Chapter Twelve
Blake
Her limo took us back to my place. The entire way I noted a swarm of cars around us.
“I wonder why there’s so much traffic?”
“Reporters,” she said curtly. “They’re going to be after blood now.”
“Why? Has something changed?” I felt some nervous jitters start to rise from within me. I hated being kept in the dark about things.
“I’ll tell you inside.”
I unlocked the door and when we went in she closed the blinds, frustrating the reporters who’d managed to find places that gave them a view. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. I could hear the muffled sound of reporters talking outside.
I looked at her, studying that face of hers splayed in anger and I had no idea where it was coming from. “Wrong with me? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The reason there are more reporters out there than ever is that they’re looking for the reason Blake Collins suddenly is off his game.” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “You’re a god on the ice, Blake. What is going on with you?”
I shrugged. I had no idea, but I was pretty sure I was staring at it. For the first time in my life, I wanted something else more than I wanted to play hockey.
“Ralph was right. Tom was furious. The way you played was not what the crowd or the team wanted to see. Your heart wasn’t in it.”
He shrugged. “I played okay, it wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t total shit either.” I didn’t care for the way she was chastising me. She had no idea what it was like out there.
“It’s just not you, Blake.” Was that a compliment? From the ice queen? The woman who could barely stand to look at me? That got my attention. “The trouble is that you should’ve won that game.”
As much as I hated this moment where she was talking to me like a child, I knew she was right and that stung. Winnipeg hadn’t played their best game and we had several chances to win it, but we blew it instead. I blew it. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it back.”
“You better. You’re already fighting an uphill battle to get your contract renewed. And the endorsements depend on you playing a top game. There is no point in cleaning up your image if your game goes into the toilet. I’m trying to help you here Blake, but you have to meet me halfway.”
I sat down on the couch, watching her, taking in her posture. She was upset, but I didn’t think it was about the hockey game. Not all of it at least. I didn’t know if I had let her down too. I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me. Why I cared about her opinion, I had no idea, but I did. A lot.
“Yeah, well no one can be one-hundred percent all the time.” I still felt the need to defend myself a little. I wasn’t the only damn player on the team after all. I couldn’t carry everybody. It wasn’t my job to babysit my teammates.
She gave me a thin smile. “They are going to think that you lost your edge. That being in love changed you.”
“So now I’m in love and I’ve lost my edge?” I scoffed.
“That’s what they’ll think.”
“I feel like I have to be two people. That’s fucking hard.” I wanted to say that she had no idea because she was seemingly emotionless but I bit my tongue.
“Two people?”
“I was this bad boy who kicks ass on the ice and now I’m supposed to be this regular guy with a fiancée? What’s next, two kids and a dog? I’m trying to get into that, but it fucks with my head. I can’t just switch back and forth. Cut me some fucking slack.” I blew out a frustrated puff of air.
“You’re complicating things, Blake.”
“How’s that?”
“No one wants to lose the bad boy.”
“Then what? You guys told me I have to behave, rein it in or lose everything. Now I’m in deep shit for doing that.”
“The bad boy needs to stay. All they want you to change is that you aren’t seen as whoring around.”
“Isn’t that what bad boys do? How am I supposed to still play the part of bad boy? Nobody is going to believe a woman would stick around for that kind of guy.”
She took a breath. “What we’re selling is the idea that you’ve found one girl, one who won’t put up with that, you’ve focused on her.”
I grinned at her. I thought I was finally getting what she was saying. “So, it would be okay if I went out front and beat the shit out of one of the reporters?”
“Absolutely. If you made it seem that you were pissed about them cutting in on your private time.”
I gave her a meaningful look. I didn’t like the way things were going any more than she did. I hadn’t been able to get my head in the game and that sucked. I needed some clarification. It was time to put some cards on the table. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“If I’m supposed to still be a bad, if controlled boy, why are you testing me?”
“Testing you how?”
“To see if I’d jump through your hoops. You’ve loved sending the message that I’d better behave—your words.”
She looked alarmed. “Sure. It’s been about your public image.”
“Then why these games in private?” I was trying to bait her into admitting her own flaws.
She looked surprised. “Blake, everything I’ve done is to get your contract renewed and help you get the endorsements. I’m trying to earn my paycheck,” she said flatly as if I meant nothing to her other than dollar signs.
“Bullshit. You’re flaunting your body, or cuddling up to me and taking things up to the point where I’d…you’ve been trying to make me lose control so you could tell the bosses I couldn’t play your game.”
She swallowed. “Not at all. They don’t care how you act in private.”
I could see I’d rattled her, which gave me back some power over the situation and I took advantage. “Then explain all this shit where you pretend you’re attracted to me, that you want me. Or are you going to pretend my fake fiancée likes bad boys too?”
“What? That had nothing to do with… Blake, do you really think that was some kind of damn test?”
I smiled. “Finally, she gets it. That’s exactly what I think―you decided to make me pay for roping you into playing this role. You decided to punish me by trying to make me crazy with the way you’ve been acting. Then you get what you want, but if I do…watch out. There goes the deal.” She lost her poker face after that. I had won this one, but somehow still felt like shit.