End Zone: Texas Titans 2 (14 page)

“Oh, I think you might be interested in
hearing about how my ex-husband is a liar and a cheat. You know, before you get
in too deep. I wouldn’t want to see you get your heart broken the way I did.”
For the first time, she offered what seemed like a genuine smile.

Kristen was too stunned by her accusation
to take much notice. “You honestly expect me to believe Matt cheated on you?”
Kristen infused just the right amount of incredulity into her voice as she
folded her arms. “If anything, I’m sure it was the other way around.”

“I know that’s what Matt would like you to
believe, but he wasn’t an innocent victim, I can assure you.”

Kristen wouldn’t believe anything that came
out of her mouth. Robin would clearly do or say anything to create a rift
between them. “I don’t know what makes you think I would—”

Matt’s body was rigid when he moved into
Robin’s personal space. “What the hell are you doing here? Didn’t I make myself
clear this morning? I have nothing to say to you.”

Robin looked around him, her eyes locking
with Kristen’s. She raised an eyebrow, looking totally unaffected by Matt’s
rage. “I came to see Kristen. We were having a nice little chat about what
really ended our marriage.”

Kristen watched the color drain from Matt’s
tanned face as she got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Surely
there couldn’t be any truth to Robin’s claim. Could there? She would have sworn
Matt wasn’t the kind of man who would cheat on his wife, but the little voice
in her head reminded her that she would have said the same about her father.

“You need to leave before I have you thrown
out on your ass,” Matt said.

“Come on now, big brother.” Paul shoved a
bottle of beer into Matt’s hand. “Have a drink, lighten up. It’s a party. We’re
all here to have a good time, right? To celebrate your success.”

“You did this?” Matt looked torn between
hurt and rage. “You brought her here knowing her only intent was to cause
trouble for me?”

Kristen wondered how Robin
could
cause
trouble for him if she was lying.

Jaxon appeared, shooting Paul and Robin a
look that told anyone who witnessed it he didn’t consider them good enough to
polish his overpriced shoes. “Do we need to get security over here?” Jaxon
asked Matt. “’Cause believe me, it would be my pleasure.”

“No.” Matt glared at his brother. “I think
they’re smart enough to leave on their own. Am I right?’

“My work here is done.” Robin looked
positively gleeful. “I think it’s time for a real party,” she said, linking her
hand with Paul’s. “Your place or mine?”

Matt cringed and turned his back on them.
“I’m sorry about that. I had no idea they would be here.”

“Matt,” Kristen said cautiously, “Robin
implied you cheated on her while you two were married. That’s not true, is it?”

“Uh… I think I’ll give you two some privacy,”
Jaxon muttered before slipping away.

Before Matt could utter a word, Kristen had
her answer. Torn between disbelief and heartbreak, she wished she could walk
out without causing a scene, but she knew Matt wouldn’t let her get away
without trying to explain his side of the story. Adulterers always had a story.
Their wives didn’t understand them. The daily grind wore them down and they
needed to escape reality for a while. They’d gotten married for all the wrong
reasons and regretted the decision. Kristen wondered which excuse her father
had used with his mistress… or what Robert had said to the woman sharing his
bed when he was supposed to become her husband.

“I have to go,” she said, slipping her
wrist free of his grip.

“Please, just give me a minute before you
walk out on me,” he said, sounding desperate.

“Just answer one question, the only one
that matters to me. Did you sleep with another woman while you were married to
Robin?”

“Yes, but it’s not that simple.” He reached
for her again. “We were in a really bad place. She was traveling all the time—”

Stepping back, she attempted to clarify
what she already knew. “But you were still sharing a home and a bed?”

“Technically, but—”

“No buts. That’s all I needed to know.
Good-bye, Matt.”

“No.” He grabbed her upper arm. “Damn it, I
love you, Kris. I would never even look at another woman as long as I’m with
you. You’ve got to believe that.”

She looked at him and got lost in his eyes
for what she knew would be the last time. Matt had committed an unforgiveable
sin. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t betrayed her. His actions told her he
wasn’t the man she thought he was.

“How can you expect me to believe anything
you say?” A shaky breath helped her find her voice. There would be time for
tears later. “Did you ask her to believe you too? Did you tell her you’d never
betray her, never cheat on her, that you’d always love her?”

“I admit I slept with someone else while I
was married to Robin, but she drove me to it!”

A few people turned to stare when he raised
his voice, but they quickly diverted their attention when they saw Matt’s
corded neck and flaring nostrils. He looked like a bull ready to charge, and no
one wanted to be in his path when he did.

“She drove you to it?” Poking a threatened
snake was foolish, but she couldn’t help herself. “You can’t seriously expect
me to believe that.”

“If you’d just listen—”

“I’ve heard all I need to hear.” Squaring
her shoulders, she walked away, politely excusing herself as she made her way
through the crowd. She spotted Shell a few feet from the door talking to one of
the security personnel. No doubt flirting, but Kristen didn’t have time to
worry about that. She reached for her assistant’s arm and hauled her away
before she had a chance to talk. “Shell, do you have a minute? I need to get
away for a few days. Do you think you could hold down the fort?”

“Where are you going?” Shell asked, looking
stunned.

Kristen never took a vacation, especially a
spur-of-the-moment one. She knew if she stayed in town, Matt would come to her
work and home, demanding she give him a chance to explain why he felt compelled
to cheat on his wife.

“I thought I’d visit my mother and
stepfather for a few days. You know they’ve been after me to come out and see
the new house.” That was true, but she had always told them she couldn’t
squeeze a visit, no matter how brief, into her packed schedule. For the first
time in years, work was the last thing on Kristen’s mind.

“I think that’s great,” Shell said,
squeezing her hand. “Lord knows you deserve to get away. Are you sure there
isn’t more to the story? I mean, it’s not like you to be so impulsive.” Shell
glanced at Matt, who was engaged in a heated conversation with Jaxon.

She had to tell Shell a variation of the
truth if she didn’t want Matt to know where she was. “Matt and I are through.
He’s having a hard time accepting that. I think a little distance might do us
both some good.”

Shell look deflated. “But I thought you
guys were so great together. What happened?”

“I’ll tell you another time.” Matt no doubt
wanted to go after Kristen, and Jaxon was probably encouraging him to give her
a little time to cool off. But Jaxon couldn’t keep the lion caged forever.
“Will you cover for me? I mean, just tell him you don’t know where I went,
okay?” The nagging little voice in her head reminded her that a lie was a lie,
but she decided a little white lie for a good cause wouldn’t hurt.

“Take all the time you need,” Shell said,
glaring at Matt. “I can handle things here.”

The next morning, Matt pounded on the
door to Kristen’s office suite as Robert stepped off the elevator. After Matt’s
sleepless night, calling Kristen every hour before driving over to her place
only to find out from the security guard that she wasn’t home, he was in no
mood to make nice with her ex.

“Just keep walking,” Matt growled, hoping
Robert had the good sense to know that a smart-ass remark would cost him a few
teeth. Matt couldn’t think of a better person to take his frustration out on.

“And pass up the chance to find out what’s
got you so pissed off?” Robert asked smugly. “Not a chance.”

“Where is she?”

“Why are you asking me? I thought she was
your girlfriend.”

“She is,” he muttered, knowing Kristen
would likely argue with that characterization.

“You look like I felt when she dumped me.”
Robert propped one shoulder against the wall beside Matt. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Matt thought he didn’t have anything in
common with the jerk, but maybe they weren’t so different. Kris certainly
didn’t seem to think so. “Why’d you do it? Cheat on her, I mean. You had to
know you couldn’t do any better.”

He looked at Matt a while, obviously trying
to decide how much he should reveal. “Why don’t you step inside my office? You
look like you could use a coffee, and I know I could.”

Deciding he might as well kill a little
time until Kristen showed up, Matt followed Robert down the short hallway to
his office suite. It was clearly too early for his receptionist or associates
to make an appearance, so they had the privacy they would no doubt need if Robert
intended to explain what happened with Kristen. Matt didn’t know why it was so
important to him that he hear Robert’s version of the story. Perhaps he needed
to convince himself that he was nothing like him, that their stories shared no
similarities.

Robert prepared coffee, asking Matt, “Cream
or sugar?”

“Black.” Matt was antsy from sitting around
doing nothing when he should be scouring the city for Kristen. He waited for
Robert to set the coffee down and settle in on the other side of the desk. “So
were you drunk or high? Come on, what’s the story?”

Robert stared at him, jaw slack, before he
burst out laughing. “Drunk.” He shook his head. “Not that I’m making excuses. I
know there’s no excuse for what I did.”

“You’re right.” Matt knew Kristen would argue
he was no better. Cheating was cheating, no matter the circumstances, but
unlike Kristen, his ex-wife couldn’t claim to be an innocent victim. “So why’d
you do it?”

Robert stared at his non-descript ceramic
mug in for so long Matt began to think he would ignore the question. “I was
crazy about Kris. I’d never felt like that about anyone, ever.”

“So why’d you do it?” That was the only
thing Matt really wanted to know. He wasn’t interested in a play-by-play of
their entire relationship, only the events surrounding Robert’s adultery. He
needed to convince himself there were no parallels between their stories.

“I always got the feeling she was with me
because she was tired of being alone.” Robert reached for his coffee. “I
pressured her to make a commitment she wasn’t ready for because I was afraid of
losing her.”

Matt tried to silence the nagging inner
voice that told him he’d done the same. “Kris doesn’t seem like the kind of
woman who could be pressured into accepting a marriage proposal.”

“You might think that, but given how many
times I had to ask her before she finally broke down and said yes…” He shook
his head, a self-deprecating smile tugging at his lips. “In my business, we
call that coercion.”

Matt already knew Kristen was a woman he
could easily spend the rest of his life with, but he knew when and if that time
came, she had to want it as much as he did or it would never work.

“I told myself she was just gun-shy because
of her parents’ lousy marriage. I thought that as time went on, she’d get more
comfortable with the idea. I assumed planning the wedding would be the fun part
for her, given her line of work.”

“But that wasn’t the case?” Matt didn’t
want to feel an ounce of sympathy for Robert, but to holding onto his hatred
wasn’t easy when it was obvious how much he loved Kristen. If he was guilty of
anything, it was loving her too much.

“No, she kept putting it off. Every time I
talked to her about setting a date, she told me she was swamped at work and
couldn’t think about it for a few more months.” He picked up the mug. “I just
wanted to marry her, ya know? To start a family and have the kind of life I’d
always dreamed about with the woman I loved.”

Matt’s gut twisted. There were too many
similarities between his situation and Robert’s. “I hear ya. So what happened?”

“We had a fight.” His hand trembled as he
set the cup down. “Some of my buddies wanted to take me out, you know, to
celebrate my engagement. I didn’t want to go, but I was so damned frustrated
trying to get through to Kris that I thought, what the hell? Might as well go
and blow off a little steam. One drink led to ten. You know how that goes.”

Matt had been there a time or two. “Yeah.
So who was she?” Not that it mattered. Matt was still waiting for Robert to
tell him something, anything, that would color the differences between them. So
far he’d heard nothing.

“Just some waitress.” Robert rolled his
eyes. “How’s that for a cliché?”

“You told Kris about it?”

“I had to. The guilt was eating me up. It
was one night. It meant nothing, she meant nothing, and I knew it would sure as
hell never happen again.”

“Did it occur to you to just keep your
mouth shut and forget it ever happened?”

“Sure. But the girl was a little wacked.
She thought that was the start of something between us. When she found out it
wasn’t, she threatened to tell Kris.”

“So you had to tell Kris before your
one-night stand beat you to the punch?”

“Something like that.”

Matt would have had more respect for Robert
if he’d told Kristen the truth because it was the right thing to do, but he was
in no position to judge him. “How did she take it?” As if he didn’t know. If
there was one thing he knew about Kristen, infidelity topped her list of
unforgiveable sins.

“She threw the ring in my face and told me
to get the hell out of her sight,” Robert said through clenched teeth. “I
pleaded with her to give me a chance to explain, but she was having none of it.
I can’t say I blame her. If she was the one with another guy, it would have
killed me.”

Just the thought of Kristen making love to
someone else set Matt off. “So that was it?”

“That was it,” Robert confirmed. “Kris
doesn’t believe in second chances, at least not when it comes to cheating. I
guess I can understand, given what happened with her old man.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Matt saw his chance with
her slipping away, and he didn’t know what the hell to do.

“So what’d you do to set her off?” Robert
asked.

A few hours earlier, Matt had thought
Kristen’s ex was the last person he’d confide in. “She found out I slept with
someone else while I was still married to my ex-wife.”

Air hissed through Robert’s teeth. “That
couldn’t have gone over well.”

“Ya think?” Matt drained his cup before
setting it on the desk.

“How’d she find out?”

“My ex showed up our party last night,
trying to cause trouble between me and Kris.”

“Sounds like it worked.”

“Oh yeah.” Robin couldn’t have
choreographed the scene any better. “She definitely got what she wanted.”

“So you’re here to try to convince Kris
there were extenuating circumstances, that you cheated on your wife because she
deserved it?”

Matt swallowed what tasted like bile. He
recognized it as the bitter truth. That’s exactly what he’d hoped to
accomplish, but after hearing Robert’s story, he knew there was no way it would
be that easy. He could tell Kristen exactly how he and Robin shared the blame
for the demise of their marriage, but it wouldn’t erase what he had done. “I
guess I’d better come up with a Plan B, huh?”

Robert chuckled. “That would be my
suggestion.”

Matt stood and, doing something he never
expected he would, offered Robert his hand. “Thanks for the coffee and the
talk. Believe it or not, it helped.”

“I’m glad.” Robert clasped Matt’s hand. “I
still love Kris, probably always will, but it’s never gonna happen for us. I
want her to be happy, and from what I could tell, you made her happy. Maybe
she’ll remember that once she’s had a chance to think things through.”

Matt knew Robert’s word held a veiled
warning. “You’re suggesting I give her a little time and space?”

“I know that’s what I would do.”

As hard as it would be, Matt had to let
Kristen go. He just prayed she would realize how much he loved her and come
back to him, willing to forget their past mistakes.

***

Kristen had spent a sleepless night in a
hotel near the airport. She didn’t want to sleep at home, knowing that would be
the first place Matt checked, nor did she want to show up on her mother’s
doorstep in the middle of the night.

The short drive from the airport to her
mother and stepfather’s home did little to ease Kristen’s angst. She’d decided
to surprise them, mainly because she didn’t want to explain over the phone what
prompted her sudden decision. Her mother would get it out of her, but Kristen
wanted to wait until they were face-to-face.

After pulling into the winding driveway,
Kristen took a few deep breaths while the driver hauled her suitcase out of the
trunk. She slipped a few bills into his hand, including a generous tip. He’d
been astute enough to realize she wasn’t interested in idle chit-chat. Looking
up at the post-and-beam home Phillip and her mother had built two years ago,
Kristen was glad to see a car parked by the detached garage and a light burning
in what she assumed was the kitchen. Last she heard, they weren’t planning
another trip for a couple of months, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to take
off in their RV on a moment’s notice.

“Thank you,” Kristen said to the taxi
driver as she took the handle of her luggage.

In her frenzy to pack and escape, she
wasn’t certain she’d packed for the elements. Whatever she had would have to
do. It wasn’t as though she intended to do a lot of sightseeing. Her main goal
was to hide out and share her fears with someone who would understand. If
anyone would support her decision not to get involved with a man capable of cheating
on his wife, it would be her mother. Kristen just needed someone to tell her
she was right to walk away from the man she loved. Her heart argued it was a
mistake she would regret for the rest of her life.

“Enjoy your stay, ma’am,” the middle-aged
man said before climbing back into his taxi.

Kristen knew pleasure would be elusive.
While she was looking forward to seeing her family, the best she could hope for
was a little rest and relaxation to soothe her battered spirit.

Before she could even ring the doorbell,
her mother threw the door open, her elation evident. “Kristen, oh my gosh! I
can’t believe you’re here, honey.”

Kristen commanded herself to smile and
pretend she was there to make her mother’s day. “Hey, Mama, I thought I’d
surprise you. You’ve been after me to come out and see the new house for so
long that I thought it was high time I make the trip. I hope you don’t mind I
didn’t call first?”

“Mind?” Nadine asked, pulling her daughter
into her arms. “Surely you can’t be serious?

I’m thrilled you’re here, and Phillip will
be too.”

Kristen closed her eyes, breathing in her
mother’s familiar smell. They’d been so close until her mother found solace in
alcohol. After that, it had taken years for them to repair their relationship.
But they finally had, and Kristen felt they were closer than ever. Though they
didn’t see each other often, they talked and texted or emailed almost daily.

“Thanks,” Kristen whispered, cursing the
tears burning her eyes. She didn’t want to worry her mother by breaking down on
her doorstep. Holding it together was proving more difficult than she thought
it would be. “It’s so great to see you.”

Nadine must have heard her voice waver
because she pulled back. “What’s wrong, sugar?”

“Nothing.” Kristen sniffled and looked over
her mother’s shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Phillip. Maybe his presence
would distract Nadine. “Where’s Phillip?”

Nadine narrowed her eyes while pulling
Kristen inside. She reached for Kristen’s suitcase and closed the door. “Don’t
try to change the subject. I asked you what’s wrong.”

Kristen gave her mother a quick once-over.
She looked fabulous. Her streaked silvery-blond chin-length bob was stylishly
stacked in back, and her body was trim from hours of walking and Tai Chi. Her
soft pink warm-up suit hinted that she’d just finished her morning fitness
ritual before her daughter showed up like a stray. That’s how Kristen felt,
even in the warmth of her mother’s home