Page 9 of Played
She’s damn near a foot shorter than me, but that trace of hardness just granted her a few more inches. Hope she doesn’t think that’s going to back me down. I don’t care if the bitch blew fire like one of those ugly-ass dragons on that crazy-as-hell show Ciaran obsesses over. She’s wrong; she violated. So she can just take that fucking bass out her voice.
“You can say that shit with your whole chest if it’ll make you feel better. I don’t really give a fuck. But if you’re going to stand here and try and convince me that you didn’t violate my privacy, then yeah, li’l mama, you’re not just a liar, but a goddamn liar.”
Her eyes narrow, and she shoves her hands in the back pockets of her pants, and the stance thrusts her breasts forward against the shirt. Unbidden, my gaze dips to those full curves, and just as quick, I snatch my attention away from them. That flare of anger bursts hotter in my chest, like that brief slip tossed an armload of kindling on the flames. Anger at myself. At her. At the primal hammering in my veins, my dick.
“I’m not going to be too many more liars,” she growls, and damn if that rumble, like a pissed-off kitten, doesn’t skim down my chest, my spine, caress the small of my back. Before I can reply, she releases a weighted sigh and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Listen,” she finally says, lowering her arm and meeting my gaze again. “Let me start over.Because you’re right, I did read your journal. And I had, and have, every intention of telling you the truth about that. I apologize for invading your privacy; it was wrong. I opened the journal to see if there was a name in the front so I could identify its owner. When I didn’t see one, I—”
“Decided to keep reading when it was obviously none of your business,” I finish between gritted teeth. “I call bullshit on that excuse.”
My chest is cracked open, my skin peeled back. Exposed. I feel exposed. For the second time since I entered this office, the urge to demand she look away from me rises hard inside me, and only by sheer will do I force it and my vitriolic response down. Yeah, that’s panic whispering to me, pressing me to lash out. Swiping at her is better than the alternative.
Hiding.
Retreating in shame at everything she read.
All the admissions, the pleas, the secret pain I unleashed on the pages of that journal trample through my head like the haunting and terrifying march of a hundred thousand ghosts. Ghosts of my past. My mind. My soul.
And she read every one of them.
Oh yeah, I embrace the rage. Wrap myself in it like old, comfortable clothes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Young,” she murmurs, and I ignore the softness of those four words.
“Fuck your sorry.” I toss the leather-bound book on the conference table. “This wasn’t yours; they were mine.”And Kendra’s.But I swerve around that thought like fucking roadkill in the middle of a rain-slick road. “Without an invitation or my permission, you invaded my thoughts, what was supposed to be a safe space. You infiltrated my—” My lips roll inward, trappingpain. My pain. “YourI’m sorrymeans dick.” Jabbing a finger at the stained cover, I sneer, “So what’re you really doing here? Did you want to personally return it to me so you could give me that sad-ass apology or to set a price? I can’t imaginefirefighters make that much in salary. But a personal journal from one of the city’s professional hockey players? That’s a come-up probably too good to resist. Tabloid sites would pay good money for that shit. So what is the going rate for a hockey player’s letters to his wife?”
Her deep-brown skin blanches, and though it’s nearly imperceptible, she flinches. Regret curls inside my gut but I extinguish the emotion before it can solidify. I don’t know her from a glory hole in the wall. A pretty face and a badass body don’t mean shit to me. Both can conceal the greediest soul. And since my years in the league, I’ve encountered more than my fair share. She’s no different. Hell, she might be worse. At least none of those other people who tried to use me had access to my darkest secrets and pain.
“I wouldn’t know the going rate, since I would never sink that low. And it saddens me that you apparently know people who would.” When I part my lips to tell her exactly what she can do with her sadness, she holds up a hand, shutting down the response. “Mr. Young, I deserve your anger at my disrespect for and invasion of your privacy. And I’ve apologized for it. Several times. Yes, I know that can’t undo what I did, and I regret it. But what I’m not going to do is stand here any longer and take your abuse.”
Those words slam into me like a brutal check to the chest. I go still, the air freezing in my lungs before expelling on a low, long breath.
Abuse?
Shame, corrosive and searing hot, damn near raze me to the ground. Dark, turbulent memories bombard me, like that one word squeezed a trigger. Like a round of rapid gunfire, I’m blasted with the sounds of flesh slapping flesh, of pained whimpers, of a masculine voice raised in fury, his hateful tirade peppered with curses and insults. The sound of weeping and desperate pleas.
I blink, wiping a slightly trembling palm down my face.
Shit.
No.No.
Have I become that? Have I become ...him?
But even as I repeat those anxious questions in my head, pose them to myself, my tone, my words flood back to me, sweeping over me, drowning me. And in this moment, I’m just a little terrified of who I’ve become in the last two years.
Fuck.
“Look—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’ve accomplished what I came here to do, and I need to get to work. There’s nothing I can say to make you believe that, as inappropriate as my actions were, I meant you no harm. And part of me wants to leave this ... interaction right here. But I can’t. Mr. Young, while I do wish I hadn’t opened that journal, another part of me is glad I did.”
My head jerks back as if her words clipped me in the chin.
“That same part is grateful that you decided to follow your therapist’s advice and write down your thoughts, your heart. Because for a couple of hours, I felt understood. Seen. You did what I haven’t had the courage to say or even acknowledge. AndthatI can’t regret. Even if the man behind the words turned out to be a royal asshole.” As shock and—fuck it, yeah—arousal reverberate through me, she rounds the end of the conference table, and when she halts several inches in front of me, she reaches into her pocket, then pulls her hand free seconds later. “Here. This is the other reason I wanted to personally meet you. Not to extort you but to give you the journal and this.”
Thisis a small, rectangular card that she places on top of the journal.
“Thank you for giving me a few moments of your time, Mr. Young.”
