconds later, he’d turned it to Channel 5 and was staring, slack-jawed, at the screen.
Cori.
Looking fresh and beautiful, her hair down and shining . . .
“And that’s today’s Sports Wrap. I’m Cori Bellowes, reporting from the command center at Channel 5. Back to you, Rhoda.”
How—?
Mom could apparently read his thoughts, because she spoke in his ear. “Your friend Kerri hooked her up with the job after she quit Gold Cup. There was a big showdown over there after Cori left. Based on the stuff that came out about Gilroy being in Matyzck’s pocket and all the lies in that story her old boss wrote, he got fired and blacklisted from every media outlet for sloppy reporting. Gold Cup is shutting down.”
Well. He supposed that was good.
But all he could do was stare at the television screen, even though Cori wasn’t on anymore. He was still trying to process everything.
“Why did she have to come here?”
That was all he could think of to ask. But what he meant was, Why will I have to see her face everywhere I go? In the town where I live?
“Because Kerri knew people here, that’s why. And maybe your friends are trying to look out for you. If they see what I saw, then maybe they have the right idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, baby.” Mom sighed. “Cori was good for you. I know you didn’t see it yourself, but you’d been pulling into yourself more and more ever since your father got the cancer diagnosis. I’ve never seen you give in like that, the way you did more and more over the past year. But with her, you started speaking up again. You started coming back to life and coming into your own again, and as much as I love your father, I was so happy to see you standing up to him again.”
What? All this time, he’d been trying to hold himself back, to keep from upsetting Dad, and Mom had been rooting for him to be more argumentative?
He supposed she had a point, though. He had been angry because he felt he’d lost his say in his own life, and he hadn’t bothered to even try getting it back.
Until Cori came into his life.
Mom went on. “When you were with her, you were really happy, Ty. Not just putting a good face on things and pretending to be happy. This program you’re starting up is amazing. Already people are talking about it, calling it inspired. And I know you wouldn’t have that now if you hadn’t worked hard and fought for it.”
Ty snorted.
“But your work isn’t done yet. You still have one more thing to fight for,” Vonda finished.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I told her I didn’t want her. I told her not to call me again.” Damn it. Had he really done that? How could he have treated her that way?
“So go find her and tell her you were wrong.”
“I can’t. I—”
“Enough, Ty. Enough with being afraid.”
Too much of a coward . . .
That’s what Cori had said, and she was right.
But he was done with that.
“You’re right,” he said, opening his eyes again and staring at the TV as though he could will Cori to come back on. “I need to fight for her.”
“That’s my boy.”
He smiled. “Hey. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too. Now get off the couch and shower so you don’t look like hell when you see her.”
“How did you know—”
But Mom had already hung up. And Ty didn’t hesitate.
He had a woman to fight for.
Chapter 20
Cori sat at her makeshift dining table opening the bag of food that had just been delivered. She’d ordered in for the fifth day in a row, since between moving and having just wrapped up her third day at her new job, she’d simply been too exhausted to cook.
But she wasn’t really hungry, either.
These days, she was simply trying to survive.
Everything had happened so fast. She’d quit Gold Cup, Rhoda had called the next day, she’d interviewed the following week, and two weeks after that horrible day when she’d stood on Ty’s doorstep and lost the fight of her life, she had walked into the Channel 5 studio to start her new job.
It had been a whirlwind of change. It was a lot of new skills to learn and responsibilities to tackle. It should have been enough to keep her mind off of Ty.
But it wasn’t.
She’d talked to her mother about it. Mom was healing quickly with no complications, and she was well enough now that she was bored during the day. As a result, she and Cori had been talking a lot on the phone about how sorry Mom was for putting too much pressure on Cori, and how she just wanted her to be happy.
Mom had said that Cori’s heart would heal with time, but right now it felt just as open and raw and bleeding as it had the moment she’d seen Ty’s eyes harden when he looked at her.
She sighed. Maybe delivery had been a bad idea. Maybe she just needed to go to bed.
She started to repack the food to put it into her fridge for the next day.
Her doorbell rang.
Her hand hovered over the bag for a moment, mind whirling. Maybe it was the delivery guy. He could have forgotten something. Or probably Kerri. She’d said she would drop by once Cori had a little time to settle in.
She would not allow herself to hope anymore.
She walked to the door. Opened it . . . and gasped.
“Ty.”
He was standing at her door, hands in his pockets, looking incredible. Like a dream come true. Her body, all of her senses, came alive, and it took all of her self-control not to fling herself at him. For all she knew, he was here to berate her some more.
She would take it, too. She would always take anything he wanted to give her. But the truth, she knew in her heart of hearts, was that he would never actually hurt her like that.
“Cori.”
She nearly cried at the sound of her name from his lips.
“May I come in?” He gave her a wry smile. “Not that I woul
d blame you if you said no, given the way I made you stand on my doorstep last time.” He looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry for doing that to you.”
“I forgive you.” She said it simply, without any strings attached, hoping he would understand that she was resolved to be as honest as she could be with him, forever. No more hiding.
She opened the door wide. “Come in.”
He stepped inside, looking around at the boxes cluttered in the living room. As soon as she shut the door, though, he spun around.
“I’m not just sorry for that,” he blurted. “I’m sorry for not forgiving you sooner. You made a mistake. We all make mistakes. I made plenty, with my dad, with you . . . but I couldn’t see past my own pain to the truth. I’m sorry for not fighting for you.”
He reached for her, and she didn’t hesitate. She put her hands in his and stepped closer. She felt, rather than heard, him sigh with relief. He looked right at her. “Being with you was incredible. I overreacted because I was being selfish. Because you were right. I should have seen how you fought for me and realized it meant more than a deception that didn’t even matter in the end. You didn’t have to encourage me to argue my case to Belgrave about the program, or listen to my problems with my dad without judging me, or drive all those hours the weekend I was sick—those are the things I should have been thinking of when you told me the truth.”
“Ty, no.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, sinking into him with the relief of weeks of sorrow. “I should never have lied to you. I should have told you even back on Media Day. And I should never have called you a coward. It takes strength not to be selfish. To care for people and not want to hurt them. Especially your parents.”
He looked down at her and smiled. “It sounds like we both have a lot to regret, but why don’t we put the past aside? I’m tired of being afraid, and I don’t want anything to hold me back from loving you. Because, Cori, I do love you.”
“I love you too Ty.”
He grinned and kissed her, and when he pulled away it was only enough to whisper against her lips, “And I won’t give up trying to be worthy of your love and your heart. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from you, it’s that you have to fight for what you want. That’s the legacy I want to leave in your heart.”