The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (76 page)

“What they didn’t anticipate,” he said in a soft voice, “was my love for you.”

In an instant, the anger dissolved. When he released her arms and reached up to frame her face with his hands, her vision blurred with tears.

“I love you, Everly. I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted another person. And I know you didn’t leak this story.”

She couldn’t speak. He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. His arms moved around her and drew her against him, making her feel cherished. Safe.

Loved.

“I love you, too, Cole,” she said against his chest. “I’m so sorry this has happened. I’m sure my father did this because I refused to do what he wanted. I wondered what he was talking about when he confronted me that day, but I blew it off. He must have been taping himself. If I’ve ruined your career—”

“Hey,” he interrupted, lifting her chin so he could meet her gaze. “You’ve
saved
my career. We’ll get through this. I just needed to hear you tell me you didn’t do it.” He caressed her cheek. “I’m so sorry that your past is being dredged back up. I wouldn’t have ever wished that on you.”

His career was on the line, but he was worried about her.

Love for him rushed through her.

“Thank you, Cole.” She stretched up and kissed him again. “You’re right. We’ll get through this together. And I know just where to start.”

*    *    *

A
few days later, Everly sat on a bench in Freedom Park and watched her father approach. She’d allowed him to pick the meeting spot when they spoke on the phone earlier that day. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to give him the illusion of control.

“I was surprised to get your call,” he said as he sat beside her. His words whitened the cold air. “You made it pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”

She looked down at her gloved hands folded in her lap. “Things have obviously changed since we last spoke.”

“Ah, yes.” He sat back with a self-satisfied smirk and put his arms over the back of the bench. “Cole’s getting examined today, right? Read about it in the paper. Seems the team wants to assess the extent of that shoulder injury.”

“They won’t find anything,” she said.

“Sure they won’t.” He shook his head and watched a jogger make his way along the path. “So why did you want to meet with me?”

“I wanted to find out why you did it.”

He gave her a bland look. “Did what?”

“Leaked the story.” She looked away from him to keep her temper under control. “I figured you’d at least approach Cole and attempt to convince him to give you money or a job first.”

Snorting, he said, “I didn’t leak that story.”

“According to what Joan Shumaker told me, that’s a flat-out lie.”

He stilled. “You’re grasping at straws. Journalists protect their sources.”

“You’re the king of assumption. You didn’t get any kind of agreement from Joan to do so, did you?” Now, she looked at him and allowed her anger to reach her gaze. “I met with her on the day the article was published. See, I’d met her the week before and we hit it off. We’d spoken in confidence about something that I didn’t share with anyone else. When I pointed that out, she returned the favor and confirmed my suspicions about you.”

His jaw worked. “So what? I told you that you’d regret not helping me, didn’t I?”

“Your temper has always been your greatest weakness. You make the worst decisions when you lose it. Most of the time, you direct it at me. But this time, you made the mistake of involving Cole. Because that article maligned Cole’s character and threatened his career, his attorneys opened an investigation. They found some interesting transactions in your bank account.”

“That’s bullshit. You can’t look at my bank account.”

“I can’t, you’re right. But you’d be amazed what well-paid attorneys and private investigators can accomplish in a short amount of time.”

He shifted on the bench, his throat moving in a hard swallow. She couldn’t deny the pleasure she got over his discomfort. For the first time she could remember while being alone with him, she wasn’t the one who was afraid.

“The transactions coincide with the attacks against me at Prix Fixe,” she said. “There were significant sums deposited into your account on the days after the two different incidents. Cole’s attorneys intend to pursue attempted murder for the attack with the bat.”

“Just a minute.” He got to his feet and held his hands in fists at his sides. “There’s no way you’re pinning this on me.”

Okay, so she wasn’t completely without fear. She met his furious gaze as calmly as she could.

“You should know that if you hit me, Cole will hunt you down himself. I’m doing this because of grandpa. If Cole had his way, you’d be in jail already.”

After a moment of staring at her, he stuffed his fists into his pockets.

“I didn’t do those things,” he snapped. “This is bullshit.”

“When considering your history of violence against me and the money in your account, it seems pretty cut and dried. Cole’s attorneys are confident they have a solid case.”

“I can prove I didn’t do those things.”

She quirked an eyebrow, thinking of the recording he’d sent Cole. “Something tells me you can’t turn any evidence over to prove that without incriminating yourself in some way. You’ve heard of accessory to murder, haven’t you?”

He looked at her. Whatever he read in her gaze had his shoulders sagging.

“What do you want, Everly?”

“I want you to leave me and Cole alone. Go back to Venezuela if you want, but get out of my life. And don’t ever ask Pee Paw for money again. When you contact him, you treat him like a son should treat his father. Like you’d have wanted Aiden to treat you.”

The last words had him looking away. “Is that all?”

“No. I want you to turn over the evidence you have and document your version of events. I’m ready to move on with my life, and that means tying up all of the loose ends.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “I’ll have it to you by the end of the day.”

She got to her feet and studied his profile. He didn’t turn to meet her gaze.

Part of her mourned the fact that things hadn’t turned out differently between them. She couldn’t help but wonder what might have been.

As she walked away, she focused instead on Cole and what she had now.

“C
ole, I’m so glad that you called.”

Looking up from his menu, Cole met Abigail’s gaze as she paused next to the table. She looked confused when he didn’t rise to greet her. She smiled to cover her reaction and took the seat across from him.

He’d invited her to lunch at the restaurant where he’d first kissed Everly. The choice of venue had been deliberate. He hoped it would keep him in the right frame of mind for this conversation.

“Hello, Abigail.” He looked back down at his menu. “I appreciate you taking the time to come out here.”

“Of course,” she said, reaching over and taking his hand in hers. “You’re a dear friend. I’d do anything for you.”

He didn’t respond as the server approached the table and took her drink order, but he did extricate his hand from hers. She ordered a martini and lifted her menu.

“Marshall told me that you had your physical a couple of days ago,” she said in a low tone. “How did it go?”

“I passed with flying colors,” he said, raising his glass of ice water in a mocking toast and taking a drink.

He didn’t add that the doctors found only minimal inflammation in his shoulder. There was so little evidence of an injury that they redid several of the scans. In the end, nothing they saw supported the content of the article. Cole expected a retraction by Joan in the next day’s paper.

“I’m thrilled to hear it,” she said. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

The server returned with Abigail’s martini and took their orders. Once he left, Abigail studied Cole’s face with an assessing eye as she sipped her cocktail. Her lipstick left a blood-red half-moon along the rim of her glass.

“I know you’re upset about all of this, Cole. But it’ll blow over soon. That waitress got her fifteen minutes of fame. Now that you’ve passed your physical, everything will go back to the way it was.”

“And how is that, exactly?” he asked with a slight inclination of his head. “Me, all alone?”

She frowned. “I don’t know why you’re thinking of it that way. You know it won’t take you long to find someone else. Surely that’s better than being with the woman who shattered your trust.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Surely.”

Her hand fluttered up to fiddle with her necklace when he just stared at her. She took a longer sip of her drink.

“Speaking of finding someone else, I saw Rebecca a few days ago,” he said.

“Yes. She mentioned it. She said you apologized for the inconvenience caused by the investigation into the waitress’s supposed attacks.” She shrugged and brushed a stray hair back behind her ear. “I think it’s clear now that the incidents were engineered by the waitress to get your attention. If she lied to you about keeping your secret, she would have no compunction about slashing her own tires.”

“Her name is Everly.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I said, her name is Everly. Not ‘The Waitress.’”

“I...all right.” Her cheeks reddened and her eyes sparked with irritation. But she kept her face schooled into an accommodating expression. “Everly, then.”

“As I was saying, I saw Rebecca. It was, indeed, so I could apologize. I’d realized she wasn’t to blame for what happened to Everly. While we were chatting, she said something I found very interesting.”

“What was that?”

“She was surprised by the depth of my feelings for Everly. She said that you almost had her convinced that I would never love anything or anyone as much as baseball.”

“What?” She brought a hand to her chest. “Rebecca said that I said that?”

“Yep. Apparently, you implanted a few ideas in her head while the two of us were together.” He took another drink of water, his gaze never leaving hers. “The idea of breaking things off to make me jealous, for example.”

Abigail let out a brittle laugh. “Why would I advise that? It clearly didn’t work when I started dating Marshall after you lost interest in me.”

His brain clicked with an
Aha!

“You started dating Marshall to make me jealous?”

Her mouth opened and then closed. She couldn’t seem to figure out how to set her expression. “You’re reading into things, Cole.”

“No. In a weird way, that makes perfect sense. You tried that tactic without success. When you saw that my relationship with Rebecca was progressing beyond where mine did with you, you gave her the bad advice. You never wanted us to be together.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. Her eyes were chips of blue ice. “I’m happily married, and Rebecca’s my friend.”

“If that’s how you treat your friends, then no wonder you slashed the tires of someone you didn’t even know.”

She stilled. Her gaze narrowed.

“Are you accusing me of slashing that waitress’s tires?”

“
E-ver-ly
,” he repeated slowly. “And I don’t have to accuse. I’ve got proof.”

“I think you’ve said enough.” She started to push her chair back.

Cole reached across the table and grasped her by the wrist. “I’ve got plenty of experience stopping a woman’s exit,” he said in little more than a whisper. “Now, if you want to know what I intend to share with the press and the police and what I might keep to myself, I suggest you sit your ass back down.”

She sat. Her eyes welled with tears. It took a huge effort on his part, but he hardened himself against the sight of them.

Letting go of her, he sat back in his seat and folded his hands together on the table. When she dabbed at her eyes with the napkin, he decided to make it quick.

“The next time you partner up with someone to commit a crime, you might not want to choose someone as self-centered as Mason Wallace,” he said. He watched her face drain of color. “He was more than willing to share the details of your plans when he was threatened with jail time.”

“Jail time for what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Save it,” he said. “He told us that he saw you slash Everly’s tires that night at Prix Fixe.”

Mason had submitted written testimony that he’d been in town since shortly after Thanksgiving. He’d decided to travel to Atlanta once Jake told him that Everly was working with Cole. Funds had been tight for months, and he’d seen Everly’s new “job” as an opportunity.

The day her tires were slashed, he followed Everly to Cole’s house to confirm what Jake told him. He then tailed her to Prix Fixe that night, planning on talking to her privately before he made his presence known. He’d figured that she’d be willing to offer him some of her newfound money to keep quiet about Cole’s injury and stay out of her life. Catching Abigail while he waited in his rental car had changed his plans.

“When he confronted you,” Cole continued, “you offered to pay him to keep quiet. Since he needed the money, he didn’t turn it down. Money is pretty easy to track, you know.”

She blinked several times and downed the rest of her cocktail.

“Mason observed what happened after Everly’s tires were slashed. He saw that I went to her home and spent time with her. I paid for the tires. So he wondered what I might do if Everly was assaulted. In his mind, it would strengthen our relationship.”

He didn’t add that Mason had reasoned Cole would be more likely to help him out when he asked for money if Cole was in love with Everly. Initially, Mason thought he’d get Cole to pay him to keep quiet about his injury. Then he decided that Cole’s attachment to Everly would make him freer with the cash, and he wouldn’t have to use blackmail at all.

After staying at Jake’s for a while, he devised the plan of asking Everly to help him get the umpiring job, thinking he would be able to settle in the area and then have plenty of time to get money from Cole. His temper-invoked decision to leak the news story ruined his chances at that, however.

Abigail frowned as she processed Cole’s statement.

“You didn’t know that Mason wanted me and Everly to bond when you agreed to go along with his plans,” he said. “He knew of your jealousy over Everly and he played on it. He shared details about how Everly was over at my house all the time, how she had spent the night. That must have really gotten you worked up. You’ve never been in my house. You know my policy on bringing women there.”