Blitzing Emily (35 page)

Amy arrived at Emily’s house a few minutes before Brandon’s game started that Monday night. She stopped in the entryway, reaching out for Emily’s upper arm.

“Have you slept or eaten at all since you left Seattle? Your clothes are hanging on you. There are dark purple circles under your eyes.”

Emily pulled away from her sister’s probing eyes. “I’m fine.” She moved into the kitchen. “How are you doing?”

“Better than you are, I think,” Amy muttered.

They sipped beer and talked a little while they waited for the broadcast to start. Of course, there was only one topic.

“Emily, he’s not that guy. He wants to be with you. He’s not going anywhere.” Amy shook her head. “I’ve never heard of a preemie weighing almost ten pounds, either. That’s weird.”

“Brandon said both he and Dylan weighed ten pounds when they were born,” Emily said. “Maybe he lied. Maybe he’s been lying for a long time now.”

She couldn’t forget the fact she’d risked her heart, again. It hadn’t gone well before. She didn’t think she could recover from another guy who cheated, lied about it, and then asked her who she believed—him, or her lying eyes.

“You know that condoms fail. Birth control fails. Accidents happen.” Amy shook her head. “Em, he would never do this to you on purpose.”

“Here’s a question.” Emily turned to face her sister. “How do we know that?”

“You’re kidding. You must have me confused with someone who didn’t have a ringside seat for this whole thing. He’s told you he doesn’t cheat. I was a little worried when you guys first started going out, but he’s shown you over and over that he chose you. Brandon’s a freaking prince, and you can’t believe him?” Amy wrapped her arms around herself. “When are you going to finally evict James from your head?”

“This has nothing to do with him.”

Amy cut her off. “Oh, yes it does.” They glared at each other.

“You don’t understand.”

“No, Em.
You
don’t understand.” Silence fell. Amy took a long swig of beer. Emily stared mutely at the television.

She and Brandon’s entire relationship started on a lie. She wondered when—and if—she could learn to trust.

The color commentators were talking about different players before the game started, and of course they talked about Brandon.

“You know, guys, Brandon McKenna may be a bit distracted this evening,” one of them said. “Anastasia Lee announced a few minutes ago through her publicist that DNA tests prove McKenna fathered her newborn daughter.”

Amy grabbed Emily’s hand. Emily’s stomach churned. She felt like she wanted to vomit. She couldn’t stop shaking. She’d been right to accuse him.

Oh, how she’d wanted to be wrong.

The commentator continued. “Those who’ve followed this saga know that McKenna’s been dating opera diva Emily Hamilton. Let’s hope his romantic misadventures won’t hurt the Sharks’ defense tonight.”

“He lied,” was all Emily could say.

Despite being so mad ten minutes ago she couldn’t look at Emily, Amy wrapped her arms around her sister. “We’ll get through this.” The phone rang. Amy answered it, and said briskly, “No comment.” She hung up. The phone rang again. “Should I answer it?”

“Please unplug it,” Emily told her. “I’m going to go lie down.”

Emily got up off the couch and hurried into her bedroom. She threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in a pillow. The phone kept ringing. The pillowcase still smelled like Brandon.

A few minutes later there was a soft tap on the doorframe, and Amy said, “There’s someone who’d like to talk with you.”

“Not right now,” she choked out.

Amy crossed the room and put the phone up to Emily’s ear. Emily could barely hear him over the racket in the locker room.

“Sugar,” he said, “God, I’m so sorry. I—we’ll talk about this later. I want to see you later.”

“Why?”

“I’ll come over when we get back to Seattle. I just—I want to see you.”

She was numb. She was torn between screaming in pain and wanting to kill him with a dull fork. She felt like a block of ice: freezing cold, nobody could touch her.

Emily walked back into the living room with Amy’s cell in her hand. Amy shut the TV off.

“Watch the game,” Emily said. “I know you want to see it.”

“To hell with the game.” Amy patted the place next to her on the couch. “Let’s have some food, Em.”

“Not hungry.”

Amy ate pizza, drank beer, and the sisters talked about anything else but Brandon, Anastasia, and their daughter. Emily couldn’t bring herself to take a bite.

“I can stay,” Amy said. Emily handed her a foil-wrapped package of leftover pizza to take home.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Just don’t answer the phone.”

Emily’s home phone and her cell rang almost continuously throughout the evening. She unplugged the cordless in the living room, but it still rang in her room. “I won’t.”

Amy threw her arms around Emily. “Call me if you need me.”

“I will.”

“Liar.” She grinned. “I love you.”

“Love you, too. Thanks for coming over.”

Amy put her hand on the doorknob and then turned to Emily once more. “Give him a chance. There has to be another explanation. You met Anastasia. She’s awful.”

“He still wanted to sleep with her, didn’t he?”

Then he had slept with Emily. She swallowed hard. Maybe she wasn’t his type after all and he still preferred rail-thin supermodels. He said he loved her, but maybe she never was what he really wanted in the first place.

Maybe they were all wrong for each other.

“He’s not James.” Her sister grabbed Emily’s chin in her hand. “You never loved James, Em.”

She pulled away from Amy. “I’ll—I’ll be fine.”

E
MILY CHANGED INTO
an old, comfortable flannel nightgown and lay in bed, reading. Allegedly. She was too distracted to concentrate, or see the words on the page. She dropped the book on the nightstand and shut off the lamp. She tossed and turned for hours as she planned and plotted what to say to Brandon.

She would be strong. She was not letting this happen to her again. She would come out of this wiser and more resilient. The team’s plane wouldn’t arrive until very late and she expected Brandon to call and say he wasn’t coming over.

Instead she awoke in the dark to his murmured, “I’m home.” She’d forgotten he still had a key.

Brandon got into her bed fully dressed and tugged her into his arms. She jerked away from him.

“Come here.” He reached out for her.

“No. No, I don’t want to.”

Emily got out of bed and stood, trembling, next to it. The helpless, numb feeling she had earlier that evening was now white-hot fury. Against every outward indication, she had trusted him. She had believed in him. He had used it against her. How many times would she have to learn that maybe things
were
exactly as they seemed? To quote an old cliché, tigers didn’t change their stripes. And ladies’ men didn’t become one-woman guys, either.

She was an idiot. She wanted to hurt him as deeply as he’d hurt her, but there was nothing she could say or do that would accomplish this. She wrapped her arms around herself.

He took a deep breath.

“Sugar, I know you probably think I’m nuts, but I don’t understand how this happened.”

“It happens the way women have been getting pregnant for thousands of years. They have sex—”

“No. I never got the results. It was my understanding they wouldn’t be back for at least several more days.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Emily’s voice shook. The trembling increased. She wanted to scream at him, but somehow she kept her voice low. She was cold again. She knew the cold wasn’t ever going to thaw. “You lied to me.”

He cut her off. “I didn’t sleep with her. Not since I met you. I swear on everything that’s holy. Do we have to go over this again? I made it clear I wasn’t interested, we were done, and she needed to leave. She attacked me that night at the bar.” He jabbed the air in front of him with one finger.

“It still means that you lied to me about seeing her,” Emily insisted. “Why should I believe you now?”

“I didn’t lie to you!” he shouted. “It’s just a picture! Why are you inventing things in your head that never happened?”

Emily didn’t listen. “Stop it, Brandon. I trusted you. I believed you. I defended you, and you did this. How could you?”

“What exactly did I
do
? I went out for a beer, and my ex showed up. I wasn’t responsible for her pregnancy. What are you driving at, anyway?”

He was around the room in a flash, pulling her into his arms. She tried to wrench away, but she was no match for his strength. Emily forced herself to look into his eyes. Even in the middle of her hurt and anger, she loved him. The pain she felt over what happened with James was nothing compared to this. Her chest squeezed. She had a lump in the pit of her stomach that wouldn’t go away. She wondered if it were possible to die of a broken heart, because right now she felt worse than she had in her life. She took a gasping breath.

“This isn’t going to work,” she repeated. “I—you have to go.”

“
What?
You’re just mad. Let’s talk about this.”

“I can’t do this. I can’t be with someone who—I can’t wonder when it’s going to happen again.”

“It never happened in the first place. I don’t know how she claims that baby’s mine, because I haven’t seen the results of the tests I took yet.”

“Brandon, it’s not just the test. This isn’t working.”

He took Emily’s face in his hands. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“Why would she get on national television and lie?”

In the faint light from the hallway, she saw his eyes narrowing. “Why are you defending Anastasia over me?” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Haven’t I proven you can trust me?”

“What do you expect me to think? Do I believe you, or do I believe my eyes?”

“It’s not what it looks like.” He flung the words at her. “I’m not James, and I’m not your dad.”

“Brandon. Stop talking now. Stop talking and get out.” This time she succeeded in wrenching the ring off her finger. It felt like she peeled the skin back from the bone. She put the ring into his hand.

“No.” He grabbed her hand and shoved the ring into it. “Put this back on.”

“No, I can’t,” she said.

“Why?”

“It’s over.”

“It’s over.” His voice tightened. The ring fell to the floor with a soft thump. “You’re dumping me? How can I convince you I’m telling you the truth?”

“You can’t,” she whispered.

“You go right ahead. I shouldn’t expect any different from you. I know you’ve done this before. After all, you don’t want anyone getting too close.” They were almost nose-to-nose. Emily stood up straight and squared her shoulders. If she let him see weakness at all, she was through. “If you really play your cards right, you can spin this as the poor little diva getting dragged through the mud by the big, mean football player. Imagine the press.” Brandon spread his arms wide as he gestured. “If being with me was great for your career, imagine what the breakup will do. You’ll end up singing at La Scala.” Now it was her turn to gasp. His voice was hard; his mouth was a thin, angry line, but she saw agony in his eyes.

“I would never do that!”

“Well, gosh,” he sarcastically noted, “I sure as hell wouldn’t, either, but you don’t seem to believe it.” His hands came down on her shoulders. “You know what? I think you’re possibly the most impossible woman I’ve ever known.” He blew out an angry breath. “Here’s the thing, though. I love you, sugar. I’m always going to love you, and I’m never, ever giving up on us. Until you can manage to figure things out, though, you get what you want.”

He gave Emily a hard peck on the mouth and strode from her room. His footsteps echoed down the hallway and the staircase. The front door opened. She heard it shut behind him, and then there was silence.

She slid to the floor. The engagement ring twinkled up at her from the carpeting.

Chapter Twenty-Two

E
MILY COULD NEVER
tell another person how she got through the rest of that night. She finally slept, due to sheer exhaustion. Amy arrived before nine
AM.
the next morning with a huge bouquet of red roses and fast-food breakfast in a bag.

“You’ll need to take these. Brandon sent me a text message really late last night and told me he didn’t care what it cost, just keep them coming. There’s a card.”

Emily tried to push the card back into Amy’s hand. Amy wouldn’t take it.

“Read it,” her sister ordered.

Emily’s hands shook as she pulled the card from the envelope. She recognized Brandon’s handwriting:
Sugar, I will never, ever give up on us.
Her eyes flooded with tears again. At least she didn’t have a rehearsal today.

“You’re getting a bouquet every day this week,” her traitorous sister said. “Wait till you see what’s coming tomorrow.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”

Amy threw herself into one of Emily’s kitchen chairs, and dropped the fast-food bag on the table. “I am on your side,” she explained patiently. “I’m always on your side. The problem is, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why are you so mad at Brandon?”

“He cheated on me.”

“Bullshit,” Amy said. “I’ll bet the results aren’t even back yet. He would have been notified the same as Anastasia was. She’s got to be lying. There’s no way in hell a ten pound baby is a preemie, either. I can’t understand why you’re taking her word over his.”

“You’re defending him. What about
me
?”

“So, it’s all about you.” Amy opened the bag and shoved an egg sandwich across the table to Emily. “You got hurt by James, the cheating ass. You’re projecting his issues onto Brandon. Plus, you’re being completely unreasonable.” Amy heaved a sigh. “If I thought Brandon cheated on you for real, Em, I’d rip his face off. He told me that he didn’t do this, and I believe him. I think, deep down, you believe him, too. You’re running away before he can hurt you.”

“You must have gotten your psych degree from watching TV.”

“You know I’m right. Plus, Anastasia’s a nut. Why would you believe anything she says is true?”