Blitzing Emily (34 page)

A platter of meatball sliders landed on the bar in front of them, along with saucers, silverware, and napkins. The bartender moved away. Emily arranged two sliders on a saucer, grabbed a napkin, and put them down in front of Brandon.

“Eat.”

“Not hungry.”

“If you don’t eat, I’ll check you into a hotel without an honor bar. You are not throwing up all over my house, Brandon McKenna.”

“Who said I was going to your house?” He took a bite of one of the sliders.

“I’m driving.” She helped herself to a slider. Brandon’s phone vibrated so hard with incoming calls it slid across the bar. He grabbed it, switched it off, and put it back in his pocket.

“You should have gone to Atlanta,” he said. The expression in his eyes was bleak as a bitter-cold morning in January. “I can grab a cab home.”

She raised one eyebrow.

“I can take care of myself,” he said.

She picked up a fork and took a bite.

“You’re using a goddamn fork to eat a goddamn burger—”

She spoke into his ear again. “I realize you’re having the worst day of your life, but this does not mean you get to act like an ass toward me.”

“You can leave at any time.” He looked down his nose at her.

She sat up straighter on the bar stool that must have been pressed into service for the first time during the Cold War. The bar was still deserted, but she spoke loudly enough to be heard over the omnipresent soundtrack of rock n’ roll oldies from the sixties and seventies playing from tinny-sounding speakers.

“No, actually, I can’t leave. I have other commitments and responsibilities right now, but you are more important. I would spend the rest of the night worrying that you didn’t make it home, you fell down the stairs, or you gave an interview that made Charlie Sheen look like a Rhodes Scholar.” She looped her handbag over one arm. “We’re packing up the rest of the food I ordered, and we’re going to my house. You’re going to sober up. We are going to talk about what to do next.”

“There’s nothing to do next.”

She captured his chin in her fingertips. They stared into each other’s eyes. Her voice dropped. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

Neither of them moved for a few moments. The world shrank to the circle of space around them. His eyes dropped.

“Bossy little thing, aren’t you?” he said.

Emily took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to put up stats this season that will make the Sharks GM and front office the laughing stock of the league. You’re going to go into free agency with more buzz than Peyton Manning did. You’re going to get the biggest contract offers Josh can field, and
you
will decide when it’s time to walk away. Not them.” She let go of his chin, picked up the slider on her plate in two fingers, and consumed it.

“More buzz than Manning.” His voice was dry.

After listening to Brandon’s football tutorials, she knew her example was over the top and more than a little ridiculous, but Brandon’s agent’s phone was probably already ringing.

“It’s your choice. Let them beat you, or beat them at their own game.”

She sipped her club soda. She knew her words were like waving a red flag in front of a six-foot-four, two-hundred-seventy pound bull who didn’t consider losing an option.

He met her eyes again. He reached out for her hand, and squeezed it. Despite having drunk enough alcohol to anesthetize an elephant, one side of his mouth twitched as the supremely self-confident, ultra-competitive Brandon McKenna roared back to life.

Chapter Twenty-One

E
MILY AND
B
RANDON
met at baggage claim. She was back from her previously delayed trip to Atlanta. He was home after his last pre-season game. Sea-Tac Airport wasn’t the most romantic place in town to schedule a meeting, but it didn’t stop Brandon from pulling her into his arms and making sure they’d be trending on Twitter within the hour. Emily could hear the
click
and see the flashes of cell phone cameras going off.

One of Brandon’s teammates gave him a nudge. “Hey. Get a room.”

“Fu— Go to hell,” he said, but there wasn’t any heat in Brandon’s voice. “Maybe you could get a girl, if you weren’t so ugly,” he told the guy, who laughed out loud.

Brandon teased Emily the whole way home about a “surprise.” As they walked through the garage door into her house, he pulled his tie off, making a blindfold out of it for her.

“I can’t see—”

“I’ve got you,” he drawled. He slid his arm around her waist, and held her other hand to steady her footsteps. “One at a time. We’ll get there.”

Emily smelled roses as they moved into her house. The door shut behind them.

“What are you up to, Brandon McKenna?”

“This is taking too damn long.” Brandon swept her up in his arms. “You’ll see.”

She looped her arm around his neck. “I can’t see anything through this.”

She heard his low laughter. “So, take it off.”

She reached up and pulled the makeshift blindfold off as he carried her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but she glanced around.

A trail of rose petals covered the floor from the front door, down the hallway, and into Emily’s bedroom. More rose petals were heaped on the turned-down bed, and flickering candles lit the room. A bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket and two glasses waited for them on the dresser. Another bowl of fresh strawberries with a dipping bowl of thick, dark chocolate sauce sat next to it.

“This is incredible,” Emily said. “Did you do this?”

“I might have had some help.”

Amy was the only other person besides Brandon that had a key to Emily’s house. Even without the rose petals, it wasn’t tough to figure out who his helper was. Emily reached out to pick up one of the candles, flipping it over to examine the base.

“This must be one of those LED candles. They look real, don’t they?” she said.

“If that’s all you can think of at a time like this, sugar, I’m falling down on the job.”

He set her down on her feet. She set the candle on the closest flat surface and wrapped both arms around him.

“I always wanted to make love on a bed of roses,” she said.

He pulled her closer. “I think you’re going to get your wish.” His mouth took hers. “I missed you so damn much.”

Emily pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders, fumbling with the buttons down the front of his dress shirt. He responded by unzipping the pencil skirt she wore. A few minutes later, the only trace of two fully dressed people was a pile of clothes on the carpet.

“Leave your shoes on, sugar.” He picked her up again, setting her down in the bed.

“Lucky me,” was all she could say.

Emily lay in an unbelievably soft and fragrant pile of rose petals. Brandon heaped them over her breasts and abdomen, too. She marveled at how soft they felt against her skin, but she found herself a lot more interested in the six feet four inches of naked distraction lying next to her. Plus, he’d just licked the spot behind her earlobe that made her weak with desire.

“I miss you so much when I’m gone now,” she gasped out. “It’s awful.” She traced the shell of his ear with her tongue. “Maybe we should move somewhere there are no schedules, no agents, nothing else but you and me and—”

His voice was low but amused. “We can’t.”

“Why not? We’re adults. We can do anything we want.”

“You might get bored,” he teased. “No schedule, no agents, nothing else to do? We’d be forced to make love all day every day, and gather enough food to keep us going. Sounds rugged. I don’t know if you could keep up the pace.”

She pushed him onto his back, and rolled atop him. “Shut up and kiss me, bruiser.”

D
AWN’S SOFT LIGHT
illuminated Emily’s room as she awoke. Brandon slept on, the sheet twisted around his hips, one hand tucked under his pillow. He’d flung his other arm around her. Blond stubble covered his chin and a slight flush colored his cheekbones. His long lashes looked oddly delicate on him. His skin was golden in the morning light. The scent of roses was almost overpowering. Emily knew she would never smell roses again without remembering last night.

She disengaged herself carefully from under his arm and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She smiled as the rose petals fell off her and onto the floor. He stirred, but didn’t open his eyes. She stood up, leaned over the bed, and carefully brushed the errant curl on his forehead back with her fingertips.

“Sleep, baby,” she whispered.

“Mmph.” He rolled onto his stomach. His butt was as gorgeous as the rest of him. She couldn’t resist patting it before she padded into the bathroom.

After taking care of the morning business, she was reaching in to flip the shower on when the telephone rang. Fearing it would wake Brandon, she hurried back into the bedroom to answer it. The caller ID revealed it was Amy.

“Kinda early for a social call,” she stage-whispered into the receiver.

“Is Brandon still there?” Amy asked.

“He’s sleeping. Thanks for the rose petals, you weirdo.”

Amy’s laugh sounded more like a choke.

Brandon’s arm snaked around Emily’s waist, and she heard his sleepy whisper: “Come back to bed, sugar.”

“Just a sec,” Emily murmured to him. “What’s up?”

“Anastasia’s on ESPN. She’s pregnant.”

“Well, that was fast. Good for her.”

“No, Em. She says she’s seven months pregnant. She says Brandon is the father.”

Brandon wrapped his arms around Emily’s waist, and kissed the small of her back. She stood up and moved away from him.

“Excuse me?”

“Turn on the TV.”

“This can’t be true,” Emily said.

“Call me back.”

Emily hung up the phone in a daze. She went into the bathroom and shut the door. Brandon opened it, sticking his head in.

“What happened?” he said.

She sat on the toilet lid, turning her face away from him. In two steps he was in the bathroom, on his knees in front of her.

“Sugar, talk to me.”

“Did you call her ‘sugar,’ too?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Anastasia. She’s pregnant.” Emily tried to do math in her head. They met in February. It was now almost September. Anastasia could not be seven months pregnant unless she and Brandon—it was too awful to think about. They would have slept together after he and Emily announced their engagement. In other words, he cheated.

“Listen to me. Anastasia doesn’t matter to me. We broke up.” Brandon wrapped his arms around her. She pushed him away. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Talk to me.”

“She’s been on ESPN all morning. She says it’s your baby.”

Emily stared into his eyes. The color drained from his cheeks. “That can’t be true.”

“When was the last time you were with her?”

She shook all over. Even worse, she was freezing cold. Brandon drew her to his chest. This time, she didn’t resist him. His voice was low and barely audible.

“I used a condom every time. Every time.”

“When was the last time you were with her?”

“Before I met you.”

Emily’s brain whirled.
Eight months ago
, he said. Either he was lying, or Anastasia was. She wanted to believe Brandon, so badly. She wanted to believe Anastasia was lying. In that moment, though, she realized she knew better than to trust a man not to cheat. She’d learned that lesson before.

Her voice shook with anger and repressed hurt. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Shortly after we met. I told her it was over. She didn’t want to take no for an answer.” He stroked Emily’s hair. “I never called her ‘sugar.’ There’s only one, and that’s you.”

“Maybe you should have told me.”

“It didn’t seem important.”

She cut him off. “What if the baby’s yours?” She had to ask.

“It isn’t. She showed up at the bar I go to with the guys, and she made it clear what she wanted . . . I left her at the bar. Sugar, there’s been nobody else but you since that day in the parking lot.”

She dropped her head into her hands. “I keep coming up with the same number of months.”

Brandon’s mouth fell open. “You can’t believe she’s telling the truth about this?”

Emily wrapped her arms around herself. “There’s ways to prove paternity. If she lied about it, she’ll get caught. Why would she risk it?”

He let out a snort. “Sugar, you don’t know Anastasia.”

Emily’s throat felt like it was closing up. She concentrated on pulling breath into her lungs. It was her worst nightmare, come true. There had to be an explanation, but no matter how many times she counted on her fingers, it still didn’t look good.

“You saw her. You never told me. Now she says she’s pregnant with your baby, and you’re wondering why I don’t believe you.”

“Sugar, I should have told you. I’m sorry,” he said. “Her baby’s not mine.” He took Emily’s face in his hands. “Not mine,” he repeated.

But then a photo of Anastasia passionately kissing Brandon time-stamped in late March was all over Twitter and entertainment news within twenty-four hours of her announcement. That wasn’t all. Anastasia’s friends were also coming forward and insisting he’d been seeing her the entire time he was with Emily.

A
NASTASIA’S DAUGHTER WAS
born three weeks later. The baby, supposedly premature, weighed almost ten pounds. Brandon’s lawyers buried Anastasia’s lawyer in a blizzard of paperwork. Brandon submitted to paternity testing the day after the baby was born. Emily spent an additional three weeks at performances in Boston. She’d never been so happy to leave town. She needed some time to think.

Brandon and Emily were still talking, but barely.

Brandon was in Chicago now, preparing for a Monday night game with the Bears. He asked Emily to visit him on her way home to Seattle.

“We need to talk, sugar. Please.”

“I can’t. I have rehearsals in Seattle this week, and I need to get back.”

He was silent for a moment on the other end of the telephone. “Can’t, or won’t?”

She let out a sigh. “I will see you when you’re back from the road trip.”