Calling It (16 page)

“Jesus,” he said, obviously irritated. “Do you even want to
try
to make this work?”

She stopped running. Hadn’t they already had this conversation? “Make what work?” For heaven’s sake. “We’ve known each other for four days. There isn’t a real
this
to talk about.”

“Five,” he corrected, coming to a stop and glaring down at her.

“Okay. Fine. Five.” Whatever. She’d give him the half hour from Tuesday night even though it was technically Wednesday morning by the time they’d actually begun talking. “Do you have this conversation with all the women you sleep with before you’ve known them for a week?”

His eyes flashed with anger. “I’ve never had this conversation with
any
woman before. I’ve never
wanted
to have this conversation. Why do you refuse to believe that?”

He truly needed her to spell this out for him?

She jabbed at his chest. “Because you get paid millions of dollars in a year and I can barely scrape together my car payment. Because you go to benefits for a thousand dollars a plate, but the best dress I own is from the Anthropologie clearance rack. Because...” Oh,
hell
, no tears. Please, no tears. “Because your ex-
fiancée
is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and she wants you back.”

And when he was bored with this little interlude into normal life—which he would no doubt be the second he was on his way to spring training—it would just be Dorie all by her lonesome, watching
House Hunters
marathons and bingeing on ice cream again. After blowing her chance to finally do something with her life because she’d spent all her free time following him from place to place rather than stay and do the job that she’d left her whole family behind for.

But she wasn’t going there with him. She wasn’t going there,
period
, because this was only a short-term thing. Only se...

Goddamn
. The tears won. She angrily brushed them away.

As he started to protest, she cut him off. “And even if you don’t want her back, too, there’s another hundred women just like her waiting to beat down your door.” Wrapping her arms around herself, Dorie took a step back. “And I don’t want to always be in a competition for the man I lo—”

When he looked up sharply, she realized what she’d almost just said.

Oh, double goddamn. “You know,” she mumbled, wanting to kick at the ground but settling for rubbing her toe in the dirt instead. “If it ever became more than sex.”

“At the risk of getting my balls chopped off...”

“
Kneed
,” she corrected, glaring up at him only to see his eyes practically dancing with laughter.

Undeterred, he carried on, “Kings are always fighting off someone.” He raised his hands in surrender as her jaw dropped. “Just saying.”

But then he got serious, wrapping his arms around himself as well—they were like the poster children for the Body Language of a Tense Conversation. The gaze he directed toward her was an appraising one. Assessing. He swallowed hard, then looked down at the ground.

“Okay,” he finally said, raising his eyes and giving her a look so piercing that she took another step back. Then he turned away from her and started running again.

Um
,
well
,
good.
Glad he was on board.

They were practically back to his building when he finally spoke again. “You need to know something. I’ve lived half my life like this, and sometimes
I
can’t even believe it. And you’re right—the women...” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “That part has been beyond surreal.”

He slowly came to a stop, waiting for her to draw up next to him. “But it’s been fifteen years, and in that whole time...” He shook his head as he looked down at her. “You say I’m going to get tired of this. I say maybe I’ve waited my whole life for whatever this is. And if you think that you scared me off by saying you want to go all alpha on my ass?” He grabbed her by the elbows and hauled her close. “Then you’d better start coming up with a better excuse. Because you are so off base you aren’t even on the field.”

Then he leaned down and
owned
her with a kiss so searing it left her breathless. When he pulled away, he smiled. “I also think that the reason you’re resisting is because you’re afraid I’m right and you’re wrong. So maybe you’d better man up and get over it so that we can get on with our lives.”

Still thrown by the kiss, it took Dorie a few seconds to realize what he’d just said. She sputtered, “Did you just... Did you just call me
chicken
? Is that your idea of
romance
?”

That made him laugh. He gave a shrug and then reached down for her hand, looking both ways as he stepped forward to cross the street. “Maybe I’ve been taking the wrong approach. Maybe the only way for me to convince you that—”

He stopped suddenly, his eyes on a cluster of people in front of his building. “
Shit
.” He let go of her hand and dropped down to one knee to tie his shoe. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to pretend that I don’t know you. If I thought it would do anything other than make your life a living hell, I’d take you with me. But right now, I have to go.”

Then he was off and running down the street, leaving her standing there. Bewildered. Breathless. She opened her mouth to call his name, but realized someone else had just done that for her. And suddenly the small group of people turned into a frenzied mob, swallowing him up into a sea of flashing cameras and shouted questions. Their intensity was frightening, even from here. With a deep breath, she sank back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.

He’d just torn the rug out from underneath her, shaken it out and then laid it back down in front of her, daring her to take that step.

She squeezed her eyes shut and brought the heels of her hands up to them. It was a one-night stand. A weekend, at most. This was too much, too soon. She didn’t want something with complications and concessions and compromise.

So rather than attempt to make sense of any of it, she pushed off the building and started running again.

* * *

It was a little after four in the afternoon and Nate was going out of his mind. It had been two hours. Had she run all the way back to Iowa?

“You planning on joining us?” Pete said from the table. He and Mark had laid out what looked like a hundred different contracts and proposals to go over and Nate couldn’t have cared less.

“I’m sure she’s fine.” Mark cast a concerned glance over at Pete. They obviously had no idea what to do with Nate pacing a hole in the floor and Nate obviously didn’t care. “She’s a big girl. If she can hold her own against Haney and Pete, I’m sure she can manage not to get lost.”

“I’m not worried about her getting
lost
.” Nate ran his hands through his hair. He’d had her; he’d seen it in her eyes. And then the fucking vultures had showed up, killing his whole point and proving hers entirely.

“So then call her. Text her. Whatever,” Pete snapped. “We’ve got work to...” A smile came over his face as he looked at Nate. “You don’t have her number, do you?”

Feeling like the biggest fool in the world, Nate just folded his arms. He’d spent every minute he possibly could with her; it hadn’t occurred to him to get her number. Of course this meant she didn’t have his number either, so there was no way she could get him if she needed to.

“We could call Fitz,” Pete offered, laughter in his eyes.

Right. Because that’s exactly what Nate needed right now. “Hell no.”

Pete raised his eyebrows, then looked at Mark. Turning back to Nate, he said, “Okay. Let’s deal. You work with us for half an hour, and if she’s not back by then,
I’ll
get it from Fitz. No one needs to know.” That was bullshit, though. Nate was never going to live this down.

Nate looked at his watch. “Fine. Half an hour.”

It was twenty-eight minutes exactly when the call came from the front desk. “Miss Donelli is here.”

Great. They let thirteen raunchy guys and one mostly naked ex up without blinking, but Dorie they needed to announce. He refused to acknowledge that was exactly the kind of thing she was talking about.

“Please send her up,” he said through gritted teeth. “And you don’t have to announce her again.”

Only half caring that he’d cut Mark off midsentence, he went out to the hallway, pacing in front of the elevator until the doors opened. Dorie appeared amused, which wasn’t the reaction he was going for.

First things first. “Phone,” he said, holding out his hand.

Or, actually, that wasn’t the first thing. Reconsidering, he pulled her into a hug, clutching her against his chest and muffling her surprised, “Wha—?”

He honestly wasn’t sure she’d come back to him. Knowing he still wasn’t out of the woods even though she’d all but admitted that she was thinking in terms of love, too, he breathed her in, ignoring her laughter as she tried to push him away, saying, “I stink. Please don’t—”

“Come sit in the Tampa Bay dugout in August.” She smelled like heaven as far as he was concerned. He let go and held his hand out again.

Outright laughing this time—thank God—she eased it out of her arm band and handed it to him. But her tone seemed a little off when she gave him the code. “One-five-three-three.”

He plugged it in, smiling. 15, 33. Two very good numbers. Then he looked up. “Thurman Munson and Jason Varitek?”

Her cheeks went from zero to hot pink in less than a second. “What can I say? I’ve always had a bit of a thing for catchers.”

Tek he got; the guy was career Red Sox after all. But... “You know who Thurman Munson is?” As in, 1970s-era Yankees catcher and captain. Yankees, for one thing. Before she was born, for another.

With an uncomfortable shrug, Dorie looked at him, clearly unsure of how he’d respond. “He was my babysitter’s first love.” She smiled. “Well, she loved the entire 1978 Yankees infield, and drove my brother crazy about them until he finally married her and made her a Red Sox fan.”

And that made
Nate
smile. It didn’t hurt to know that mixed marriages could work—not that he was about to verbalize that thought right now. So instead he said, “Even Lou Piniella?” He could’ve gone with Reggie Jackson, but that would have been a little too obvious for a woman who clearly knew baseball.

Dorie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re
testing
me?” Then she grinned and playfully jabbed him in the chest. “I said infield, Hawkins. Piniella was the right field guy.”

His heart thudded in his chest. He put his hands down to her waist, drew her in closer. “How can you doubt that we’re made for each other? How can you doubt that I lo—”

“Uh-
uh
.” Though she shoved him away, she was back to laughing. “However...” She walked a few steps away before turning back to face him, suddenly serious. And for the first time he realized she was holding shopping bags. “I decided that maybe I wanted a few more dresses. You know, in case I have to go to a benefit or any—”

He was kissing her before she could finish the thought. And he would have kept kissing her, except there was a cough from the doorway to his condo. He closed his eyes—one last kiss—and then pulled back, letting his forehead come to a rest against hers.

She glanced over at the door and then back at him, her hand running down his chest, which in itself shouldn’t set off fireworks but did. “Oh, honey,” she said. “You didn’t tell me we had company.” Then she ducked under his arm and smiled sweetly. “Checking up on me, Pete?”

Pete smiled back. “Never trust a pair of tits is what I say.”

With that throaty laugh that went straight to Nate’s dick every time, Dorie patted Pete on the chest as she walked by him into the apartment. “Good one, lawyer man. Glad you’re learning.” Turning so she was walking backward down the hall, she held up the bags she was carrying. “Oh, and thank you for giving me all your money last night. I had myself quite the shopping spree.”

Pete gave a sharp laugh. “Careful there, Dorie. You’re actually starting to grow on me.”

Her laughter carried as she turned the corner to the master suite. “Don’t get too attached.”

On the one hand, that wasn’t at all what Nate wanted to hear her say. On the other hand, Nate had known Pete half his life. And there’d never been a woman in Nate’s life that Pete had actually liked. Nate couldn’t help but smile.

“Shut up,” Pete snapped although he was smiling, too. “Let’s get back to work.”

She came out of the shower half an hour later, just as Pete and Mark were trying to convince Nate that he needed to hire a manager.

“Pronto,” Mark was saying. “Or personal assistant, or even just a new publicist. With this week’s news we should have been capitalizing on you being fully exonerated. We managed to hold on to all the endorsements, but just barely. And we tried to keep up with the mail, but we were so busy fielding calls that I have no idea what we missed.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw Dorie wander through the living room and over to the windows, looking amazingly hot in black yoga pants and a formfitting T-shirt. Boston Red Sox—Pedroia, unfortunately—but he’d let that slide. He didn’t intend for her to be wearing it for very long. He tried to turn his attention back to Pete and Mark. “I have a publicist. Alexis. She called me the other day.”

“Right,” Pete said, a glance passing between him and Mark. “She actually called you Wednesday and Thursday, but the firm fired her because she wasn’t able to manage the client.”

“What? Because of
me
?”

He’d taken off for less than a week. For just a few days he hadn’t wanted to think about anyone else. And because he hadn’t returned her calls he’d gotten her fired. “Well, then, hire her.” Screw her firm. She’d been at dinner the night he left Chicago and she’d actually held her own against him.

Mark nodded. “I can set something up. Then maybe Pete and I can go back to our real jobs.”

Chastened, Nate looked down. “I, uh...”
Damn.