Perfectly Ms. Matched(12)
No. He needed to check the attitude. Go in all businesslike.
Tapping a knuckle on her office door, he stuck his head inside. “Can I speak with you, please?”
Jo threw the pen in her hand onto the desktop. “Chad, I am at the end—”
“I know. But if you’d just hear me out, I’d appreciate it. Let me say my piece, and then I’m gone.”
“Fine.” Jo pointed to the chair beside her desk.
That was more like it.
He sat down and was just about to begin when she said, “You were way out of line snitching to my father like that. So congratulations, you’ve now made me even angrier at you. You’re not going to change my mind, so hurry up and say what you have to say. I’m busy.”
“Your dad would have wanted control of the expansion. Hell, the whole restaurant, for that matter. He’d be looking over your shoulder every day until the debt’s paid. I wanted to spare you that. I hate how your dad treats you.”
She slowly shook her head. “You don’t see how by tattling on me to be sure you got your way and then drawing up a set of plans without ever consulting me is behavior just as controlling as my father’s?”
What? No!
Was it?
He hadn’t meant it that way. “The plans were a gift. You’d have had to pay thousands for them.”
“So you thought a set of plans that included no input from me would make everything right and that I’d forgive you?”
Yeah. But it sounded kinda bad when she put it like that.
Dammit.
“I’ll make any changes you want. And I apologized to you about the . . . misunderstanding back then, but you wouldn’t hear it.” He shifted in his chair, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry about calling your dad. I thought I was the better choice for the money because I’d never put any strings on it. My bad. But will you please reconsider helping me? Football to me is like baking is to you. It’s all I’ve wanted since I was seven years old. I need you, Jo.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “Football is what you value above anything or anyone else. Your whole identity is based on it, Chad. I wasted too many years figuring that out. We’re not right for each other.”
He wanted to punch something, but this was his last chance. Jo was a logical person. He’d stick to the facts. “Please hear me out. I’m asking for your help, not asking you to marry me.”
“I realize that.” She looked down at her fisted hands. “Go on.”
“My doctor isn’t giving me very good odds. He said I might have to settle for walking without a limp one day. But I know what you did for my pal Roger Yeats. When he’d been traded from the Broncos to the Chargers a few years ago, everyone asked him how he’d done it. How he was able to come back from such a career-ending injury. He said it was because of you. You never gave up on him. And you didn’t let him give up on himself.”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “He was determined to get back out there. He just needed someone tough to push him, then he did all the work. Not me.”
“I need to be pushed that way too. And I need someone in my corner. Someone who believes I can do it. Someone I can trust to keep the extent of my injuries out of the press. You have more integrity than anyone I’ve met, and I admire and respect you for it, Jo. I need you. Please?”
Jo studied him for so long, he wasn’t sure whether she was going to throw him out or give in. Finally, she said, “Regardless of what you want and need, I don’t think I can work with you. We have . . . history.”
“Good history. We work great together. In college, you got me into top shape in time for the combine. Made me look good enough to be drafted in the first round. Everyone predicted I’d go much lower after I got hurt in the last game of the season. But you saved me.”
“You saved yourself. You wanted that worse than anything else.”
“Wrong. I wanted the sex acts you bribed me with if I did those extra reps worse than anything else.”
The corners of her full lips started to tilt before she checked her smile. “Yeah, well, your buddy Roger got none of that and neither will you. Please just call one of the names on the list I gave you, Chad.” She stood, obviously signaling the end of his time. “I honestly hope you’ll be able to play again. Now go home and ice your knee. It must be killing you.”
He stood too, and then leaned on his cane. “Promise me you’ll sleep on it before you give me your final decision.”
She shook her head and opened her mouth to turn him down, so he laid his fingers on her soft lips to stop her. “Twenty-four hours is all I ask.”