“You can’t… You just lied.”
“Did I?” His lips curled in a lopsided smirk as his left brow raised in that charming, disarming way that she was sure had people eating out of his hand.
“Yes.” Tiana’s response wasn’t spoken with quite as much conviction as she’d like since she was having a difficult time trying to replay the conversation back in her head what with all the fuzzy tingles going on.
Cocky half-grin still in place, he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. “I said I wanted to borrow you. They apologized. I said no worries, no harm, no foul. Where was the lie?”
“Okay, but you know what they think, what they inferred—they think that we, that you and I are…” She waved her hand between them. “…a thing.”
“Maybe…” He shrugged casually. “But I didn’tsaythat. And would it besobad if that’s what people think?”
“Yes.” She nodded emphatically as her heart jumped up and lodged in her throat in horror.
Pending the fearless inventory she’d have to take later, she’d venture a guess her body’s violent reaction to people thinking they were a thing had to do with the wildly inappropriate crush she’d harbored for Niko Costas for the better part of a decade.
He walked into the room at the ESPYs, and she felt the energy shift. The air got thick, and she found it difficult to breathe. She’d never had a reaction to anyone like that before. It was as if she’d felt a gravitational pull towards him. Then Brock approached him and said something rude, they’d exchanged words, and the bubble was broken. The thing was, she never stopped thinking about that moment. That first look. She’d harbored guilt in her marriage. Like it was her fault she’d been struck by his magnetism.
“Wow.” Niko took a step back. “I’m going to pretend that rejection wasn’t just an emotional kick to my balls.”
She rolled her eyes, but her mouth betrayed her by curling at the edges. “I’m sure you’ll recover. I have toothpaste that lasts longer than your relationships.”
“Relationship.”
“What?”
“You said ‘relationships,’ plural. I’ve only had one relationship.”
He had to be messing around. Niko Costas was in the tabloids with women quite often. “You’ve only hadonegirlfriend?”
“Unless you count middle school. Then I’ve had three. Marisol Hearst was my girlfriend for eighteen days in sixth grade, and Larissa Garber was my girlfriend for nine weeks and four days in eighth.”
“Fine, not relationships, but you know what I mean, your ego is not bruised because I don’t want to date…an athlete.” She wasn’t even sure why she’d added that qualification, she didn’t want to date anyone. Period.
“Lucky for you I’m not an athlete anymore.” The moment the statement came out of his mouth, his too-handsome-for-his-own-good features froze.
Her first instinct was that he was messing around, but when she saw his expression, she wasn’t so sure. “What?”
After about thirty seconds of silence, he explained, “I’m not going back to the Waves next season. I’m done.” Niko cleared his throat, then let out a long exhale and placed a hand on one of the cubbies for balance. “Fuck, that’s the first time I’ve said that out loud.”
Tiana watched all the color drain from Niko’s face.
“Here, why don’t you sit down?” she offered, motioning to the sitting area.
“I’m good,” he dismissed her.
“Okay, then be good on the bench.” Tiana could be extremely stubborn when she needed to be, and from the rate Niko Costas was going pale, she needed to be.
She gently guided Niko over to the bamboo bench against the side wall that overlooked the floor-to-ceiling windows in the back of the studio that faced the river, which ran alongside downtown.
Niko slowly lowered down, then leaned forward so his forearms rested onto his thighs as his breathing became labored. Out of pure instinct she sat beside him and ran her hand up and down Niko’s back. Once he got his breathing under control, he shook his head and sat up straight. Her hand fell to her side. As glad as she was that he seemed to have recovered, she had to admit, she missed the feeling of his muscular back beneath her touch.
“Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I, um, I stopped by to let you know I just came from a meeting with my publicist. She was tipped off that Brock and Gianna are engaged, and they sold their story to People. They’re going to do a big photo shoot here, and it’s being released week after next.”
Oh, so maybe that’s what the mini-panic attack was about. “Are you okay?”
“About that? Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured her. “I was worried about you. That’s why I came to tell you.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” She placed her hand on her chest. “I don’t care…I mean, I do care. I wish I could warn her, I wish I could tell her, somehow, that he is not a good person.”
