Make Me Yours (Top Shelf Romance Book 4)

by Devney Perry

  “Don’t.” It’s all he says, the warning is as clear as the disgust in his expression.

  I’m shell-shocked. From the events. From seeing him. From having to face what I just did. And before I can process what to say to him in front of these men, he speaks.

  “A trade? A fucking trade?” His voice reverberates in the small space and commands the attention of the men sitting at the table. He’s standing there, his warm-up gear still on, and his expression a mask of disbelief. “I gave my career to this organization. I’ve turned down bigger deals, flashier contracts to go to other teams, and this is how you repay my loyalty?” His laugh holds anything but amusement. “Well, fuck you, Cory. Fuck you and whatever you’re trying to do here.”

  “I’m just trying to run a team, Mr. Wylder.” Cory’s voice is calm and even but the hint of condescension in it scrapes over my skin.

  “Run a team . . . or ruin a team?” Easton takes a step closer, shoulders square, posture threatening. His finger pounds on the desk with each word he speaks. “You think this is how you treat players and then expect them to win a World Series so you can collect your nice little bonus? Think again.”

  “Good luck with your future team.” Cory gives him a dismissing nod.

  Easton seethes. Understandably. His anger so palpable it suffocates the room.

  I wait with blood on my hands and guilt in my heart.

  “You’re a heartless son of a bitch, you know that?” Easton sneers as his hands fist at his sides.

  “Then you’ll be happy you won’t have to work for me anymore. Good day, Mr. Wylder.”

  No one in the room moves as the two men glare at each other. One a picture of calm arrogance and the other a ball of restrained fury.

  Several tense seconds pass where I question whether Easton is going to unleash that fury on Cory. Just when I’m convinced he will, Easton shakes his head ever so slowly as he meets the eyes of everyone else in the room but mine, before he turns on his heel and stalks from the room.

  My heart leaves with him.

  My feet desperately want to as well. I fight the urge to do just that—get up, run after him, explain—but I can’t. I have to be a professional—one who is the face of a business and not a woman who fears she just screwed over the man she loves.

  Loves?

  Loves.

  Holy shit. I really do love him.

  “Sorry about the interruption, Ms. Dalton,” Cory says distracting me from my revelation and pulling my attention back to the matter at hand. In their eyes I didn’t fulfill my contract and therefore failed to achieve my father’s final wish.

  Cory keeps talking but I don’t hear him.

  I see the hurt in Easton’s eyes.

  I hear his voice in my ears.

  What. Would. You. Do. Scout?

  The answer, Easton?

  I’d sacrifice me to save you.

  I just did.

  I can only hope he sees it the same way.

  Easton

  The opening notes of Guns N’ Roses fill the stadium above me and the song’s introduction—the music I’ve heard every time I’ve hit this field during my career—are like salt in the wound.

  Welcome to the jungle . . .

  What the hell is happening?

  I need to get the fuck out of here.

  I can’t breathe.

  I want to punch something.

  I can’t think with the song reminding me where I should be right now—on the field—or of the team’s jersey I’ve worn since I was a kid that I won’t be wearing anymore.

  I jog down the empty corridors desperate to be free of what suddenly feels like a concrete prison trying to hold me back and deny me the things I love.

  “It’s true then.”

  His words stop me in my tracks. “Did you know?” Accusation owns my voice and I don’t give a fuck, because every part of me is begging him to say no and for me to believe him.

  “No.”

  I got the answer I wanted. I stare at him, wanting to believe him. Needing to know that for once I was bigger than the game to him, and yet I ask him again. “No?”

  “You don’t believe me?” The pitch of his voice escalates.

  “Yes. No. Fuck.” I walk a few feet from him, lift my hat to run a hand through my hair, and exhale for what feels like the first time in the last hour. I turn around to face him, hands out, eyes pleading. “What the hell, Dad?”

  It’s an open-ended question asking how this happened. I know it and yet I want him to answer it because I’m at a goddamn loss and haven’t even begun to process my new reality yet.

  The national anthem begins to play and for the first time in my life while wearing a uniform, I don’t remove my hat and put my hand over my heart. I just don’t have it in me.

  “What team?” His voice sounds as solemn as I feel.

  “No clue. Finn’s on his way to get answers.” I chuckle but it sounds empty.

  “Why wasn’t Finn in there?” His eyes narrow to match the confusion in his voice.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” I walk a few feet and then turn back around to face him. “They traded me, but we have no goddamn clue to what team yet . . . so what does that tell you?”

  His brow narrows, and he continues to watch me, his mind running over the same shit mine has on an endless loop. “That Cory didn’t expect to initiate a trade.”

  “Bingo,” I shout, smacking my hands together. “So what the fuck is going on, Dad?”

  “It’s going to be okay, Easton.” His sounds less than convinced.

  I glare at him with so much to say, but with a mind so messed up I can’t find the words to express it.

  The crowd roars in my heaven above and echoes down to the hell I’m currently in. The wall looks so damn tempting to punch.

  Even though it’s made of cinderblock.

  I pace back and forth as the soundtrack to my life plays in the stadium around me. A place I no longer belong.

  I’ve gotta get the fuck out of here before I do something I’ll regret.

  Fuck this.

  “I’m outta here.”

  Scout

  “We need time to consider where your contract falls into play after this unexpected turn of events. Let’s reconvene tomorrow morning at eight, after I’ve conferred with my colleagues.”

  Numb.

  That’s all I felt during Cory’s hour-long inquisition on why Easton wasn’t at one hundred percent. Lies. My responses were all lies but they were the only things I could say to support my findings.

  Empty.

  Throwing up in the bathroom. The nerves finally winning. My struggle to hold on instead of upending the lunch I’d shared with Easton earlier onto the conference table.

  Bone-tired.

  Rushing through the maze of hallways in the stadium. Somewhere above the mass of concrete a game plays on. Little boys with their dads. Families on an outing together. First dates. Happy times.

  The game he was supposed to make his return in.

  All I can think about is Easton.

  Getting to him.

  Talking to him.

  Needing his approval that I did the right thing.

  I push redial again. His name flashes on the screen but it’s his voicemail that answers. Not him.

  I thought I was going to turn our lives upside down today but in a totally different way. He’d be traveling with the team on road trips. I’d be here rehabbing the injured guys. The everyday routine we’d gotten used to would be thrown up in the air and turned around. We’d have to figure out a new norm, but at least we’d be in the same place, working for the same team.

  Not in a million years did I imagine we’d be doing this from different cities.

  I’m startled by the bright sunlight when I emerge from the tunnels out to the gated parking lot for the players and staff. I’m so exhausted, so disoriented emotionally, that it feels like it should be midnight. Just as I reach my car, my phone rings. Desperate to speak with
him, I answer without looking. “Easton!” His name is a rush of air.

  “What the hell happened in there, Scout?”

  He knows.

  “Dad.” Every part of me sags in defeat. While my dad is the one person I should be worried about the most, I’ve been furiously dialing Easton instead of calling him to explain what happened.

  “I’m hearing rumors. What the hell happened in there?”

  My feet and words falter knowing I have to tell him I’m not exactly sure. It feels surreal to me.

  “It’s a long story,” I begin as I climb into my car and continue to tell him the short version of it, knowing how damn ridiculous it sounds even to my own ears.

  When I finish, the line falls into an oppressive silence that weighs as heavy on me as the Austin heat beating through the windshield of my car.

  “I’m disappointed.” His deep baritone rumbles through the line followed by the frail wheeze of his breath.

  Strength covering the devastating weakness beneath.

  Kind of like how I feel.

  “I did what I thought was right.” My voice is barely a whisper when I speak, and tears threaten after hearing those two words every child hates hearing their parent say, I’m disappointed.

  “What was right, though?” he asks. “Right for you or right for Easton?”

  “Dad—”

  “People—men especially—will come and go in your life but family will always be there. You need to take care of what’s yours first. Always.”

  The sting of his words is brutal and right now I hate him for them. I hate him for making me question what I did. For questioning my loyalty to both men in my life.

  My stomach heaves, but I don’t say a word.

  “Lying is one of the quickest ways to ruin a relationship,” he says and has no clue how much those words squeeze my heart since I fear I just ruined two relationships. Easton’s and mine with the Aces.

  “It’s not what—”

  “I asked you for one thing, Scout. Don’t call me back until you tell me you’ve done it.”

  “What?” I screech as the panic sets in. “Wait! Don’t hang up. How? I mean—what am I sup—?”

  “You go back in there tomorrow and you get the damn contract. You fight for what’s ours and you don’t let them push you around,” he says with conviction before being overcome by a violent coughing fit.

  “Are you ok—?”

  “You mixed business with pleasure, Scout. You risked the contract by letting your emotions get in the way. Fix this and secure next year’s contract. Don’t call me until you have.”

  The line goes silent and I’m left sitting in my car with my phone to my ear, tears streaming down my face, and doubt owning my soul. I have no clue how to process the last two hours.

  Did I really just jeopardize fulfilling my dad’s last wish by putting Easton before him?

  “What did I do?” I whisper as I squeeze my eyes closed and drop my head back on the headrest to try and shut everything out for a few minutes. It’s futile. The look on Easton’s face when he barged into the conference room and the echo of my dad’s words in my ears are etched in my mind.

  And if rumors are already flying, I need to get to Easton and explain to him the what and the why before the wrong information gets to him. The adrenaline of the moment has worn off. It’s given way to the fear that I royally screwed everything up and no one’s going to forgive me.

  Get it together, Scout.

  A knock on my driver’s side window scares the shit out of me. I snap my head up and stare at the man standing there—crisp white shirt and tie, mouth set in a straight line, serious brown eyes that demand answers—bent over at the waist telling me with hand motions to roll the window down.

  “Who are you?” I shout through the glass as I halfheartedly shove the tears off my cheeks.

  “Open the damn window. You better start explaining what the hell happened in there,” he says through gritted teeth.

  “Excuse me?” There’s no way I’m opening the window to this jerk.

  He steps back from the window, hands up as if he’s just realized how threatening he appears, and he shoves them in his pockets. “Security guard is right there,” he says with a lift of his chin to where Arnie is watching us from the guard’s booth. I glance to make sure he’s there and then back to the man demanding answers and slowly open my car door, because I know it has to do with Easton.

  It seems that everything does these days.

  The hairs on my neck stand on end—my guard up, a steel gate of unknown—as I exit my car to meet him glare for glare. My synapses misfire as I try to connect thoughts and place him.

  “You’re no Dalton.” He shakes his head. “You told Easton he was good, and then I get a call that he’s been traded? Are you fucking kidding me? Doc always protected his players at any cost. You sure as hell don’t. What kind of game are you playing?”

  The fuck you on the tip of my tongue dies with the punch of his insult to my solar plexus. “Finn?” Easton’s agent glares as he nods. “Why weren’t you there?”

  It’s a simple question but the man I wished for an hour ago to help me make sense of the papers I’d seen is now in front of me. I don’t trust him. He should have been there. He should have never allowed Easton to sign what I saw. A good agent protects their client by any means necessary.

  “That’s a good question.”

  I take a step back. “And what does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened in there, Scout?”

  Was he a part of this?

  “There were papers . . .” I begin but stop. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  Did he know?

  “What papers?” he urges.

  Paranoia takes over. Tears burn the back of my eyes as I question my own sanity. Why don’t I trust the one person I should be able to when it comes to Easton?

  But he wasn’t there.

  “I need to talk to Easton.” It’s the only thing I have left to say. I stare at him for a beat—more time wasted that needs to be spent finding Easton.

  “There’s no time. I need answers now. I’m his agent, Scout. You can trust me.”

  I think of the papers. The scrawled signature that agreed to such ludicrous terms. Any agent who tells their client to sign something like that shouldn’t be trusted.

  “Trust you?” I laugh with a shake of my head.

  He glares, fists clenched, and muscle pulsing in his jaw. “What happened in that room, Dalton?” he demands and takes a step closer, frustration evident and posture threatening.

  “If you had been here, you’d already know and then maybe we wouldn’t be in this position, would we?” I grit out before turning and getting into my car. My hands are trembling so violently I’m glad I have the steering wheel to hold on to.

  He’s still staring at me as I pull out of the gated lot on my way to Easton’s. I weave through the stadium parking lot filled with tailgaters finishing up their cocktails before heading in to watch the game already several innings over.

  The tears stain my cheeks as I drive. I’ve nothing more than a pocketful of hope that I can make this right with Easton, but the doubt I feel is as devastating as the look that was on Easton’s face. It owns my soul.

  Easton

  Scout told them you weren’t one hundred percent.

  Finn’s words ring in my ears. So does the laugh I gave him that faded off when I realized he was serious.

  I swing the bat. Wood meets leather and red seams. My grunt echoes off the concrete walls and the vibration from hitting the ball travels up my arms.

  That’s why she had that look on her face when I barged into the conference room. Shocked. Fucking. Guilt.

  My cell rings. It hasn’t stopped. The reporters are relentless. But I don’t have it in me to walk the twenty feet to turn it off.

  Or smash it to pieces.

  Easton. The way her voice said my name echoes i
n my head. It drowns out the way she moaned it yesterday morning. Talk about adding insult to injury.

  I swing again. Connect again. But I feel nothing but anger. I know nothing but rage. I’m nothing but hurt.

  It’s all such bullshit.

  Useless fucking bullshit.

  None of it makes sense except for her expression when I went in to confront Tillman. Now that? The shocked guilt and wide eyes. They make perfect sense now.

  Swing and miss.

  The TV drones on. The announcers discuss Drew’s bat speed. I tune it out but can’t turn it off. It’s like I need to watch Santiago behind my plate to know it’s really happening.

  It’s all too goddamn much.

  I step outta the box and reach for the bottle of Jameson I set on the ledge behind me. The sting of the whiskey has nothing on the hole burning its way through my gut.

  I look at the bottle. The downside—it’s half empty. The upside—at least there’s more liquid Novocain to numb me, and God, how I need the pain to be dulled.

  How could she?

  The machine pitches the ball and it hits the backstop with a thud the same time my cell phone starts ringing again. Or maybe it never stopped. I can’t fucking remember because all I keep thinking is she spooked.

  I told her I was falling for her—asked her to move in with me for fuck’s sake when I’ve never offered that to anyone else before—and she fucking spooked. Instead of having the guts to tell me she couldn’t do it, she went the easy route.

  She got rid of me a different way.

  My chest hurts like a motherfucker. Another swig of the bottle. A twist of the bat in my hands that irritates the broken and raw blisters on my bare palms. I welcome the pain so I do it again as I step back into the box.

  The pitch comes. This time I’m so angry, so unfocused, I miss the ball completely. The sound of hitting only air—whiff—is deafening, and I welcome the temporary reprieve from the noise in my head.

  She sold me out to push me away.

  Away from my home.