“I dropped her off at a friend’s place. She’s not my responsibility.”
“Good. Keep it that way. Need I tell you that messing where you eat is not a good idea? She’s your coach’s daughter, never mind the rest. And why you’d want to say a kind word about the woman who tanked your comeback is beyond me. Haven’t you heard what happened with her and Kent Gallagher? Stay away while we get the Bast train back on the tracks.”
Sure, sure. “I’m trying to take a nap. Check in later?”
“Yep. Rest up, and I’ll keep you posted on any news.”
Kit would kill him if he knew Pepper was here, so best to keep that nugget to himself. He assumed Pepper would be discreet as well, but he really shouldn’t assume anything. Best to verify. He grabbed his sweats, struggled with his sling, and headed out to the living room.
She was in the kitchen with her back to him, headphones on, humming along to something. Every now and then she burst out with a few words.
“I could never take the place … of your man!”
Ah, classic Prince. He stood back, watching as she sliced something on a cutting board. Then sliced a dance move with a shuffle of her feet and a wiggle of her ass.
God, she was a curvy thing. She moved silkily around the kitchen with the kind of grace she had not exhibited in the crash seen around the world. Mesmerized, he watched her until she turned and jumped.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously.”
He needed to stop being such an ass, but he couldn’t think of a way back to the nice guy he usually inhabited. That version was frozen on the Rebels ice.
“I was just making something to eat. There’s frozen chicken and ground beef, which I’m defrosting in the fridge for tomorrow. At least, if I can get back to Chicago, you’ll have something for the rest of your time here. For tonight we have pesto—jarred, of course—and pasta. Also I bought tomatoes at that general store, so I could make—”
“Have you told anyone where you are?”
She bit her lip. “Ah, no. Well, except for Dad. No one else knows. Neither would they like it.”
“Good.” His brain rewound over what she said. “Why wouldn’t people like it?”
“Because I already damaged your career and they’d think it strange that we’re … together like this. They probably think it’s strange anyway, what you did back there. But that we’re still …” She gestured between them. “No one’s going to like that.”
“Why?” He knew, or thought he did, but he wanted to hear her take on it.
“Look at what happened.”
She wasn’t talking about him—or not only him. It was all that stuff with Gallagher, of which everyone was quick to constantly remind him. He hated being forced into a pen with the rest of the cattle.
“What’s for dinner again?”
“You’re hungry?” Her face lit up, and Christ Almighty, that lit something in him. This small chink in his shield …
“Yeah. I can’t sleep, so eating sounds like the next best option.” Well, sex did, but that wouldn’t be happening. Kylie and her tattooed tits were burning a hole in his pocket.
“Great. Have a seat and let me work my magic on these ingredients.”
He watched as she went through the steps of filling the pot and setting it on the stove. Even though he liked to wait until the water was boiling to throw the salt in, he didn’t complain when she added it to the cold water.
“That’ll take a few minutes. Would you like a drink? There’s beer.”
“A beer would be good.” He sat at the farmhouse table.
She headed to the fridge and took out two IPAs, cracked them open, and set one before him. She stood back at the kitchen counter, like she was moving away from an unexploded bomb.
“How’s your wrist?”
“Throbbing a little but otherwise not much to report.”
She blinked those big storybook eyes at him and took a drag from her beer.
“What did you mean earlier?” he asked. “About people not liking the idea of us together?” He quickly amended, “Here.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m bad news.” She said it with a touch of challenge.
“I might have read something in the New York Times.”
“Oh, nothing so lofty. But I certainly made the grade on TMZ, the New York Post, and various other fine publications.”
She turned back to check on the water, which had yet to make any meaningful progress in the last ninety seconds. Her shoulders had stiffened, and it took every inch of his willpower not to reach out and run a soothing hand over her back.
“You looked different back then. Skinnier. Blonder. It’s why I didn’t recognize you at Jimmy’s that night.”
Picking up her beer, she took a sip and turned to face him. “The WAG makeover. Didn’t suit me.”
He agreed. She looked better now, filled out, more natural. Stunning, if he was honest.
“You didn’t like being a player’s fiancée?”
“Not really. It felt suffocating. Like I was always on and couldn’t be myself. But alone, with Kent, it was different. We were different. Until we weren’t.”
“Until you broke his heart and tanked his career.” That’s what Connor had said. It was a load of crap—of course it was—but he wanted to hear her say it. To defend herself.
She held his gaze coolly for a moment. “Yeah, poor Kent.”
“You sure did a number on him. Or so the press said.”
Her chest rose with a quickly drawn breath. “That’s me. Career destroyer.”
“Bullshit.”
Her lips twitched. She turned to check the water, but he saw it: the exhale, the shoulder roll, the stiffening of her spine. Like she was getting ready to do battle.
“Watch out, Durand. You’ve already fallen afoul of the Pepper curse. You don’t want it to get worse, do you?”
He laughed, a dark sound. “I don’t believe in curses or bad luck or that one person has the capacity to inflict that much damage. Maybe you screwed over Gallagher and broke his heart. Maybe he deserved everything he got. But what I don’t get is why you don’t stand up for yourself when the world says you’re the bad guy here. Why the hell, Pepper, are you taking it lying down?”
16
The million-dollar question.
While she thought of a suitable response, she added half a box of shells to the pot. When she turned back, he was staring at her intently.
Feeling brave, she stared back.
And why not? He was both perfect and shirtless. He’d come out here to ask whether she’d blabbed to the world about her whereabouts, and she’d managed to hook him with the promise of dried pasta and pesto from a jar.
What a siren she was.
Taking another sip of her beer, she let her eyes run over his shockingly painful beauty. He wasn’t overly muscled like Kent. Bast was more naturally sculpted as if the gods had carved him in one blockbuster session from human marble. She’d read about his routine online, or lack of it. He liked to run and swim rather than do excessive gym work. All part of his born-with-it gift set. He was smooth, too, which had her fingers tingling with the need to touch him.