Midnight Play Read online

  Oh, what fresh hell is this? Danica leveled an arch smile at Marion and braced herself.

  “You corrupting my ex?” he said, drawing Lilith’s hand to his lips. Always the man with the moves. He wore a pair of tinted glasses and dazzling bling on his fingers to complement his white designer ensemble.

  “Trying to.” Lilith’s words, delivered in a monotone, were sassy and direct.

  “Lil, this is my ex-husband, Marion. Marion, meet my assistant, Lilith Laurence.” Danica then asked him, “And who are you here with?”

  “The usual suspects,” he said, referring to his entourage of friends, whose combined net worth could buy Las Vegas. As was commonly the case, he and his boys were likely painting Sin City in a procession of lowriders and luxury SUVs, with hulking bodyguards and paparazzi struggling to keep up. He took her hands. “Dance with me. Can’t let a good song go to waste.”

  The DJ was digging up hits of the past, and the song shaking up the dance floor now was one of her favorites. Confetti burst from overhead, spiraling over the crush. It dotted people’s hair, stuck to their heated skin, littered the dance floor.

  Danica brushed the shimmering bits from her shoulders. “There’s this thing that people say, Marion. ‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder.’”

  “Are you saying you want distance? All I did was cross your path and speak—out of respect to you.”

  “Thanks. But as for the dance? C’mon, seriously?”

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want one dance to get in the way of you picking up a man. So, who is he?” Marion put his arms out, showing off his wingspan, and turned. As he did, people around them shuffled backward to give him the space he demanded.

  “Marion, there isn’t anyone—”

  “You got on my case about honesty. Don’t be a hypocrite now. Just point out the man who did this.” Marion lifted her arm and stared at the scrawling signature on her skin. When she paused—torn between her initial instinct to tell him to take his sense of entitlement to hell and her second instinct to simply ignore him—Marion whipped around to her assistant. “Know who did this?”

  Lilith spied the ink, and her eyes narrowed as recognition dawned. But she apparently had no qualms about lying. “Nope.”

  “Is this a tat, Danni?”

  “No.” Danica shook free, thinking quickly of how to diffuse the situation with hundreds watching. “Got a table, Marion? If talking like civilized grown-ass adults is cool with you, then let’s do it there.”

  Marion led the way, and when his friends relinquished the table to offer the most privacy anyone could get at the Marquee, she asked, “Where’s this possessiveness coming from?”

  He exhaled, putting his hands together and bowing his head. “All right. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Getting in my face, acting like you own me, seems pretty disrespectful. Life isn’t a reality TV show, Marion, and it’d be productive for us both if you’d remember that before stirring up drama in the middle of a club.”

  “What if I wanted you back?”

  That was laughable, considering they both knew that in his heart of hearts he didn’t. “You had me, Marion, and got tired of me. We didn’t fight. We didn’t compete against each other. We were friends.”

  “Friendship’s not enough to make a marriage stick.”

  “Nothing I gave you was enough. I tried to be everything you wanted, without ever asking you to change for me. But that doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s better this way—to be apart. Now that I’ve accepted that, the hurt can stop. ’Cause I don’t want this. I want something more.”

  Lilith sidled up to the table with a probing “Everything okay?”

  “Just apologizing to Danni,” Marion said.

  “Apologize to Lilith.”

  Marion gave Danica a final repentant look before he addressed her assistant. “Forgive me. Danni can put you in touch with my secretary. She’ll set you up with two tickets to Fight Night. Car, too.” Then he left them alone at the table.

  Danica should’ve been relieved at his absence, but she felt unsettled. Wary. Confused. “Marion and I would never be mistaken as a poster couple for happy endings, but that was strange. In his defense, though, he never had a crappy temperament when we were married. Always a jokester.”

  “He certainly strives to leave an impression. Know how much those tickets are worth? And am I right to assume that by ‘car,’ he means limo?”

  “‘Go all out or don’t go at all’ should be his motto. That offer is from him to you, Lil, so don’t you dare feel you’re a traitor to accept it.”

  Lilith grinned. “My boyfriend loves boxing more than he loves me, computers and his eighteen-year-old dog combined. He wouldn’t want me to pass this up.”

  Boyfriend? “You’re still with the IT guy? I thought you might’ve broken up. So why the man-hunting?”

  Lilith was toying with her glow bracelet, but now she stilled. “For you.”

  “You were considering Fu Manchu for me?”

  “I thought you could use a night out. You’re so lone—”

  “For the love of all that’s good and holy, don’t say ‘lonely.’ I’m not lonely. I’m busy, with responsibilities. With work, in fact!” Danica had to consciously lower her voice, but humiliation rattled her. If she’d only known that this night of barhopping and man-hunting was just Lilith’s charity, then…what?

  Her thoughts scrolled back to the Luxor and those naughty moments with Dex. His fingers had felt so good on her body, and if she hadn’t had more pressing priorities keeping her in line, she might’ve simply let go.

  And then where would she be? Chances were, she’d be with him. Which didn’t sound like an altogether awful thing.

  “I’ve offended you. Sorry, Danica.”

  “Don’t give it another thought,” she said with a crispness that wasn’t totally directed at Lilith. Her assistant hadn’t meant any harm, and she wasn’t at the root of the turmoil that was festering within Danica.

  Change was in the air—big-time—and it had nothing to do with the seasons.

  “The work that needs to be taken care of? I can help.”

  “Thanks, but no.” Danica swept up her purse, no longer in a clubbing mood. “I can do it alone.”

  She was more used to doing things alone than anyone around her realized. And holding that secret was one thing she did want to change.

  *

  Marion took to the Strip. He’d indulge in a game of blackjack, a gourmet meal and, if the mood struck him, a good-looking lady. But he was distracted by the ache for peace and quiet—the kind he could only get enclosed in his tinted-window car with his phone off.

  Marion wore his every flaw with pride. Why shouldn’t he? He’d earned the right to luxury, ruthlessness and self-indulgence. The years of learning what it took to survive in the insincere—no, cutthroat—entertainment world had sculpted him. He was arrogant, off-putting, an unapologetic flirt—he owned all that. Yet he took no pleasure in stepping to Danica the way he had done, putting on a show for a mass of intoxicated onlookers.

  Getting her all insulted and defensive had cornered her to the point that she had come back swinging. In spite of the nosedive the night had taken, he’d left the Cosmopolitan with an important piece of information: Danica was different. Not just in appearance. Those leather pants and that ink covering the inside of her arm like a tattoo had thrown him off, but something else had changed.

  I want something more.

  She had meant it. What she’d said, the writing on her arm—it was driving him crazy that he’d been unable to make out the signature—was falling into place. A realization slammed him as he swung his car into the parking lot of the low-key bar he went to when he wanted privacy.

  Danica had another man in her life.

  As he settled down at his usual table for a late-night brandy, he took out his phone. When the call connected, he was greeted with a groggy curse that might’ve felt threatening if he wasn’t at his boiling point.
“Wake up. We need to get a few things straight,” he returned, unaffected. Another vile oath. “There’s a distinction between respect and politeness. My respect you’ve got with a lifetime guarantee. But lately you haven’t exactly been earning the privilege of my politeness. Let’s talk.”

  The conversation was brief, terse. At the end of it, he set his phone on the scratched wood table and sat back, finishing his brandy with a hard swallow.

  Someone was getting to Danica. The mere fact that she wouldn’t give him a name bothered him more than it should. Forthcoming, sweet, eager to please—that was his Danica.

  “She’s not mine anymore.”

  Chapter 9

  NFL inquiries. Grueling interviews with a parade of investigators facing him down like a firing squad. Living caught in the grip of being viewed as a criminal. None of it was as brutal as silence. The silence had all but wrecked Dex since his big interview over a week ago. At Danica’s urging, he’d taken his Corvette on a solo road trip to Burbank, California, to tape an exclusive talk-show interview. Danica had put him in direct contact with the host, advising that he get himself in front of a sympathetic audience. What he would say, what facets of himself he would share with the audience, was solely up to him.

  “This is your game changer,” Danica had insisted. “It’s your play. Run it.”

  Dex had walked onto the set with every intention of being conversational and engaging—but even he knew that he’d come off as reticent and self-justifying. Over and over again, he’d deflected the host’s attempts to unlock his past. She hadn’t been malicious—in fact, she was witty and brash and funny as hell—but her questions had scratched the surface of his childhood and the person he most wanted to shield from his current life. The damage to his career and reputation had already managed to touch his younger sister, even though he never associated himself with Gunner, Oregon.

  People in that town remembered him, and Erin talked too much for her own good. Still, she was better off there than with him.

  After discussing the ongoing investigation, the host had set aside her note cards, leaned back in her chair and said, “Dex, last season the league fined you a hundred and fifty grand for punching your own teammate on the sidelines. What the fuck happened?” A gasp had rippled over the audience, and she’d promised cookies to her producers who would scramble to bleep the expletive.

  “I sent a pass down the field with precision,” Dex had explained. “I didn’t overthrow the ball, but it looked that way because the receiver intentionally hesitated at a critical moment. I wasn’t happy about it, he bumped me with his shoulder and I hit him. Gut reaction. I could’ve—probably should’ve—walked away, but I felt something was off. And I was right. Watch the clip again, listen closely to the audio and you’ll hear something new. After I threw the punch and we were both being hauled to the tunnel, the receiver pointed to his jaw and said to Alessandro Franco, ‘This is going to be extra.’”

  After that, the dynamic of the interview had shifted, and he’d known that the truth had finally begun to hit home.

  In the eight days that followed, he’d been met with nothing but silence. No word from his attorney, because nothing had changed. No update from his agent, either. Not even a text from Danica, who was likely waiting for the episode to air, waiting to see for herself whether he’d pissed on the opportunity she’d offered.

  The stretch of quiet smothered him with a profound sense of aloneness. All of the unknowns surfaced—as did the sad reality that in this uncertain darkness he had no one but himself to count on.

  He didn’t know if working with Danica Blue in this last-ditch effort would pan out…didn’t know if she’d offer up a pretty smile and walk away if the damage to his professional future proved too deep. Hell, he didn’t know what she’d do if this half-baked plan to manipulate him into the hearts of the press and the public actually worked. Would she just congratulate herself on a pet project well done and walk away anyway?

  Dex hated that the thought of her marching out of his life disturbed him. He couldn’t stand that she was beginning to get to him on a level that was deeper than he wanted to recognize. He detested that eight days of silence between them could weaken him to the point that he didn’t even want to find a random woman to distract him.

  Then, once the episode had aired, she’d called him. And he’d lost his damn mind.

  He’d just returned from the woodworking shed on his six-acre property. Exhausted, sweaty and ready to call it a night, he’d half listened to his voice-mail messages until he’d heard her voice—all honey and spice.

  “Saw the interview,” she’d said. “Can’t get into it now, but I do have a couple of suggestions. I’ll be admiring art all night at Great Exhibitions on the Strip, in case you’re a glutton for my nitpicking.”

  His mind had stayed on Danica as he’d let the hot shower spray beat down on him. Staring through the water and steam, he’d worked the tension from his hot, hard flesh, imagining what they could do and be together if only it made sense. They each had every reason to seek someone without baggage and trouble. But maybe he couldn’t quit surrounding himself with trouble, after all. And maybe she was drawn to it more than she wanted to accept.

  Dex had been even more in tune with her when he’d arrived at Great Exhibitions, where he’d had absolutely no problem locating her. Wrapped tight in a short houndstooth-patterned dress and pointy-toed heels that could probably puncture a man’s foot straight through, she was more fascinating than any painting or sculpture on display.

  Once his gaze caught hers, she’d given him an impish smile. He’d followed her into a room that was vacant and dark, except for the filmy city lights penetrating the domed ceiling. Framed pieces of what he was pretty sure was impressionist art had lined the walls. White sheets had been draped over sculptures and more paintings, and the air smelled distinctly of clay and chemicals.

  “It’s been just hours since the show aired,” Danica had said, hitching her purse strap over her shoulder, “and already networks—local and national—are getting swept up in the ripple effect. You handled yourself well, acted like a gentleman. I only suggest that if another golden nugget like this comes your way, you show the world that you weren’t some lost boy who happened upon professional football. If your sister decides to cooperate with the press—”

  “She won’t.”

  “God, Dex. For such a hot-tempered and passionate man, you are unbelievably cold when it comes to your family.” Even though she’d spoken softly, her words had seemed to echo through him. “Don’t you even miss her?”

  He’d given her a drawn-out beat of silence, and it’d felt briefly relieving to pass on that torturous feeling to someone else.

  “Fine,” she’d finally whispered when he reached for the door. There was the musical tattoo of her heels on the floor as she’d rushed up to him. “Then I have one last suggestion for you.”

  “What?”

  Danica slipped into the space between his body and the exit, blocking him. “Miss me.”

  He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t get drawn into touching her, or being the first to make contact tonight. “Danica, I miss you in ways a good girl like you might not want to hear.”

  “I may be small, but I’m not fragile or afraid. Words are only words. They don’t shock me.”

  “Which is what you want—to be shocked.” Dex had betrayed himself by touching her anyway, lifting her wrists between their bodies. “I miss you when I’m hard and ready, and I wish your hands were on me instead of mine. But those are only words, right?”

  He’d guided her hands—not to his body, but her own. Cupping Danica’s palms over her breasts, urging her to squeeze her flesh and moan in answer to the pressure, he’d muttered, “Miss me, Danica. Imagine every explicit, dirty move I can make on your body, and know that I can take it further.”

  In unspoken invitation, she had parted her legs, and he’d stepped between them, bringing his knee forward. All it had taken
was a bend of her legs before she’d straddled him. Her eyes fixed on his, she’d ridden him, rocking herself against him as he worked her hands on her breasts.

  “Know that you and I are greedy, selfish people, and sex might not be enough. Then realize that I’m not within reach, and maybe—maybe, Danica—you’ll understand my hell.”

  Danica’s orgasm had her writhing, trying to back away from the sensation as she bit down on her lip to stifle a moan. In answer he’d maintained contact, had pressed his knee against the heat between her thighs, and she’d cried out his name in a voice that had sent a new degree of want unfurling through him.

  But, satisfied that she’d gotten a taste of the fire they could ignite in each other, he’d released her hands, moved her aside and left the gallery. She had made the rules between them, and it was up to her to break them.

  Now, not even forty-eight hours later, as Dex and his legal team wrapped up a videoconference with ESPN in Bristol, he was regretting that she wasn’t with him. This morning the NFL had finally issued an official statement confirming that he was no longer under investigation for being on the take. Since his talk-show interview, web clips of the in-game misconduct incident had seen a substantial boost in views. ESPN had gotten hold of his attorneys this morning, and by sundown he’d found himself besieged with interview requests.

  In the polished lobby of Washington, Yozeman & Birch, while Dex waited for the building’s valet to bring his car, he checked his phone. Two text messages. One from his sister, Erin.

  I ALWAYS HAD FAITH IN YOU. GET IN TOUCH. XOXO.

  And one from Danica.

  CONGRATS. THE LEAGUE GOT OFF ITS ASS. IT’S

  NOT OVER YET. ONWARD.

  Dex didn’t respond to either message. As Danica reminded him, the war wasn’t over. All he’d done was establish that he hadn’t been a dirty player. Yet the media still buzzed with speculation that his quarterback skills had gone to hell, and his reputation was a long way from repaired. Especially since it hadn’t been golden to begin with.