Dammit! I thrust my fingers through my hair, glaring at her shut door.
How the hell could this day end so badly?
How the fuck was I to know that one of the parties the team sometimes attended after a win would come back to bite me in the ass? Women constantly flirted with me. No matter how drunk I was, my hook-ups were usually with groupies, all out for a good time.
Hell, I hadn’t recognized Charli’s mother in the darkened Pacific Heights street as the tipsy woman who’d come on to me back then. She had taken me by surprise. I’d been as sober as a damn judge, with Miles on my ass to reel in my shit since he’d been in the middle of negotiating a deal with a big-name sports company at the time.
She wasn’t the type I used to hook up with anyway. I knew predatory females when I saw them; it didn’t matter how elegantly packaged they were. And I’d come across a few.
Anger churning, I strode back to the living room and paced in front of the window, hooking my hands around my neck.
Whatever this was between Charli and me, it was new and very real, emerging from deep within me, unlike anything I ever felt with a woman before. Hell, for me, it had started four months ago, the moment I saw her in Mulligan’s bar. I might not have known it back then, until recently, but she drew me in a visceral way like no one else ever had.
Jaw tight, I stopped my pacing to glare out at the bay.
I wasn’t giving up on this, on us. I had to get her to listen.
No, my reputation didn’t do me any favors right now, but I’d find a way to make this right.
The times I spent with her made me forget the shitfest of my past that hung over me like an albatross and eased the constant anger within me. I’d taken her to the amusement park after I heard the sadness in her voice when she spoke about it and mentioned her father—a father she adored and who loved her.
Unlike me.
My childhood was stained in blood.
Shutting out the dark past that would take me under, I pivoted and scrubbed my face, exhaustion tugging me down. But with sleep nowhere in sight, I swiped my phone off the kitchen counter. Messages flooded the display, and several missed calls. Then it vibrated since I’d turned off the volume for the ringtone.
Miles Davis. My agent and current pain in my ass.
I answered. “Yeah?”
“You’re damn hard to get a hold of,” he grumbled. “You’re the talk on social media. Is it true?”
Fuck. I raked back my overgrown hair and stared out the window. “What do you want, Davis?”
“The girl?” He got straight to the point. “I looked into her background. She returned from Germany a few months ago. Worked in an art gallery there. Hangs with the elite crowd of San Francisco. Hell, she comes from the elite side, too. Charles Dupont, the publishing mogul, was her stepfather,” he said pointedly. “No recent entanglement, and an introvert. She’ll do perfectly to boost your public image, one you mess up every other day.”
And there it was.
I ground down on my teeth to stop from telling him to leave her the fuck alone, but he was like a dog with a bone. Shit. I paid him big bucks to be that fucking dog.
“Either cut her loose now because we definitely don’t want a scandal if you screw and ditch her. They’re old school,” he warned. “If you don’t, then make sure she’s with you often. It will boost your public image. Don’t forget those sponsors looking at you for the new deal.”
Right then, I cared little about all that. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“Darn it, War—”
“I gotta go.” I switched off my cell, dropped it on the table, then slumped down on the couch, my head pillowed on the armrest.
I glared at the ceiling. All my life I’d felt alone, hollow, especially through my teen years, never really fitting anywhere until I met Max and Jack, and their friendship filled a tiny space in the vast emptiness. Then Charli appeared, and a small spark flared within me.
In the passing few days, it burned brighter, warming me, and I’d experienced glimpses of happiness even with her taunting, baiting, or arguing with me. And more, the smile I saw on her face at the amusement park told me she liked me, too…even if it was just a little.
She could have refused the bet and walked away, and I would have let it go, but she hadn’t, and that alone gave me hope.
I would fix this mess.
Because if I didn’t, then this vacuum within me would suck me deeper into the abyss. I couldn’t endure the emptiness again, not when I’d finally found my spark.
