Chapter Three

Becca

 

“Miss Shields. Miss Shields!”

LeeAnn is a wonderful young lady, but if she wants to keep up with me she needs to learn to run in heels. Every steel magnolia I know, including my best friend, Trinity, who prefers sandals to stilettos any day of the week, can scale a maple tree in three-inch platforms.

“Yes, Leanne?”

She’s huffing and puffing where I have yet to break a sweat. It’s barely lunch time and I’ve already clocked more than two-thousand steps. Welcome to my world, y’all.

“Miss Shields, if I can just have a moment?”

I stop. Leanne’s not looking good. The way she’s hunched over, I’m not sure if she’ll pee or puke.

“Becca!” New voice. New woman to please. I glance behind me. Callista, the manager for the cheer squad, races down the hall. She’s in better shape, so it doesn’t take her long to reach me. Fine by me. Leanne appears to need a moment.

I reach for my cell phone when it buzzes inside my giant hot pink purse. “Yes?” I say, when Callista reaches me, flipping through the eight texts I’ve already missed.

Callista sighs. “I wanted to talk with you before the conference. Since the girls were allowed to pose partially nude for this issue of the Cougar Times, they’re upset that they can’t pose in the nude for other magazines.”

“They can if they want,” I say as I reply to the head coach’s text. “All they have to do is quit the team and they can pose for whomever they want and in whatever position they see fit.”

“Some have been offered six figures,” Callista presses, as if I didn’t hear her the first time.

“Have they?” I ask, making it clear I don’t care, all the while replying to another text.

“You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you?” Callista asks.

I stop typing, more than miffed. This isn’t the first time Callista and I have had to chat about her squad. “Here’s the deal. I didn’t want the partial nude shots. I didn’t want the lingerie shots. I didn’t even want the paint by numbers bathing suit shots, regardless of how you referred to them as art. I didn’t want any of it, knowing the ladies who chose to pose this way did so to launch their modeling careers. They want to be models. Wonderful. It’s their right. But, Callista, this has been a PR nightmare. Mothers Against Smut, the local churches, even the Girl Scouts lost their minds, which is why all proceeds are going to charity.”

“Becca—”

“Callista, do you know what it’s like to be woken at two in the morning by the former legal team of the Reverend Billy Graham? When you’ve only been asleep maybe twenty minutes? No. You don’t. If those ladies want to keep showing their bits, partially or otherwise, fine. They just need to leave the team to do so, or be slapped with a breach of contract lawsuit.”

Callista starts to interrupt again, but I’m not done. “One more thing. I know you’ve offered to manage these girls’ careers, just as I know you’re taking meetings with all the skin mags. If I find out you’re doing it on our time, you can leave, too. There are plenty of other folks who would just love to have your job.”

Callista regards me as if slapped, but she doesn’t respond. I take off, Leanne close on my heels. I don’t have the authority to fire Callista, but the extremes I’ve gone through to repair this team’s reputation have bequeathed me the power to request her termination from the big boss.

“Miss Shields,” Leanne whimpers. “I still need to talk to you.”

I reply to another text. “Sorry, precious. You go right ahead now.”

“Denver, I mean, Mr. Singleton the Second, wants to know if you’re available for lunch?”

I try not to roll my eyes. It’s hard not to. If Leanne is referring to my pseudo-ex-fiancé by his first name that can only mean he’ll be taking a peek at her panties real soon. I huff. If he hasn’t already.

“That’s not happening,” I reply, lifting my chin when I push through the double doors leading out of the stadium. The brisk March breeze wafts the first trickle of blossoms into my nose. Ah, lovely. “Speaking of lunch, Mrs. Singleton’s auxiliary club would love a tour of the stadium following their luncheon with the governor’s wife. Be a dear and arrange that, will you, hon?”

“You’re saying no?” LeeAnn stumbles over her words. “I mean about lunch with Mr. Singleton?”

My driver holds open the door to my town car. I pause a few feet away, more because of the hopefulness in her tone than what she’s actually asking. “I always mean what I say, Leanne.” I drop my smile. “Especially now. For your own good, keep your distance from Denver.”

Her face burns a deep red. Just as I suspected. Denver’s already taken a peek. “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.”

Oh. So, now it’s ma’am? “Yes, you do.” I push my hair away from my face when the wind intensifies. It’s still winter up north, but the very start of spring in Charlotte. “Regardless of what he’s promised in soft, sultry whispers, Denver Singleton is not a good man.”

I smile and slip into the car. “Take care of the ladies’ auxiliary club and show them a good time, won’t you?”

Leann’s dark hair shadows her face as she stares hard at the ground. “Yes, ma’am,” she answers.

Twain, my driver, shuts the door. He doesn’t say anything until he pulls away from the curb. “Careful what you say about the boss’s son, Miss Becca,” he warns.

I pull down the mirror and check my makeup, reaching for lip gloss when I realize how much the color has faded. “If you think I’m going to keep quiet, you’re wrong.”

“I’m not saying stay quiet. Learned a long time ago that’s useless advice when it comes to you, Miss Becca. I’m only remindin’ you that he’s the boss’s son. As much as Mr. Singleton likes you, he’s not going to take kindly to what you say about his boy.”

“The boss will take kindly to me keeping his brat son out of trouble. Again,” I remind Twain. I cap my lip gloss. “Mr. Singleton doesn’t want another bastard grandchild running around, whose mother he has to pay off to keep the kid hidden from the press. He’s got enough of those. His words. Not mine.”

I like Twain almost enough to call him a friend. He watches out for me. But if he was one of those rare jewels I could call a friend, I’d be able to trust him with more than I do. “The boss,” he refers to, this man of prestige and wealth, pinned me against the wall the first day I came to work for him.

I’d been beaten by my daddy weeks before and was still reeling from the trauma. My face remained bruised and it was clear I’d been through a lot. I suppose that’s why Mr. Singleton felt I was an easy target. And if it hadn’t been for the generosity of Trin and her family, I probably would have been at Mr. Singleton’s mercy. But the Summers didn’t just provide me with money to get settled in Charlotte. They armed me with love and support my own family never felt I deserved.

“You don’t know what I could give you,” Mr. Singleton told me, his breath wreaking of old expensive scotch.

“And you don’t know how close you are to losing your balls,” I fired back, shoving him away and causing him to stumble. “How dare you put your hands on me?”

“A hellcat. I like it,” he said, unbuttoning his jacket and marching forward.

“No, a smart woman,” I clarified. I reached for my phone and played back our conversation. He froze, his eyes widening. “Here’s the thing, Mr. Singleton. You hired me to make you look good and I will do that job to the best of my ability. I’ll promise to take the lowly Cougars everyone has given up on and make them into the golden boys the NFL never saw coming. Under my leadership, they won’t share the spotlight with the greats of football, they’ll seize it.”

He frowned, insulted and likely nervous. But he was listening. I pushed away from the wall and straightened my suit, my hand holding tight to my phone to remind him it was there. “Just so we’re clear, if you ever put your hands on me or make assumptions that aren’t there, the software attached to this recording will distribute our conversation to every major newspaper and online journalist in the Deep South and beyond.”

Mr. Singleton knows little about technology and often grumbles about mobile applications. But he knows enough to believe my threat is possible. Thanks to brilliant engineers like Landon Summers, technology like this does exist.

To his credit, Mr. Singleton didn’t try anything with me after that. Well, at least not physically. More times than not, Mr. Singleton hinted about the oh-so glamorous life I could have being one of his mistresses—even at events where his devoted wife of forty years stood graciously smiling mere feet away.

Every now and then, Mr. Singleton invites me out for a “business” meeting at one of the premier hotels in town. Every time, I’ve shot him down. Now, he mostly ogles my breasts and ass when he thinks I’m not looking. On a good day, I think he respects me. On a bad day, he thinks I’m a bitch. It doesn’t matter. I’m the one he came to when Denver’s drink and drug induced antics with a prostitute (at the very hotel his father had invited me to) made headline news.

“Did you love him, Becca?” Twain asks me from the front.

“Who?”

“The boss’s son.”

Twain should know better. He was there for all the smoke and mirrors from the word go and polished said mirrors when they threatened to crack. “I loved Denver as much as I was supposed to,” I respond.

My, isn’t that the truth?

I “loved” Denver long enough to spruce up his reputation. I spun his hot mess, cleaned up the multiple indiscretions as best I could, and reshaped him from screw-up to a hurt young man, living in his father’s shadow and unable to live up to his heroic persona—no matter how hard he tried. I even had him crying real tears on Good Morning America.

I’m good at my job. So good, I’m willing to play the fake fiancé who stands diligently and lovingly by her man, pretending I don’t sleep alone with my thoughts on nothing but work.

Well, almost nothing.

Twain drops the conversation almost as fast as he flicks on the turn signal. Maybe he’s hurt that I don’t come clean with him. Maybe he considers me a friend and would tell me as much if I’d only open up. I hope not. I only spill my soul to one person and she’s not here. I wish she was. Trin’s always my sunshine when the dark clouds roll in. And for someone like me, who speaks to close to thousands of people on a weekly basis, I’m lonelier than I should be.

I think I reply to three emails and two texts by the time Twain rolls to a stop in front of Fernando’s, an exclusive club for professional athletes and their guests. Sometimes it includes their wives, but most of the time it includes whoever they’re sleeping with that week.

I fluff my hair more out of habit. The way Lizzie, my makeup artist and stylist, hooked me up before the press conference, I don’t have to touch this hair for days.

Twain opens my door. “How long you going to be?” he asks, waving off the attendant who rushes to greet me.

I shimmy to the edge of the seat and rise slowly, putting on a dazzling smile and speaking through my teeth. “You know me. Just long enough to appear social.” I give a wave to a TMZ rep who calls to me. “Or maybe sooner.”

Twain mutters something I don’t quite hear. He doesn’t strike me as someone afraid to tell me what he thinks, more like a man who chooses his battles. He wants to give me advice, shake a reprimanding finger at me, or perhaps tell me what I should do instead of what I am doing. Here’s the thing about me. I’ve always attracted men for one of three reasons: to control me, to bed me, or to protect me, and during the worst of times, to do all three. At thirty-two, I’m not sure which I hate more.

I strut toward the club as if I have all the time in the world. Four of our newest cheerleaders light up when they see me. They’re stunning women, one of the many requirements of joining the team that makes me roll my eyes. This time, however, their looks aren’t helping. Like many of the fans and wannabee baby mamas waiting behind the velvet ropes, they’re not being allowed in.

“Becca!”

“Becca!”

“Miss Shields!”

The cheerleaders call to me and so does everyone else. The majority of the crowd is unfamiliar to me. I imagine they know me from watching me on T.V. They stretch their hands, pressing their bodies against the velvet rope hard enough to tip the stand, all for a chance to mingle with the best of the best.

“Sorry,” I offer to the row of blonds I pass. “Team members and guests only.”

The women swipe at their teary eyes. My smile falters. I wonder which player has already gone back on his word to call, or his promise to leave his wife. I hope none of them are pregnant. I’ve worked hard to fill this team with good people, but power has a way of smashing souls and filling egos.

I motion to the cheerleaders as I reach the bouncer. “They’re new on the team,” I tell him. “Let them through, John.”

John gives me a stiff nod and steps aside. The girls squeal. “Thanks, Becca,” they offer.

It’s loud and cold here on the streets, but not as loud as it is inside. For an exclusive club, there’s no high-tech music or overly processed auto-tune. This is the south. If it isn’t country booming over the speakers it’s good old fashioned rock ‘n roll.

“Miss Shields,” the hostess says to me. “Nice to see you.”

She takes my coat. “Thank you, Marcella,” I say, grateful to get somewhat of a breather.

My butt isn’t quite on the stool when more cheerleaders accost me. “Becca, that bitch, Madison, stained my uniform with ink and then put it back in my locker.”

I nod to the bartender when he asks me if I want my usual. “Sue Ellen,” I say. “I’m neither your momma nor your babysitter. You’re a grown ass woman. Take it up with Madalyn or whatever her name is, or hell, even your coach.”

“You’re not going to help me?” she asks, seemingly affronted I’m not going in guns blazing.

I offer my thanks when the bartender sets an Old Fashioned in front of me. I take a sip. I love these things a little too much. On a good night, I’ll have one, on a bad, I’ll have three. Tonight is a good night. I’m going to enjoy every last sip. “I like you, Sue Ellen,” I tell her. “So, let me give you the best advice I have. Don’t reinforce the stereotype of an angry, petty woman in this field. You’re not doing the rest of us any favors.”

She practically stamps her feet. “But I didn’t start it.”

“I don’t care. Finish it.”

Did I just dismiss this sweet little June bug? Yes, I did and I smiled while doing it. I mean what I say. I’m the nicest person in the world, usually, but the pettiness that exists between women has led to more catfights than I can count.

Santiago slides onto the stool beside me. The bartender knows what he wants without asking. He places a Dos Equis beer in front of him, hurrying down the bar to tend to the next superstar.

“Becca,” Tiago says.

I lean forward, giving him a really good view of my large breasts. Tiago doesn’t stop to admire them. He never has. Have I mentioned I really like Tiago?

“What’s her name?” I ask.

His dark brows furrow menacingly, tight enough to form a unibrow that looks surprisingly good on him. “What?”

I grin. I have him exactly where I want him. “I asked you what her name is.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replies, his face unreadable.

“Yes, you do. Want to know how?” I take a nice long sip of my drink, my eyes closing as the sweet taste of sugar and whiskey glides down my throat. Mm, heaven. I open my eyes slowly, staring at him seductively from beneath my thick veil of lashes.

Tiago doesn’t even blink, watching me in that same broody way. I point at his face and then to my chest and he still keeps his attention on my face. “That’s how I know,” I say. “Unlike the rest of mankind, you’ve never stared at my tits.”

He swivels back in the direction of the bar and returns to his beer. I laugh. “Tiago, you didn’t even look when I pointed.” I take another long taste of my drink, enjoying the slow burn traveling to my stomach. No one else can make an adult beverage this good.

“You’re not gay,” I say, ignoring the way Tiago is ignoring me. I know he’s listening. “I would’ve seen you with a man by now.”

“Becca, stay out of my business.”

“Why?” I ask, giving my drink a swirl.

Tiago glares at me. “Is now a good time to remind you I’m only one of three players from the original team? I’ve never given you a reason to question my ethics or professionalism.”

“I know, sugar pie,” I agree. “Why do you think I like you so much or care enough to ask?”

Segon Murphy ambles up beside Tiago, bending his arm to rest against Tiago’s shoulder. “Hey, Becca. Looking good tonight,” he says. Unlike Tiago, Murphy does look at my tits. “When are we gonna go out?”

“We’re not,” I inform him. I pull the fancy plastic toothpick piercing the garnishes from my drink and pop the bourbon infused cherry in my mouth, relishing the sweet taste intermixed with strong liquor.

“Why not?” Murphy presses.

I swallow the cherry, barely blinking. “Because you’re a whore.”

Tiago chokes on his beer. He wasn’t expecting that one and neither was Murphy. “You don’t have to be a bitch,” he says.

“And you don’t have to be a whore,” I counter. Murphy storms away in a huff. “See you at the Children’s Hospital next week. Oh, and don’t forget to write a nice speech.”

“What the hell, Becca?” Tiago says, laughing.

I laugh with him. Subtle is something I’ve never been accused of being in social circles. Why start now?

My laughter fades as his does. I turn in the direction he’s looking. No, not . . . uh-uh.

The quarterback, Zack Anson, strolls in, his confident smile cutting through the dimness. His team members scramble to attention, just short of bowing before him.

Tiago doesn’t bow. He doesn’t offer so much as a curtsy for his life-long best friend. Oh, no. He’s too busy eyeing Marilyn. Zack’s girlfriend.

I whip back toward Tiago, his chin briefly lowering before he takes a purposeful swig of his beer. “You’re in love with Marilyn?” I ask.

His eyes widen briefly before his frown returns. “Tiago . . . don’t go there,” I warn. “He’s your best friend—Jesus, so is she.”

Tiago doesn’t respond, returning dutifully to his beer. “Tiago?” I press. “Tell me you won’t go there.

He shakes his head slowly. “You don’t get it, Becca. I loved her long before he did.”

And unlike Zack, I’m betting Tiago would have remained faithful.

I’m not certain whether to cry with or for him.

Vulnerability tends to come at the most inopportune times and when you least want it. Maybe it’s the atmosphere or the conversation we were just having, or maybe it’s the combination of innocence, beauty, and kindness Marilyn effortlessly carries. It could be all of it. Whatever does it, for the first time since I’ve known this imposing man (who’s always been comfortable letting his friend Zack take the spotlight, all the while guarding his back on the field), that vulnerability spills out.

“Tiago,” I say, searching for the right words and the compassion he needs. “Be careful. Even I can’t spin that.”

“There’s nothing to spin. I’m no fool. I won’t ever let anything happen. No matter how bad I may want it.”

My eyes flicker towards Marilyn as she approaches, smiling. She’s happy to see Tiago, and maybe a little relieved. But there’s something else. A look she gives him that’s foreign from the way she looks at Zack. Damn. Maybe she loves him, too.

I slam back the rest of my drink and slip off the stool, greeting Marilyn briefly as she makes her way to Tiago.

Marilyn isn’t like the rest of the women who come here. She’s nice. It’s not to say the other women are heartless. They just have different priorities, like landing a Sugar Daddy and achieving WAG status. I don’t fault them, exactly. I suppose I just recognize that the fall-outs and the headaches outweigh the prestige and celebrity status.

As I near Zach (and yes, he does eye my rack), I can’t help but turn back to Tiago. There’s no scowl in his expression. Not with Marilyn near him and not given how softly she appears to speak to him. This isn’t a man looking to cheat with his best friend’s girl. This is a man in love with someone he can’t have.

“Hey, Becca,” Zach says. His focus once more darts below my chin. “I wanted to discuss the visit to the Children’s Hospital next week.”

I don’t hear his next few words, not when my attention latches on the flat-screen above his head.

It’s a media shit-storm. Camera lights creating a strobe affect as Hale Wilder is led into a courthouse in handcuffs.

Zach says something about footballs and autographs, but it’s all white noise, my full attention on the news anchor. “Hale Wilder, also known as the Anaconda of Wall Street by the way he puts the squeeze on the competition, was indicted on multiple charges of embezzlement and stock manipulation today . . .”

My body shudders, thinking back to that horrible night. No, sir, that’s not why he’s called the Anaconda.

“Becca? Are you listening?” Zach asks. “Hey. Are you all right?”

“Shit,” I mutter. My eyes sting with tears that shouldn’t be there. It’s over between us. All my screw-ups made sure of that . . .

“Becca? Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Marilyn asks.

Tiago is here, too, reaching for me as the doors to the courthouse slam shut behind the cluster of FBI agents escorting Hale. My heartstrings break apart and my stomach does another flip when I realize Sean is calling me.

“Becca?” Sean says, not bothering to greet me or wait for me to mumble a response. “Hale’s in trouble. Fuckin’ A, Becca. Are you there? Hale needs you . . .”