Chapter 5
Jessica normally didn’t hide from people, but today she wanted to avoid Nolan as long as possible. She’d taken an Uber from Urgent Care to home right after Heather went to an examination room. Nolan had tried to insist Jessica stay, but that would have been weird on many levels.
She glanced at her phone. Three texts from Nolan about how her car would be in the parking lot by five and that he had the keys. The fourth had been asking why she hadn’t let him drive her to work. She’d responded to that one by saying she had an early meeting. She did have a meeting, but it had been scheduled for nine. That was better than calling him a liar and accusing him of being ashamed of his own daughter.
Nolan was just another man with a lot of secrets, something she couldn’t tolerate.
A tap at the door startled her. Glancing up, she let out a sigh of relief to see Lilliana standing in the doorway with a bag of baked chips and a couple of sodas, her standard, I need to talk, food.
Jessica set her laptop to the side. “What’s up?”
“What is wrong with me?” Lilliana whined as she plopped herself in the seat on the other side of the desk. “Why can’t I land a normal guy like Brad?”
“I told you playing coy was a stupid idea. Just ask him out.”
“I’m not normally shy or nervous around men, but something about Brad makes me jittery.” Lilliana ripped open the bag of chips and started chomping. She lifted her feet, dumping them on the desk after kicking off her sandals. Lillianna had been a tomboy her entire life. She enjoyed the outdoors and played just about any sport better than most, which often intimidated her dates.
“I find that hard to believe. You can talk to anyone at any time.”
“Have you ever seen me pick up a guy?” Lilliana asked.
Jessica had to think about that for a moment. Lilliana had lush, full lips, jet-black hair, and the most stunning ice-blue eyes. Whenever they walked into a bar, heads would turn. Men looked Lilliana up and down and it was rare she ever had to buy her own drinks.
“No. I guess you’re always the one getting hit on.”
“Yeah, by players and cheaters, and men with weird fetishes. Nice guys like Brad, I seem to repel like I’m a can of bug spray.”
“You’re asking the wrong woman for help. I was a mistress and didn’t know.” And I’m attracted to another liar because if he can lie about his daughter, he can lie about anything. Jessica took a can of diet soda and flicked the metal tab. A loud pop followed a sizzle, which filled the room while bubbles from the carbonation floated through the opening. “You’ve known Brad longer than I have so I don’t think it would be weird if you invited him out for drinks after work or something.”
“Except for the fact I almost never see him at work.”
Jessica thought about telling Lilliana that Brad would be in her office in less than ten minutes, but then figured Lilliana might bolt. “Make a point of running into him. Come visit me when I’m down on the field.”
“I hate it when you make sense.” Lilliana dropped her feet to the ground, smoothing down her slacks. “I really don’t know why he’s got me all wound up into a nervous school-girl.”
Jessica laughed. “Maybe it’s because he’s one of the few men who don’t fall at your feet.”
“I think it has more to do with I actually like him in a way that could mean something.”
“And what something could that be?” Jessica arched a brow. In the two years she’d know Lilliana, she’d gone out with a lot of men. None of them led to any long-lasting relationships. According to her, most of them never even made it to the bedroom.
“Something more than just going out and having a good time. I’m tired of the game.”
“Tired of football?” Brad’s voice barreled through the room.
Jessica tried to keep a straight face as Lilliana’s eyes widened with surprise.
“You love football. It’s all you talk about,” Braid said leaning against the doorjamb. “And you come to every game.”
“We weren’t talking about football.” Jessica ignored the narrowed stare from Lilliana. “She’s just tired of the dating scene.”
The narrowed stare turned into a glower.
“I hear that.” Brad stepped across the room, tossing a thumb drive on the desk. “I took some great shots today. I think those will be really good for the blog before the first pre-season game.”
“Thanks.” Jessica twirled the thumb drive in her fingers smiling at Lilliana, trying to get her to say something. Anything.
“I’m not going to be around until the first game. I’ve got a couple of freelance contracts I’ve got to complete, but you know how to reach me.”
“I do.” Jessica smiled, then turned her attention to Lilliana, who seemed to force a smile. Jessica tried to use her eyes, shifting them towards Brad to coax Lilliana to ask him out, but by her tight lips, it didn’t seem like that would happen.
Brad turned toward the door, then glanced over his shoulder. “So, how about we go have drinks or something tonight. We can laugh at the people either trying to pick someone up or out on their first awkward date.”
“All of us?” Lilliana asked. Her face tightened even more.
“Well, I suppose, but—”
“I can’t go tonight.” Jessica didn’t think the invitation included her, so she did them both a solid and backed out gracefully.
“Too bad.” Brad smiled. “How about you, Lilliana?”
“Tonight?” Lilliana stood, setting the bag of chips on the desk. The lines in her crinkled forehead disappeared, as did the rigidity of her lips.
Brad nodded. “Armory good for you? Say around seven?”
“Perfect.” Lilliana swayed toward the door. “I best get back to my office.”
Before Lilliana and Brad could get through the door, Nolan stepped in, pushing himself between the couple.
“What the fuck is this?” He lifted up his phone in Brad’s face. “Did you take these?”
“No.” Brad reached out to take the phone but retracted.
“What is it?” Jessica wanted to tell Nolan to shut-up, but she’d learned over the course of the last couple of years that when dealing with football players and the coaching staff it was better to find out what got their tail in a ruffle.
“It’s a picture of you and Nolan in the parking lot yesterday,” Brad said, shaking his head. “Another one of you, Nolan, and a little girl, and the last one is Nolan with the same little girl sporting a pink cast on her arm.”
“What the hell? Posted somewhere?” She quickly pulled her laptop closer, pulling up all the social media feeds.
“Everywhere, according to my sister who sent me the link.” Nolan inched closer to Brad. “If I find out you took these, I’m going to—”
“Back off,” Jessica said as she scrolled through some of the feeds, glancing at the comments. “Brad wouldn’t do this.”
“He’s the only one with a camera around here.” Nolan inched back a tad, but still stood a little too close to Brad, who didn’t back down, but the fear of being pummeled was etched in his soft eyes.
“I might have a camera, but I don’t post any of the pictures I take for the team. It’s in my contract. Team use only.”
“Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t take something like that to sell for a quick buck.” Nolan’s face turned bright red.
“Shut up, Nolan,” Jessica said, focusing on the negative comments and how to fix this pre-season scandal. Two comments in the posts she’d read disturbed her the most.
Is the man ashamed of his crippled child? #deadbeatdad
He could have put her in that brace and broken her arm himself. #childbeater
“Nolan, sit.” Jessica waved to the chair once occupied by Lilliana. “You other two, leave.”
“He’s not leaving.” Nolan pointed to Brad. “Not until he can prove he didn’t take those pictures.”
“He has nothing to prove.” Jessica tried to keep her voice calm, but inside her vocal cords shook. Her heart raced in one continuous beat. Half of her wanted to scream at Nolan that he’d brought this on himself. She understood wanting to protect his family, put keep a little girl tucked away in a glass bubble? That made him less than a man.
“Maybe you told him to follow us. Take the pictures. Create a scandal to get more likes, or press or whatever, and in the process tossed MY family under the bus.”
She sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, counting to three because she’d never make it to ten. She waved Brad and Lilliana out of the room as she stood, closing the door behind them. “That was uncalled for and rude. I won’t be treated or talked to like that in my own office. Now, sit.”
He inched forward, standing so close she could feel the rage pouring from his veins. “No thanks to you. I can’t believe you put my little girl right out there in the middle of my family dealing with my mother dying. This doesn’t just hurt the team, if effects my father, his practice, me, and my daughter. I’ve worked very hard to protect her, then you show up with your stupid little game and now I’m being called a deadbeat and child abuser. Not to mention I could end up losing my job over all this.”
“You’re upset. I get it.”
“Upset?” He kicked the chair. “I’m fucking furious.”
Oh, did she want to lay into him, but decided to deal with the situation as it related to work, not how she wanted to call him a lying loser.
She adjusted the chair, then stepped behind her desk. “I don’t care what you think, but I didn’t do anything.” She sat, staring at the computer screen. “You can take it out on me all day long, that’s fine, but we have three tasks to achieve before you walk out of this office and have to face the media.”
He paced between the door and the chair and it damn near drove her insane.
“What three things?” he asked.
“Come up with a team statement. Come up with a personal story that puts this in perspective.” She glanced over her laptop. “One that you can live with, protects your family, but more importantly, shows the real man that you are, not the rash judgments people are making.” She absolutely knew he didn’t lay a finger on his daughter, but the embarrassment part? Why else would he keep her a secret?
She quickly sent an email to all the appropriate people within the organization, including the spokesperson, that she was aware of the situation and that Coach Greer was in her office. “We’ll have company in about twenty minutes, so let’s figure this out before they get here.”
Nolan sat down, looking at his phone, deep lines forming on his forehead. Anger flared from his narrowed eyes.
But she also saw raw pain.
She shifted in her seat, watching the team social media feeds blow up and emails coming in from the organization. “The team has called a press conference for six. They will give a statement and need you to give one as well.”
“Fucking clusterfuck,” Nolan muttered, but nodded.
“I think the best way to handle the slanderous statement about you hurting your daughter is to deny it whole-heartily since it’s not true and we can prove that. A short statement, direct and to the point. I’d go as far as to say that continued false attacks on your character could bring lawsuits. I can write it for you.”
Again, Nolan nodded. His long fingers rubbing the side of his temples. “I need to protect her from the public eye. She has a surgery scheduled in two months and I don’t need a bunch of reporters hounding my family at the hospital.”
Jessica swallowed, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. “I think you should also address Heather’s leg and what’s wrong.”
“Absolutely not,” Nolan barked.
“It will help make all this go away and show you in a more positive light if they know what you’ve been dealing with. Also, you might want to mention where Heather’s mother is.”
Nolan stood and leaned over her desk, knuckles on the wood top, glowering. “I am not going to put my baby girl on display, nor will I discuss what happened to her mother. It’s private, not to mention painful.”
Jessica understood Nolan’s need to exert his power and desire to protect what he holds dear, but his stubbornness was going to make things worse. She leaned back in her chair and stared into the deep green eyes of a hurting a man. “Like I said, the slanderous statements we can kill with the truth. But the fact that not a single person knew you had a daughter, who has a problem that no one knows about, makes you look like a man who’s ashamed of his daughter and that is just as bad, if not worse in some ways. The press will have a field day with you about that forever.”
“Is that what you believe? That I’m ashamed of my baby girl?” He leaned in closer. His nostrils flared. “Come on, Jessica. Tell me. No, I dare you to tell me.”
She jutted her chin. “You want to play that game. Fine. I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind.” She pointed to her door. “And everyone else is out there thinking the same thing, wondering what other deep, dark secrets Nolan Greer has. You want to shut this down and get the press off your ass? Then be a man and show them you’re only trying to protect your pride and joy.”
He opened his mouth, but then slammed it shut, holding her gaze.
A long awkward moment followed.
“Nolan,” she said softly. “Sit down. We’ve got a little bit of time, and I can push back the PR team and spokesperson for a little bit. Tell me about your daughter and why you felt it best for her to keep her hidden and I’ll tell you what I think you should put out there so we can protect your reputation, career, the team’s, but also and more importantly, your daughter and family.”
He closed his eyes, chest rising and falling as he breathed so deeply it could be heard a mile away.
“Heather’s mother died two years ago.” Nolan blinked, eyes moist with tears. He turned, leaning against her desk, back toward her.
“I didn’t even know I was a father until she called me on her death bed. We barely knew each other. Dated for all of two weeks, then never spoke to each other for nearly two years. I was stunned. Didn’t want to believe it, but every time I looked in Heather’s eyes, I felt the connection.”
“Did you—”
He raised his hand. “This is not an interview, so don’t interrupt me or ask a single question. I tell this my way.”
“Understood.”
“Gina, Heather’s mother was a diabetic and having a child after having a kidney transplant is probably what killed her, a guilt I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
Jessica wanted to reach out and put her arms around Nolan. Hold him tight. But he’d probably fling her across the room considering how harshly she, and the rest of the world, had judged him.
“Heather had been born with a hip deformity that will probably never be completely corrected, but we’ve come a long way. When I first met her, she’d yet to have the first surgery because her mother had been so sick and had very little family. Heather could barely crawl at a year old, and without surgery, she’d probably never walk. Broke my heart, but before I took on the role of full-time dad, I needed to know for sure. We did all the paternity tests in a different state. I was living up north, my career was iffy at best with the injury, so once her mother died and I know she was mine, I moved back home. Around the same time, my mother was diagnosed. I didn’t tell the world because I didn’t want to make a spectacle of my kid or my mother’s illness. The news about my injury and retirement had been a media circus and I wanted to quietly accept this job and have a fresh start.”
He wiped his face with both hands before turning to face her. The contradiction of sadness and joy filled his eyes.
“The press hounded me right after the injury and they all thought I went underground, which I did, but for my daughter. I let everyone believe I couldn’t face my injury when in reality I was trying to get to know my daughter. I never meant to keep her a secret. I’m certainly not ashamed of her, but I don’t talk about her because…” he paused letting out a long breath.
Jessica leaned forward, placing a trembling hand on his biceps, but he shrugged it off. Recoiling, she pushed herself further from the desk, folding her arms.
“When Heather first came into my life, she had no idea who I was. Do you have any idea how hard it is to deal with something like that? My daughter, who needed a complicated and dangerous surgery, and I was barely able to comfort her because she was having a hard time understanding I was her dad and all she wanted was her mommy, who had just died.”
Jessica found herself taking in short tight breaths, fighting her own tears. She understood him and why he’d kept his private life so private. She’d probably do the same thing in his shoes.
“I can’t imagine,” she whispered. “It’s been a rough couple of years for you and I get it, I do, but now we have to deal with the problem and I think I have the solution if you’re ready to hear it.” The words sounded crass, but he’d pushed her away when she offered support. What little she knew of the real Nolan Greer, she knew to back away when any part of his body had a smidgen of anger.
He shook his head and chuckled, though it sounded more like sarcasm laced with a stick of dynamite. “Go ahead.”
“We focus on the why. Simply stated: You didn’t think it would be good for your developing relationship with her and you were concerned about her long-term recovery and you didn’t want it done under the scrutiny of the public eye.”
“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad.”
Jessica heard footsteps coming down the hallway.
“We’ll work with the team, write a statement that you can give. We can make it a no question press conference and then you can go home.”
“What about images of us kissing? What do I say about that?”
She swallowed her breath. While she didn’t like having her private life tossed under the bus, it wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. “Nothing. No one cares. A few comments trying to say you care more about a blonde bimbo than your kid, but that thread is long dead.”
“If I’m asked?”
She shrugged. What was there to say? She certainly had a preference to how he handled it, though she would not tell him what to do. “Say whatever you want, but I doubt you’ll be asked. If you are, you don’t have to answer.”
“I could tell them you basically assaulted me to make your ex jealous,” he said with a dark tone, the kind intended to hurt. “The one who cheated on his wife with you.”
She forced herself to maintain eye contact, even though she wanted to lower her head in shame. “You could and there’d be nothing I could do about it since it’s a true statement. Go right ahead if you need to hurt me so badly.”
“Maybe I should, so you know exactly how this feels.”