Fool Me Once (Bad Boy Romance) Read online

  The men gave a satisfied nod before looking at Tom. I looked at Tom as well to judge his reaction. He was looking at with me disappointment. That stung. I hated disappointing anyone.

  “You told your mother,” the first man, dubbed Thing One, repeated.

  “She would never say anything. Never. I think you are overestimating his worth here in Hope. No one talks about him,” I replied.

  “Obviously someone does. We made our requirements very clear. The NDA was clear. You say you understood what you signed, but you chose to ignore the agreement.”

  I waved a hand. “You’re overreacting. I didn’t choose to ignore it.”

  “You did.”

  “I told my mom. You don’t know my mom. She’s like a vault. She is the keeper of all my secrets. I can trust her with anything,” I said, suddenly pissed that they were accusing her of letting the cat out of the bag.

  One of them shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You violated the agreement.”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes, but no. I didn’t tell anyone he was here. My mom didn’t tell anyone. Has anyone talked to Dayton? Does he know about it?”

  I wondered what he was going through. Did he know what was going on? I suddenly felt like I needed to go to him. I needed to make sure he was okay.

  “We’re handling the situation. Tom, we trust you will handle the situation on your end,” the man said, looking at my boss.

  Tom took a deep breath. “I will handle things.”

  I turned to look at him. “What does that mean?” I asked, my voice going high.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Tom said in a low voice.

  I couldn’t believe he was taking it so seriously. He knew my mother. He knew she would never say anything. She knew who Dayton was, but nothing about baseball. She wasn’t a gossip. There was no way she would tell anyone. In the back of my mind, I was trying to think of who she would talk to. She talked to me. She had a few friends, but I just didn’t see her leading with the subject of Dayton. Nobody would ask her about him because nobody knew he was in town. None of it made any sense.

  “Because of the violation of the agreement, our lawyers will be in touch,” the first man said again.

  My mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

  “The lawyers will be contacting you soon.”

  “About?” I asked with shock.

  The first man looked at the other. “We made it very clear at the signing of the agreement that if you violated it, there would be legal repercussions. We told you there could be a lawsuit. Our lawyers are evaluating the situation. The lawsuit will likely be determined by the damage your indiscretion caused.”

  I shook my head, beginning to feel like I had got caught up in the Twilight Zone. “What? The damage? What fucking damage?” I shouted.

  “Evie,” Tom warned.

  I turned to him. “No! This is ridiculous. They are blowing this way out of proportion. Don’t you have to be able to prove it was me who is actually responsible for the leak? You can’t just assume! There are any number of explanations. How do you know it wasn’t Dayton or someone from the team?”

  “You’ve admitted to violating the agreement. That’s all the evidence we need,” he replied casually.

  I shook my head. “You don’t have shit. Ask Dayton, he’ll tell you.”

  “Dayton has nothing to say about this. This agreement is with the team and their legal department.”

  “What if Dayton told someone?” I argued, putting my hands on my hips and feeling triumphant for about half a second until I realized I had just thrown Dayton under the bus.

  “That’s not something we’re concerned with. We need to go. Our lawyers will be in touch,” they said and walked out the door.

  I stared after them, complete disbelief leaving me in a state of shock. “What the hell?” I gasped, turning around to face Tom.

  Tom looked grim, which concerned me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. A feeling of dread washed over me, making my legs feel far too weak to support my body. I took a seat in one of the chairs and waited. He sat behind the desk, rubbing his hands over his face and looking like his dog just died.

  “Evie,” he started, and I knew what was coming.

  “Tom, you can’t seriously believe them. My mom didn’t say anything! I didn’t say anything! How do we know it wasn’t you or Terry or someone else in town!” I shrieked, panic making me a little twitchy as I crossed and uncrossed my legs several times.

  “Evie, you admitted to breaking the agreement. Why would you do that?”

  I groaned. “I don’t know. I caved under the pressure. I hate lying. I really suck at it. They would have seen right through me.”

  “You’ve left me with no choice. My credibility, the clinic’s credibility, it’s all on the line. You were told what would happen if you broke the agreement,” he said, his voice low.

  I slowly shook my head. “No. You can’t,” I whispered.

  He looked sad. “I have to.”

  I could feel tears burning the back of my eyes. I wouldn’t cry. I refused to cry. I practiced the same technique I used when I had to watch my mom crying or vomiting or moaning in pain and there was nothing I could do to help her. I inhaled through my nose, exhaling through pursed lips and doing it all over again. I thought about flowers and puppies and my favorite song, blocking out the sad and unhappy thoughts.

  “Tom, I think we need to talk about this. I’m your best therapist. You know it and I know it. You can’t afford to fire me. You’ll lose clients, you’ll lose business,” I said, angry and fighting back.

  The time for tears was over. I was pissed. I was not about to let those assholes come in and totally upend my life.

  “I have to. If I don’t fire you, they’re going to sue the hell out of me and the clinic. You have to understand my position. I’m sorry, but you are no longer employed by this clinic. I will provide you with an excellent reference. What happened here doesn’t have to get out. We’ll keep it in house,” he said.

  I suddenly had the feeling of being underwater. His words sounded like the Charlie Brown teacher. “Mwah mwah mwah” was all I was hearing.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll need your badge and your keys,” he said.

  I stared at him, waiting for him to tell me he was only kidding, or it was only temporary until Dayton and his people cleared out of town. He never said it. I realized then it was a done deal. He was truly firing me. I decided to leave with dignity.

  I turned over my badge and keys, gently placing them on his desk before walking out the door with my head held high. Fuck him. Fuck the clinic and fuck the assholes that were ruining my life. I hated them all.

  As I walked to my car, my initial reaction to the situation was to call Dayton and tell him what happened. That’s when the full weight of the situation slammed into me. They would tell Dayton I was responsible for the leak. He was going to hate me! He had trusted me, and I had betrayed him. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. I had lost my job and Dayton.

  Chapter 33

  Dayton

  I’d been pacing the living room of my house for the last hour. I had called Victor, but he was in a meeting and promised to call me back. I knew he was probably going into damage control mode. I had checked the internet and discovered the story of my injury had evolved and been blown way out of proportion. There was a picture of me on the mound throwing the notorious pitch and then a picture of me being taken into the locker room. The comments on the articles I had read were not kind. Some people were even glad to see me go. That hurt a little. I had shut down the tablet, realizing reading the false stories and the mean comments wasn’t going to help the situation.

  The whole weekend had been a complete mess. I had been on the phone trying to deal with my agent, the doctors and in between, trying to get ahold of Evie. It was like she had fallen off the face of the earth. She wasn’t returning my calls and with the press camped out at the end of my parents’ driveway, I couldn’t very
well leave the house. They’d figure out where I was staying and crawl all over the other house. My mom and dad both agreed it was better to have them think I was there.

  I knew the press would eventually get bored or some Kardashian would do something, and the spotlight would be taken off me. For now, I had to ride out the storm. My phone started ringing, something it had been doing a lot since the news broke on Friday. I checked the number and saw it was Victor.

  “Victor! What’s up?” I asked, anxious to know if he had a quick and easy solution to the situation.

  “I’ve been working on this and I think you’re going to want to sit down,” Victor said, his voice grim.

  I groaned, knowing it was bad. I was going to be released. I could feel it coming. “Just say it.”

  “If you have the surgery, which I think is in your best interest, whether you’ll play again is up in the air. I don’t know that the owners would keep you here. You’d have a hard time finding a spot on another team. It’s the injury that ends careers. I don’t mean to be harsh, but you’ve been around long enough to know how this usually plays out,” he said, not being mean, but laying it all out.

  “I know,” I admitted.

  “I’m sorry. I know this is not the future you had planned for yourself. Hell, it certainly wasn’t the future I envisioned for you and the team. I was convinced we would be headed to the World Series,” he said with a chuckle.

  “You and me both. What about that stem cell procedure I read about?” I asked, hoping I still had options.

  Victor let out a long sigh. “It’s an option and I can’t tell you what to do, but statistically, the numbers aren’t in your favor. You’re going to find it hard to sign with one of the teams. We all know what happens after a shoulder injury for a pitcher.”

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “You could take the payout from your contract and retire. I know, I know, twenty-six isn’t when you wanted to retire, but I’m afraid that’s your best option,” he said gently.

  “All right. I’ll think it over and I’m sorry for all the trouble this has caused you and the team. Trust me, I have no idea how the story got out, but I think it was only a matter of time. We both knew this was a big deal and it was bound to come out,” I told him.

  “Think it over. We’ll need to put out a statement soon. I know it’s not what you want to hear, and I hate to pressure you, but the longer we stay quiet, the more the rumors are going to catch fire,” he warned.

  “I understand. I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” I told him.

  “Talk to you soon,” he said and hung up.

  I stared at the phone and then looked around the house I was calling my temporary home. It was about to become a lot more than temporary. It wasn’t my dream house. It wasn’t my dream to live in little Hope, Tennessee. All of my dreams had been shattered. I was now thrust in some alternate world that was my new reality.

  “One damn pitch,” I muttered, knowing it hadn’t been the one pitch, but a result of overtraining and the pitch was the final straw for my strained muscles.

  I figured it didn’t really matter if anyone saw me in town. They all knew I was here. Still, I wanted to avoid being photographed and pulled on a cap and the same dark sunglasses before heading out to the SUV. I needed to see Evie. I wasn’t sure why she was ignoring my calls, but I was determined to talk to her. If she wouldn’t answer my calls, I’d go to her.

  I drove down the dirt driveway, saw the cars parked at the entrance to the main driveway to my parents’ house and grimaced. I knew it had to be wearing on my dad’s nerves. It would be over soon enough. I passed the reporters and cameramen, looking away and shielding my face with my hat, I drove to Evie’s work. I parked the rental and headed inside the clinic, relieved to find the lobby waiting room empty.

  I saw Terry sitting behind the desk. Her eyes widened with what almost looked like fear. “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice high.

  “Is Evie here?” I asked her.

  She slowly shook her head. “No.”

  “She’s not?” I asked, perplexed.

  She shook her head again. “I’ll get Tom.”

  “Tom? Why?”

  She was already on the phone. Seconds later, Tom emerged from the back, his face grim. “Hi, Dayton,” he said, clearly very nervous.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, feeling something was off.

  He and Terry were both acting very strangely. Add in the fact Evie wasn’t there and I got the idea something was definitely very wrong.

  “Why don’t we talk in my office?” Tom said.

  I nodded, following him down the short hall to his office, the place I’d told him I was taking Evie away for a few days.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, taking a seat.

  “First, let me apologize for the story leaking to the press. I’m so sorry and I can assure you we take our clients’ privacy very seriously. It was a grievous mistake and one I hope hasn’t caused you too much trouble,” Tom said, looking embarrassed and pained.

  “What do you mean, you’re sorry?” I asked.

  “Your people were here on Friday to handle the situation. I let her go. She is no longer employed here per the contract I signed. All I can do is apologize,” he said again.

  I blinked. “Let her go? Evie? You fired Evie?” I asked with shock.

  “Yes, sir. She violated the NDA. She told her mother you were here and receiving treatment at the clinic. I assumed you knew,” he said with confusion.

  “No, I didn’t know. Evie wouldn’t leak the story to the press. This didn’t come from her!” I argued, pissed that she’d been fired.

  “She told her mother, who probably told someone and then it spread like wildfire,” Tom reasoned.

  I shook my head. “I highly doubt that.”

  “Evie is no longer employed by my clinic. What she did, she did alone. I hope your team understands that,” he said defensively.

  I got to my feet. “I thought you knew Evie. I thought you were a friend to her. I guess I was wrong. Her friend would never throw her under the bus like that. I know her well enough to know she had nothing to do with this story getting out. You were wrong to fire her, and I hope you make it right.”

  “I can’t. I’m under a contract to fire her or I risk being sued. I can’t risk my job and the jobs of the other people that work here for her. She admitted to wrongdoing. My hands were tied,” he argued.

  “Bullshit. You could have fought for her,” I grumbled and stomped out of the office.

  It explained why she wasn’t talking to me. She’d lost her job because of me. I felt awful. I needed to apologize. I had dragged her into my mess and now she was paying a huge price because of it. I drove straight to her house, growing angrier at the situation by the second.

  I knocked on her door. “Evie?” I called out when I didn’t hear her.

  Her car was in the driveway, telling me she was home. I waited a few seconds before I knocked again.

  “Go away, Dayton,” I heard her call out.

  I automatically reached for the door handle, only to find it locked. “Evie, let me in. I want to talk.”

  “No. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Evie, come on, don’t make me have a conversation through the front door,” I begged.

  “Please go away. I’m sorry for everything.”

  I leaned my forehead against the door, putting my palm flat against it. “Evie, please open the door. Can we please talk?”

  “No! I’ve ruined your life and my own. I don’t want to see you and I know you don’t want to see me. I’m sorry. Go, please!” she shouted.

  I waited a few more seconds, hoping she would open the door. When it became clear she had no intention of seeing me, I walked away. I got back in the SUV and drove back to the house. It was hard to imagine how one tiny little incident could have such long-reaching consequences. Evie had never heard my name—or had heard my name but didn’t give tw
o shits about me, and then, in a matter of weeks, I’d walked into her life and turned it upside down.

  She didn’t deserve to be fired. I had never met her mother, but from what my mom had said about her, Kale and even the way Evie talked about her, I felt like I could trust her. She seemed like a good woman. I didn’t imagine she was a gossip. She wouldn’t have run to a reporter and told them all about my arm. It had to be someone else. There were only a few people that knew, and I knew I could trust Kale with anything. It wasn’t Kale and it wasn’t Evie or her mom.

  Hell, for all I knew, it could have been Victor or one of the doctors in Nashville. Too many people knew to put the blame squarely on Evie’s shoulders. I knew what I had to do. There was no way I was going to let her take the blame for something that wasn’t her fault. The story hitting the papers wasn’t the end of the world. It was going to come out regardless of what my decision was.

  Chapter 34

  Evie

  I looked out the window, watching the silver rental back out of the driveway and out of my life for good. I could only imagine how upset he was with me. He probably wanted to scream and yell at me about how angry he was. I couldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t see the same look of disappointment and disgust I had seen on Tom’s face. The feeling of letting people I cared about down wasn’t easy to deal with. I wanted to bury my head in the sand and forget all about the world around me. I was half-expecting the press to name me as the leak. The entire town would hate me for having a hand in destroying Dayton’s career, even if I wasn’t the one to tear his arm up.

  I grabbed my keys and walked out of the house, headed for the only place I felt safe—my mom’s house. I hadn’t told her about my drama. I knew she would assure me it wasn’t her. I knew it wasn’t her. I absolutely knew it. I hadn’t confessed to telling Mallory because out of the two people I had told, Mallory was the more likely suspect. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.