#playerdown: Players to Men Read online

  Barefoot, I padded to the living room and stumbled to a halt, thoughts of work evaporating like mist.

  War lay on the couch, facing the entrance, an arm flung over his eyes, still in his sweats, and shirtless.

  He’d slept there?

  As if sensing me, his arm lowered, and those blue eyes locked on me.

  Rubbing my hands down my t-shirt, I hurried for the laundry without a word to him. Yes, it wasn’t nice of me, considering he’d given me a place to stay. But my emotions were all over the place, and the thought of my mother kissing him…

  No, not thinking about that, either.

  I found my clothes folded and left on the dryer, along with my bra and bikini panties. At his thoughtful gesture, hurt thickened my throat. Why couldn’t Mother not have crossed paths with him?

  I pivoted and nearly screeched at finding him hovering in the laundry entrance. He appeared tired, his skin drawn tight over the bones of his face as if he hadn’t slept. While I stood there, doubtless looking like a hunted deer.

  “Coffee?” he asked quietly.

  I shook my head. Clothes gripped to my chest, I scurried past, my arm brushing his warm abs. My stomach tightened, and I dashed for the bedroom. Breathing hard, I shut the door.

  A short while later, dressed in my shorts, tee, and sneakers, I left the room, slinging my tote on my shoulder and leaving the sloth behind because I couldn’t take him. He reminded me of things that I could never have. He belonged to this place, to War.

  I slipped on my shades and headed for the door—

  Dammit! I spun back, took my sloth, pushed him into my tote, and stalked out.

  As I neared the living room, the aroma of coffee reached me.

  War strode out from behind the kitchen isle, dressed in faded jeans with worn knees. A threadbare gray t-shirt covered his chest. In his hands, he carried two to-go coffees. His gaze skimmed me again, but I avoided his eyes.

  “I’ll see you later at the house.” My voice sounded rusty, as if I hadn’t used it in years.

  “Why? Is there something important you have to do?”

  Yes, find my sanity.

  I bit the words back, my gaze flashing to his. “Look. I made a stupid bet without thinking, so I’ll pay my dues and weed your garden. But I’ll find my own way there.”

  His jaw morphed to rigid, eyes darkening to storm clouds. He set the coffees on the sideboard in the foyer. It brought him a step closer, and his warmth curled around me, unsettling me again.

  “We’re going to the same house, so how exactly is this helpful?”

  Much as I didn’t want to move, to show my resolve, but being this close to him wasn’t helping. I stepped back, lifted my chin, and said stiffly, “I need a change of clothes, and no, I don’t expect you to take me to my home or anywhere else for that matter every time I have to do things.”

  “Again, how is this helpful? You still must get to the beach house, so I will take you to Pacific Heights. And Charli,” his tone gave no quarter, “We need to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Then we aren’t leaving here.” He moved to stand in front of the door, arms folded. “I have nothing pressing going on today or for the next week. You?”

  “What is wrong with you?” I yelled. “Can you not take no for an answer? Let me go, or I swear I’ll call the cops.”

  His mouth tightened, then he shrugged. “Go ahead. And I can take no for an answer, but not when it’s something like this that’s hurting you, and you won’t let me explain.”

  God, I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear it. Mortification had me wanting to crawl into a hole and never come out. Was it any wonder I never went to any party my mother attended and preferred keeping out of the limelight? She might not care, but I did—I hated the malignant whispers directed at her.

  And now here I was trapped when I had work to do—

  Oh, shit! My deadline!

  At War’s intractable expression and flat stare, it was clear I wouldn’t win this, and with my new job on the line, I had to swallow my pride. Damn him.

  “Fine.” I snatched the coffee from the sideboard, grateful it had a sealed lid. “We’ll travel together.” But I didn’t want to talk about anything until I had myself more under control. I couldn’t, not with my emotions flying high.

  “Thanks,” he said softly, making me feel like crap.

  No, it wasn’t his fault, but how did one rise from the ashes of this mess? It was as if my entire life played on repeat, my mother staining every chance at happiness.

  As much as I liked War, every time he looked at me, he’d be reminded of her. My throat constricted painfully, my stomach in a knot.

  He opened the front door and waited. I walked out, heading for the elevator.

  A while later, after a silent drive, tense with emotions, and as the clouds continued to shield the morning sun, War slowed the Escalade outside my home. I scrambled out of the truck before he came around and helped, banging my knees on the running board for my pains, and sprinted across the street. I could feel his frustration as I opened the side gate and ran up the driveway. Yeah, it made two of us.

  Once inside the mausoleum, I shut the door behind me. Since Mother never rose until eleven, I was safe.

  Grateful, I was in the opposite wing to hers, I hurried upstairs to my bedroom with its pale green walls and lavish, white Queen Anne style furniture, shutting the door quietly behind me.

  From my walk-in closet, I got out my duffle and a suitcase and left them on the bed, tossing clothes and whatever else I required into them. Last, I got my laptop and the rest of the devices I needed to start my work for Cooper and shoved them in my backpack, along with three of my go-to romance books.

  With another quick check, ensuring I didn’t leave anything behind, I hooked my backpack over my shoulders, picked up my duffle and suitcase, and walked out.

  As I ran downstairs, my mother’s light footsteps echoed. I bit back a frustrated groan.

  “Charlotte, you’re leaving?” Concern laced her voice.

  My mouth pressed in a tight line, I pivoted and finally faced the woman who never seemed to understand how much hurt and embarrassment she caused me through the years.

  Mother strolled toward me, a green smoothie in a tall glass in hand. Wearing a pale pink dressing gown belted at her narrow waist, she looked too young to be anyone’s mother. At forty-seven, my mother appeared in her early thirties. She preferred saying it was good genes. Yeah, a little Botox helped a lot. With her petite build and softly waved blonde hair framing her delicate features, she was stunning, and that was why men fell all over themselves for her.

  “Why shouldn’t I, Mother?” I asked, struggling not to let my anger and disappointment show. “Besides, three’s company, didn’t you know that?”

  “But you just got back from Germany, Charlotte, and I missed you.”

  I shook my head, didn’t want to get into another argument with her, but the hurt roiling inside me broke free. “You said you wouldn’t do this again, jump into another marriage. You promised! The gossips would have a field day with this, and the tabloids, too!”

  Her expression hardened. “Let them. I love Matteo. He gets me.”

  “You just met him on a two-week cruise!”

  “It was love at first sight.”

  “What about Giles,” I demanded. “The last husband you loved with all your heart until he suddenly became too boring?”

  Her mouth thinned in irritation. “Fine. You might as well know. I caught him with the maid. Since I had an iron-clad prenup, he wasn’t going to get away with it.”

  “Mother, there is no perfect man. Given the opportunity, they will cheat.”

  She shrugged a slender shoulder and took a sip of her smoothie. “Then I get their money.”

  “Christ, Mother, you’re rich enough!” I rubbed my temples, a headache starting. “Did you even love Dad?” I asked, hurting for my long-departed father. He died when I was eight, dev
astating me, but Mother married not even a year later to a man with deep pockets.

  She took another sip of her health drink. “Yes. I did love him. You are all that I have left of him.” Her expression softened, her gaze skimming my face. “You are so young, Charlotte. An idealist, just like Terrell,” she said with a weary sigh.

  I knew she had the capacity to love without the dollar signs attached. This was why I kept hoping she’d settle for a more genuine emotion again.

  “But life is a cutthroat business,” she continued as if to drill into me the importance of money. “Terrell died and left us almost penniless. His death benefits barely kept us surviving. So I did what I had to.”

  And so she’d married husband number two and three, then Charles Dupont, the newspaper tycoon. He’d finally given her the status and lifestyle she craved.

  “Yes, I marry rich. It’s the only thing that counts. Those without money, you have fun with them and move on.” Her expression hardened, shedding the facade of the fragile woman people rushed to help, revealing the steel core most people never saw. A woman who went through five marriages to wealthy men to afford her the lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to. And now she was currently on her sixth.

  “Money is power and what people understand,” she said. “And you, my dear daughter, you will learn that soon enough. Men might cheat on me, but I will always have collateral.”

  I couldn’t do this any longer, fight the same battles.

  “Fine, I get it, Mother.” Maybe years too late. “It’s your life. I have to go.”

  “Oh, Charlotte.” She sighed as if I was the difficult one. “You’ll understand one day. Anyway…” She smiled, dismissing all my hurts and embarrassments as inconsequential.

  I pivoted for the door.

  “I see you’re making waves on social media.”

  Her words stopped me dead. Slowly, I faced her, my heart hammering against my sternum. I just wanted to move on, forget this debacle of her coming onto War, but it wasn’t to be.

  She gave me a little smile and patted my arm. “War, badboy and hockey sensation, darling of the media, who signed a lucrative deal with a top sports brand a few months ago. Just make sure the prenup’s well worth it. Those types always stray.”

  I stared at her, my fingers clenching on my bags. That was it? Did she not even remember him?

  “You came onto him! Kissed him!” I yelled.

  She stared at me, her brow creasing. “Oh, I don’t recall. I greet many in the continental way.” She waved it off. “Besides, I don’t throw myself at the men I plan to marry. I wait for them to come to me. It’s how you play your cards, Charlotte. They like the chase, keep that in mind.”

  Christ, this wasn’t happening. Feeling as if I were caught in a riptide, I wheeled around for the door, yanked it open, and stormed out of the house.

  * * *

  War straightened from the truck the moment he saw me and strode across the street. “What happened?”

  I swallowed, and the hard lump of anger and frustration stuck in my throat felt like a lodged boulder. If I spoke, I’d probably break down. So, I shook my head.

  His mouth tightening, he took the duffle and suitcase from me, and we crossed the street.

  How could I tell him of the horrid rumors I had to endure as a child, because of her shenanigans, until she married Charles? The only man who treated me, the wary, introverted teenager, as if I mattered. Those five years were peaceful until my first year at college, when he died from a heart attack. The pain of losing him cut as deep as my own father’s had.

  Her other husbands regarded me as someone who was just a thought. Invisible at most.

  As we headed out of Pacific Heights, I shut my burning eyes.

  If Ila were still single, I would have crashed with her and spilled my woes. But she had her new life, and I had mine—such as it was—and I couldn’t intrude.

  I’d have to book into a hotel until I left for New York this weekend, pointless looking for an apartment now.

  A silent drive and an hour and a half later, War turned onto the slip road in Santa Cruz leading to his property. Dark clouds swirled across the sky, blocking the sun and dulling the day further. At least it would be cooler to work outside. The breeze had picked up, too.

  “It looks like rain,” he murmured, peering through the windshield as he drove along the gravel road to the beach house.

  What was I supposed to say? I knew he was trying to talk to me, to close this space between us. But how could I when my mother had ruined everything, her words ringing in my ears?

  Make sure the prenup’s well worth it. God!

  So, I remained silent, took the hairgrip from my shorts pocket, and fastened my corkscrew hair into a topknot, to give my hands something to do.

  Once he parked the truck in the garage, I shouldered my tote and opened the door to scramble out, but he was faster this time. He grasped my waist and helped me down. My shirt lifted, and his hands slipped under, causing prickles to race across my skin. My heart thudded, and my breath lodged in my lungs at the contact.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to show how much he affected me. And trapped as I was between his body and the truck, I couldn’t escape him—I couldn’t even move past him.

  More, I hated that I still wanted him, despite everything.

  “Are you going to give me the silent treatment the entire day?” he asked in a clipped voice.

  My hands fisted the straps of my tote. “We should get some work done before it rains.”

  “Fuck the rain!” he snapped, his expression darkening. “Nothing happened between your mother and me! She left and moved on to another. She didn’t want me specifically.”

  Oh, God, why?

  “How is that any better?” I yelled, humiliation splintering the hairline cracks in my armor, shame scalding my face. “I hated her at times, but she’s still my mother! To hear you say that—”

  “What the hell do you want me to say?” he countered. “I told you she kissed me—a tipsy one if you want the specifics, and you shut me out. I tried to explain to you I wasn’t interested in her or selected exclusively and that she’d just moved to another teammate, and now I’m somehow being disparaging?”

  I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

  This was all my fault. I should never have stayed with her on my return from Europe, not even when she begged me or said she missed me. But after two years away, I’d hoped, at least in this part of my life, things would be better—be different—since she was getting over her fifth divorce. But it had all been a lie.

  “You don’t know anything,” I whispered. “You play hockey. You have people worshiping you. I have my mother.” Head lowered, I slipped past him, and as I grabbed the tools I needed from the shelf, his soft voice drifted to me, “Yes, my life’s fucking wonderful.”

  I froze. My gaze rushed to him, but he was already walking away.

  Frowning at those cryptic words, I followed him through the mudroom into the kitchen. He pulled on his gardening gloves, grabbed his tools, skirted around me to open the door, and headed to the far side of the yard.

  Inhaling a trembling breath, I dropped my tote on the table and made my way to where I had stopped weeding yesterday. I got out my cell, stuck my earbuds in, slid to the music list I wanted, and as Lady Antebellum’s Hurt played out, I pushed the device in my pocket and started on the pests.

  For the first time in hours, my own troubles took second place, my mind on War’s cryptic comment. Yes, my life’s fucking wonderful.

  What did he mean?

  I glanced back and watched as he hacked at the overhanging branches of the trees edging the property, a project that would need days of work to tame the wildness.

  It struck me then that I didn’t know anything else about him, except for him being best friends with Max and Jack, and that he played professional hockey. I assumed he was a year or two older than my twenty-five, and a Leo judging by the demonic star sig
n tatt among the other inkwork on his chest.

  Yes, he projected the epitome of a badboy, tough, needing no one. So what had happened for those bitter words to break free?

  Frowning, I snagged a knot of crawling broadleaves determined to stay rooted and yanked hard. It gave way, and I fell on my numb ass. Ugh. I tossed the weeds on the growing pile.

  The first cool drops hit my arm, startling me out of my thoughts. Dense, dark clouds had gathered above. More rain splattered me and grew heavier, cooling the heat and chaos inside me. As if my eyes had a mind of their own, I snuck a quick look to where War still worked at the edge of the massive yard, trimming the shrubs.

  He rolled his left shoulder as if it hurt him, and then he went back to clipping.

  His gray t-shirt sported damp patches from the falling rain and stuck to his back as he switched tools and started to saw the thicker branches with brute strength, his biceps flexing with every move.

  My mind slipped back to last night, remembering how he’d taken me to his home and tended to me when I was hurting. Heck, he’d even washed and dried my clothes—okay, the machine had done so—but he’d folded them even after everything fell apart.

  I inhaled a shaky breath, knowing I shouldn’t push him away because of what had occurred. He wasn’t at fault for what my mother did. But no matter how much I did want him, I was too scared of another heartbreak. And War didn’t have the best reputation when it came to women. Once he got the itch for me scratched, he’d move on, and then I’d have to see him whenever our friends got together.

  God, I tugged listlessly at a weed, my head a churning mess.

  A crash sounded. My gaze snapped to him, terrified I’d find a branch had fallen on him. Instead, a heavy bough had dropped to the ground. He grabbed one of its leafy limbs and dragged it to others piled there, then straightened, lifting the hem of his rapidly dampening t-shirt and wiping his face, giving me a glimpse of his washboard abs. No, the wet tee didn’t help with the job. For some reason, War frowning at his shirt, as if he couldn’t understand how it got wet, had a smile tugging my mouth.