"It may go on longer if you don't respond. They're going to keep hounding you, and I don't want this to jeopardize your recovery."
"I won't let that happen. I can't believe she did this."
"I can," Phil said. "Nikki only dates high-profile men who raise her profile and give her more followers and more clicks."
"Why didn't you say that before? I thought you liked her."
"What's not to like? She's hot. And you were having fun. Not my business. Why don't you talk to Elaine and see if you can craft some kind of statement?"
"I told Nikki I'd let her play the breakup however she wanted. I just didn't realize she was going to smear Keira." Keira could be hurt, he realized, and his silence wouldn't help. "I'll think about what I want to do."
"Okay. Let's talk about your progress. I'm getting a lot of queries from team management."
"Tell them I'm working the rehab. Dr. Cole is coming up next week to check my progress. After that, I should know more."
"I will pass that on, but now I'm just asking for myself."
"It's up and down. The range of motion is getting better, but not as fast as I would like. I feel strong. I feel like there's improvement, but I don't want to over-analyze it. I want to just stay focused on getting better."
"I'm glad to hear you're feeling optimistic."
"I'm not sure I'd go that far," he said dryly.
"Give me a call after you talk to your doctor next week."
"Will do."
"If you need me to speak to Nikki's agent, I can also do that."
"No one controls Nikki. She'll do whatever she wants to do if it works for her benefit. But I appreciate the offer. I'll be in touch."
As he set down his phone on the console, he blew out a breath of frustration. Why the hell had Nikki gone off on Keira? He didn't care what she said about him, but to bring Keira into it when Nikki knew there was nothing going on between them…
Clearly, Nikki hadn't completely believed that, or even if she had, she'd just thought the story would be better if she played the betrayed woman. She wasn't completely wrong, either. He did have feelings for Keira. But their lives were not in the same place. It had been difficult enough to work things out with Nikki, who traveled as much as he did. But Major League Baseball didn't make its way through Whisper Lake.
He'd never be able to finish anything he started with Keira, so he couldn't start it, even though he really wanted to, even though his dreams were filled with her image, even though he could hear the sound of her laugh in his head.
He should talk to her about the lies Nikki was telling. But she wanted him to keep his distance. He had to make an exception for this. Didn't he?
As he drove out of the parking garage, a van immediately followed him. The man behind the wheel was the same man who'd gotten the first shot of him. He pressed his foot down harder on the gas. He wasn't going to talk to the press until he spoke to Keira.
He grabbed his phone and punched in her number, but she didn't answer. He tossed the phone onto the console and then decided to lose his tail before he tried to find her. The last thing he wanted to do was bring more trouble to her, although he had the feeling that trouble was going to find her whether he brought it to her or not.
Chapter Fourteen
As Keira left the boutique through the back door just after four, she was shocked to find two photographers staked out in the parking lot: one middle-aged guy and a young twenty-something male. They'd been at the Lakeshore Bistro for Nikki's setup, but she'd thought they left town. They started shooting photos immediately, calling out question after question.
"Are you having an affair with Dante DeAngelis?"
"Are the two of you a couple?"
"Why did you betray Nikki?"
"Is Dante going to be able to play baseball again this season?"
She hesitated, wondering if she should try to answer any of their questions when the younger man asked, "When did you and Dante start having sex?"
No way was she talking to them! "No comment," she said, as she hurried toward her car. She quickly opened the door and got inside.
More shots were snapped as she drove out of the lot, her heart racing and her palms sweating. Wasn't Nikki a better subject than she was? Or Dante, for that matter? Why the hell weren't they at the rehab center, chasing him down?
Probably because they knew Dante wouldn't tell them anything. They might have thought she was an easier target.
Thank God she hadn't actually said anything. She'd been tempted, but that would have been a mistake. They would have spun her words around and made something else up.
As she drove away, she made a quick turn, then another. She knew this town like the back of her hand, and within minutes, she was able to get away. She was shocked that anyone would want to follow her. It seemed crazy, but Dante had tried to warn her that the tabloid press could be relentless. She might be a nobody, but she'd gotten caught in the middle of Dante and Nikki, and they were both celebrities. Hopefully, the press had gotten enough shots to be satisfied for now. She couldn't imagine that this story was really that interesting. There had to be celebrity breakups and plenty of legitimate threesomes to write about.
Putting the press out of her head, she headed toward the east shore, to the cabin where she'd met up with Dante several days earlier. A new stove was being delivered between five and seven, and she needed to sign for it and oversee the installation. This was another job she probably should have turned down, but her friend had trusted her to take care of everything and had insisted on adding an extra percentage point to a future sale to make sure she was compensated for her time.
She was actually happy to have something to do, and she wanted to be by herself for a while. She needed to figure out how to handle this new situation.
When she arrived at the cabin, she pulled her car into the attached garage and then entered the house. Everything was exactly as she'd left it several nights earlier. Since she had some time to wait, she pulled out her computer and sat down at the kitchen table. But as she opened the search engine, she was almost afraid to go online. She didn't want to see her name or image pop up. But it was probably fine as long as she stayed away from gossip sites and social media platforms.
Instead, she'd do a little more digging into Mark's life and see if she could find an image of Mandy. She was about to type in the name when her mom called.
"Hello? Is everything okay?" she asked immediately.
"It's fine. You always think something is wrong when I call," her mother replied. "I'm just waiting for Mark to arrive. Are you at the cabin?"
"Yes, I just got here. I'm not sure when the stove will arrive, probably close to seven, and who knows how long it will take to install. So, don't worry if I'm out late."
"That's fine." Her mother paused. "Dante just stopped by the house."
Her pulse jumped. "He did? Why?"
"He was looking for you. He told me that you've gotten caught up in some rumors about him. He's worried about you, and he wants to talk to you. He seemed very upset and sincere, so I told him where you were. He said he'd called you a few times, but you hadn't answered. Did I do the wrong thing?"
She wanted to say yes, because she did not want to talk to Dante. That's why she hadn't answered her phone. She didn't know what to say to him. Now that he'd broken up with Nikki, he'd removed at least one big barrier between them. But it wasn't enough, and she needed to think about how she wanted to deal with him.
"Keira?" her mother pressed, a worried note in her voice.
"It's okay, Mom."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I was going to call him. I just haven't had a chance."
"Oh, good. He said he broke up with his girlfriend."
"He's still leaving in a few weeks, Mom."
"Well, a lot can happen in a few weeks."
She walked into the living room as she heard a car out front. It was Dante. "He's here, Mom. I better go."
"All right."
"Did anyone follow you?" she asked.
"There was a guy behind me when I left the clinic, but I got rid of him. Are you all right?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure."
The air between them sizzled with tension as they stared at each other. Why did he have to be so damn attractive? Her body was tingling just from looking into his blue eyes, and she was incredibly distracted by his full mouth and the sexy stubble on his face. She drew in a shaky breath as his lips tightened.
"Keira…"
She waited for him to continue, but he seemed to have trouble finding the words. His hands curled into fists at his side.
"Are you angry?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm pissed. And I'm sorry. This whole situation is my fault."
"I can't argue with that."
"I never wanted Nikki to hurt you. I can't believe she went after you the way she did."
"I'm shocked, too."
"I had no idea she was going to do this. I hope you believe me."
"I believe you."
Relief flooded his gaze. Then he stepped forward and put his arms around her.
She shouldn't have gone into his embrace, but she did. She slipped her arms around his back, feeling powerful muscles under his thin T-shirt. She wanted to explore those muscles, and that was just the starting point of what she wanted. She told herself to get a grip. But her body was fighting her brain.
He tilted her face to his. She leaned into the kiss, closing her eyes, savoring the deliciously hot taste of his mouth. She told herself it was just for a second—one kiss. If she was going to get torched online for breaking him and his girlfriend up, didn't she deserve this moment of madness? That's all it would be. All it could be.
But he kissed so damn good. His mouth, her mouth—she didn't know where she ended and he began. She didn't know how long she could go without breathing, but she needed him more than she needed air.
And then her phone began to buzz and vibrate in her pocket. She broke away with a little gasp as reality brought her back down to earth.
She pulled out her phone and found enough breath to say, "Hello?"
"This is Arlington Appliance," a man said. "We'll be there in ten minutes."
"Okay. I'm here." She looked up from the phone and into Dante's beautiful blue eyes that were still sparking with desire.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"A stove is going to be delivered here in ten minutes."
"Right." He ran a hand through his hair. "Your mom said something about a delivery."
"Probably a timely interruption."
"I was thinking it was very untimely."
Her body was screaming yes in agreement, but her brain was finally taking over. "Maybe not. This has gotten really complicated."
"It was very simple a minute ago."
"That was a minute ago."
"And the minute is over," he said dryly.
"Yes." She tucked her hair behind her ears and tried not to think about kissing him again. She needed to focus on all the problems that came with him, not all the heat. "There were photographers waiting in the parking lot when I left the store today."
He frowned. "What happened?"
"They were taking photos and shooting questions at me so fast I didn't have time to answer, not that I wanted to."
"What did they ask you?"
"If I broke you and Nikki up. When we first had sex. Whether you were going to play again. How I felt about betraying my friend."
"I'm sorry you had to deal with that."
"I've never faced that kind of intense scrutiny before. I haven't read what Nikki posted, but Hannah told me about it, and it sounds like she blamed everything about your breakup on me."
"I haven't read the posts either, but that's the report I got from my agent, my brother, and my publicist."
"Maybe I should have said something to those reporters."
"No. They would have spun your words." He gave her a grim look. "I shouldn't have broken up with Nikki until I left here. I just didn't want her hanging around, and she wasn't going to go if I wasn't brutally blunt. I tried to tell her before that we needed to take a break, but she wouldn't hear me."
"Because she was more into it than you were."
"I don't know if that's true."
"Come on, Dante, you can't keep playing it down. You've said all along that she's not your girlfriend, that it's not serious, but she's acting like she was your girlfriend, and you were serious. You're either not being honest with me or you're not being honest with yourself."
"You're wrong, Keira. I am being honest. It's Nikki who is making our relationship into something it wasn't. We met in February. A month later, I was off to spring training and then the season. We saw each other sporadically. She came to Denver right before I got the surgery, but she couldn't stand being in the hospital. She didn't even wait until the surgery was over to leave. I didn’t see her for six weeks, until she showed up here."
She had to admit it didn't sound like that serious of a relationship. "I can't believe she left before your surgery was over. That was cold. Were you completely alone?"
"No. Danny and Micah came. They stayed a couple of days until I was able to take care of myself."
She was relieved to hear that. "I'm glad they were there for you. Why did you go to Denver for the surgery? Why didn't you have it in Miami?"
"Because Grayson's success rate with injuries like mine is phenomenally good. I wanted the best, and he's the best, so I went to Denver." He paused. "I actually didn't care that Nikki left. She's not good with medical issues, and I didn't have the energy to prop her up."
"You shouldn't have had to do that."
"I should have called it quits with her a while ago, but I've been so completely focused on my recovery that I just didn't want to get into it with her. She wasn't around. I didn't have a pressing need to have the talk."
"But last night you felt that need?"
"After the way she set us both up, yes. I'd had enough. She said she was going to tell people she broke up with me, but I didn't know she'd go after you. I should have figured she would. She's all about controlling the narrative, as you saw yesterday."
"She is very determined to do that. So, what now? Do we say something? Do we stay quiet? What's the play?"
"I'm not sure. I can talk to Nikki, but I don't know that I'll persuade her to come clean, not after she's made this so public. And speaking to her might make it worse."
He had a point. "If we don't say anything, will the press just eventually leave? How long will that take?"
"There's a chance they won't leave until I do. It's not just about you and me, although that's the spicier headline. It's also about my future in baseball. A lot of people want to know how my rehab is going, if I'm coming back." He paused. "I could leave, finish my rehab back in Denver or maybe even Miami. That would take the heat off you."
She immediately shook her head. "No. Your health is the most important thing, not this story. You should not leave rehab because of me."
"I don't want to complicate your life."
"Too late for that."
"I want to do something to make things easier for you."
"I don't think there's anything you can do." She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She wasn't going to be a victim or let this story run her life. "It will be fine. I can dodge the press. And even if they take photos of me, what are they going to see? I don't have time to waste on this situation. I have more pressing problems."
"Like Mark Langley?"
"He's one of those problems. He's having dinner right now with my mother. Hannah's wedding dress is the other issue. My design is not going well. I'm stuck and I don't know how to get myself unstuck."
/> "Well, I can't help you with the dress, but maybe I can help you with Langley."
"I was about to look for Mandy online."
"Why don't I help you?"
She hesitated. "I should say no. It feels like we're playing with fire."
A smile spread across his face. "It will only get as hot as you want it to get."
His flirty words sent another tingle down her spine. "That's the problem. I'm not making good decisions where you're concerned."
"We still have our clothes on, so the decisions haven't gotten that crazy."
"Maybe only because my phone rang." She wished she could retract her words as a sexy gleam entered his eyes.
"Interesting," he said.
"No, it's not." She paused as her phone buzzed once more. It was the same number as before. "Hello?"
"This is Arlington Appliance again. We, unfortunately, got a flat tire, and we need to wait for a repair. It will be about forty-five minutes before we get there."
His words brought both relief and worry, because the imminent arrival of the stove had been a good reason not to get into bed with Dante. But there was nothing she could do. "Okay," she said. "Let me know if that changes."
"Will do."
"What happened?" Dante asked as she hung up.
"The delivery is delayed. They got a flat tire."
"Interesting," he said again.
"No, it's not," she repeated.
"We have time to kill."
"To research Mandy," she said pointedly. "That's what I'm going to do. You can help or not."
"Oh, I'm helping. But I'm also hungry. Should I run out and get us some food? You haven't eaten, have you?"
"No. We could just order a pizza. I was actually going to do that."
"I'm in."
"What do you like?"
"Everything."
"That's easy."
"While you order the pizza, I'll start digging into Langley," he said, taking out his phone.
"Why don't we go into the kitchen? I've got my computer set up on the table."
As they walked down the hall, she called Dillard's and ordered a large pizza with everything except onions, and she was not going to analyze that decision. Because that might mean she had a plan, and she did not have a plan. She was just going to wait for a stove, share a pizza with Dante, and maybe find some dirt on Langley. That was it.
If We Never Met Page 13