by L. P. Dover
I nodded and bit my lip hard, trying desperately to keep it together. “I know, and if there was a way to make it up to you or turn back time I would. It’s the only regret I’ve lived with for the past ten years.”
Lifting his head, he sighed and turned to face me, his gaze weary. “I have too many regrets to count, too many bad choices.”
My gut clenched, and there it was below the surface, the jealousy that always arose when the thought of Matt with someone else plagued my mind.
“Yes, I know,” I said dryly. “I’ve seen a lot of those bad choices over the years.”
Grabbing the stack of files off my desk, I moved over to my filing cabinet and started putting them away, maybe a little harder than necessary. He didn’t just make too many bad choices; he made a shit ton multiplied by a thousand. I had no right to get angry over all the women he’d been with, but dammit if it didn’t make me sick to my stomach.
“Shelby,” he murmured reluctantly. “I—”
“You know, I went to several of your fights,” I interrupted him as if he didn’t speak, glancing back at him for only a second. “Yeah, so needless to say, I know what kinds of things went down after them. The one time I built up the nerve to confront you in your room after the fight with Jacob Whittaker was the first and last attempt I ever made. Not only did I hear what went down in that room, I also watched you walk out with not just one but two women.”
Slamming the cabinet door shut, I turned around and stayed where I stood, my chin defiantly in the air. Matt’s face had grown pale, but being the fighter that he was he wasn’t backing down. He stalked across the office until he stood right before me, his body only a breath away.
“Okay, so I’ve made mistakes, but so have you,” he pointed out. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t stay innocent over the years, either. Right now I’d say we’re both fifty shades of fucked up. The question is … what are we going to do about it?”
I have no clue.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. What can we do about it? The damage has been done.”
Tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, he lingered there for a second before trailing his finger down my cheek. “That may be so, but I’m pretty sure the damage can be fixed,” he murmured gently, moving his body closer.
I’m not so sure of that, I wanted to say, but there was nothing wrong with letting him try.
A quick knock on the door jolted us out of the moment. Once I stepped away, in walked my boss, Bryan Winters, with his head down. He strolled in with a handful of files in his arms, looking through the papers completely oblivious to what just went down.
“Shelby, please tell me you have Cooper Davis’ file in here. I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I want to do another piece on him since he’s back in California playing for Oakland,” he grumbled, sounding frustrated. Matt stepped out to the side and turned around so he could face my boss, which got Bryan’s attention. When he glanced up, his eyes went wide.
“Oh my goodness,” Bryan gasped. “Please forgive me for the intrusion, Mr. Reynolds. I promise I have better manners than this, but I didn’t realize you would be coming to the office today. I’m Bryan Winters,” he said, introducing himself and extending his hand.
Matt smiled and shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Winters. I was letting Shelby here know that I have a promotional photo shoot tomorrow before the fight in Sacramento, and I thought she might be interested in coming to it. It would give her a chance to get to know me and see what I do.”
What? He never mentioned anything about that!
Bryan grinned. “Great, I bet she would love to go.” Turning to acknowledge me, he said, “If you find Cooper’s file for me I’ll let you work from home all next week. Is that a deal? Please tell me you have it.”
Smiling from ear to ear, I rolled my eyes and said, “I swear I don’t know what you would do without me.” Reaching into my file cabinet, I searched for Cooper’s name and pulled out his folder. Smugly, I handed it to Bryan. “I have a witness here that’ll testify that you said I could work from home next week. You better keep your word.”
“You have my word,” he promised, holding up his hand like he was pledging an oath. “Besides, you’re probably going to be busy working on your story. I’m sure Mr. Reynolds has a lot going on to keep you busy.”
Matt chuckled under his breath and mumbled, “You have no idea.”
Bryan smiled and said his good-byes before leaving my office; we were alone again. “Do you really have a photo shoot tomorrow before the fight?” I asked.
Matt grinned and headed for the door. “I do. I have to be there by two tomorrow afternoon. I thought maybe after the fight we could spend some time together? We have a lot to catch up on. Not to mention you’ll be working from home next week. That gives us plenty of time to—” he started to say, but stopped with a gleam in his eye.
“Plenty of time for what?” I asked, lifting my brows.
He winked and pretended to look offended. “To work on the article. What else would I be talking about? Give me your address and you can ride with me tomorrow. That is, if you want to go.”
Silently, his hopeful green gaze pleaded with me. I could tell he wanted to make an effort to correct his mistakes. The least I could do was try to make up for mine. Grabbing a pen and piece of paper off my desk, I wrote down my cell phone number and address, and handed it to him.
He looked down at the paper and smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, angel. Sweet dreams tonight.”
It had been years since I’d heard him call me by that nickname. It felt so right, but yet I knew the lighthearted feeling in my chest wasn’t going to last forever. We had a long, bumpy road ahead of us … and it wasn’t going to be easy. My secret would tear us apart again.
BEFORE I GOT IN MY car to leave work, I had to call my mother and tell her about Matt. She absolutely adored him when we dated, and even after everything that happened she didn’t exactly agree with my choices in life, but she was always there, supporting me no matter what. As the years passed by, she drowned herself in work because that was what she liked to do. She enjoyed helping people and being a doctor was what she loved.
It didn’t surprise me when she didn’t pick up the phone, so I left her a message instead.
“Hey, Mom, I just wanted to call and check in to see how you were doing at the hospital. I found out who my new article was going to be on and I thought you’d like to know.” I took a deep breath. “It’s Matt, Mom. Out of all the people my boss chose, he chose Matt. Talk about crazy, right? Anyway, I saw him today and it was like everything came back at me full force. Is it bad that I want to be with him? Do I even deserve him? I don’t know what to do.” I paused for a second, blowing out a shaky breath. “Call me back when you get the chance, okay? I love you.”
Sometimes it would take her a week to call me back, but I understood. I loved her and I knew she thought about me often, but it would be nice to have her around more often. Now that her phone call was done, I figured it would be best to come clean to both Jace and Caleb. Hopefully, Jace would be at home so I could tell him. He would most likely get pissed, and I honestly had no clue how Caleb would handle it considering we’d only been talking less than a week. It wasn’t like we were serious yet, but still, the timing had been horrible.
Luckily, traffic wasn’t bad heading home. When I walked through the door, I took a deep breath and was about to holler Jace’s name when I saw him lying at the bottom of the steps, panting and drenched in sweat.
“Jace,” I gasped, rushing over to him and falling onto the floor beside him. “Are you okay? Did you fall down the stairs?”
I didn’t know if I should try to help him up or call an ambulance. If I recalled correctly, I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to move them. I think. When Jace looked up at me he burst out laughing and playfully smacked me on the thigh.
“Yes, I’m okay. I was doing some inverted pushups on the stairs, and I tried to do as
many as I could. I was just too tired to get up.” He slowly sat up and wiped the sweat off his face with the bottom of his shirt.
“That’s it?” I grumbled with a roll of my eyes. “Well, at least you’re all right.”
At least one of us was, I thought to myself. Sighing, I sat down on the bottom step and nervously licked my lips. If there was one person who didn’t like Matt, it was Jace.
“I found out who I’m writing my article about today,” I said matter-of-factly.
Excited, Jace’s eyes went wide. He loved hearing stories about the athletes I met and what they were really like.
“Really? Who is it this time?” he asked. “Since you wrote about a tennis player last month, I’m thinking maybe basketball this time.”
“Nope, it actually happens to be an MMA fighter. Can you guess who it is?” I asked sarcastically.
Immediately, his smile disappeared and he snarled in disgust, “You have got to be kidding me. What are you going to do? Does Matt know it’s you doing the article?”
Lowering my head, I blew out a shaky breath and nodded. “He knows. I saw him today.”
Jace was silent, staring at nothing but me, until I lifted my gaze to his. Whatever he saw in my eyes, he didn’t like it and he groaned. “Oh no, Shelby. I know that look. Please tell me you’re not getting back together with him.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I looked at him and answered as honestly as I could, “I don’t know. When we were together today it felt as if nothing had changed, and when he kissed me—”
“You kissed him already?” Jace exclaimed, cutting me off. “What about Caleb? I don’t even know the guy, but I’m pretty sure he’s much better for you than Matt. You may have a clouded memory, but I sure as hell don’t. I saw the look on your face and held you when you cried after you saw Matt with those other women. Is that really what you want to go back to?”
No, but I couldn’t deny what my heart was telling me. “I have to go with what feels right,” I whispered. “As much as I try to fight it, being with Matt is what feels right to me.”
Jace scoffed and got to his feet. “Look, I know you’re going to do what you want, but if you and Matt pick up where you left off, the past is going to eat away at you unless you tell him why you left. You are planning on telling him, aren’t you?”
Yes, eventually … maybe. I knew I needed to, but I couldn’t risk the thought of losing him just yet.
When I didn’t answer, Jace stormed off, mumbling angrily, “Fuck, this is going to be a disaster. Don’t come crying to me when it blows up in your face.”
It was going to be a disaster … even more so by the time I talked to Caleb. Closing myself in my room, I had my phone ready and my fingers over the buttons to call him. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do it over the phone. In two days we had our date … I would tell him then. At least it would end before it really ever got started.
Hopefully, he would understand.
THE WHOLE NIGHT I TOSSED and turned with visions of Shelby running across my mind. For ten years I spent my time trying to make myself better, to not be the poor bastard who grew up in the slums of Sacramento. Shelby was the reason I strived so hard to succeed, and when she left it was the anger and determination to prove everyone wrong that pushed me over the edge. I didn’t want to blame her for my choices in life, or for all the women I had sex with, but it was so hard not to. If she’d stayed, none of those things would’ve happened.
By the time I arrived at her house to pick her up for the photo shoot I was thirty minutes early, which was unusual for me. I was notorious for being late, except I didn’t want to waste another moment that could be spent with her. Gazing up at the three story Victorian structure, I couldn’t help but smile. It was exactly what I imagined her living in. Before, she always talked about us moving to San Francisco and I should’ve known she’d one day find her way there.
The outer door was unlocked when I tried it, so I opened it and moved into the entryway where another set of doors stood. After pressing the doorbell and hearing it ring, I stepped back and waited on Shelby to answer. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t her that came to the door. It was her friend Jace, wearing only a pair of royal blue running shorts and an impatient scowl.
What the fuck?
Opening the door wide, he stepped aside and grumbled, “Shelby’s not ready yet, but she told me to let you in when you got here. I’m Jace, by the way.”
“Matt,” I said, strolling past him into what looked like the living room. Off to the left was the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but notice that the furniture was too masculine to be something Shelby would pick out. Surely they don’t live together, I thought to myself. Or do they?
“Do you live here, too?” I asked in disbelief.
With a resentful expression on his face, Jace shut the door and walked past me indignantly. What the hell was his problem? Settling down on the sofa, he leaned over to tie his running shoes and glared up at me. “Shelby and I have been living together for about nine years now. During that time she’s told me all about the famous bad boy, Matt Reynolds. Frankly, I think she deserves better.”
“Are you kidding me? What’s your problem?” I hissed, clenching my hands into tight fists. I was two seconds away from messing up that pretty boy face of his.
Getting to his feet, he stalked over to me, narrowing his eyes. He was just as tall as I was, and it was obvious he had just as much muscle … only leaner. However, he wasn’t a fighter. Leaning closer, he whispered low, and I was pretty sure it was so Shelby couldn’t hear him.
“She’s my friend and I care about her. The night she overheard you fucking those girls after the fight almost broke her. I don’t want to see her get hurt like that again. Being the friend that I am, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Shelby obviously still cares about you, but it wasn’t you who was there for her when—”
“Jace,” Shelby shouted, cutting off his sentence.
Over his shoulder, I could see Shelby, who stood in the doorway to what I assumed was her bedroom, her arms defiantly crossed at her chest. “That’s enough. Thank you for wanting to look out for me, but I know what I’m doing,” she warned.
Jace held his hands in the air and backed away. “Okay, I’m done. I said what I needed to say here, and last night to you,” he remarked, still staring at me. He grabbed a set of keys and a bottle of water off of the white marble kitchen counter before turning to acknowledge Shelby. “I’m going out for a run. I won’t be home tonight, so call me if you need anything.”
Shelby nodded and watched him walk out the door before sliding her gaze to mine. Dressed in what looked like pajamas, a small pink tank top and matching shorts, her nipples poked through the thin fabric of her top and immediately I could feel the blood rushing south.
Damn, she’s so fucking hot.
“You’re early,” she said brightly, trying to lighten the mood. “Oh, and please forgive Jace for the way he acted. He’s known about our past for a while now, and he’s just worried about me.”
“It felt like it was more than that,” I responded skeptically, studying her.
Nonchalantly, she shrugged her shoulders and averted her gaze. “He’s an actor, so he’s always dramatic. I wouldn’t look into it that much. I’m used to him being that way.”
Oh yeah, she’s definitely keeping something from me. I could see it in the way she dodged me with her eyes and hear it in the aloofness of her voice. Whatever it was I was going to find out.
Clearing her throat, she smiled and hesitated for a second before meeting my gaze again. “Um … all I have to do is put on some clothes and I’ll be ready. If you want you can wait in my room.” A slow, languid smile spread across her face and there was no way I could say no to that.
She moved out of the way, and once I was inside of her room she shut the door and headed to the bathroom. Her room was bright, painted in a pale green, and it was almost exactly like her bedroom at her parents’ house. Her
favorite color was green, so it was no shock to see the room covered in nothing but different shades of it. Her bed was already made, but deep down I wondered what she’d do if I ripped off her clothes and spread her wide beneath me. Would she let me make love to her or would she push me away? That was the question of the day.
I wish I knew what she wanted.
“All right, I think I’m ready to go.”
Throwing her purse on the bed, she sat down and slipped on a pair of high heeled ‘fuck me’ sandals. Her chestnut colored hair was curled in waves down her back, and she wore a pair of tight jeans that hugged her ass perfectly, along with a low-cut, cream-colored top that showed the top mounds of her breasts. Fuck, she’s going to kill me.
“Matt, are you okay?” she asked. When she stood, her gaze lingered down to my waist. Immediately, her eyes went wide and she bit her lip. “I see.”
Groaning, I blew out a frustrated sigh and grabbed her hands in mine. “You look really hot right now, but I think we need to get out of here. I don’t know what we’re doing, but if you don’t want me to rip off your clothes and fuck you then we need to leave.”
Letting go of my hands, she laughed and grabbed her purse off the bed before pushing me out of her room. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t think us having sex is such a good idea right now,” she insisted seriously.
“Oh yeah, and why is that?” I asked.
She nudged me out the front door, and then turned around to lock it. I walked down a couple of steps so that when she approached her eyes would meet me head on. Sighing, she rolled her eyes. “Do you really want to know my reason? I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to be with you, it’s just …”
I had one good guess … Jace.
Taking my face in her hands, her serious gaze slowly transformed into a mischievous glint and she smiled. Chuckling, she leaned down and kissed me quickly, playfully. “You are so easy to read, you know that? I don’t know about you, but I want you to win the fight tonight. You need that testosterone if you’re going to do your best, and the last thing you need is to go into it relaxed. You need to be frustrated.”