Hardball: A Sports Romance (4 page)

“I turned the news on today to see that you have a new girlfriend.”

    Chance rolled his eyes at his father’s critical tone. He knew that the news would eventually get his father’s attention, but he didn’t think that he’d actually believe any of it.

   “It’s just a publicity relationship,” he said.

   “Have you seen the latest pictures?” Nathan asked. “It doesn’t appear to be a publicity stunt to me. And I’m your father. I know when you’re lying.”

   He groaned inwardly. Someone had apparently found them in Central Park and taken the opportunity to photograph them. A stab of indignant anger went through him. That day in the park hadn’t been a publicity stunt. It was real, and it was honest, and it scared the hell out of him how much he had felt for Arabella that day.

   “There’s pictures of us in Central Park?”

   “Yes,” Nathan replied, impatiently. “Have you not been following the news at all, son?”

   “Apparently not,” he replied.

   Nathan sighed into the phone in exasperation. “You’re telling me that Robert has you in some sort of fake relationship to appease fans and the media?”

   “That’s what I’m telling you,” Chance said. “He thought that having the illusion of a girlfriend through the season would save my image a bit.”

    “I’m all for reputations as you know, but you aren’t on your way of being MVP because of your image. You’re on your way because you can play some damn good football.”

    Annoyance filtered through the headache already pounding in Chance’s head. The last thing he wanted to do on a Friday night was listening to his father’s high opinions on life. He loved his father more than anything, but there was times his attitude was just too much.  And when it came to being an NFL star, Nathan Lawrence had pushed his son long and hard into the position because it brought a successful light to their family. Failure was not a word in their conversations. Money, women, and being well known were.

    “What are you wanting me to do?” Chance bit out, harsher than he intended. “I took the deal that I had. I wasn’t in the position to bargain.”

    “You should’ve called me,” Nathan replied, just as harshly. “We’re close to you becoming NFL’s greatest rising stars. A woman will only get in the way of that dream. Think about it.”

    He hung up before Chance could even formulate a reply. Grief had made his father’s heart cold and heart. After his mom passed away from cancer, there was never a day that Chance could recall his dad ever looking at a woman with love and affection. While money was never a question, his father pushed him beyond and past limits that most parents wouldn’t push their child past.

   It made him unafraid of anything.

   Chance scrolled through the list of numbers in his phone. He didn’t care if Robert would fire his ass over finding a woman to release some tension. He just needed something.

    Arabella’s name came up on the top of the list. His thumb hovered her name for a moment, debating whether if he wanted to talk. There was an air about Arabella that made him instantly comfortable and at ease. The weekend at New York had proved that much that maybe this publicity stunt wasn’t such a bad thing. At least Arabella didn’t call his phone excessively, or cling to him.

    She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

   “Hey,” he said, sitting up straight in his chair. “It’s Chance.”

   “Chance? Is everything okay?”

   “Yeah, everything’s fine. I was wondering if you’re free right now.”

   Silence.

   “I guess not,” Arabella said, slowly. “Why? Is Robert wanting us to go do something?”

   “No. He’s happy with our impromptu walk. I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

    Ten minutes later, Arabella opened the door when he knocked. All the blood in his head rushed to his lower body part at the sight of Arabella in loose sweat pants and a tank top. Her long blonde hair was loose about her shoulders, and the sweet smell of vanilla filled his nose.

   It took all of Chance’s self-restraint to not surge forward and kiss her senseless.

   “This is also impromptu,” Arabella said, wryly.

   Chance glanced inside the living room. He spotted two wine glasses on the living room table, and something rose in him fiercely. “Do you have company?”

   “I did,” she replied, taking a step back to allow him entrance. “Lindsey just left to go meet up with Liam.”

    “Liam and Lindsey are hooking up now?”

    Arabella gave a positive nod.

    He had been so busy with doing what Robert asked him to do, and then practicing for games that he hadn’t even noticed Liam hanging around Lindsey.

    “Well, yes,” Arabella said, leading him over to the couch. “I guess Lindsey is pushing  for more, but you know that Liam isn’t interested in relationships.”

    “He isn’t,” Chance said. “I’m kinda of surprised actually. He doesn’t like Lindsey.”

    “That’s nice, but I know how Lindsey is.”

    They shared a smile as Arabella curled up on the couch with a pillow in her lap.

    “So, what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” She asked.

    Chance found his eyes wandering to the swell of Arabella’s breast above the hemline of her tank top. He didn’t want to talk about the conversation with his father.

    “Just a boring night,” he said.

    “That’s it?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know if I believe that. You don’t come over to my house just because you’re bored.”

    He never went to a woman’s house just because he was bored. It was usually for other reasons.

    “You’re right,” Chance said.

    Arabella smiled at him. “I can read you better than you think.”

    And that was an unnerving thought, but he wasn’t in the mood to think about it. The blood in Chance’s veins was boiling hot from how uncomfortable he was. He didn’t care then if Arabella told him that nothing would ever happen between them. She did kiss him back the last two times, the last time in Central Park without realizing that cameras were around.

     He took in her inviting lips curled up in a smile, and wanted nothing more than to nibble on them.

    “Let’s put that to the test then,” Chance said, huskily. “What am I thinking now?”

    Arabella’s eyes widened at the question, undoubtedly picking up the passionate undertone in his voice.  She hugged the pillow close to her body when Chance scooted boldly across the couch to place a hand on her knee.

    “I-I-I don’t know,” she stammered out.

    The look on Arabella’s face was absolutely priceless. Her eyes were wide with a deer in the head light look, and something else that Chance couldn’t quite decipher. Desire? Fear? Hell, he didn’t care. He just wanted to kiss her.

    “Let me give you a hint then.”

    Chance leaned forward to mold Arabella’s lips beneath his own. She resisted beneath him for a split second before giving in with a small little moan.

     His heart soared to an alarming pace, and unlike the other times they had kissed, he let the unchecked and buried passion come forward. Weeks of not having a woman’s touch or kiss bubbled in his veins. Arabella’s hands were rubbing at his shoulders, the back of his neck, and the pillow in her lap fell to the ground.

     Not caring that this was most likely crossing the line, Chance pushed forward until Arabella laid back on the couch pillows before draping himself over her. When no resistance came, he finally allowed himself a touch of skin beneath the hemline of Arabella’s tank top. Soft skin over taut muscles greeted his fingertips. Every inch of her waist, hips, and ribcage felt wickedly good.

    His hand inched up boldly to the hemline of a sports bra.

    “Chance—” Arabella started with a gasp, one hand curling around that wrist urgently. “We have to stop.”

    Frustration tore at him.

    “Why?” He demanded, looking down at her hotly. “You were kissing me back. Why do we have to stop?”

    “Because we barely know each other,” Arabella said, chest heaving. “I told you that it wouldn’t happen like that.”

    Chance let out a frustrated growl before pushing himself up to the other side of the couch.

    “People have sex with each other all the time on a casual basis,” he said.

    “Well, I don’t,” Arabella said, sitting up to fix him with a firm stare. “What’s really wrong with you?”

     “Nothing,” he said, shortly.

    “I don’t think so. You came over here in a dark mood.” She shook her head at him, long blonde tresses of hair shimmering at the movement. “I’m not going to be your escape from whatever is eating at you. I’m not stupid. I know that you sleep with a whole bunch of women for a reason.”

    How did someone who barely knew him for a few weeks already knew him so well? His father’s voice echoed in his mind.
Women just get in the way.
And a woman like Arabella would get in the way.

    “I guess you’ll have to find out,” Chance said, rising from the couch. “I have to go. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

    “Chance.”

    A soft hand curled around his wrist. Tensing under the gentle touch, Chance turned to look around at Arabella.

   “Why don’t you tell me what is going on?” She asked. “I can tell something is bothering you. You can talk to people. It’s okay.”

   Chance stared at her blankly for a moment. “No,” he said, pushing her hand away from his wrist. “It won’t be okay if I tell you all the fucked up things going about my head about you. Let’s just keep this fake like we’re supposed to.”

    He ignored the flash of pain in Arabella’s eyes by hurrying through the front door, shutting it harder than he intended. The late summer air swallowed him as he walked back to his car aroused and frustrated with himself and everything else. He sucked in deep breaths to calm the storm brewing within him.

    Once behind the steering wheel, Chance put the car into drive while scrolling through his contacts for Liam.

    “I’m at the club,” Liam said. “I’m about to leave though, bro. I gotta get away from this one bitch.”

    “Just wait,” Chance said, flying down the interstate. “I’ll be there shortly.”

    He pulled up to the club’s parking lot a few minutes later to find Lindsey stumbling back towards the club. A headache pounded at Chance’s temples as he approached the dark haired woman.

    “Where’s Liam?” He snapped out.

    Lindsey whirled around on teetering high heels to face him. “Liam left. He left me here at the club.”

    “He left?”
    “Yes, he left me here.”

    “Bastard,” Chance grumbled out, fed up with the night in general. He started to walk back towards his car when Lindsey shot forward. The force of her weight caused him to stumble into the hood of a car with Lindsey pressed up against him.

    “He is a bastard,” Lindsey breathed out, the smell of vodka thick on her breath. “And you are too, but I don’t care.”

    Repulsion filled him. Pushing away her wandering hands, Chance grabbed her by the elbows to push her away as well. “I don’t think so. I don’t go cross lines with my teammates or friends.”

    Lindsey’s eyes narrowed at him.

    “If I were you, I’d take the opportunity now before it passes. We both know Arabella won’t ever fuck you. She won’t ever fuck another guy ever.”

     “What the hell are you talking about?” Chance asked, thoroughly irritated with Lindsey’s wandering hands. They weren’t soft like Arabella’s rubbing at the side of his neck, and he swatted them away.

    “Oh come on,” Lindsey slurred out. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what happened to her.”

    “No. I don’t know, so why don’t you share?”

    “You have to kiss me first,” Lindsey said, pouting her lip glossed lips at him. “Arabella would kill me if I told you, so make it worth it.”

    Chance opened his mouth to reply when the flash of a camera took him by surprise. He whirled around to see a group of paparazzi standing on the sidewalk, cameras angled right at them. The pit of his stomach dropped.

   “Fuck,” he swore, pushing Lindsey away from him. “Get away from me, Lindsey. Some friend you are to Arabella.”

    Ignoring the several yells directed at his back, Chance slipped back into his car. His heart pounded hard in his ribcage.

    “Fuck,” he said, pounding the steering wheel in frustration. “Fuck, fuck.”

    There was no doubt that tomorrow morning those pictures were going to surface everywhere. He was screwed beyond comprehension, and all because Arabella had to be so damned stubborn about everything.

Something was wrong.

    Arabella couldn’t shake the dread building in her stomach the moment she woke to find several missed calls from Lindsey throughout the morning hours, and an urgent voicemail from Robert to come in as soon as possible.

    And it was about Chance. Even if no one said it, she could feel it in her gut that something drastic had happened over the weekend after Chance’s abrupt visit to her house.

    She shoved all those thoughts away as readied herself for a potentially bad day.  Thirty minutes later, her phone rang on her way out the door. Arabella glanced down at the caller ID to sigh in irritation before answering. “Mom, not a good time. I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

    “I know what’s going on,” June said. “And honey, I’m so sorry. These football players are just scum sometimes.”

    Arabella pinched the phone between her shoulder and ear while climbing into her car. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribcage as she turned the engine on.

    “What is it?” She asked. “Everyone has been calling me all morning. What happened? Is it Chance?”

    “It’s about Chance.”

    A cold wave crashed over her. “What happened?”

   “It’s all over the news this morning. He was seen with some women at a club Saturday night. There’s pictures all over the news.”

    “Shit,” Arabella muttered, sitting back in the driver’s seat with a sigh. She honestly didn’t know what else to say. A part of her had expected it to happen eventually. There was a brooding side to Chance that no one could ever predict.

     Tears sprang to her eyes. It was obvious that Chance’s  physical needs were dictating the logical side of his brain along with the empathy of others. He obviously didn’t think twice about his actions, or what it would do to the people around them.

     “You didn’t know about it?”

    “No, I didn’t,” she replied, shakily. “Robert is going to be furious.”

    “Are you sure you’re okay honey?” June asked, concern thick in her voice. “I know this whole thing wasn’t easy for you. Your father and I pushed you into it. For that, I’m sorry.”

    She sucked in a long breath to calm the hurt in her chest. “Don’t worry about it, mom. I made the decision to go through with it. My job isn’t on the line, or my reputation. It’s Chance’s.”

    A swarm of cameras crowded the front office doors when Arabella arrived fifteen minutes later. She groaned when they all turned to look at her before the flashes started.

    “Arabella!”

    “What do you think about the woman in the pictures last night?”

    “Is it true that you and Chance are dating?”

    Her head pounded at the flood of flashing lights and questions. They gathered around her, but to Arabella immense relief, it was Robert who came outside to rescue her from the crazy energy surrounding them.

   “What happened?” Arabella asked once Robert ushered into the safety of the office.

   Robert locked the front doors before turning to level a gaze at her. “You haven’t seen the pictures yet, have you?”

  “No,” she said, her throat clenching. “How bad is it?”

  His lips thinned into a frown.

  “I think you need to see the pictures first before we go in to talk to Chance,” he said.

  She followed him past the conference room to see Chance sitting in there already with his head resting on his folded arms. He didn’t look up as they passed by to Robert’s office.

   “I want you to know that Chance is skating on thin ice,” Robert said, handing over an iPad to her. “He has been for a while with his antics, but this has nearly pushed him off the edge of his professional career.”

    Arabella cradled the iPad carefully in the palm of her hand before looking down at the crystal clear photograph of Lindsey pushed up against Chance provocatively on the hood of a car. Her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach, thudding there painfully.
    How could Lindsey do something like this? She scratched that question. Lindsey’s heart had been broken far too many times that it made her reckless. With Chance, it was the fame and something else that fueled all this on. He was powerless against it.

    “I can’t believe this,” she whispered, handing it back to Robert. “After all the hard work we’ve done…”

   “I know,” Robert said, gravelly. “Listen, I want you to think about what you want to do about this. I’m not going to force you into something that you don’t want to do. Especially with all the media hype around this story now.”

  “What about Chance? What’s his punishment?”

   “Undecided at the moment. I’m going to have a talk with him along with Coach Adams. Things like this cannot happen anymore.”

  “Agreed,” she said.

  Robert gazed at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Aria. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I was hoping that Chance would calm down with someone like you in his life. It seemed as though it did for a moment.”

   She forced herself to summon a smile, and to fight back the tears. “It’s not your fault. It’s all on him at this point.”

   “It is. Take the rest of the week off. Consider it a paid vacation because the media is going to go crazy with this story.”

   Arabella exited his office to find Chance standing in the hallway, blocking her way out. Just the sight of him made the pit of her stomach churn. Images of Lindsey pushed up against him flashed through her mind.

    “Get out of my way,” she said, quietly.

    “Just let me explain,” Chance said, ignoring the request. “It wasn’t what it looked like. It—”

    “Oh really?” Bitterness swelled up in her chest quickly. “Because it looked like you were hooking up with my best friend in the parking lot after coming to my house and kissing me.”

    Chance’s gaze never deterred from hers. “I didn’t kiss Lindsey. I didn’t want her at all. She practically jumped all over me.”

    “That’s not what it looks like in the picture. Pictures are worth a thousand words.”

    “I didn’t do anything,” he insisted, a fire now blazing in his eyes. “Just give me a chance to explain what happened.”

    “I don’t want to hear it,” Arabella snapped at him. “Because of you, I have cameras being shoved into my face. Because of you, I look like a complete idiot in front of millions of people. This whole thing was to help you, and you literally just took a big dump all over the people trying to save your ass from being let go.”

    She went to shove him out of the way, but Chance quickly grabbed ahold of her wrist tightly.

    “I’m not stupid,” he said, darkly. “I know you’re here to help me, but you’re not so innocent out of all of this either.”

    “Chance—” Robert started warningly.

    Anger burned through Arabella’s skin. “What the hell have I done?”

    “If you’d just let things go the way the way they want to go then none of this would have happened.”

    “You’re kidding me right?”
     It hit her hard then and there that Chance fully intended to use their “relationship” as a means to satisfy himself in the process because of the media scrutiny. “You’re unbelievable. I would never sleep with you just because you can’t have a piece of ass outside of this whole mess.”

    “Right,” Chance said, “and you’re going to be celibate for the rest of your life because of some sort of heartache that happened to you in the past? And I’m the fucked up one?”

    
Slap.

    Arabella’s hand stung from where it had collied perfectly in the center of Chance’s cheek. He let go of her wrist, reaching up to touch his cheek. An even darker expression filled his rugged face that had yet to be shaved.

   “Don’t ever hit me again,” he said.

   “Don’t ever talk about what you don’t know,” she replied, breathing heavily from the intensity of her emotions.

    She turned to look at Robert who stood paralyzed in the hallway.

    “I’m done,” she said. “I’m not going to do this anymore. That’s it.”