So many maybes. So many regrets from times long ago. I try to sear the memory of Mack holding my hands in his into my memory, indelibly, so that I can freeze this moment and time and go back to it when this is all over. Because there’s no way I’ll be leaving town with this man. There can't be, can there? Second chances happen, but not for me.
“Renata. Listen to me. There’s a way out of this. I’ll find it. We’ll get through this, and we’ll come out on the other side.”
I nod slightly. “If you say so,” I mumble. My brain starts circling through all the things we could do—talking to lawyers, getting the contract looked over and somehow nullified, and perhaps my least favorite—talking to Kinley. Could I pay her part of my commission on this case to get her off my back? I remind myself that $600,000 is nothing to a woman like her. It’s all about the glory she can get from a famous relationship in the tabloid headlines.
“I’ll quit. I’ll do it. Before they can fire me, because I’m sure as hell not continuing with any engagement when I don’t love that woman, and she doesn’t have a goddamn ounce of respect for me.”
He’s so angry now he's shaking, so I squeeze his hands and pull him into an embrace. In an instinctual response, heat pools between my legs, my sex pulsing from being so close to him and taking in his scent. Like he’s reading my mind, he pulls me into an embrace on his lap, my legs straddling his. It feels so intensely sensual to be with him right now. He tilts my head toward his and kisses me, softly, gently, until the kiss grows in intensity. We sit there like that, just kissing.
The power of his embrace seems to block out everything else in the world—all of the pain and the drama, the headlines targeted at Mack, the conniving and backstabbing of the men and women who would seek to do him harm. We don’t do anything else, content to just be together for this still moment in time.
When he gets up to leave, I feel a sense of preemptive loss. When he goes up to his house to meet Kinley and all of the men from his team for the kickoff party, he’ll be solidifying himself as part of a power couple. The engagement was one thing—but this is the party all the photographers and sports reporters are attending. There will be pictures and interviews, photo opportunities with Eddie Davidson and all the members of the team. With each public event, we’re more deeply mired into this agreement.
And it’s clear Kinley and Eddie aren’t about to let it go.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The party up at my place is usually the biggest splash of the preseason. With Kinley here, there are even more photographers and reporters than usual. The caterer has everything set up perfectly—tens of thousands of dollars worth of food. The open bar is already flowing. Wingate and Darius are helping themselves, already caught in a deep conversation. Their eyes flick over to me, where I stand in the corner. Kinley comes and goes, taking my arm and dragging me around the room. With each touch she places on my skin, I cringe and something deep in my gut sinks. I know Darius and Wingate are talking about me, about the choices I’ve made that led up to this night. About the headlines in the media, and my desperate wish to break the engagement.
My eyes endlessly scan the room for Renata. Her red lips and perfectly painted red fingernails. Her body, muscular and sensual and tightly controlled—that is, until she’s in my arms. It’s then that she becomes who she really is. Now that I’ve finally had her, I want more. I lick my lips, thinking of my tongue against her skin. Being here at this party makes me think of all the mistakes I’ve made, all the things I’ve kept hidden, all the needs I have, the life I want. That life is with Renata. Not with football. Not with the team. And definitely not with Kinley.
My thoughts swirl into a fever pitch, and I finally pull Kinley aside after she’s had a few glasses of wine. “Kinley,” I whisper. “We know you’ve been leaking shit to the press. And it ain’t terribly pleasing.” I grab her hand and squeeze tight like we’re a normal couple, and she whimpers. In a former life, her little lip bite and soft sighs would have been alluring. But sober—and finally aware of what I want—there’s nothing that compels me toward this woman.
“Who’s ‘we?’ You and your gay cousin? Or your mysterious lover on the side?”
“I’ve got no lover on the side, and you know it.” What I’ve got is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with—she’s no side woman. She’s the only woman.
“Do I know it? Hm, I’ve been wondering how Macklin Pride keeps himself occupied with his legendary cock and insatiable sexual appetite. None of that sexual energy is directed at me, is it? Am I not enough for you, Mack? Am I not pretty enough? Not famous enough?” She pouts her lips at me, and I back away from her a couple of inches, disgusted.