The Reality of You (28 page)

“What?”

“Obviously, he cares
about you—really cares. You’re just so mad you can’t see past your anger.”

“Huh?”

She shook her head
as if I were a child. “I kept my opinion to myself this weekend, but seriously,
Naomi, you’re being a hypocrite.”

“Huh?” I repeated.

“You were lying too!
Did you forget that you’d been worried the whole time about him finding out you
worked here? Or that Kara set up Puerto Rico?”

“Well, no…”

“How are you any
different than him?”

“Kara pushed me into
it.” My voice sounded weak, even to my own ears.

“And Kara kept your
mouth shut for weeks of dating?”

I slid down the wall
a bit. “No, but—”

“No buts.” Gracie
sighed. “You might have a good thing here, probably a great thing from the way
it sounds like he
chased
after you.
Some of us don’t have anything. Don’t let pride or your past blind you to
reality.”

I blinked at her.

“Think about it.”
She turned around and began working. “And definitely go to that interview.
You’d be an idiot not to.”

I guessed I was
dismissed.

Trudging my way back
to my cubicle, I felt more confused than ever. At my desk, I dug my phone out
of my pocket, set it next to my keyboard, stared at the screen, and tried to
find my way out the maze my emotions had lost me in.

I forced myself to
look past the fact that Reese had made a business deal with Kara. It wasn’t
lost on me that Gracie knew very little about him. She didn’t know the
hardships he’d faced and how he’d come out of them a better man. And she still
believed that I could be turning my back on a wonderful possibility. Imagine if
she were aware of the full picture of Reese.

Yet my chest
physically constricted at the idea of being with him now. I wanted to hear him
out so very, very badly, but I was also so very, very scared.

I glanced at my
phone.

At the thought of
calling Reese, my chest contracted more, but at the thought of going to the
interview, I was surprised to feel a tinge of excitement.

Chapter 32

Coach
Ramsey vigorously pumped my hand. “Don’t be surprised if you get a call next
Monday,” he said enthusiastically.

Ted Morris shook my
hand like a normal person. “We’ll be in touch,” he said in a business tone but
did smile with the words.

I thanked them both
and exited the office with a bounce in my step. The interview had gone well. Really,
really well. Though Braden College wasn’t huge or even Division I, it seemed
like the perfect place to start a coaching career. I’d been impressed with the
campus and the sports facilities when they’d taken me on a tour prior to the
interview.

The bounce didn’t
leave my step as I strolled outside into a beautiful spring day. Once out of
the arched entrance, I stopped cold. Across the sidewalk, Reese leaned against
his limo, watching me with an indeterminate expression.

The sight of him
almost cracked the steel around my heart, sending a wistful longing over me.
Yet I didn’t move.

We stood staring at
each other. Me clutching my binder filled with recommendations, him stationary
as a statue. My emotions went through a grinder with each passing second.
Although I’d gradually come to agree with Gracie—I was a hypocrite—over the
past two days, hurt and anger kept me confused. And yes, I was aware that my
former hurts were twisting my view. No matter the reality, I couldn’t seem to
call Reese. My warped emotions always held my finger hovering over his number.
Right now, I was split in two with one half wanting to run to him, the other
wanting to run away. Physically, we were less than ten feet away from each
other. Emotionally, it seemed like the sidewalk was the length of a soccer
field.

He moved first,
stepping away from the car and holding the door open. When I stood there, he
said, “Get in the car, Naomi. I can take you home if that’s what you want.
Thirty minutes. You can give me that.”

I supposed I could.
Because deep down, I did want to hear his side of the story, but hurt and
stubbornness kept me from reaching out.

Drawing in a breath
of resignation, I forced myself across the sidewalk and into the limo,
recalling not only being in here with him countless times, but imagining it
thousands. Of course, reality with Reese had always been far better than my
imagination.

I settled on the far
side, my binder in my lap. He slid next to me. The scent of his cologne hit me
first, then the sensation of his muscled thigh pressing against mine. Being
next to him felt familiar and right.

My confusion slowly
began to unravel.

I never would have
fallen for him if I hadn’t truly believed that our time together was nothing
more than a fling. That belief had allowed me to let my guard down, let my
feelings for him grow, and then Kara’s revelation had wound that protection
around my heart tighter than ever.
 

As the car pulled
out, Reese asked, “How did the interview go?”

In the midst of my
internal thoughts, the question threw me. It took me a few seconds to answer.
“Um, good. If it were up to the coach, I think I’d already be hired.”

Nodding, he glanced
out the window. “After seeing you play, that doesn’t surprise me. More than
anything, you played smart.”

I wished that he
could have seen me play in my prime. I wished that Kara’s revelation wouldn’t
have brought back the guard that had a death grip on my heart at the moment.

Still looking out
the window, he said, “I detest being ignored, but I understand why you’re
upset. Yet you only have half the story.” His gaze, intense but almost cold,
turned to me as he shifted so that he faced me, his folded knee centimeters
from my thigh. “The element you’re unaware of is that I’d been thinking of a
way to meet you, to ask you out
before
Kara came to me with her deal.”

Brain malfunction
again. “What?”

He stayed
motionless, watching my reaction until he admitted, “For over a month, I’d been
watching you too.”

Um…had I landed in
daydream land? Shocked, I shook my head. “You
never
looked my way. How would you…”

“It was actually
Frank, one of the security guards, who noticed you. He told me I had an admirer
who sat on a bench daily, waiting for me to come and go.”

Even after
everything, I found myself blushing. I’d been so worried about Reese noticing
me that I hadn’t seriously considered anyone else noticing me.

He went to move a
loose strand from my ponytail. His fingers paused in the air before he dropped his
hand on the back of the seat. “I never looked your way. I just watched you
prior to going down and after going up. You seemed
sweet, yet lonely, and nothing like the women in my sphere who I
usually dated. I became intrigued more each day.”
 

He was stalking me
too? Well, kind of. Totally unbelievable. Nevertheless, his tone was genuine.
“Did you ever imagine me getting in the limo with you?” I blurted without
thinking.

A ghost of a smile
tugged at Reese’s mouth. “Yes, I did.”

How completely charming.
Reese daydreaming about
me
. The guard
around my heart loosened the tiniest amount before quickly constricting tighter
than ever. “Then why did you make that deal with Kara?” I demanded, realizing
that this was where I was stuck, this was what I couldn’t get past. “And are
you going to work for her father?”

His fingers tapped
on the seat next to my ear as he stared out the window past me. “I’m not sure.
He’s being persistent, but I didn’t intend to make an agreement with Kara, even
with the offer of an interview with her father. The entire thing was beyond
bizarre. Until she explained you, the woman who sat every day and watched me at
lunch.” His gaze came back to mine. “The woman who was obsessed with me because
I was a billionaire.”

Oh shit.
My mouth dropped open. The past
altered faster than me hitting a penalty kick. Reese’s daydream admiration
would have turned into instant dislike at the realization that I wanted him
because of money.
And
Kara had
admitted saying something like that.

“Just as bizarre as
the deal, I was extremely pissed, finally knowing that was the reason for your
adoration. After watching you for so long, I had imagined something entirely
different, something as sweet as you seemed. And though juvenile and
ridiculous, I couldn’t wait to torment you, even if it were with stacks of
paperwork. I decided to be cool, detached, but demanding to you. I strangely
wanted to make you pay for tricking me.”

Well, he’d succeeded
in each of those endeavors, I thought as his words slowly washed over me. It
took me a few seconds to process—slow as usual—until the humor of him thinking
me sweet hit me, and it hit me hard. A sudden, “Baaaah,” escaped me followed by
another. The loud laugh had to sound worse than the cackle of a hyena.

Reese watched me
with worried eyes, most likely thinking I’d lost it.

I put up a finger
but had an extremely hard time reining my laughter in. “Do you have anything to
drink in here?” I asked in between gasps of laughter. While I fanned my face,
he poured something and handed it to me. I took a gulp and almost sprayed
scotch all over him. Instead, I forced the fire liquid down my throat and
gasped out, “How can you drink this crap?”

“Crap? It’s a single
malt scotch from a small, exclusive distillery that my father bought years ago.
I could never afford such
crap
on my
salary.”

“Oh, then here.” I
lifted the glass toward him, drawing in a much-needed, from both the laughter
and the liquor, deep breath. “I don’t want to waste it.”

He took the glass,
setting it on his thigh. “Care to share the humor?”

“Not really,” I
said. When he continued to watch me patiently, I fell back against the seat.
“Fine. I found it a bit—okay, very—funny that you were thinking of me in a
sweet, romantic way, and I was all…”

He raised his brows
at my pause.

“Well, I thought of
things differently.”

His face remained
flat and patient.

“My imagination was
a bit more lustful than romantic.” I glanced out the window. “Maybe a lot
lustful. Or at least it tried to be,” I added before gnawing on my lip.

“My thoughts weren’t
precisely chaste.” He absently sipped at the scotch. “However, let me get this
correct. Kara simply supplemented an obsession for my
body
with billionaire.”

“Great, “I said,
staring at my hands clenched around the binder in my lap, “now instead of a
money grubber, I’m a skank. I liked your face and hair too,” I added sullenly.

He watched me, a
condescending look on his face.

“I wasn’t in a
place… I didn’t…” I bit my lip, trying to think of a way to explain myself
tactfully, but ended up blurting out the truth. “The idea of a relationship
terrified me, so my imagination didn’t go there.”

“And now?” he asked
in a low tone, his jaw steely.

“I just… I’m
confused.” I let out stream of air. “At first, I believed this wasn’t going anywhere.
It was just a few weeks of dating. Otherwise, I would have never let my guard
down. Thinking we’d never get serious freed me. And I started falling for you.
Hard.” His expression lost some of its stiffness at that. “Then, last Saturday,
the fear of getting hurt came crashing back, blinding me to my own duplicity
and pretty much everything else. Now after you explained…”

He watched me
intently, waiting for me to figure it out.

“We were both rather
immature
and
both dishonest…”

He took another slow
sip of scotch, the picture of patience.

“I don’t want to…”

He waited.

“I’m terrified of
getting hurt,” I finally admitted.

Without speaking, he
reached across the car and set the glass down in a holder on the other side.
Then he came back, gently wrapping his hands around my jaw, not allowing me to
break eye contact. Up until this moment, he’d been stern, almost emotionless,
but now, the eyes searching mine were warm and hopeful.

“I want you,” he
said, his breath close enough to fan my face. “Every little part. You’ve been a
breath of fresh air in my stale life. You don’t know the meaning of
pretentious.” His thumb rubbed my jaw. “You’re always just you. A glass bottle
of soda brings a warm smile to your face, you watch corny old movies with me,
and dress like classic Hollywood starlets. You’re sexy as hell when you’re
nervous, and there’s no place in the world I love being more than inside of
you.” His thumb brushed my lip, but those words had me feeling like he’d
brushed somewhere else. “My imagination wasn’t wrong about the girl on the
bench. She is giving and funny and sweet and so very hot, and I can’t ever
envision not wanting her.”

He leaned closer,
his lips nearly brushing mine, while my pounding heart began cracking the guard
around it.

“Do you understand
what I’m saying?”

I understood. He
wasn’t going to leave me.
At least not
for now,
a tiny voice echoed in my head.

Watching me, reading
my thoughts, he shook his head slightly and willed me to believe in him with
the power of those hot hazel eyes.

I could drown in his
gaze.

I
was
drowning in his gaze.

Unable to resist any
longer—the steel around my heart melted to mush—I leaned forward, giving in to
the want that had erupted in me the moment I’d entered the limo, kissing his
lips, his chin, his cheek, and anywhere I could find. In between kisses, I
murmured like a drunk, “I want you too. I can’t get enough of you. I love being
with you.” I kissed his lips again. “I love you.”

At that last murmur,
I jerked back, shocked at myself. My damn mouth and the back fodder it
released!

Reese smirked at my
alarmed expression then yanked me into his lap, the binder falling to the
floor. His hand cradled the back of my head. “Silly, sweet girl. I was asking
if you understood that I fell in love with you.”

“Oh.” I blinked at
him, something between astonishment and a flutter. My mouth curled into a pout
as my heart sang out of my chest. “Then say it right.”

“Demanding much?”

“Oh, I can be
demanding in other ways too,” I said sweetly, nearly quoting him from that day
at Berbunk.

“Is that a promise?”

“You bet your hot
ass.”

“Well then,” he
said, bending, his lips brushing mine as he whispered, “I love you,
Naomi.”
 

Happiness radiated
out of every pore. My heart belted out a sappy tune, surging across mountains
and flying into the clouds until a soccer ball wallop of truth hit me in the
head. Not all of those past failed relationships had just been the male’s
fault. Though I’d ridden each one of those suckers out, even professed my love
in each one, I’d never felt like this. My entire body, every cell, sang when
Reese had said those words. Maybe I had wanted to be in love, but now, truly
feeling it, I recognized that I’d never been.