“Hey, man, is it working?”
Chase gave him what could only be construed as a growl. “Is what working?”
“The unhealthy risk-taking?”
“What the hell are you talking about? The playoffs are coming up.”
Logan gave him an indulgent grin, not fooled. “You’ve been training with me for, what, seven years now? I’ve seen you through how many postseasons? In all that time, I can’t remember a single instance where my program wasn’t enough for you.”
“Why don’t you just fuckin’ say what’s on your mind?” Chase spat out, adrenaline surging, aggression surfacing. But they had known each other a long time, and Logan was unconcerned about any potential backlash.
“If you don’t mind me cutting to the chase, pardon the pun, all of this won’t bring her back.”
Chase shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. He had been itching for an altercation that with a second look, he wasn’t ready to have.
Don’t say her name, don’t say her name, don’t say her name drummed in his head. He broke out into a smile that never made it to his eyes and tried to sound nonchalant.
“Oh, that.” He gave an overexaggerated wave of his hand. “That’s old news, buddy. We were pretty much done before she took off. You know me better than that. What have I always said? So many women, so little time.” Chase picked up the front of his shirt and wiped his face, thereby hiding it. It gave him the time he needed to settle in, continue the farce.
“If that’s true, then how do you even know who I’m talking about?” Logan continued to provoke.
Chase settled both hands on his hips, let out a rush of air. “Who else could you mean?” Don’t say her name, don’t say her name. “The spoiled brat who bailed as soon as the heat turned on.”
Logan merely smiled “Spoiled brat? Heat turned on? Interesting choice of words, given the circumstances.” He was the first one of Chase’s friends who had even broached the topic since it happened. Everyone had been either too scared or just plain not interested. In Chase’s circle, almost everyone had a least one skeleton in his closet. When it happened to one of their own, it only sent the message that next time it could be them.
“You know what I don’t get? What the big fucking deal was.” It was all Chase needed to finally let out the steam he had carried around for weeks, anger that had kept him solitary and withdrawn. “I go to the ballparks and chicks are screaming, ‘Spank me. Spank ME!,’ They carry signs, they have shirts made. They send naked pictures of their asses to the Kings’ website. It’s not like I set up a video camera in our . . . MY room and did a Kim Kardashian. She was always so annoyingly pious.” His rant done, his spleen vented, he seemed to relax. Then he acquiesced. “Sorry if I stepped on your toes, you’re the boss.” He checked the clock on the wall. “At least for another fifteen minutes. Can we get back to work?” As Logan took the extra weight off the bench press Chase gave one last puffed-up sneer. “What made her think she was so damn special anyway?”
Logan bit back a smirk of his own. You did, my friend, you did, he thought.
CHASE ENTERED HIS APARTMENT, THREW his wallet on the table, and took off his shirt, wiping down his chest with it. He skipped showering at the gym, deciding to jog home, figuring the fresh air could only do him good, as fresh as the air got in New York City during September at any rate. He wandered into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of water, and downed it. After spending a few seconds flexing his pecs, he walked over to the phone to check for messages. Relieved at hearing nothing but a dial tone, he returned it to its cradle, yelled out to Lena that security was on its way to pick him up and he’d be ready in twenty minutes. Then he headed to his room to shower.
“Hello, Chase,” she said just as he was walking into his closet.
As soon as he heard her voice, she saw him visibly stiffen. His back to her, he took a minute to place his control firmly in check before he turned around to face her.
There she was, every bit as pretty as he remembered. Only tan. Damn her. He was spending night after sleepless night with haunted visions and she was soaking up the sun somewhere. She looked downright healthy. The little bitch. He waited till he was sure his voice wouldn’t give him away before he spoke.
“Came to return my keys, did you? You could have left them with the doorman.”
Amanda, seated in a chair in his bedroom, looked at a man she didn’t know. The Chase standing before her now, though still the sexiest man she had ever seen, was the same man with the icy stare that she’d felt through the television only a day ago. This was the man she created, and the time for her running was over. It was her turn to step up to the plate.
“I missed you.” There, good job, Amanda. That oughta do it. You can sweep me up in your arms now.
“Really? How very kind of you to say. I’ve been right here, all along. Good old Chase Walker, spanker of wayward women.” His voice was drenched with sarcasm, his hulking, shirtless body still dripping with sweat. Both gave her strength, for entirely different reasons. And if she was smart she’d be scared, but she was finished with her head leading, and there was only one place her heart wanted to run.
“This is all your fault, you know,” she said, confrontational in response, crossing her legs.
“My fault?” He was incredulous, his self-control starting to give way, and they had barely even begun. “My fault? What was my fault, Amanda, why don’t you tell me? Oh, that’s right, I saw a hidden camera and decided to spank you in front of it. Then I called security and told them to alert the media.” Afraid if he continued, he might actually strangle her, he made his way toward the door. “Look, I have a game in six hours, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to cut this short.”
She was up in a flash, refusing to let him duck out of the fight. She marched right up to him, poking him in the chest. “Don’t make like you’re the victim here! You’re the one who couldn’t wait twenty minutes. Twenty stinkin’ minutes.”
He backed away from her and she thought he might exit stage right. She followed closely behind him and jumped in response to how loud the door was when he slammed it. It sent the clear message to anyone within the apartment: Stay away from this room. He rounded back on her. “You sure didn’t seem to mind when I was doing it. And I think there’s a tape somewhere to prove it!” he shot back at her, starting to ball his hands into fists.
“How dare you! Of course you would have no problem joking about it. It only made you more of a national hero, you pompous oaf!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders, violently shaking her, stopped only when her eyes grew wide and frightened. “And do you know why that is? Do you? Because I stayed here and looked everyone in the eye as they judged. I took the phone calls, I made the statements, laughed at the jokes. I tried to protect the person I loved. I didn’t go running to my daddy, begging him to hide me like I committed some sort of criminal offense.” He released her abruptly, as if touching her disgusted him. He stomped over to the other side of the room, hoping it was enough distance between them. “You think this happened only to you, Amanda? It happened to me, too. It happened to us. For all the words of togetherness we ever shared, I was the only one who seemed to mean them.” Then, with remarkable ease, he punched a hole in the wall, the plaster crumbling in response to the unleashed fury. He looked at the destruction and lowered his head, his hands on his hips, and she could tell by his heaving, he was trying to hold back the rest of the rage.
She should have been terrified. She should have run. But every word he spoke was the truth, and though the reasons were different, they both were to blame. Determined not to cry, she cautiously joined him and laid her small hand on his granite bicep, gently urging him to turn to her.
“You’re right, Chase. But where do we go from here?”
He didn’t want her so close, didn’t want her to touch him, but she kept ever so slightly pulling, until he dropped his arms and she slid into him, her arms curling around his wa
ist and up his back. Placing her ear on his slick chest, she waited to hear his heart regulate itself. As if his arms had a will of their own, they wrapped around her. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her, the mixture of perfume and shampoo he knew so well. He closed his eyes.
“I don’t want to love you,” he said despondently, almost to himself. “It hurts too much.”
“I can make it up to you. Please let me try,” she pleaded, her pride no longer relevant inside his strong embrace, the safety she had been looking for all along.
He exhaled and his tension eased a bit. His arms had been without her for too long. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked wistfully.
“You’re going to make me pay, in all the best ways,” she teased, sensing the worst of it was over.
“I don’t even know where to start, little girl,” he said, making the shaky attempt to pick up where they’d left off, although they both knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Start right from the beginning, when Alan Shaw told me to get out of town.”
His arms noticeably began to stiffen around her.
“Wait. What?”
Chase felt like he’d just been plunked in the rib cage by Justin Verlander’s fastball. Right on the tattoo of her he could no longer bear to see. He set her apart from him.
“What did you just say about Alan Shaw?”
Amanda could tell in one look that whatever her answer was, it was going to be the wrong one.
He repeated a disbelieving “Alan Shaw told you to get out of town?”
He asked it the same way he would if he were accusing her of having an affair, all gut reaction. The tone of his voice alone was enough to cause panic. She nodded.
“He told me you’d need to concentrate on damage control,” she said quickly.
Still struggling to wrap his head around it, he repeated louder. “You ran away from me on the advice of Alan Shaw?”
Chase stepped away from her into the middle of the room before turning to face her again. He was composed to the point of indifference.
“Alan told me you called him at his office after you left and said you were so mad that you didn’t want to speak to me. That if you ever stopped being pissed off, I’d be the first to know.”
“That’s completely not true,” Amanda corrected him, hoping the truth would make things better. “He was the first call I got. He pretty much insisted.”
But he only got more glazed over. “So let me get this straight. You took off because Alan Shaw told you it was a good idea? The greasiest, sleaziest, greediest . . .”
His sputtering reminded her of Yosemite Sam describing an altercation with Bugs Bunny. She waited to see if he was going to finish it up by calling Shaw the “pole-cattin-est, flim-flamming-est varmint he ever did see.” But if he was blustering, surely they had to be on the road to recovery. Of all the things she expected to happen, he did the one thing she never thought he would. He started making his way to the door.
“Amanda, you have to go.” He said it so calmly, her blood ran cold. He held his bedroom door open, his hand pointing to the way out and down the hall. She could see Jack hovering in the doorway of the neighboring room, in response to the housekeeper’s concern about the way Chase slammed the door. When Jack wasn’t discharged, Amanda began to realize how bad it was going to get. He had just allowed another person access to the conversation.
She’d expected that they would start making love or have a knock-down-drag-out fight, or that he would give her the paddling of a lifetime. In a perfect world, she’d have gotten all three. But he was always going to forgive her.
“But . . . why?” she asked through the tears that were already glistening on her eyelashes.
“Because it’s the rule,” he stated coolly. “You left me. I told you, only once.”
“But a minute ago . . . ” Amanda looked back to where they were standing. Hugging and reconciling.
“A minute ago, you were at least brave enough to have run away on your own accord. I need someone I can trust, not someone who would take orders from the most immoral character I can think of instead of her future husband. Leave my keys. I don’t want you to contact me again.”
She heard it in his voice. It was the worst voice she’d ever heard, devoid of any passion or emotion. She couldn’t see it in his eyes, because he refused to glance in her direction. His jaw was set and his lips tightly drawn together. He looked from the ceiling to the window to the door he still held open.
There were two things Amanda could do. She could grovel or she could leave. By the all-encompassing change that had taken place in him, the sheer magnitude of his apathy, she didn’t think groveling would make any difference. With the few remaining shreds of dignity she had left, Amanda walked past him, then Jack, down the hall, stopping only long enough to take his keys off her keychain and placing them on the table next to his wallet.
“Make sure she finds her way out of the building, Jack,” Chase said flatly from his bedroom, like she was a fan who had become a nuisance and needed to be removed.
She held it together while in the elevator. The shock was still fresh and she’d gotten good at feeling like the sky was falling and still remain mobile. Jack said nothing, as rigid and unresponsive as his employer instructed. She made no attempt at conversation. The man had just been given the order to kick her out. She got in her car, the useless convertible Chrysler Sebring she wouldn’t let Chase replace. Thank heaven for small favors. The only way it could have been more melodramatic would have been to be banished and then have to board the crosstown bus. She began driving out of the city, starting to feel the full effect of him sending her away. He was bone-chillingly cold. It wasn’t open for discussion and he wasn’t making an idle threat. He simply dismissed her. She’d seen him do it with others, always from his circle of luminosity she had once basked in. But not anymore, he had just seen to it that she’d never be in his presence again. She didn’t have a game plan for the rest of her life without him. It was already getting darker without him shining down on her. With that thought, her tears began to flow freely and she let them, brushing at them just enough to keep them from blinding her while driving. She drove past her own exit and kept heading west. She picked up the parkway and drove mindlessly, heading north, trying once again to escape.
It was no surprise when she ended up in Mendham. She was drawn there as part of her cosmic wheels directing her where she’d be able to sort it all out. It felt as natural as it did finding Gertie on the beach. She would start at the place where she was first told she deserved to have it all. It would feel like he was near until she figured out what to do. She would drive right up that long driveway, and if anyone was working, she’d just turn around. And if no one was there, she’d stare at it and wait to see if it gave her a sign.
Her heart cracked in half as soon as she saw the real estate sign posted at the beginning of the driveway. Chase had put their house up for sale. It wasn’t the kind of sign she was hoping for.
Amanda pulled her car over into the driveway and finished crying. He was acting rashly. She refused to believe he’d stopped loving her. He was too loyal to give up on anyone for one mistake. Whenever he made this decision, it was when he thought she left because she was furious and not mortified. She dialed the number on the real estate sign. She sniffled her way through analyzing in a way that would make her mother proud. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but it was going to have to be something drastic. She needed to stop being a damsel in distress and get her act together.
Amanda Cole was getting her man back.
CHAPTER 17
CHASE CAME OFF the elevator at his lawyers’ office, security in tow, and was promptly taken into a conference room. His real estate agent was already there.
“Thanks for coming down, Chase,” his real estate lawyer said, extending his hand. “It was nice that you agreed to do this. I know it’s unorthodox.”
“Meet
ing a grandmother who wants to see her children enjoy their inheritance is hardly a sacrifice. Thanks for making me sound like a hero, but I have to be honest, I would do almost anything to unload this property.” Chase hated to sound so callous, but it had been getting more and more difficult to keep it from slipping out occasionally when it came to her. Once the house was gone, he’d be one step closer in his exorcism. He needed to make a decision about his lawyer’s recommendation that he send a demand letter for the return of the engagement ring. That would be the final tie severed. But he was torn. What was he supposed to do with a six-carat diamond? He could use it to cut glass or try to carve the tattoo of her off his body. As soon as it was in his hand, it would make one more clean incision into his heart.
“We’ll try to make it quick,” his lawyer said. “They called a short time ago. They’re just a few minutes out.”
“We really tried to keep it private,” the real estate agent apologized, “but these are the kinds of rumors that easily spread.”
“It’s all good. If it means that much to a fan, it means a lot to me.”
Chase waited with a cup of coffee. He made business small talk, mostly about the playoffs, free-agent trades, and the baseball-crazy eccentric who was throwing her capital away before going to her grave to buy an extravagant gift for her child, and giving the asking price in exchange for a photo op. Who insisted the deal be done quickly and quietly because time was of the essence.
The intercom buzzed that the buyers had arrived.
As soon as she walked in, the room lit up, as did he. But it was short-lived as the realization he may have been duped hit home. She was flanked by two lawyers and a real estate agent of her own.
“Amanda, what are you doing here?” Chase said quickly before turning to his lawyers and real estate agent. “Is this some kind of joke?”
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