FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (8 page)

“Hello?”

“Ian,” the female voice on the other end said.

It felt like someone reached out and grabbed my heart with his hand and squeezed as hard as he could. I didn’t recognize the number, but I sure as hell recognized that voice. “Why the hell are you calling me, Lisette?”

My ex gave a small, nervous laugh. “Just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.”

“Well, here it is, my voice telling you goodbye and to never call me again.”

“Wait, Ian!”

I swallowed hard, my hand hovering over the
end
button. “What?” I asked her.

It was funny, I hadn’t even thought about her in weeks. But just the sound of her voice was enough to completely derail whatever progress I had made. Instantly my body was on red alert, and my brain started skipping like a slideshow on repeat.
My hand on the doorknob, the sound of her moans filling my ears, her naked body wrapped around him
… Whoever the fuck he was, he didn’t even matter, because all I saw was her.
Her eyes shut tight, her lips parted as she fucked someone who wasn’t me, while the engagement ring I had given her six months before still sparkled on her finger.

“I was hoping we might get a chance to talk.” There was a little wobble in her voice, that slight, helpless tremor that so excited me once upon a time. “I miss you.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I growled.” If Brad were here right now, he would snatch the phone out of my hand, then maybe knock some sense into me.
You don’t need to take her calls!
he would thunder at me
. You’re being too goddamn nice.

Nice
.

That’s why she did it, cheating on me like that. Because I was too nice to her. “
I needed some danger
,” she’d cried tearfully, her naked body stilled entwined in the sweaty sheets. The dude, whatever his name was, had already fled, shouting that he didn’t know he was fucking Ian Carter’s girl, and that he was sorry, so sorry…

But none of that mattered.

I had resolved, then and there, that
nice
wasn’t what worked for me.

Nice guys clearly finished last.

“Fuck you, Lisette,” I growled. She gave a little gasp at my cruelty, and I liked that. I wanted her to hurt. She deserved it. “Fuck you and your lies. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you in my life in any way, do you hear me? No more Mr. Nice Guy. We’re done with that. We are
done
.”

She hiccupped a little, and then took a deep breath, ready to ignore everything I had just told her, ready to railroad me, like she always did, into being nice to her again.

I snapped the phone shut.

Then it rang again. I didn’t even need to look. Fucking bitch, couldn’t take a hint. “Again? Stop calling me so much,” I sneered into the phone. “Have some goddamned dignity.” I stabbed the phone to off and then immediately went into my recent calls to block Lisette’s number.

But instead of Lisette’s number at the top, it was Candace’s.

I stared at my phone in an open-mouthed daze. No matter how I tried to piece it back together, it came right back down to…

Candace had called.

I swore at Candace.

Hung up on Candace.

Fuck.

I’m fucked.

She was too nice to treat badly, even if it was a mistake. This was too new to fuck up so thoroughly, even if I had an excuse.

I held my phone like a drowning man holds a life preserver, as if I could will it to travel back in time and erase my blunder.

“If you are done with all your personal phone calls,” Randall rumbled from the ice. “The rest of the team is waiting for you.”

I tamped down my terror and hurled my phone back to my pack. “Sorry Coach,” I said, jamming my helmet back onto my head with more force than necessary.

Randall gave me that look, the same disappointed one he wore when Brad and I had been caught setting fires in the abandoned warehouse in Austin. “Ian,” he said quietly.

I swallowed, shame burning through my body like wildfire. Randall didn’t know about what happened with Lisette. I never told him—couldn’t bring myself to admit it. No one knew, except for Brad. Getting cheated on is not something that is easy to bring up in conversation, especially not with your erstwhile father/coach. All he knew was that my engagement ended abruptly, and within a few weeks I had turned into the biggest manwhore on the planet. He hated it. He’d want me to fix things with Candace, he’d expect me to have the balls to admit my mistake and accept whatever consequences there were because of it.

“Yeah, Coach,” I barked, doing my best to keep my voice even.

“You making good decisions?”

Good decisions. Bastard knows exactly how to hit me.
“Yeah,” I grunted. Then my shoulders slumped. “No…”

“Well, I have faith you’ll make the right choice,” he said, and turned to walk away.

The right choice
.

There was no doubt in my mind about what that was. I wanted to see Candace again—no,
needed
to see her again. I needed to apologize for letting my anger with Lisette spill over into her life. And I needed her to know that what we had was more important to me than just some quick finger fuck in the locker room. When she smiled at me, I felt a twinge of pride. The same pride I felt when Coach Randall called me son. It was the pride that came from knowing I was a better person than most people believed me to be. Coach Randall knew I was a good guy. Maybe not a nice guy, but a good one.

Candace seemed to think so, too.

“I’ll be there in a sec, guys,” I shouted out into the rink.

Then I grabbed my phone again.

Chapter Eleven

Candace

The sound of a toilet flushing echoed through the tile restroom. I turned my face so that Marissa from HR couldn’t see me.

Olivia leaned over, deftly shielding me with her body. “How’s it going, Marissa!” she called loudly.

The very pregnant HR director smiled wanly. “I’ll be happy when this baby comes out and stops dancing on my bladder,” she smiled ruefully. I could see her face reflected in the mirror, but she couldn’t see me.

Which was for the best. My face was completely swollen and streaked with red. My puffy eyes glittered with as yet unshed tears.

I was a hot mess. On the outside, and definitely on the inside.

“Clear,” Olivia hissed as the ladies’ room door banged closed.

I responded by loudly blowing my nose into toilet tissue. “This is pathetic,” I pronounced.

Olivia didn’t say anything, only handed me another square.

I honked my nose again. “I mean, really, you were right. I should have listened to you. Why didn’t I listen to you?”

“A question for the ages, darling,” Olivia said soothingly. She ran some paper towel under the faucet. “Fix your mascara,” she ordered.

“I mean, I just met him,” I went on. “But we seemed to hit it off so well.  Three days ago, I didn’t even know he existed, and now I’m crying in a bathroom over him. You are right, I move way too fucking fast.”

“Dab,” Olivia said sternly, shoving the wet towel in my hand.

I did as I was ordered, dabbing the black streaks away from the corners of my eyes. “I really need to start wearing waterproof mascara all the time,” I joked lamely.

“You really don’t need to beat yourself up so badly about this,” Olivia said. “He didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself—”

“He may as well have,” I muttered darkly.

Olivia ignored me. “He didn’t tell you he never wanted to see you again. All he said was… Wait—what did he say exactly?”

“He told me to stop calling, and to have some dignity, then he hung up the phone.”

Olivia winced. “Sheesh. Is he having a bad day or something?”

“I would have asked him,” I spread my hands, “but he fucking
hung up
on me.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Candelabra—”

“I know,” I said, holding up my hands to ward off her impending ‘I-told-you-so.’ “You told me he wasn’t a nice guy, and I didn’t listen. This is what I get.” I shook my head. “I was so certain I had found someone.”

Olivia grabbed me by the shoulders. “You did. You did find someone. And he was an ass to you, and you have every reason to demand why. Don’t go all Disney princess, ‘it wasn’t meant to be.’ That’s
bullshit
, Candy. What you need to do is take a breath, step away from the self-reflection, and just let what you have be what it is.” She smiled softly. “Or—let it be what it isn’t. You’re going to be okay either way.”

I grabbed the wadded up toilet paper and wiped ineffectually at my nose. “But why would he be so mean?”

Olivia threw up her hands, exasperated. “Candy, girl, I love you. I want to take you and stick you in a museum as the last known sample of a true romantic. You’re a rare specimen, and I think it’s really freaking good for my cynical ass to have you in my life. But honey, when you’re hurting, I’m hurting, so we gotta work on you not getting hurt so easily, okay? My heart can’t take it.”

I sniffled, then laughed, and then sniffled again.

“That’s a girl, show me another smile,” Olivia encouraged me. “See now, with that smile, the whole world should be at your feet. You don’t need to give your heart away so easily. Guard it, okay? It’s a fucking national treasure.”

I sniffled, and then pulled her in for a spontaneous hug. “You are not allowed to ever take any job without me coming with you. Who else is going to give me pep talks in the bathroom?”

“Well, definitely not your brand-new production team,” Olivia quipped. “In fact, I don’t really think my superior should really be sniffling into my shoulder right now. I smell a sexual harassment lawsuit.”

I burst out laughing. “Baby, I’ve been harassing you since we were fifteen. If you haven’t learned to deal with it by now—”

“Oh, I secretly like it,” Olivia smiled. “Good to see you smiling again, Candy-girl. Now what do you say? How about we emerge from the bathroom before our male coworkers start getting the wrong idea about us two?”

“How do I look?” I asked her, widening my eyes.

She pursed her lips. “Maybe we’ll tell people you got stung over lunch and are allergic to bee stings?”

“Well—fuck,” I said. But I followed her from the bathroom with my head held high.

Olivia was right. She always was. I had literally just met Ian into three days ago. And things were definitely moving too fast. But that’s what I did. That’s what I always did. I lost my dignity, just like he said. Maybe instead of getting mad at him, I should get mad at myself for always making the same kinds of mistakes. Maybe it was time I stopped looking for the one, that stellar guy that I could bring home to my parents. Then my parents could sigh with relief because their oldest daughter finally had the kind of love she grew up seeing. It was too much pressure, both on me and on any guy I met.
How could anyone possibly live up to those standards?

Back at my desk, I buried my face in my computer screen, immersing myself so completely in my new position that I didn’t even notice my phone until Olivia appeared at my shoulder. “Your voicemail chime has been going off every ten minutes, and I’m about ready to throw it across the room.”

“Really?” Sure enough, the little red envelope was showing in the upper corner. “I’ll turn off the notification, sorry.”

“Well, aren’t you going to see who it is?”

“Whoever it is, I’ll deal with them later.”

“I swear to God, if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.” Olivia snatched my phone from out of my hands and deftly dialed my password.

“Hey,” I protested lamely. “How do you even know that?”

Olivia rolled her eyes at me, and tossed her hair over her shoulder to put my phone to her ear. Then her eyes went wide.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“You should listen to these. I mean, I still maintain that I am right, as a general rule, but—” she thrust the phone into my hand, “but you should listen to these.”

I press the playback button on the first message, completely mystified.

“Hey Candace, it’s Ian,” that baritone said. “Can we please talk?”

Chapter Twelve