Chapter Five

Who let in the sun?

Had she fallen asleep with the windows open? Funny, it almost seemed like she was asleep outdoors. With a groan, Ruby shifted and felt socks on her feet. Socks? She never wore socks to bed. Something hard and plastic dug into her upper shoulders. Sometimes she fell asleep with a book or tablet on her chest if she stayed up late working, but that wasn’t it exactly. She shifted and tried to snooze through it.

Birds chirped.

Birds?

You know, you could just open your eyes and end this blind investigation. With a groping hand, she felt around to pat down the covers, only there weren’t any. Instead, she touched something that made her eyes fly wide-open—the fluffiness of cheerleader’s pom-poms.

How much had she drunk last night?

OH. MY. GOD. That’s right. She and Alec had gone out to eat after the game, then they’d done a couple of shots after running into Colleen, then they’d returned to the stadium to get her car, only they didn’t get her car. Somehow, despite her best efforts to keep things professional, they’d ended up having sex.

On the field!

Ruby looked around. They were outside in a courtyard that had access to the football field on one side and a door to the Bootleggers’ locker room on the other. She was lying on a pile of clean clothes knocked over from a laundry cart next to her. And lo and behold, Alec LeBrun was lying next to her. He was still holding the pom-pom, currently covering his manhood. Well, not quite fully covering it, since he was so well-endowed in the length and girth department. Her eyes traced an equally impressive set of abs up to a wide chest and then up to a familiar face and an even more familiar grin.

“Like what you see?” He flexed his chest.

Ruby screeched then threw the pom-pom at him. A myriad of emotions flew in her face. Excitement over finally hooking up with Alec, disbelief because now they’d crossed the professional line, mortification because she was naked though wearing shoulder pads and football socks.

“Wow. I barely remember putting this on last night. I didn’t think we drank that much.” She sat and slipped out of the shoulder pads, reaching for her dress and using it to cover her upper body.

“Not that much, but we were tipsy. And delirious. And exhausted from amazing sex.”

“Wow.” Ruby covered her blushed cheeks. She looked back over Alec, who was still staring at her, half like she was a piece of fine art in a Paris museum, and half like she was a frustratingly difficult math problem. “It’s fine, Red. We had a great time. We really did.”

“Please stop staring at me like that,” she said shyly. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the attention. It was just that they shouldn’t have done this—both the hooking up and the hooking up in the outdoors where anybody could’ve found them.

Alec looked at her with honest confusion. “Why? This is a dream come true for me right here.”

“What do you mean a dream come true?” she scoffed.

“Look at you. Wouldn’t you stare if you were me?” His eyes followed the lines of her exposed body. “I mean, Ruby fucking O’Brien is lying next to me right now naked, except for shoulder pads and knee-high socks. There’s no way this is real life. It has to be a dream.”

Ruby tried to stop the grin forming on her face. “Stop, Alec. You’ve had better, I’m sure.” She reached for her purse and phone.

“What did you say?” He sat up and peered into her eyes. “You’re kidding me, right?”

She began threading her arms through her dress. It was Monday morning and time to get home, shower, and get ready for work. She’d fucked up. She’d crossed the line and slept with Alec. Worst of all, it’d happened in a field, out in the open. “Stop. I’m not one of your cheerleader ex-girlfriends. What time is it, anyway?” She logged into her phone.

“Hey. Hey. Look at me. Remember yesterday when you told me to focus? Now, you focus.” He covered her phone with his hand, then slowly began pulling away the dress, revealing her body. Hungry eyes roved over her. “You are gorgeous, Ruby. You’re hardworking, passionate, and damn, girl…you’re HOT.” With one finger, he poked her and pretended to get burned.

A slow smile unfurled on her face.

“I’m serious. You, the way you climbed on top of me last night, touching yourself…oof.”

Was this the acting Alec? The one who could get reporters to chuckle in the face of crisis? Or was he serious? Was he really that into her? Last night, he’d said he was. He’d said he’d always wanted to get with her, but then why run back into Colleen’s arms? He’d yet to explain what happened.

“You know what I was afraid of?”

“What?”

“I was scared that when I woke up, you’d be gone.”

She watched him.

Eyes were more than just windows to the soul—they were lie detectors, Ruby had always felt. And watching Alec’s eyes as he said that, she knew he was telling the truth. His other hand covered her hip, as close as he could get to her skin without actually touching.

Ruby shivered. Just above her goose bumps, Alec slid his hand along her bare leg without actually touching her. She followed his eyes, as they followed his hand like it was leading him to water after days upon days in the desert.

“Scared that this body…” His voice was just above a whisper, as his hand traced back up her leg, across her stomach, and toward her breast. “Would be missing from my life. Scared that these eyes…” His hand scooped the shape of her face without touching it. “Would go home, leaving me to deal with the fact I’d fucked up yet again.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “I wouldn’t just disappear and leave you alone.”

“You wouldn’t. But other women would. The ones you mentioned would.”

She couldn’t believe he was giving her goose bumps without even touching her. Ruby felt herself arch into the elusive touch of Alec’s palm, but he pulled his hand back just enough to make himself still out of reach. Without the ghost of his touch, her nipples hardened and Alec’s fingers flexed just millimeters from one’s peak.

“I’m scared”—his gaze moved to hers as he held his hand perfectly still—“that if I try to touch these lips, I won’t feel smooth delicious silk. They’ll disappear before my eyes.”

No, I’m still here, Ruby thought. Somehow, as crazy as this all was, she was still with him. That familiar heat was growing between her legs, slick and warm. And her heart began racing, as her nipples yearned for his touch, or tongue, or teeth grazing them. Hell, anything of Alec’s, on her tits would feel nice.

But her mind wouldn’t let her relax. It had just been a double shot of whisky, but things got crazy after that, and… “Alec,” Ruby began, “we had sex on the field, right?”

“We had great sex on the field,” Alec corrected, leading his hand down her thighs and smoothly into the cleft between them. Slowly, he began moving the pads of his fingers in slow, achingly slow, circles over her clit.

Ruby lost her train of thought and melted into the muscles of his chest. Such a wide, strong chest. She imagined waking up to it every morning. How awesome would that be? But no. She had to think this through.

“Do you realize how risky that was?” she asked.

“I do. But I thrive on risky, Red. You know that.”

“Yes, but I don’t.” A terrible thought entered her mind just then. What about when he starts acting up again, Ruby? You want to be with a man who only pulled himself together for one night, long enough to get with you? What if he goes back to the same shit as before? “Alec.” She pushed his hand away gently. “As much as this is one of my favorite places in the world and I don’t want to ruin it, we need to talk.”

Alec stared at her. “Ruin?”

She sighed. “Look, last night was amazing, but it was a mistake.”

“Wasn’t a mistake to me, Red.”

“You’re wrong. It’s bad enough we overstepped boundaries last night when we decided to throw caution to the wind and have drinks together. Fine. So we did what we did. But now, let’s think this through. Okay?”

Last night had been a fluke. Their desire had gotten away from them. Their bodies had taken over, all rationalization left in the dust. Fine. But now she—they—had a choice. They could go back to being professional, get back on track.

The man who could’ve been carved from marble, that was how hard he was, softened, muscles relaxing, as a sigh escaped his lips. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

Ruby curled up, using the dress as a blanket. “Look, last night was fun. It really was. And I’m sure right now could be really fun, too. But we can’t do this again.”

“Why not?”

Ruby didn’t know why not. In her heart, she felt a sad pang that she couldn’t give him a clear answer, but the truth was, she hadn’t known Alec for long in this intimate respect to figure out why. There was definitely fear inside of her. But fear of what, exactly, she didn’t know.

Instead, she went with the known variables. “Plenty of reasons, Alec. I mean, first of all, I’m your publicist. You’re my client. We agreed just yesterday that we needed to get your career back on track. Mine needs to get back on track, so I can prove to my father that I’m capable. And I mean, holy shit, just a month ago, you were engaged, and—”

“I didn’t love her.”

Ruby scanned his eyes, his face, again. He was telling the truth. “You didn’t love your girlfriend and fiancée?”

Alec sighed, lay back against a mound of clean jerseys, and placed his hands behind his head. From this angle, his body was even more incredible.

Focus, Ruby. “How am I supposed to believe that? People don’t just go around proposing to women they don’t love, Alec.”

“She was pregnant.”

Oh.

It was a good thing Ruby was lying down, because that thought never crossed her mind. She couldn’t say anything. All she could do was imagine Colleen with a tiny baby growing inside of her. A baby Alec had put there. She felt herself draw in.

Alec noticed her withdrawal and added, “Except she wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Ruby’s eyebrows furrowed together.

He squeezed the sides of his head, and Ruby could clearly see his anguish. “I mean, it was a lie. She lied to me, Ruby. She did it to get me to marry her, so of course, when she told me she was pregnant, I did what good guys do—I proposed to her.”

“Wow, Alec.” That must’ve been when he cancelled the date on her. He must’ve just found out because soon after, they were engaged. Holy shit. Pieces began falling into place in her mind.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “She even got one of those ultrasounds from the doctors. A fake one. I totally believed it, Ruby. I bought the whole damn lie.”

“How did you feel at first?” Ruby asked. She wasn’t sure why, but it was important for her to know how he reacted to the news that he would be a father.

“At first, I wasn’t ready for a kid. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll ever be. This career is hectic as hell. But I also knew there was no way I wasn’t going to support her. One way or another, I would figure it out. I wasn’t going to be like my dad.” He scoffed.

Ruby had never heard Alec mention his father before, not to the press, not to his friends, not to her. She could only connect the dots and realize his father had never been there for him, so, at the very least, Alec wanted to be better than that. Five hundred points for him right there.

“So I did the right thing. Do you understand, Ruby? I did the right thing. I proposed to Colleen, news got out that we were engaged, I even started a savings, planned a nursery with her, and read a fucking parenting book. No, two fucking parenting books, and all for what? It was all a fucking lie.” Anger oozed from his voice. He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. Ruby could see the strain of his muscles in his arms.

“How do you know it was a lie?”

He gave her a look like he wasn’t stupid. “She told me.”

“She told you?”

“Yes. The whole time we were planning a wedding, I kept thinking this isn’t right. I don’t love her. I never did. She was my girlfriend, and we made a high-profile couple, but I’d always known she wasn’t my future. So two weeks before the wedding, I made a decision. I couldn’t marry her. I would support her, be an involved father to the baby, but I couldn’t take part in a marriage where there was no love.” Alec looked at her then. Until now, he’d been speaking to the sky, as if a therapist sat there. “Do you blame me, Ruby?”

“Me?” What did she have to do with anything? That was his and his decision alone. “Whatever felt right to you, Alec.”

“Well, that’s what felt right to me. I’d never get it off my conscience if I’d gone through with it. So I told her one night. And she fucking blew up. Threw napkins in my face, a plate against the wall, and told me I was the biggest asshole she’d ever known. And oh, yeah…the baby was a lie. In fact, she was on her period right then.”

Ruby shook her head. This was high drama that could’ve so easily hit the press, yet he’d managed to keep it down. Maybe Alec could act responsibly when he wanted to.

He continued the story. “At first, I thought she was making it up. She was lying about not being pregnant just to piss me off, but then I saw the texts.”

“Texts?”

“To Margie, one of her friends who works at an OB-GYN. I looked through her phone later that night. She’d asked her to procure some fake ultrasounds for her, and that’s when I knew it was true. The whole thing had been a fucking lie. We broke it off that night.”

Everything fell into place—the fighting, the drinking, the crazy behavior that ensued…all of it.

“Alec, I didn’t know.”

“Nobody did, except for my buddies. I worked my ass off to make sure nobody found out, even though part of me wanted to expose her for being a liar and a fake so badly. But that’s not me, Ruby. I treated her respectfully in the public eye, and I still do. And even when she comes around like she did last night, looking for trouble, I still treat her with respect.”

Ruby couldn’t believe it. All the while Alec’s life was imploding, he was exploding. While he worked to keep his true feelings for Colleen under wraps, his anger toward her, he was acting out in other ways.

“To make it all worse,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the top of it. “I wanted you the whole time.”

This is where Ruby normally would’ve rolled her eyes at him. Yeah, sure, but you were engaged. It didn’t make sense. But…now, things were clear to see.

“After the first breakup, I was happy to be free, happy to finally pursue the woman I was really interested in. That’s when I asked you out. But Colleen couldn’t handle the fact that we were done, so she made up the pregnancy, and when I saw the ultrasound, I believed it was over. You have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt you.” He grazed her cheek with his fingertips.

Ruby looked up in an effort to keep her eyes from welling over.

She’d been through so much during that time, too. Here the man she’d been interested in had gone back to his girlfriend after claiming he liked her, and he’d come across as a player and a liar the whole time.

“Can you forgive me? Can we start over?” Alec’s eyes were full of hope.

“I can forgive you. But there are other things in play. I’m your publicist. I have my career to think about. And guess what? I have yours to think about, too.”

“We’ll keep it under wraps,” he said. “We’ll make sure the media doesn’t find out about it. That will protect your career and mine. But I’ll do anything for this, Red.” He turned her chin toward him with a gentle touch. “I’ll do anything for you.”

Looking into those earnest eyes that seemed wholly satisfied to see only her for the rest of their existence, Ruby wanted to believe him. She did. She truly did. She wanted to guide his hand back to the wetness between her legs and stare into those eyes as he undid her completely, right then and there. She wanted to walk into the press room, filled with people who knew nothing about their liaison, turn to Alec, and share a knowing wink about their steamy secret.

“Can we start over?”

A secret relationship. Ruby thought about it. In some ways, it could work, but that was the thing about secrets, though. Eventually, they came out. Usually in unpleasant ways.

“Alec, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I really am. You don’t know how many times I wanted to console you while you were going through all this, and I’m so glad I know the truth now. But nothing more can happen between us.” Hardest words she’d ever had to say. She wanted so much to fall into his arms and make her dreams happen. But Alec had already been through so much. She owed it to him—and yes, herself—to do what was right for both of them.

Alec stared at her, then sighed. He brought in his knees and covered himself with the pom-pom again, almost making her smile.

“Fine, I get it,” he said. “I’ll play by the rules. For now.” He gave her a pointed look. “But we will revisit this. Fair?”

She wanted to agree, but at the same time, she knew what was best, and that meant accepting the hard truth. Before she could reply, however, they were interrupted by a door opening nearby. Muted voices flooded within the stadium walls, as Ruby scanned around for a place to hide. Shit, it must’ve been later than she thought. Were those players coming in for practice? But then, Alec would’ve known about it. How the hell was she supposed to escape this without anyone seeing her?

Panic filled her chest. Getting caught naked with a Bootleggers player? With Alec LeBrun, no less, who’d just gotten lots of negative press for other “stunts?” Who also just happened to be her client? Her father would disown her. She’d be blacklisted from every agency in America. There would be absolutely no coming back from this.

Alec saw the panic in her eyes and pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle this. Get dressed.”

Someone walked through, opened the locker room door to the outside area they were in, kept talking, and propped the door open. Maybe it was the cleaning crew. Which meant they’d soon come looking for the laundry cart. Ruby quickly put on her clothes behind the cart.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“Same thing I always do.” He flashed his sexy smile. “Talk my way out of it. Just need one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“A kiss.” Alec grinned and indicated the open door space through which Ruby could see the cleaning crew starting to work. There wasn’t much time. “Come on, Red. They’re coming!”

Ruby wasn’t used to shenanigans. Ruby was straight as an arrow, but she had to admit there was something fun and spontaneous about this that made her feel adventurous. Dangerous, but adventurous.

“Fine, I’ll still do it without the kiss,” he said, grabbing the pom-poms, his pants, shirt, and jacket.

Ruby couldn’t let the man who’d take the fall for her go without reward, so she sighed and leaned into him for a quick peck. But the second her lips touched his, Alec slipped his hand behind her neck and his tongue inside her mouth with such deliciousness, she thought her legs would give out. Wetness flooded her again, and she moaned against him.

Then, suddenly, he was gone, leaving a cold, empty space where His Royal Hotness had been a moment before, and her heart continued to pound. At the door to the locker room, Alec gave her that infuriating grin with those goddamn adorable dimples, then disappeared into the room.

The second he left, buck-ass-naked, she wanted him back. She wanted him back with a passion greater than she was willing to admit. Oh, yes, they would table this. They would revisit this decision in the future. Because there was no way she wouldn’t. Nobody had ever made her feel so alive in all her life.

“Hey, so glad you guys finally got here,” Alec spoke inside the locker room. “Got locked in last night. Those buddies are mine, such practical jokers. Do you have any idea how hard these benches are to sleep on?”

When someone from the cleaning crew apologized to him for getting locked in overnight, Ruby knew that was her cue. Straightening herself out, she slipped past the door and snuck into the exit hallway. She’d escaped one problem. But how many more had she created for herself?