“Can I get you a coffee, or…?”
Mrs. Lennox looked up from the half-eaten sandwich Jazz had left on the side table. “Sit down, Ms. Weatherby.”
“Kylie’s fine,” I said, but got no response.
They sat on the couch while I perched on the edge of the armchair, and Mrs. Lennox did not beat around the bush.
“We’re aware of the pictures,” she said bluntly. “Of you coming out of Reade’s home this morning. In next to nothing.”
I blinked at her, my mind running entirely blank. “But that was…less than two hours ago. How—”
“We have connections, Ms. Weatherby. Highly influential ones.”
“Uh-huh.” Of course they did. I didn’t know why I’d even questioned it.
“Fortunately for Reade, we’ve been able to issue a block on those pictures.”
“Fortunately?” I said, feeling my hackles rise.
I knew what Mrs. Lennox was thinking—it was clear on both her and her daughter’s faces—but I didn’t expect her to express it so plainly, so I was struck dumb by it when Mrs. Lennox opened her mouth and said with an entire lack of emotion, “Your presence in our family and in our affairs is an embarrassment.”
Georgia turned her nose up, silently agreeing, but Mrs. Lennox wasn’t quite done yet.
“For one, you’re a daughter of a convict. A man currently serving time.”
It was like the walls were closing in on me, making my chest feel very tight. “For something he barely had any involvement with,” I said. “His term is minimal.”
Mrs. Lennox waved it away with a careless hand. “Nevertheless, we don’t want that sort of thing connected to our family. Especially in light of the current scandal with the team. Reade needs someone respectable, but more than that,” she said, her tone growing colder with each word, “someone who understands our world, and how to behave in it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You wouldn’t find a single eligible young woman in our society who would be stupid enough to leave a man’s house in her underwear.”
It was on the tip of my tongue: I was in your son’s shirt, actually, with NO underwear on. But I didn’t think that would go down well. “It was an accident. I thought it was—”
“I don’t care,” Mrs. Lennox said, effectively shutting me up. “Let’s stop playing games, shall we? I can give you what you’re really after.” Then, with her daughter smirking nastily beside her, she reached into her purse and withdrew something that made my stomach turn over with sickening slowness.
“What’s that?” I croaked, though I didn’t need to. Didn’t want to. Wanted, in fact, to get up and walk away, slam the door, forget any part of this conversation was happening. That someone would care so much about separating me from Reade, that this was an option, lying there on the coffee table, like a neon sign flashing something like the end.
“That, you silly girl,” Mrs. Lennox said, “is ten thousand dollars in cash. And for someone like you, I imagine it’s a highly welcome sight. Your father is penniless now, isn’t he?”
I swallowed, pushed back in the armchair as if distance from the cash would make it disappear. I didn’t even pay any attention to the comment about my father. None of it mattered, not when Reade’s mother was literally trying to pay me to vanish from her son’s life.
“I don’t want that money.”
“Yes you do, and you will take it. And in return, you’ll never see Reade again, leaving him free to find a suitable partner.”
I got up, stepped away, in need of some space to get my brain working again. I felt sick to the stomach, cold all over, something sharp in my chest like my heart splitting open.
“You can’t buy me out of a relationship. That’s not how life works.”
“Relationship?” It was Georgia, this time, who piped up, sneering and icy. “Do you really think a man like my brother could be genuinely interested in…this?” she said, gazing disdainfully around my living room. “In you? You’re a plaything. A brief hobby. When he’s bored of you, he’ll move on.” She smiled nastily, paused a moment before adding, “You’re not the first, you know?”
“No, of course not,” Mrs. Lennox said, her tone brisk and businesslike. “There was that Genevieve a few weeks back. She was annoying.”
“And Carmen. She actually thought she would marry him!”
“Sarah, Isabelle,” Mrs. Lennox said, ticking them off her fingers, “that silly little redhead not long ago… All of them, girls just like you. One date, two, sometimes even weeks and weeks of delusion. Where are they now?” she asked, lifting a hand, as if asking a genuine question she expected me to answer. “Discarded. Every single one of them.”
Georgia’s smile turned into a twisted little smirk of pleasure. “Just like you will be.”
“At least this way,” Mrs. Lennox murmured, delicately touching the pile of money, pushing it an inch across the table, “you get something out of it.”
There was a lump the size of a golf ball in my throat, my eyes stinging and damp, and the split in my chest was spreading down to my gut, making me want to run far away, to hide until this all disappeared.
But there was something about what these two down right bitches were saying that resonated with me clearer than anything else, and it was that shard of knowledge I clung to, used it to give me strength, lift me up beyond the pressing weight of pain trying to stifle me.
“There’s a reason you’re offering me this money,” I said, sniffing, brushing a thumb over my nose and squaring my shoulders. “You don’t think I’m as easy to discard as the others.” I returned a smile to match Georgia’s, watched in delight as two pairs of disdainful eyes narrowed at my comeback. “You know I’m no plaything for him. He invited me to his home.”
It took a while for Mrs. Lennox to speak. Her daughter was silently fuming, but it was obvious Mrs. Lennox was taking the opportunity to consider me, weigh me up, now that she knew she wasn’t facing such an easy battle.
Then she leaned forward and lifted away half of the money, tucking it neatly into her purse. She stood up primly, and quietly gestured for her daughter to do the same.
“Keep half,” she said, her tone steady, impossible to read. “Think about it.” She brushed past me, the air around her cold and frigid, and I had a brief moment of elation, thinking I’d won this particular fight, that I’d made the mother, at least, realize I wasn’t a woman to dismiss so easily, if not the daughter. I wasn’t going to keep the money. If they didn’t want to take it now, I’d send it to Reade later.
But then Mrs. Lennox paused at the door and uttered her parting shot, and I was left gaping after her, speechless and pained.
“Think about where you’ll be in a few weeks, dear, after he’s bored of you. Your father would appreciate it.”
Chapter Eight
Reade
I tried. I fucking lost count of how many times I called her, only to have my messages go unanswered. I’d even stopped by her apartment, but no one came to the door. I didn’t know any of her friends, only April, who was still on her honeymoon. There was no other way I could think to get hold of her, to explain and apologize for that morning.
Because yeah, maybe I was that guy—the one who blew up at people and used my fists. But it was only when the situation called for it, and the shit going on with my team just made it easier for me to snap. I’d had a shock that morning, a new piece of information that had emerged about one of my teammates that I hadn’t been expecting, with the sports media at my doorstep and the eyes of every football fan pinned on me. It’d been like an avalanche of drama and in the middle of it, looking sexy as hell and confused in my shirt, had been Kylie—and I’d blown up on her, too. After realizing she’d been outside, faced the reporters, had her picture snapped a hundred times, all I could see was her face splashed across newspapers and websites, her past dug up, her life exposed to the public. I never wanted that for her. All I wanted to do was to protect her.
>
I thought of reaching out to Breck to see if he could do some damage control with the press, since he owned ADO Sports, one of the biggest media companies in San Francisco, but quickly dismissed the thought. The guy was on his honeymoon, the last thing he wanted to do was deal with his buddy’s mess. This was all on me.
The way she was able to stop me from destroying that reporter’s face still baffled me. Was I going soft? Fuck. All I wanted to do was smash that camera squarely into the idiot’s mouth, but it was something in the way she looked at me that stopped me. It made me realize how hurt she would be if I actually hit that guy. As if no man she’d known before me used his fists to solve problems, and it scared the shit out of her. I was a fucking pussy for relenting, but I did it for her. And hell, somehow it made me feel good.
Unfortunately, I also didn’t explain to Kylie that all I wanted to do was protect her when I blew up at her, and my main concern was getting her away from those fucking hounds, and then apologizing and explaining once I’d dealt with the immediate crisis.
Except I’d had nothing I needed to protect her from, because not one image or article about her made it to press. And this was the same press that plastered across the page the image of every random woman I’d slept with before. Kylie, in her barely dressed state and so obviously an overnight guest, should’ve been easy prey.
I hadn’t had time yet to figure out why the press had written her off. I’d been too busy putting out the fires at work. That morning the story had broken that Roger Milligan, my wide receiver, had been caught bribing a ref and faking his drug results. The bones of a lawsuit had already been put together before I had even gotten out of bed—something I wished I hadn’t done. I would’ve given anything to stay in bed then, curled around Kylie, maybe even rouse her awake with my cock prodding at her slick entrance. But my phone hadn’t stopped going off, and in those few minutes I’d spent lying there, pretending the outside world didn’t exist, I’d known something was wrong.
I had a meeting with Milligan that same day, trying to convince him to go forward and admit the allegations, to keep the whole team from going down, and since then I’d been knee deep in the lawsuit.
It was as I was reading the latest news update that my father entered the locker room and immediately filled me with anger, which was already brimming, waiting to spill out.
“Dad,” I said, sighing as I closed the laptop.
Vernon greeted me with, “I hear all of this nasty business is taken care of,” before taking a seat, straight-backed and stiff.
“I’m dealing with it.”
“Good,” Vernon said. “And now to the more important matters.” He steepled his fingers, pressed them to his chin as he observed me. “This could’ve been a disaster, Reade.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“If you had a strong tie to someone high up in media, you would be able to control your press.”
I stood up. “I have Breck, but he’s on his honeymoon—”
“Colin Montgomery’s daughter is single and very beautiful. She’s a model, you know. And her father is in a position to—”
“I’m not interested.”
“You need to settle down,” Vernon said. “With someone respectable and suitable.”
I turned back to my father, irritation bubbling through my veins. “Not Kylie, you mean.”
“Who? Oh, that girl from the party? She looks fun,” Vernon said after a moment of hesitation. “But she’s not the girl you want to marry.”
“This is my life, and you’ll have no say in it.”
Vernon sighed and said, “I wanted to do this nicely, but you leave me no choice.” Then he got to his feet, raised his chin and squared off against me. “If you don’t end this dalliance with the Weatherby girl, I will make sure every sordid aspect of her life is dragged through the press. When I’m finished,” he said, speaking in slow, sharp tones, “even you will be too ashamed to be seen with her.”
My stomach twisted into a knot, because I knew what my father was capable of, had seen it firsthand more than once, and there was no way I wanted that for Kylie. But a man—even one as determinedly cruel as my father—could only ruin someone whose reputation was vulnerable, so I frowned and asked, “What kind of woman do you fucking think she is?”
“I can be…creative,” Vernon said, the hint of a vicious smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “And I don’t mind bringing your name into it, if it’s for a greater end. Despite your mother and sister’s plans otherwise.”
Shit. I knew what that meant, and it was with a sinking feeling in my gut that I demanded, “What’s Mom done?”
Vernon sniffed, smoothed down his tie. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Dad—”
“I have a meeting,” Vernon said. “Think about what I’ve said. There’s no reason why anybody has to suffer here. You’ve had your fun,” he added, sneering and judging, because in his eyes I had been slumming it, playing around in the garbage, when really Kylie was a better person than all of the people in his stupid as shit circles. Certainly better than Vernon Lennox, who was prepared to drag his own son through the mud in order to further his family’s legacy. And better than my mother, who’d done something fucking awful, I was sure of it—I’d heard it in my father’s voice, in the hint of irritation in his words.
But my biggest concern right now was making sure my father didn’t succeed in his threat, and Vernon Lennox was a powerfully influential man—but he didn’t hold a candle to me, the one who’d actually made a name for this team, won the MVP title.
Making sure my father was gone, I picked up the phone and started calling every press contact I had, ready to cut any deal necessary—anything they wanted, if they would keep Kylie’s name out of any article written. I even left a message for Breck.
There was no way I was going to let anyone hurt her—whether she ever contacted me again, regardless, I wanted nothing more than to protect her. I didn’t give a flying fuck what it would take.
Chapter Nine
Kylie
Somehow, by some crazy twist of fate, I nailed the interview and got the job. And they wanted me to start immediately.
I was ecstatic, I really was—somewhere deep down. But it was buried beneath everything I felt about the Reade situation, his mother’s visit, how he’d been calling me almost nonstop for days, and I didn’t know why I couldn’t pick up.
I tried to celebrate the new job, let Jazz take me out for drink or two over lunch, ceremoniously said goodbye to the catering, tore up my spreadsheets and menu templates and sent out a mass email to clients, letting them know I wouldn’t be available for any future events.
I even did a little shopping, now that I knew I would have a regular paycheck coming in. Topped up my father’s commissary account and spent the extra cash on some new work clothes, a couple of pairs of comfortable shoes, anything I could do to take my mind off Reade.
There was a new dress in the boutique window, silvery gray this time, and I stared at it for so long one afternoon that Barbara came outside to ask if I was okay. I couldn’t help but imagine myself wearing such a beautiful dress, attending functions on Reade’s arm, going to dinner with him.
Letting him peel it off me.
It was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen, even more gorgeous than the red dress I’d coveted for so long, and all it did was bring Reade to mind, remind me of what I nearly had with him. What I could’ve had, if his family were not so dead set against me. If he wasn’t so quick with his fists.
That afternoon spent staring at the dress had filled me with more misery than I thought possible, and I went home shrouded with a dark cloud, not even the prospect of starting the new job the next day working to cheer me up.
I had a surprise waiting at home—April, tanned and smiling, in my kitchen, popping wine bottles into the fridge like she’d never moved away. I hugged her for a long time, had an embarrassing moment where I nearly started to cry for reasons unrel
ated to missing my best friend, and pulled back to look at her.
“You look so beautiful,” I said honestly. “Married life treating you well, then?”
“Oh, it’s amazing, Kylie. And—what’s this?” She’d spotted the sewing machine on the counter, the mounds of bright fabrics and pots of beads and sequins and buttons.
“Jazz makes her own clothes.”
April eyed it, drumming her fingers against the edge of the counter. “Jazz, huh?” she said, and I laughed—the first time in days I’d felt anything other than sadness.
“Oh stop it. You’re not allowed to be jealous.”
“Yes I am,” April said, pouting.
“You’re the one who left me, remember? Now you have to accept the fact I have a new BFF.”
April gasped, pointed a finger at me. “You take that back.”
“Only if you promise to drink all of this wine with me.”
“Uh, deal.”
I told her about Reade. Of course I did. Told her every detail, from the red dress to the ten thousand dollars. My throat was dry with emotion when I finished, my eyes feeling swollen and small, and April gave me a compassionate smile.
“Life with a famous man is never easy,” she said, shifting her weight on the couch, tone heavy as if she spoke from experience. And she did, of course. Right now, there was no one more qualified to give advice on this subject than April, newly married to a media mogul. “It comes with a lot of pressure. And no one says you have to deal with it. If it’s going to be too much work for you to date him, then you have to cut it off. Before you get too attached.”
And that was the problem. At the root of it all, underneath all the bullshit and drama, the money and society and press and fear, it came down to one simple fact: I was already too attached. I’d known it that morning, waking up in Reade’s bed, and I’d had it confirmed two hours later, when a stern woman offered me ten thousand dollars to stay away, and all I’d been able to think about was Reade. Not leaving him. Not disappearing. But being with him, in the face of his mother’s displeasure.
Bad Boy's Cinderella: A Sports Romance Page 7