Head Games (17 page)

Leo turned to him. “I’m not going anywhere with that asshole. Get him out of my sight. Seriously.”

“And mine,” Scott echoed.

A couple of security guards arrived on the scene. “We’ve got him,” one of them said. They began to half assist, half drag him away. Roger was alternating between threatening to sue Leo and vowing to make him sorry.

Leo swung around to face her. “Are you all right?”

“Other than the fact there’s no freaking way in hell we can be discreet about this now, just peachy. Leo! What were you thinking?”

“I’d like to know the same thing,” the media guy said, but Leo ignored him, keeping his focus on Kelly.

“He was harassing you. Besides, not that many people saw what happened.”

Kelly shook her head in amazement. “You’re naïve if you think this thing isn’t going to be all over the Internet. It probably already is.”

“Your girlf…” The media guy glanced at her and cleared his throat. Kelly blushed again. “She’s right. There’s no way to sweep this under the rug. I need to go tell management what’s happened, and probably call our legal counsel, too. For right now I need you to get out of here and not talk to anyone in the media unless you’ve spoken to me first. I’ll do what I can to minimize this, but it isn’t going to be pretty.”

Leo turned back to him. “But he insulted her. He was acting like a total prick.”

“I know that,” the guy answered back in a low voice. “But you still can’t go around coldcocking reporters.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry. I know better. It’s just—”

Scott took her arm and she looked at him. “Let’s get Leo out of here.”

Nodding, she gave her attention to Leo. “Come on. Let the man do his job and try to mitigate this.”

She briefly considered insisting she take her own car home so they wouldn’t be seen traveling together, but then decided it didn’t matter what she did. The news was bound to be all over town. Now everyone would know she was involved with both of them. Scott slid into the driver’s seat, and she fell into the passenger’s seat with a heavy heart while Leo got into the back.

“I’m sorry, honey. That guy just makes me crazy.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” Kelly replied, her voice cracking.

“Aww, baby, don’t cry. You’ll kill me.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you punched him.” She noticed where Scott was headed and shook her head. “Oh no. Take me home. I want to be alone.”

“But—”

“Take. Me. Home.”

“All right, baby, if that’s what you want.”

“I want to be left alone.”

She saw Scott and Leo exchange a look through the rearview mirror, but neither spoke. Scott pulled into her driveway a short time later, and Kelly marveled at how quickly her life had gone to hell. Just a few scant hours earlier, she’d been flying high, excited about going to see the guys play. Now all she wanted to do was curl up in the corner and have a good cry.

Kelly was out of the car practically before Scott even had it in park. Both men flew out after her, but she put up her hands. “Not now. I said I wanted to be alone and I meant it.”

“Can we at least kiss you?” Scott pleaded.

“No. I don’t want either of you touching me right now. I’m confused, and I’m angry, and I’m scared. Go home.”

Scott shot a death glare at Leo. “Okay. We’ll go for now.”

Kelly turned toward her front door, not saying another word. Once inside, she collapsed onto her sofa. How had it all gone so wrong so fast?

Chapter Fourteen

After spending a few moments on the couch, Kelly dragged herself to her laptop in her home office. Opening it, she booted it up and took off her boots and coat while she waited. As soon as it was ready, she began to scan the websites for the
Buffalo Courier
and the local television stations. She didn’t see anything about the altercation and was about to shut the laptop down for the night to hopefully get some sleep, when a notice popped up in the corner of her screen. She had an e-mail message from one of the regular customers from the restaurant. He’d sent it to the restaurant’s general address, which she’d set up to forward into her personal account. Opening it, she began to read. Hot tears escaped her eyes as she neared the bottom of the message.

He was a nice man who came in by himself every few weeks, and felt it was his duty to tell her he’d seen something on a social networking site about Leo punching the reporter. He wasn’t sure if she had seen it yet, but wanted to warn her so she wouldn’t be caught off guard. Kelly didn’t have a profile on the site, but quickly signed up and did a search for Leo’s name. Sure enough, hundreds of messages popped up. She was right. The whole ugly thing had gone viral, and it was only getting bigger. She did another search, this time for her own name. It was everywhere.

Her hands shook, and her stomach churned. In some ways, she wished she was with the guys right now. She could use someone to lean on. But overall, she was glad she’d told them she wanted to be alone. This was a nightmare. Would her restaurant survive this kind of negative press? Were her dreams of owning the restaurant going down the drain?

Clutching her stomach, she lurched out of her desk chair toward the bathroom, barely making it in time before she vomited. Finally, when her stomach was empty, she sat back on her heels, grabbing a washcloth from the linen closet behind her and running it under cold water before using it to mop off her face and the back of her neck.

She lay down right there on the bathroom floor, too afraid to move further while her belly was roiling like this. Good thing she was a bit of a neat freak from owning the restaurant. Her floor was pretty clean, at least. After letting her stomach settle, she went back into her office to read some of the messages. Predictably, there was a mix, some people believed exactly what they heard, while others said judgment should be reserved until the truth came out about what happened.

Luckily everything had gone down at a time when it was too late to have made the late-night news, and she still didn’t see anything on the television stations’ websites, but the story was certainly catching on like wildfire via social networking. Some of the people involved in the discussion were skeptical about the claim that she was sleeping with both Leo and Scott, putting that part of the story up as conjecture. Others talked about how Leo’s stats had been slipping as of late, and since it wasn’t the first time she’d heard that, she started to worry about how all this was affecting him and how it would continue to affect him. Maybe that damn reporter was right. Maybe Leo was losing his edge because of her.

She bit her lip as the tears flowed again. If she truly was responsible for the quality of his play decreasing, she would never forgive herself. Common sense told her that for all their sakes, she should just nip this whole thing in the bud, go back to the way things had been before that fateful night the men had first touched her, but the very thought of losing them had her headed back to the bathroom. Besides, if the story was this big on social media, the more traditional media were bound to catch onto it, and then what would it matter when she did end things? Their relationship would be all over town anyway.

Wishing her stomach was settled enough for a drink, Kelly sat back in her desk chair and stared at the ceiling. How long would it be before the discussion veered away from had happened, to focus on her, the one at the epicenter of the whole ugly affair? What would people say about her?

Even though she knew it was ill-advised, she refreshed the search and read through the newest comments.

Oh, God. People are talking about the bistro.

She read further.

And now they’re talking about me.

Kelly slapped her hand over her mouth as she read how one of the guys had fantasies about having sex in a restaurant and how bummed he was that Leo and Scott had apparently beat him to it. Her skin crawled, as a few other guys chimed in about things specific to her, including her “magnificent tits” and “delectable ass.” One wondered if “piece of ass” would be added to the dessert menu.

That last comment sent her over the edge, and she slammed the laptop closed, only belatedly considering that if she broke the damn thing, she couldn’t afford to fix it. Skulking into her bedroom, she removed all her clothes and put on a large T-shirt before crawling under the covers. Sleep was a long time coming, and after she lay there taking peeks at the clock until nearly dawn, she finally got up and took a couple of swigs of vodka directly from the bottle. At long last, she fell into a fitful sleep, only to be awakened at a little after eight when the phone rang.

Kelly groaned. “Go ’way.”

She heard the answering machine click on. “Hon, it’s Bonnie. I heard about what happened last night. Are you all right? Come on, please pick up if you’re there. Are you with the guys? I hope so. I don’t think you should be alone right now. I’m gonna get dressed and come by your place to check on you.”

Pulling the covers over her head, Kelly burrowed down into the bed. Bonnie didn’t have a key, and Kelly fully expected she’d knock the damn door down if she didn’t answer it, but she just wasn’t ready to face anyone today.

Sure enough, the pounding started about twenty minutes later. Kelly forced herself to get out of bed, throwing a robe on over her T-shirt. She checked the peephole and saw it was indeed Bonnie. But as soon as she opened the door, flashes started going off.

“What the hell?”

Bonnie pushed her inside and closed the door behind both of them.

“Those people are persistent, aren’t they?” Gazing at Kelly, she assessed her from head to toe. “How’re ya holding up?”

“Miserable. You should probably start looking for another job. I’ll give you a recommendation—that is, if anyone actually cares about my professional opinion anymore.”

Bonnie tsk-tsked and shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere. The restaurant is not going anywhere. This will boil over. Some other professional athlete will do something dumb and everyone will move on.”

“I wish I had your faith.” Kelly made her way back into the office with Bonnie trailing behind. She opened her laptop and pressed the button to boot it up, but Bonnie closed it again.

“You don’t need to be spending time obsessing over this, Kel. Come to the restaurant, get involved with all that stuff you love to do, and you’ll see. You’ll feel a lot better.”

“I wish I could believe that, Bonnie, I really do, but did you see the things they’re saying about me? Someone called me a whore online last night, and I’m sure it’s even worse now.”

“Who cares what they say?”

“I care. I can’t afford
not
to care.”

“Kelly, I’m telling you, the best thing for you to do right now is to act normal, like nothing ever happened. You can’t let them beat you or drive you away from the job you love.”

Kelly looked up at her friend and coworker. “I’m not coming in today. I know I asked a lot of you last night, but can you hold down the fort while I try to process everything?” A single tear escaped, and Kelly swiped at it.

Bonnie’s expression softened. “Of course I will. Anything you need, I’m here for you. But I’m not going to let you spend the rest of your life beating yourself up over this.”

“Right now everything just feels so raw.”

“I know.” Bonnie leaned down to pull Kelly into a warm embrace. “You know we’re all here for you, and we won’t judge. I’ll make damn sure of that.”

Kelly sent her a watery smile. “I know that, and I appreciate you more than I can say.”

“Get some rest. You look tired. And call the guys. They’re undoubtedly losing their minds over this.”

“I can’t right now. I just—I need time to think.”