by Pamela Yaye
“That’s different. The kids at the shelter don’t have anybody else.”
“Good with kids is good with kids. It doesn’t matter if they’re yours or not,” Simone argued. “You can have a career and a family, Angela. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
“It does for me.”
“That’s because you’re a perfectionist with implausibly high standards.”
“And proud of it,” Angela said. I’m going to make it to the top and no one is going to stop me, she decided, as an idea began taking shape in her mind. Tomorrow, she’d tell Salem she was on board to do the interview and submit a list of fake questions. Questions she had no intention of asking Demetri Morretti on the air.
A smirk tickled her lips. By the time Angela was finished with the baseball star, he’d be toast, and she’d be the talk of the town. And one step closer to sliding into that lead-anchor chair. Angela was going to take the news world by storm, and she wasn’t letting anyone—especially a sly superstar athlete with a chiseled physique—get in her way.
Chapter 5
“You need to change your name to Trouble,” a voice boomed, drowning out the hip-hop song playing inside Samson’s Gym, “because everywhere you go, trouble seems to find you!”
Demetri cast a glance over his shoulder at his former teammate and workout buddy T. J. Nicks. Unable to hold the weight any longer, Demetri dropped the barbell on the floor and plopped down on the workout bench.
Samson’s Gym, a state-of-the-art fitness center frequented by pro athletes, college students and moneyed professionals, was usually packed, but this morning there was only a handful of people working out. An older man, who looked as if he was on the verge of collapse, was lifting weights a few benches over, but he was so focused on his routine, he was oblivious to the world. And that was how Demetri liked it. As long as he kept his head down and didn’t make eye contact with anyone, no one would recognize him and he could work out in peace.
“I haven’t seen you in a minute,” Demetri said, swiping his towel off the side of the workout bench and wiping the sweat off his face. “What’s up?”
“You tell me.”
Shrugging a shoulder, he readjusted his baseball cap. “Nothing much.”
“Are you sure? From what I hear, you’ve been a very busy boy.”
“You saw the video?”
A grin fell across T.J.’s dark, narrow face. “Sure did. One of my boys emailed it to me. I almost died laughing when that gorgeous newscaster from WJN-TV called you a spoiled, overgrown kid who needed a time-out!”
Demetri chuckled, though at the time, when Angela was giving him a verbal smackdown, he didn’t feel like laughing. He hadn’t felt like lashing back at her, either. Maybe because his eyes were glued to her lips, and her scent was a bold, exotic fragrance that aroused his senses. One week after his infamous showdown with Angela Kelly, and he was still thinking about her. Demetri loved his mom, but he blamed her for his present state of mind. If she hadn’t called him last night from Italy and reamed him out for disrespecting Angela at her studio, he wouldn’t be thinking about the sexy TV newscaster now. He didn’t know why Angela had someone record their conversation, and post it online, but he intended to ask her. Demetri didn’t care what his mother said. He wasn’t a bully. Angela Kelly was a liar who had it coming to her.
“Are you here to work out or gossip?” Demetri asked.
“Both. You know ribbing you is the highlight of my day!” Chuckling, T.J. bent down and retied the laces of his white sneakers. “Why aren’t you working out at your home gym? Having it renovated again?”
“No, I needed a change of scenery.”
“Shoot, if I had a home gym like yours, I’d never leave the house!”
Demetri picked up his titanium sports bottle, unscrewed the lid and took a long drink of water. T.J. was a good friend, and he’d never put Demetri’s business out on the street, but he wasn’t going to tell him the truth. The real reason he was there, at seven o’clock in the morning, was to talk to Angela Kelly. Thanks to the owner of the gym, Demetri knew what days and times Angela worked out with her personal trainer. To ensure he didn’t oversleep, he’d set every alarm clock in his house and asked his personal assistant to phone him just in case. Now he was at the gym, waiting for her to make an appearance. He only hoped this time when they spoke, she wouldn’t go off on him.
“How is rehab going?” T.J. asked, striding over to the free weights and selecting a set of dumbbells. “Think you might make it back in time for the play-offs?”
“I hope so, but I doubt it. It kills me not being out there with my team, but my surgeon wants me to take the rest of the season off, and I’m not going to disregard his advice. The last time I did, I ended up tearing a ligament in my knee, and that hurt like a bitch.”
“I hear you, man. What’s next on your circuit?”
Yawning, Demetri stood and stretched his hands lazily above his head. “I’m going to do a couple laps around the track, then cool down in the sauna.”
“Really? You look like you’re about to fall asleep.” T.J. wore a quizzical look. “Why are you here so early, anyways? You never get out of bed before noon.”
Demetri thought fast and said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I’ll be tied up the rest of the day, so I decided to get my training out of the way now.”
Eyes wide, T.J. dropped the dumbbells back on the rack and gestured to the cardio room. “Dude, guess who just strode up in here looking like my next baby mama. Angela-sexy-as-sin-Kelly!” he hollered, eagerly rubbing his hands together. “I’ve met a lot of gorgeous girls, but that honey takes the cake. She’s hot, successful and crazy-smart.”
“Sounds like somebody has a crush,” Demetri teased, poking fun.
“Who doesn’t? She’s one of the baddest chicks around!”
Demetri wore a blank face. He didn’t want his friend or anyone else to know that he was feeling Angela Kelly. He had a knack for picking the wrong woman, and the TV newscaster was everything he didn’t want in a girlfriend. From now on, he was staying away from fame-loving, celebrity-obsessed types. His ex, a wildly popular R & B singer with a good-girl image, had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep their relationship a secret. But Demetri was through with secret phone calls, ducking out back doors and clandestine meetings in hotel rooms across town. He’d just have to fight his attraction to Angela Kelly, because hooking up with the feisty, headstrong sister was asking for trouble. “She’s all right,” he said with a shrug. “Too prissy for me, though.”
“All right?” When T.J.’s jaw dropped, his tongue fell out of his open mouth. “Man, please. Angela Kelly is a dime piece and you know it!”
Spotting Angela inside the cardio room, Demetri admired her shapely physique. He liked to see tall, athletic women in bright, figure-hugging workout clothes. He loved how the TV newscaster’s yellow shirt and fitted leggings showed off her curves.
Demetri told himself to look away, but his eyes were glued to Angela’s big, beautiful backside. And when she bent over and touched her toes, all the blood drained from his head. Swallowing hard, he gulped down the rest of his water.
“Quit frontin’, man.” T.J. leveled a finger at him. “You’re hot for Angela, too, just like every other guy in Chi-Town. You’re just scared of getting shot down.”
Demetri shook his head. “She’s not my type.”
“Yeah, right!”
“If I wanted Angela Kelly, I could have her, but I don’t, so—”
“No offense, bro, but she’s way out of your league.”
Now Demetri was the one with wide eyes. “I’m not trying to brag, T.J., but I’m one of the highest-paid athletes in baseball,” he said, feeling the need to defend himself. “Money is no object, man. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you know how you
are with your money.”
“No, I don’t. How am I?”
“Cheap, cheap, cheap,” he chirped, shielding his mouth with the back of his hand. “You signed a blockbuster deal a few months back, but you live like a struggling college student!”
“I’m not cheap. I just don’t believe in wasting money.” Demetri stepped out onto the track. “I have no intention of blowing through my earnings and being broke in ten years.”
“Is that why you force your personal shopper to clip coupons and comparison shop?”
“No,” he argued with a laugh. “My mom ordered her to!”
Chuckling, the men jogged the length of track at a smooth, fluid pace.
“Word on the street is that Angela only dates rich guys,” T.J. explained, his tone matter-of-fact. “You know, men who can wine her, dine her and pay her expenses.”
Demetri frowned. He found it hard to believe that Angela Kelly was a kept woman. She didn’t strike him as the kind of girl who’d expect a man to support her, but what did he know about women? If he knew more about the species, he wouldn’t keep getting played. All of his ex-girlfriends were more interested in his celebrity status than having a real, meaningful relationship with him. And at thirty-two, that was exactly what Demetri was looking for. He knew he was a great catch and he wanted to catch a great woman. Someone who would be there when his career ended and the endorsement deals dried up. His teammates told him he was lucky to be single, but Demetri didn’t agree. He envied the guys who got off the team bus and had their wives and children waiting for them. One-night stands left him feeling empty inside, and contrary to what his older brothers, Nicco and Rafael, told him, a warm, curvy body didn’t make everything better.
“You dumped the last girl who demanded you buy her a mansion in Bel Air, and that Hawaiian chick for stealing your underwear and selling them on eBay, so there’s no way you and Angela Kelly would ever work out.”
“Good, because I’m not interested in her,” he tossed back.
“But if you were, you could do her, right?”
Demetri wet his lips with his tongue. The thought of sexing Angela, on his custom-made bed, with soft jazz music playing in the background and scented candles flickering around the room, made a slow, lazy smile break out across his mouth. “No comment.”
T.J. raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so you think she’d be putty in your hands?”
An explicit image of Angela—naked and rocking her shapely hips against his erection—flashed in Demetri’s mind, derailing his thoughts. He couldn’t shake the picture from his mind, and when they jogged past the cardio room, and Demetri saw Angela performing squat thrusts, his erection came to life. “I never said that, T.J.”
“It was implied.”
“Angela Kelly is just like every other girl. Willing to do whatever it takes to bed a baller so she can enjoy his status and his checkbook.”
“Care to make a friendly wager?” T.J. stuck his hands into his track pants, took out a few hundred-dollar bills and waved them under Demetri’s nose. “A thousand bucks says you don’t get past first base with that sexy TV newscaster.”
“Knock it off, man. We’re not in grade school, and betting about women is juvenile.”
“Scared you’re going to lose, huh? You should be. Angela Kelly is a hard nut to crack.”
Demetri believed him. The newscaster was a fiery, passionate woman with a sharp tongue, and there was nothing soft or genteel about her. His eyes trailed her around the cardio room, and when she hopped off the treadmill and toweled off, Demetri knew it was time to make his move. “Be right back,” he said, spinning around and jogging backward. “See you in five.”
“Where are you going?”
Demetri wore a crooked smile. “To settle a score.”
* * *
“I—I—I think I’m dying.” Gasping for air, Angela fanned a hand in front of her face and slumped against the wall like a sack of potatoes. “Everything hurts, even my butt, and I didn’t sit down once during our session!”
“That’s because plyometric workouts engage all of the major muscle groups in the body.” Her personal trainer, a stocky man with thick dreadlocks, patted her on the shoulder. “You did awesome today, Angela. Way to go pushing yourself through that last rep of weights.”
“Great—tell that to the E.R. doctor when he wheels me into the operating room.”
“I’ll see you on Thursday.”
“If I don’t die between now and then.” Too tired to wave, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. It was the first time all week she hadn’t thought about her run-in with Demetri Morretti or her problems with her brother, Rodney. But now that her treacherous hour-long training session was over, all her troubling thoughts came rushing back. Demetri had posted a scathing message about her on his blog, and all morning she’d been fielding calls from the media. Angela wanted to report the news, not be the news, and it annoyed her that she’d become a hot topic.
Her legs felt like rubber, but she staggered over to the water fountain, one aching step at a time. Placing her bottle underneath the spout, she pressed the lever and leaned against the wall. Angela stared out onto the track. Her gaze wandered aimlessly around the gym before landing on a fit, muscled specimen in a sleeveless Chicago Royals T-shirt and knee-length shorts.
For the second time in minutes, Angela let out a deep-seated groan. Her eyes ate up every inch of the stranger’s towering frame. The square jaw, the rack of his shoulders, his bulging biceps. Since high school, she’d had a weakness for strong, athletic guys, and Mr. Man was definitely her type. All lean and rugged, he looked like the kind of guy who could fix the leaky faucet in her kitchen and rock her world in the bedroom.
Angela felt ice-cold water flow down her hands and snapped out of her thoughts. Releasing the lever, she tucked her water bottle under her arm and dabbed her wristband over her damp cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder, to ensure no one had witnessed her reaction, and there, standing a few feet away, was Demetri Morretti. Damn. He was the same guy she’d been drooling over on the track seconds earlier.
Angela sucked in a breath. Her pulse soared, and her heartbeat drummed so loud in her ears, she couldn’t think. Physically active and fit her entire life, she’d never had any problems with her heart, but every time Demetri Morretti was around, it throbbed, skipped and beat out of control. Like right now.
“Good morning,” he said, tipping his baseball cap at her. “Can we talk?”
His voice was husky and matched his gruff disposition. He looked angry, and pained, as if someone had just beaten him in an arm wrestle.
“I think you said enough the other day at the TV station, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry I barged into your studio.”
“You should be.”
“You’re right, and I shouldn’t have stepped to you like that, either. It won’t happen again.”
His gaze probed her eyes, one terrifying second at a time. Admitting he’d made a mistake couldn’t have been easy, and Angela found herself moved by the sincerity of his tone. But not enough to forgive him for what he’d written about her on his blog yesterday.
“I was hoping we could start over.”
“Let’s not and say we did,” Angela quipped.
“I knew you were going to make this hard for me.”
She puzzled over Demetri’s words but decided not to question him. Angela had zero interest in patching things up with the conceited baseball star but knew better than to argue with him in public again. There was no telling who was watching. Or secretly taping them. And the last thing Angela wanted was another video of her screaming at Demetri Morretti to mysteriously surface online. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“If anyone should be holding a grudge, it should be me,” he said, pointing an index finger
at his chest. “Because of you, I’m the most hated athlete in America.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Morretti. Your reputation was in the dumps long before my Athletes Behaving Badly story.”
“Well, your report certainly didn’t help.”
“Neither did your six-game batting slump.”
His face, like his voice, was stern and tense. “I didn’t come over here to argue. I came here to apologize for what happened the other day.”
“You have some nerve. First, you post a nasty message about me on your blog—”
“My blog?” Demetri looked puzzled, as confused as a driver who’d exited a store and forgotten where he’d parked, but when he spoke, his words were measured and his speech was slow. “I don’t blog or Tweet or post online messages. My publicist manages all of my social-media accounts.”
“But the blog is in your name.”
“I know,” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “but I’m not much of a computer person. I prefer talking to people face-to-face, especially beautiful TV newscasters.”
Angela felt a smile claim her lips but washed it off. She wasn’t ready to forgive and forget what Demetri had done, but she believed he didn’t write his blog. It didn’t sound like something a guy would write. Most celebrities didn’t post online messages or respond directly to fans, but the smart ones were wise enough to preapprove what their handlers put on the web. But obviously Demetri Morretti was too busy getting into bar fights to care. “A guy could get in a lot of trouble letting other people speak for him.”
“No one speaks for me. I speak for myself.”
“Could have fooled me.” Her confidence kicked in and stamped out the unruly butterflies flittering around her stomach. “You’re just full of surprises this morning, aren’t you? Next, you’ll be telling me you didn’t have someone record our argument and post it online.”
“I didn’t. Actually, I thought you did.”