Fool Me Once (Bad Boy Romance) Read online

  I checked my watch again and that’s when the back door to the room opened. I looked up, scowling and ready to let the person know my time was valuable and I didn’t appreciate having to wait. All of those thoughts fell away as I looked at the woman that had walked into the room.

  She smiled at me. “Hi, I’m Evie Flowers. I’ll be your massage therapist,” she said in an upbeat tone.

  I barely heard the words. I was too caught up in her beauty. Her long blonde hair was falling over her shoulders. There was a slight wave to it, and it looked like spun silk. I wanted to touch it and see if it was as soft as it looked. She had pretty blue eyes, accented with minimal makeup. Her pale skin had that creamy smooth look that made me want to caress it. My eyes roamed over her body. She was wearing a polo shirt similar to Tom’s but fitted and untucked and a pair of khaki slacks that accentuated her trim figure. The boring sneakers, obviously more about comfort than style, completed the look.

  I immediately went into Dayton Black the baseball player mode. “Hi there, Evie, I’m Dayton,” I said with a cocky grin.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Black.”

  “Call me Dayton, please. All my ladies do,” I said, pouring on the cocky charm.

  She looked at me, one perfectly sculpted brow arched up. “I’m your massage therapist, not your lady.”

  “We could change that,” I suggested.

  She walked forward, stopping in front of me and looking at my shoulders. “Can you remove your shirt please?”

  I grinned. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”

  I pulled it off, wincing when I lifted my arm too fast and too high. She moved away and grabbed a bottle of some sort.

  “I’ll need you to stay seated for this. Will that be okay?” she asked.

  “I can do it sitting, standing, lying, whatever you like best,” I said, staring at her breasts. “I aim to please and I assure you, I am very pleasing.”

  “Mr. Black?” She said my name in a sweet tone.

  “Call me Dayton. After all, we’re going to be getting very close and I think it’s better to be on a first name basis, Evie,” I said with a wink.

  She squirted some lotion into her hand and looked at me. “Okay, Dayton, why don’t we agree on one little thing before we get started?”

  “I can be very agreeable. Name it.”

  “Why don’t you sit back and enjoy the massage, without talking,” she snapped, putting her hands on my shoulder and sending a jolt of heat through my body.

  I chuckled, a little surprised by her rudeness. Women usually liked it when I flirted. I was a little turned-on by the fact she didn’t. I liked a challenge. I liked the idea of a little something different in my life.

  “All right, work your magic and I will sit here, quiet as a mouse,” I told her.

  “Good,” she muttered and began to run her hands up and down my arm before going back to the shoulder.

  It felt good. I could feel the stiffness relaxing as she worked her magic. She never said a word except to ask if it hurt when she did something in particular. I was content to sit quietly and let her do her job. After nearly an hour, she stepped away from me.

  “We’re done for today,” she said in a clinical tone.

  I lifted my arm, appreciating how much more limber it felt. “Thank you.”

  I grabbed my shirt and pulled it on while she washed her hands in the small sink in the room. “I’m sure someone has already made your appointments for you, but I would like to see you again in a couple of days.”

  I nodded, choosing to keep the flirtatious comment to myself. “I’ll be here.”

  “I did feel some stiffness in the shoulder area. I would advise you not to do any heavy lifting or repetitive movements,” she went on.

  “Like pitch a baseball?” I asked with a grin.

  She looked at me seriously. “Don’t do that.”

  I realized then she didn’t really know who I was. She knew who I was but didn’t realize I threw a baseball for a living. Her naïveté was cute and refreshing. “I won’t do that. Thank you for that sage advice.”

  I slid off the table, my height towering over her, but I realized then she wasn’t short. I was guessing she was probably around five-eight or so. It explained why her legs looked so long—they were long.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said with a friendly smile.

  “Yes, you will. I’m sure they told you this already, but I need you to understand it isn’t okay to tell anyone I am here. You can’t go around town telling people I’m here and you definitely can’t tell them that I’m a client,” I told her.

  She looked up at me, a hint of irritation on her face. “Trust me, that’s not going to be a problem.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, wondering if everyone already knew I was back.

  “Dayton, you are about the last topic that would ever appear in any casual conversation I might have. I know this might be hard for you to believe, but I don’t know you, your sport or anything else and I honestly don’t care. Your secret is safe with me,” she assured me.

  I smirked. “Thanks, I think.”

  “No problem. Don’t forget to put on your fake mustache and the rest of your disguise before you walk out of here. I’d hate to be accused of letting the cat out of the bag,” she said dryly.

  I smiled, sliding on the dark sunglasses before pulling my Nike ballcap lower over my brow and walking out of the room. She was surly and completely unlike any of the women I had met over the last couple of years. I got the very clear message she didn’t find me attractive and wanted to be in my presence as little as possible. It was a novel feeling. I wasn’t sure quite what to make of it.

  Chapter 8

  Evie

  Once the door closed behind my new client, I breathed a sigh of relief and took a seat on the stool I often used. The massage had been exhausting. Not physically exhausting, but mentally taxing. The man seemed to be very full of himself, a trait I truly loathed.

  To be fair, the guy was very attractive. He took the idea of tall, dark and handsome to a new level. His jet-black hair was cut in a short style, a little longer on the top. It had a bit of a bad boy look that triggered something. I didn’t know I was attracted to the sexy, rakish thing until I had met him. It was his light green eyes I found the most dangerous. His dark brows and long black eyelashes really made his eyes stand out. I could see why he was so confident in his looks. I imagined many women fell at his feet, begging for their chance to be with him. I was not going to be one of those women.

  While he was definitely hot, and his long, toned swimmer’s body was sexy as hell, his attitude sucked. I hated men who thought they were the best thing since sliced bread. Arrogance was attractive in small doses. He had laid it on pretty thick.

  “Knock, knock,” Tom said, opening the door that led into our back hallway.

  “Hi, Tom,” I said with a smile.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “How was what?”

  “Come on, you know what!” he said excitedly.

  I shrugged a shoulder. “It was just another client.”

  He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. That was Dayton Black. He’s the next big thing in the pitching world.”

  “I don’t follow baseball.”

  “Did he say anything about how it happened?” he asked.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Evie! How could you not want to talk to him?”

  I laughed. “Tom, to be perfectly honest, your buddy Dayton, he’s a dick. He’s arrogant and full of himself and I asked him to not talk.”

  His mouth dropped open. “You didn’t.”

  “I did. He was obnoxious. I am a professional and I’m here to do a job. I don’t need to be annoyed by some guy who thinks he was put on this earth to please all women and that all women should want to be pleased by him. I’m not that kind of woman and I don’t let myself get caught up in that nonsense.”

  Tom shook his head. “Evie
, this is a big deal. I need you to do your best to remain professional. We can’t afford to have him pull his business and threaten to enforce that NDA.”

  I scoffed. “The NDA is to keep our mouths shut. It says nothing about me letting him hit on me and liking it.”

  “This is serious, Evie. He’s just being a guy. I doubt he’s actually interested in anything,” he chided.

  I raised my brows. “Because I’m a small-town girl who can’t be attractive to a big star?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, stop.”

  “Fine. I will uphold my end of the deal, but this is a professional business and I’m not going to let him tarnish our reputation because he’s got an inflated ego that he thinks entitles him to do and say whatever he likes,” I warned.

  Tom smiled. “I knew you were the right one for the job because you don’t buy into any of that. Thank you for keeping it professional.”

  He left, giving me a few minutes to think about my new client. He was a good-looking guy and if it wasn’t for his mouth, I could see myself actually crushing on the guy. But he was who he was and no matter how attractive he might be, I couldn’t even let myself fantasize about him.

  I spent the rest of the day working with one client after another. I found my mind drifting back to Dayton’s flat abs, rippled and tanned. His arms were muscular, toned and had the same even tan as the rest of his torso. I knew he was from California, or at least that’s where he was calling home now. He probably surfed and spent a lot of time at the beach. His long, lean body didn’t have an ounce of fat on it.

  After work, I drove to the small bar Mallory and I liked to meet at. She was already there waiting for me, sucking on an icy margarita and looking glum as usual. I sat, noticing she looked actually down and not just her usual self.

  “What’s up?” I asked her.

  She let out a long sigh. “One of my clients came in for her last appointment today. She’s moving to Miami and retiring.”

  “Really? That’s what has you bummed?” I asked with surprise. She wasn’t the type to get attached to anyone.

  “No, I don’t care that she’s moving. I mean I do care, because she was an excellent tipper, but I’m a little jealous. Scratch that, I’m a lot jealous.”

  “That she’s retiring?”

  She let out a long, exasperated breath. “No! That she’s moving to the beach. I want to move somewhere with lots of sun and sand.”

  I burst into laughter. “Your sunny disposition would fit right in.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe if I was on a beach sipping a margarita I would have a sunny disposition.”

  “Mallory, you weren’t born with that ability. You and Eeyore could be brothers from another mother.”

  I ordered a margarita for myself, sticking with the beach theme, and waited for her to tell me what was really on her mind. She’d always talked about moving away from Hope, but she never actually did anything to make it happen. I was convinced it was all talk. She didn’t really want to leave.

  “I think I was born to be in a city, that much I know for sure. I just can’t seem to make it happen,” she grumbled.

  “Mallory, you can do anything you want. If you want to move to Nashville, New York, Miami or whatever, you could do it. Just bite the bullet. Pack your car up and drive until you land somewhere that appeals to you,” I told her.

  “I can’t leave without you. You have to come with me,” she pouted.

  I shook my head. “My roots are here. My mom is here. I can’t leave my mom.”

  “You’re a grown woman. She’s a grown woman. I’m sure you two can survive apart,” she retorted.

  I raised my brows. “Really? That’s your argument?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re a grown woman too, Mallory,” I reminded her. “You can survive apart from me.”

  She opened her mouth and snapped it shut again, sucking on her drink before opening it once again. “That’s the thing. I could, but I don’t want to. You don’t want to either. You know you want to get out of here and spread your wings.”

  “I used to think that’s what I wanted, but things have changed. I don’t mind being here. Maybe one day I’d like to take a long vacation to one of those big cities, but I don’t want to live in the city,” I insisted.

  “Can you imagine being able to go to a concert, or a live show any night of the week? Or trying a new restaurant every night, exploring different cuisines and shopping! Can you imagine the shopping opportunities?”

  I laughed at her enthusiasm. “I do think that sounds amazing, but I think it sounds amazing in small bites. I don’t know if I could deal with all that hustle and bustle day in and day out. It’s why the city people escape to the country.”

  “True, but I think it would be like going on a new adventure every day.”

  “It probably would, but I think there is something called too much adventure. Your brain needs time to mellow,” I lectured.

  “I have an idea,” she said, her face lighting up.

  I groaned, not even able to imagine what her new idea was. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “We’ll take your mom with us,” she said, nodding her head as if she had just come up with the best plan.

  “With us where?”

  “To Miami, New York or wherever we land. You don’t want to leave because you don’t want to leave your mom, so we take her with us,” she explained.

  “Mallory, I don’t think my mom is up for traveling or moving. She loves it here.”

  “Party pooper,” she muttered.

  I burst into laughter. “Mallory, I would totally support you moving if that’s really what your heart desires. We could still talk on the phone and visit often. I don’t want you to go because I will miss you terribly, but I want you to be happy.”

  She looked at me, slurping the bottom of her drink. “Is this you setting me free or something like that?”

  I giggled. “Yes, I guess it is. If you come back to me, it was meant to be. If you don’t, well, I guess we’ll know you really are a city dweller.”

  She nodded. “I’m going to do it one day,” she said after a while.

  I smiled. “I know you will. I’m going to miss you something awful, but I know you’ve longed to break out of this place for a long time.”

  “How was work today?” she asked casually.

  I shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Anything exciting happen?”

  I studied her expression to see if she was asking about something specific. I was being paranoid. She had asked me about my day plenty of times in the past. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “Nope, nothing exciting. Same old, tired bodies in need of a little massaging and manipulation,” I said nonchalantly.

  “I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse, but wouldn’t you like to be able to tell me just once you had a crazy day at work? Like something big happened?” she said.

  I laughed. “I don’t know if that would be a good thing.”

  “If you were in a different job, a trauma nurse like you dreamed of being, and we lived in a big city, you would have plenty of exciting stories to tell at the end of the day.”

  I smiled and nodded. “True, but I would also see a lot of things that weren’t exciting, things I would probably not want to talk about.”

  “I’m craving something big,” she whispered.

  I nodded. I knew she would love the news about a big baseball star in town and I knew her well enough to know she would think he was hot. It was the perfect solution to her current stint in the doldrums. It would give her something to get excited about, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell my best friend I was working with a celebrity. Mallory wasn’t really a gossip, but her profession and her workplace was a hotbed for it. She would be too tempted. It was only a matter of time before others figured out he was in town. They’d talk about it in front of Mallory and she would have to pretend she didn’t know a thing about it. I couldn’t do that to her.


  “I should probably get going. I need to check on Mom before I go home, and I still need to go by the grocery store,” I told her.

  “Another exciting night in the life of Mallory and Evie. Tune in tomorrow to find out what Evie bought. Did she splurge and go with organic fruit or did she play it safe with the regular stuff?” Mallory said in her best narrator voice.

  I laughed, getting up from the table. “Sneak peek, she goes with the cheapest choice.”

  I walked out of the bar and headed for my car, appreciating the change in weather. It was finally nice enough to wear a light jacket and not freeze to death.

  Chapter 9

  Dayton

  I was bored out of my mind. The first couple days being holed up in the house hadn’t been too bad. I’d surfed the internet, caught up on all the gossip in the sports world, returned emails that hadn’t been answered in months and spent a lot of time watching TV, something I rarely had time to do during the season. It had been nice to have some quiet down time. Initially, I was thinking I wanted it to last forever.

  Now I was practically climbing the walls. I was anxious to do something, anything. I was an active man. I had always been on the move. If I wasn’t playing baseball, I golfed, played some racquetball, went out on my jet ski. I was always doing something and to do nothing felt weird and unnatural. But it wasn’t just the lack of activity. It was the isolation. Back in Cali, I had lots of friends and acquaintances. I was always being asked to meet up for lunch or go out to a club or something. I had nothing in Hope. I felt completely cut off. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I couldn’t tell anyone where I was. I didn’t have the team to hang out with or the nightlife back in the city. I was so fucking bored. I hated that I couldn’t talk to anyone outside of my parents. I couldn’t leave the house. I was a prisoner on the farm.