Infamous: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Novel (14 page)

“
W
here’s my coffee
? April?”

Lauren shouted my name and I dropped the files I was trying to organize, rushing down the hall and cursing Mike’s name under my breath. He was the one she assigned to get her coffee most mornings, but he apparently felt himself above that duty and had left me to do it.
Again.

“April!”

“I’m pouring it now!” I yelled, hoping my voice was loud enough to carry to her office without sounding as irritated as I felt.

Becoming a full-time of Lauren’s was a sobering experience. I was under the assumption that I had it bad as an intern... but I had been so very wrong.

It was almost like Lauren treated her interns in a way that would reel them in and make them
want
to stay, only to treat them like shit once they started getting paid.

Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration. All I knew was that those few days she’d given me off after Jared left to rest were definitely needed, because I hadn’t had a moment to stop and breathe since then.

“Here you go,” I said as I handed the cup across her desk. “And Bruce Myers is still holding for you on line two.”

“Bruce who?”

“The Wolfpack coach.
Jared’s
coach.”

Her eyes lit up with realization and she said, “I’ll take that. You go ahead and take your lunch break then drop by Morrison’s to pick up my outfit for next week. And I need—Where the hell is Mike? Find Mike.”

Before I could open my mouth to protest, she lifted the phone of the cradle and smoothly said, “This is Lauren.”

A wave of the hand was the only dismissal I needed. I spun on my heel and marched out to complete my first task—finding Mike.

It was easy enough considering I nearly barreled into him on my way to the fridge to grab my lunch. He scoffed and jumped back, giving me an annoyed eye roll as he said, “Watch it!”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where the
fuck
have you been? You were the one who was supposed to get Lauren’s coffee this morning.”

“Calm down. I was taking a call.”

“While you’re on the clock?” I hissed, angered beyond belief that he acted so cavalier about letting me pick up his slack.

Mike chuckled. “Yeah. And? Jesus, you need to get fucking laid or something. Get someone to pull that stick out of your ass.”

I silently seethed at his back as he bent down to pull a bottle of water from the fridge, imagining how funny it’d be if I slammed the door closed on him. When he stood up and looked back, he grinned at the sight of my scowl.

“Ohhh, I know that look. That time of the month, huh? Well you just take it easy, sweetheart,” he said with a condescending tone as he patted my shoulder. “I’ll go see Lauren now. Just chill out and grab a Midol.”

Must... not... kill... coworker.

The thought of Mike’s untimely death was cut short when he abruptly departed, leaving me alone in the break room. I mumbled to myself about his rudeness while I gathered my purse and headed for the elevator, coming to a sudden stop when something popped into my head.

I pressed the button to call the elevator while I dug my phone out of my back pocket and scrolled through the calendar with a frown.

In all the excitement of my job becoming full-time, combined with how ridiculously stressing it was... I somehow had forgotten the date. It’d been five weeks since Jared left and returned to his old life.

With a growing sense of dread, the date entered in my phone confirmed that it’d been nearly seven weeks since my last period.

No, no, no, no, no.

Appetite lost, I rushed down to get Lauren’s outfit before heading to the nearest drugstore and pulling four different brands of pregnancy tests off the shelf. The clerk gave me a weird look but having never been in this position before, I needed the extra certainty.

While I rushed back to the office to use my lunch break in the bathroom peeing on sticks, all I could think was:
Please be negative, please be negative, please be negative.

* * *

N
early a gallon
of water and four sticks later, any hope I had of a false positive died along with my desire to eat. I was sitting in the stall with my head buried in my hands, staring down at the sticks on the floor. All four confirmed the same damn thing.

Pregnant. I’m pregnant with Jared Moore’s baby.

How the
hell
had this happened? I was on the pill and while I could admit that I didn’t always take it at the same time every day like I was supposed to, Jared had also used a condom every time we were together. I thought hard about each time we had had sex, trying not to dwell on the feelings that the memories drug up.

One in particular snagged my attention—the time he’d fucked me on the sink before carrying me into the shower. There wasn’t anything particularly odd about that time, but I could still remember the frown on his face as he wrestled off the condom. Like something was... off.

My spine straightened as I wondered if I was right. Did the condom break? Had he known? Or was it too difficult to tell beneath the spray of the shower? Would I have even been able to tell if I had been the one to take it off him?

Unable to answer any of my questions, I gathered up the sticks and wrapped them in a wad of toilet paper before shoving them into my purse. My phone beeped as I was washing my hands, signaling the end of my lunch break.

The situation still felt quite surreal and I thankfully hadn’t burst into tears, at least not yet, so there was no need to retouch my makeup. Still, I had to try hard to muster up a brave face before I finally took a deep breath and made my way back to Lauren’s office.

If she noticed anything wrong when she spotted me, she chose not to comment. But I liked to think that I was doing a pretty damn good job of keeping my upper lip stiff. What other choice did I have until I figured out what I was going to do?

“I left your outfit hanging up in the break room.”

“Thanks, darling. God, that Mike kid is so useless,” she said with a groan, shoving the salad container across her desk. “He can’t even get a fucking salad order correct. If he wasn’t William’s nephew, I’d fire his ass right now.”

The relation between my coworker and Lauren’s new husband was news to me, but there was something else I was more curious about.

“What did Bruce want?”

She stabbed at the salad with disgust, glancing up at me for only a second before she told me, “Not him—
Me
. I’ve set up a spread to bring Jared back to the spotlight in a positive manner. I just needed his clearance to take a team to the field.”

“You’re going to Wolfpack stadium?”

“For one night, yes,” she replied with disinterest. “God, I can’t eat this. It’s
drowning
in dressing. If you see Mike, tell him to get in here. You can go home for the day and start reading up on Killian. Make me a summarized list of what I’ll be dealing with if I take him on as a client.”

“I’ll start working on Killian right away,” I assured her. I was completely aware that I had been dismissed, but I wasn’t quite ready to go just yet. “Are you taking an assistant with you on the Moore job?”

“Mike already volunteered.”

“Mike is fucking useless. Remember?”

Lauren froze and looked up, the surprise written plain as day on her face. But beyond that was respect and soon enough, she was grinning at me.

“I totally forgot that you’re a fan of the team. I suppose if you can finish up that Killian list by tomorrow afternoon, I’d be willing to take you instead of Mike,” she offered, pausing to glare at the salad. “Maybe it’ll teach the kid to stop fucking up my lunch.”

“Sounds great. I’ll find him and send him up here. Please e-mail me the trip details as soon as you can and I’ll send over the Killian document as soon as it’s finished.”

Without waiting for confirmation or giving her a chance to rebuff me, I took my professional attitude and rushed out of her office. I blew out a long breath as I searched the office for Mike, locating him coming out of the elevator.

“Another important call?” I cheerily asked, not bothering to hide my smirk.

“None of your business.”

“True, but it is
Lauren’s
business. She wants to see you again and she’s
really
not happy about you screwing up her lunch again.” My evil grin grew at the look of horror that appeared on his face. Unable to resist the urge to dig the knife a little deeper, I lowly added, “And I’m well-aware of the reason you have this job. I’d be careful if I were you. Your relation to William will only get you so far.”

Mike stalked away angrily and I smirked at his retreating form. I had no idea whether or not I was far enough into the pregnancy to be affected by hormones, but I told myself that was the only reason why I took so much joy in the confrontation.

But, really, Mike was just an asshole and I was channeling my inner Jared. Shrugging at my newfound ‘don’t-give-a-fuck’ attitude, I pressed the call button and waited to go downstairs.

The moment after I gave the cab driver my address, the severity of my situation sunk in and I burst into tears.

* * *

R
esearching
a potential new client while is the midst of a mental breakdown was even harder than it sounded. I kept having to take breaks to dry my tears, only to return to whatever gossip site or social media account of Killian’s I was browsing, finding myself depressed by how similar he seemed to be to Jared.

Granted, Killian was a musician instead of an athlete, but the similarities were still there: Cocky, gorgeous, a total player. The tattoos were different and the beard definitely wasn’t Jared’s style… but my research still led me to Googling Jared’s name and scrolling through the results.

I tried not to cry—I really did. I made it through at least four articles complete with pictures of his charming smile before the tears started and wouldn’t stop. But I felt like I deserved a pat on the fucking back for making it as far as I did.

I exited every webpage and hastily wiped at my eyes as I opened up a new document to begin typing my notes for Lauren. My phone was looming at the edge of my vision—the urge to text Jared nearly too strong to resist—but this was something that I needed to do face-to-face.

All I needed to do for the opportunity was to finish this damn job.

During a break from my report, I checked my e-mail. Lauren must have had faith in my ability to get it done because the trip details were already in my inbox. Leaving Thursday morning, arriving at the field for the spread in the afternoon, then one night booked at the airport Hilton before returning to New York on Friday morning.

The only noteworthy information in the e-mail was the lack of details for
my
accommodations. I scrolled further down and found the note she had obviously added onto the itinerary that was originally typed up by her secretary.

April,

The airport Hilton is fully booked so Faye’s set up for a car to take you to the Marriott after the photo shoot and to the airport Friday morning. We’ll meet at the gate. Spend all night on that Killian write-up. Take the morning off if you need to.

“This is perfect,” I muttered to the screen, sending the e-mail to my printer and highlighting the information about where I was staying and the times we were leaving each airport.

I admit, I hadn’t fully thought out how I planned to get Jared alone without Lauren and her paranoia breathing down my neck, but it looked like I had someone looking out for me. Maybe it was fate—maybe it was just my luck finally turning around.

Either way, it made it a hell of a lot easier to keep the tears at bay while I stayed up late into the night finishing my work. I was dead tired when I finally sent off the e-mail to Lauren, thankful she was allowing me to take the morning off to catch up on sleep.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.