End Zone: Texas Titans 2, page 11
“Is this the same girl Jaxon mentioned to me, the one who’s planning the anniversary party?”
Zach hadn’t been able to make the board meeting where Matt filled the rest of the crew in on Kristen’s involvement. “Yeah, that’s her.”
“So what happened?”
“We just had it out in her office.” Matt made his way to the kitchenette in the back corner of his office. “You want a coffee?”
“No, I wanna hear about what happened with Kristen. It’s not like you to get so bent out of shape over a woman.”
Placing a small mug under the spout, Matt pressed the button and waited for the welcome scent of espresso to clear the cobwebs from his head. “I overheard a conversation she had with her ex. He was telling her that he still loved her, that he still wanted to be with her.”
“How did she react?”
“She made it clear she’s not interested.” Matt sipped the strong brew, hoping it would give him the jolt he needed to focus on something other than the mess he’d made of his life.
“So what’s the problem?”
“The way I acted, that’s the problem. I heard that jackass saying those things to her, and it took me back, ya know?” Zach knew better than anyone. He was who Matt turned to when he found out his wife was still involved with her former lover.
“Uh oh… What did you say to her?”
“I let her have it.” Matt paced the room, wishing a sinkhole would open up and swallow him so he wouldn’t have to figure a way out of the pit he’d dug for himself.
“Why?”
“Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.” Matt had to take full responsibility for that. Kristen hadn’t deserved his temper tantrum. If anyone deserved it, it was his ex-wife, but she’d skipped town before the ink on the divorce papers dried.
“You won’t get an argument from me on that one.” Zach grinned when Matt glared at him. “So how’re you gonna make things right with her? I have to assume from the way you’re wearing a hole in the carpet that you want to apologize?”
“Sure, I do. Not that I think she’d be willing to listen.”
“Does she know what happened with Robin?”
“No.” Matt still got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about the stunt his ex-wife pulled. “It’s not the kind of thing a guy wants to broadcast, especially not to a woman he’s trying to impress.”
“I get that, but if things are getting serious between you two, she needs to know the whole story, don’t you think?”
Matt knew the time would come when he would have to explain, but he wanted to feel as though he and Kris were on more solid ground before they had that talk. “I’ll tell her eventually. Assuming she ever wants to speak to me again.”
“Are you going to give her a choice?”
“I can’t force her to talk to me.” His friend had been out of the dating game too long if he thought that would work.
“So you’re just going to let her write you off? You’re gonna give up?”
“Hell, no!”
Zach smiled and rubbed his hands together. “That’s what I thought. Now let’s come up with a plan to get you back in to your lady’s good book, my friend.”
***
Kristen was dead on her feet by the time she turned the key in her lock. It was after eight, and she’d been working like a demon ever since Matt left her office. She had too much to do to let her personal problems sidetrack her. As always, business came first. She let out a little yelp when she heard someone come up behind her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Matt. She didn’t have to turn around; she’d know that silky smooth voice anywhere. Damn him. “How did you get in here?” When he didn’t respond, she assumed one of the other residents had held the door for him. So much for their security system. “I’m too tired to—”
“Eat?” He stepped into her line of vision and held up a paper bag with his company’s logo on it. “Our chef makes a great burger with sweet potato fries.”
Her mouth was already watering. She knew the only things in her fridge were expired yogurt, withering apples, and a near-empty jug of orange juice, but she would be damned if she’d let him off the hook that easily. “I have work to do.”
“You’ve already been working for twelve hours. Unless, like me, you were useless this afternoon?”
Lifting her chin, she pushed past him. “No, I had a very productive afternoon.” It was true. Her work was the only thing that got her through the tough times.
Matt slipped in behind her before she could close the door.
“What do you want?” she asked, slipping out of her high-heeled shoes. That was a mistake. It was tough to appear intimidating when he had at least six inches on her. “Didn’t you say everything you needed to say earlier?”
“Not even close.” He set down the bag and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry.” He kissed her, seemingly unaffected when she wouldn’t allow him to push past her lips. “Forgive me? Please?”
“No.” She stepped back and folded her arms. She wanted to forgive him, but it was important to set some ground rules. He couldn’t think it was acceptable to go off on her whenever he had a bad day. She didn’t intend to be any man’s doormat, and the sooner Matt realized that, the better chance their relationship had.
“What can I do to make it up to you?”
Kristen turned away from him, needing to put some distance between them. Forgetting all of his harsh words and slipping into bed would be too easy. “You can tell me why you reacted that way, for starters.”
Raking a hand through his hair, Matt sighed. “It wasn’t you. It was…” He swore softly. “Let’s just say I overreacted and leave it at that, okay?”
She suspected his reaction had something to do with his ex-wife, and if that was the case, she knew she would be a fool to let it go. If Matt still harbored feelings for Robin, Kristen needed to know before she got in any deeper. “It wasn’t seeing me with Robert that triggered that reaction, was it?”
“That guy’s a dirtbag. He hurt you, and he thinks he gets a second chance to do it again.”
She appreciated Matt’s desire to protect her, but she was capable of taking care of herself. She’d been doing it for longer than she wanted to admit. “Even if you hadn’t shown up, I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to trust him again. I know men like that don’t change.”
A tick in Matt’s jaw was the only sign he was uneasy. “What do you mean?”
“A man who cheats once will always cheat again.” Her father had proven that.
“That’s a pretty harsh assessment,” Matt said, his steady gaze meeting hers. “You don’t think people can change?
“Not men like Robert… and my father. They could never be satisfied with just one woman. The grass is always greener and all that crap.” Feeling the urge for a drink, she headed into the kitchen, hoping she had chilled the bottle of chardonnay she bought as a housewarming gift last week. A girlfriend had invited her for dinner, but Kristen hadn’t been able to make it.
Matt followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. “Not all men are like that.” He watched her reach for two glasses. “You know that, don’t you?”
She knew there were a lot of good men out there who were content to spend the rest of their lives with one woman; she just hadn’t had much experience with them. Hopefully her mother had found one of the good guys in her new husband. Only time would tell the real story. “I don’t know much of anything at the moment, at least not where my personal life is concerned.” Thankfully, her business ran like a well-oiled machine, grounding her when people threatened to send her ‘round the bend.
“I hope you know I’m crazy about you.”
Kristen’s hand trembled around the corkscrew. She wanted to believe him, but the way he’d acted that afternoon made her question whether they were right for each other. A man who went off like a loose cannon with the slightest provocation was not someone she needed to share her bed or her secrets with.
“Tell me you believe me.”
“That’s not really the issue, is it?” She poured wine into each of the glasses before handing one to him.
“What is the issue? You tell me,” he said, nodding his thanks as he accepted the glass. “Isn’t that the only thing that matters, Kris? How we feel about each other?”
His reasoning was too simplistic. They needed to discuss so many considerations before they decided whether to take their relationship further, not the least of which was his ex-wife. “Where’s Robin?”
“Excuse me?” He paused the glass halfway to his lips. “What does she have to do with this?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Kristen leaned against the granite countertop, bracing one hand against the cool, smooth surface. “I have a feeling the way you reacted today had more to do with her than with me.” When his eyes shifted away and he took a drink instead of defending himself, she knew she was right. “Are you still in love with her?”
“No way.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t seem anxious to delve deeper, but Kristen couldn’t let it go if she intended to continue seeing Matt. “I asked you where she is. Do you still see her?”
“No.” He sighed when Kristen shook her head and walked back into the living room.
He clearly wasn’t willing to tell her the story, and she was tired of making herself crazy speculating. If he couldn’t be honest with her, they had nothing to talk about. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, watching her as she unbuttoned her blazer and tossed it over an armchair.
She had dressed for a client meeting in a chic steel-grey business suit with a lacy camisole beneath it. She wouldn’t have worn the camisole by itself in public, but Matt had already seen her in much less. “What are you sorry about?” Sitting on the apartment-sized beige sofa, she tucked her silk-clad legs under her and eyed him, trying to read his mind.
“I’m sorry for the way I acted today.” His eyes swept over her body before returning to her face. “Obviously I was way out of line. I was just…” He clenched the glass. “Jealous, I guess. Seeing you with him, hearing him tell you he loved you made me wonder if you still felt the same way.”
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” Kristen propped her elbow on the back of the sofa so she could rest her head in her free hand. “You’re questioning my feelings for my ex while I’m wondering how you feel about yours.”
Matt set his glass on an end table before moving to the coffee table in front of the sofa. He sat on the large, solid wood rectangle and stared deeply into her eyes. “I swear to you, the only thing I feel for that woman is contempt.”
Kristen sucked in a breath at the hatred in Matt’s eyes. What had that woman done to him to warrant such anger?
“How about you? Are you sure your feelings for him are dead and buried?”
“It was over as soon as I found out what he’d done.” If she were being honest, Kristen might have admitted it should have ended as soon as it began. She’d allowed herself to go through the motions while believing Robert was a good guy. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Good to know.” Matt reached for her hand. “Now that we’ve established that I was a jerk this afternoon and neither one of us would consider reconciling with our exes, can we move on? Please?”
Kristen wanted to. She wanted to believe that Matt was one of the few good guys who would treat her fragile heart with care. “One day at a time. That’s all I can promise.” She knew by his look of disappointment that that wasn’t what he’d hoped to hear, but that was all she could give him. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and her trust couldn’t be earned overnight.
He smiled and kissed her hand. “Then I guess I’ll just have to take what I can get.”
***
Kristen was sitting at her desk the following morning when Shell blew through like a hurricane, trying to balance her over-sized purse, phone, and take-out coffee from her favorite café around the corner.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” Kristen said. It had only been a few weeks, but she’d missed her right-hand woman. “When did you get in?”
Shell frowned as she set her purse in the guest chair and her coffee on the corner of her boss’s desk. “Last night. Didn’t you get my message?”
“No, I, uh, went to bed early.” With Matt.
“Since when do you go to bed early the night before a big event?” Shell asked. “You’re usually up ‘til two making sure everything’s good to go.”
Her assistant was right. The Bradbury engagement party that evening was a big deal, but when Matt had offered her a massage to ease her tense muscles, they somehow ended up in her bed having the best make-up sex she’d ever experienced. “I was pretty tired.” She hoped she could blame her blush on the warm office. “Long night the night before.”
“That’s why I came back,” Shell said, reaching for her coffee. “I couldn’t enjoy myself in Florida. I felt so guilty leaving you here with this workload.”
“Believe it or not, I actually took on another project while you were away.” Since Shell would find out about High Rollers anniversary party as soon as she consulted their calendar, Kristen decided it would be best if she came clean.
“You can’t be serious,” Shell said, rolling her eyes. “I hope you managed to hire and train another person then, ‘cause there’s no way we can handle all these events.”
“As a matter of fact, I had someone volunteer to help us out with the High Rollers project. She knows the clients well, and the person who hired me trusts her implicitly.”
“High Rollers…” Shell tapped her brightly painted nail against her lips. “As in the sports bars?”
“Yup.” Kristen knew Shell would have an opinion about their new clients. She had an opinion about everything, and rarely the discretion to keep it to herself.
“Interesting.” Her eyes lit up. “That could definitely be fun. I saw the owners’ pic in the paper last month. Those guys are hot.” She snapped her fingers. “That guy who came to your office the day I left… that was him, right? One of the partners. I knew I recognized him from somewhere.”
“Yeah, that’s Matt Hudson.”
“Tell me I’ll be working closely with him on this project.” Shell folded her hands under her chin. “Please, pretty please.”
Kristen smiled, enjoying her assistant’s antics for the first time in a long time. “I’m afraid not.” There was no point in trying to keep the secret. “When he stopped by, you may recall Matt mentioning we knew each other?”
“Yeah, I remember something like that. You met him at an event?”
“No, he tutored me in high school.” Wrinkling her nose, Kristen said, “Let’s just say math wasn’t my strong suit. Matt, on the other hand, was a genius.”
“Why didn’t they have tutors that looked like him when I went to school?” With a dramatic sigh, Shell dropped into the guest chair not occupied by her purse. “The brainy kids in my school wore thick glasses, short pants, and had acne.”
Kristen shook her head at her friend’s characterization. “Matt looked a lot like that, as a matter of fact. I still thought he was a great guy.” He was sweet and sensitive and funny, and had she not been so caught up in her teenage angst, she may have paid more attention to him.
“Shut up!” Shell said, leaning forward to reach her coffee. “What happened? Did he get an extreme makeover, or what?”
“Something like that, I guess.” Kristen shrugged. “Anyway, that’s not really the point. We’re, uh, kind of seeing each other. I agreed to take on this project as a personal favor to him.”
Shell’s jaw went slack, and Kristen feared the hand holding her coffee might as well. “You’re not serious,” Shell said.
“Why is that so surprising?” Kristen felt her spine stiffen. Was Shell implying her boss wasn’t good enough for someone like Matt?
“You don’t date, remember?”
“It’s true my social life hasn’t been all that active since Robert—”
“Oh my God,” Shell broke in. “Does he know about Matt? What did he say? How did he react? I bet he’s sick with jealousy.”
That was typical of Shell, firing questions like missiles before the other person had a chance to duck and cover. “He knows. We all went to that high school reunion I was telling you about. It was… uh… awkward, to say the least.”
“I’ll just bet it was,” Shell said, looking thoroughly entertained. “I wish I could have been there to see the look on his face when you walked in with that spectacular specimen of manliness.”
“Matt and I didn’t exactly go to the reunion together.”
“Who cares if you went together? What I want to know is whether you left together.” When Kristen refused to dignify the question with a response, Shell laughed. “Ha! I knew it. Good for you, girl. It’s about time you got yourself back in the game.”
“Back to my original point,” Kristen said, fearing they may never get any work done if Shell kept distracting her with questions about her personal life. Kristen couldn’t deny it was kind of nice to have a personal life again, after such a long dry spell. “Matt’s mother is helping us with the High Rollers party.”
“His mother?” Shell asked, looking skeptical. “What does she know about event planning?”
After only one meeting, Kristen suspected Nancy Hudson could teach both of them a thing or two about high society. “Wait ‘til you meet her. You know Lancaster Funeral Homes?”
“Sure, who doesn’t?” Shell smoothed a hand over her purple straight skirt as she crossed her legs. “What about it?”
“That’s Nancy’s family business, not that she’s actively involved.” Pointing to the art hanging behind her desk, Kristen added, “She owns an art gallery. That’s one of her original pieces.”
