Exclusively Yours (19 page)

He’d pictured them snuggled up together on the bed, working side by side, but she’d settled herself on the bottom bunk before he’d even gotten his laptop fired up. Rather than let on how much he wanted to be close to her, he’d taken the big bed and set about trying to choreograph a fight scene in which one of the combatants was invisible. It was harder than he’d anticipated.

A half-hour later, Keri set her steno pad and pencil on the nightstand between the beds, and then stretched out on her foam slab. “Totally off the record, between old friends, will you tell me why Lauren Huckins sued you for emotional distress?”

Whoa, where had that come from? He kept his eyes on his computer screen so she couldn’t see how the question shook him. “I thought women didn’t like hearing about ex-girlfriends.”

“No. New
girlfriends
don’t like hearing about ex-girlfriends.” She rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand. “I know you met her at a bookstore where she worked and you were signing. You started dating, did some splashy parties and events. Then something happened that made you pay her a rumored-to-be substantial amount of money and turn into a hermit.”

“I’m not a hermit,” he protested, mostly to buy himself another minute to think.

He didn’t like thinking about Lauren and he never, ever talked about her. The few people who needed to know the story, namely his family, already knew what happened. There was never any reason to bring it up, except for Terry’s recent crack about Keri being as bad as Lauren.

“A media hermit, then. I can’t imagine you inflicting—reportedly—millions of dollars’ worth of emotional damage on any woman. I…I’d really like to know.”

A part of Joe wanted to tell her to shut up and leave it alone. It had been one of the more humiliating moments in his life, and definitely not one he wanted to share with the woman he was subtly trying to lure into a real relationship.

But there was no telling what crazy scenarios Keri had built up in her head to explain the lawsuit. He’d rather she think him a sucker than a total asshole.

“I retracted my proposal,” he finally said, staring up at the ceiling fan.

“You paid Lauren Huckins a buttload of cash because you broke your engagement?”

“Totally off the record?”

“I swear, Joe. It’s a personal question, not a professional one.”

He inhaled deeply and then blew out the breath. “Technically there was no engagement because I retracted the proposal before she accepted it. Or rejected it.”

When he turned his head to look at her, he wasn’t surprised to see she was wearing her annoyed expression. “What…like some kind of practical joke?”

“No.”

“You lost me.”

He sighed and resigned himself to telling the entire sordid story. “When we started dating, Lauren took quite an interest in my career. She’d been sorority sisters or something with a woman who owned a chain of trendy restaurants in New York and L.A., and she dragged me around, getting our picture taken and my name in the paper. Not really my scene, but whatever. Start hanging with the cool crowd and the world thinks you’re a cool kid.

“After a while she started complaining about how much she hated being introduced as my girlfriend, which I took as a sign it was time to propose.”

“How utterly romantic.”

“I haven’t gotten to the romantic part yet. So anyway, I went ring-hunting. It took forever, but I finally found one that seemed just right. It had all kinds of fancy, delicate goldwork and a real sparkly stone. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be perfect for her.

“So I did the whole romantic setting thing and gave her the box—”

“Did you get down on one knee?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I didn’t. I don’t know why men do that.”

“It’s romantic.”

“It’s stupid. So anyway, she opened the box and I was waiting for her to get all teary-eyed and throw her arms around me. Instead she looked like she’d sucked on a lemon.” He paused and blew out a deep breath. “Started lecturing me on how she’d expected something a little more
substantial
and befitting the future Mrs. Joseph Kowalski, and how the wife of a famous, wealthy author shouldn’t have jewelry anybody could get at their local flea market.”

“That bitch!”

The shocked anger in her voice eased the humiliation that, even though it was but a pale shadow of what he’d felt at the time, still made his gut ache like bad heartburn. “So I took it back. Told her I wasn’t the Joseph Kowalski she was looking for. That I was just Joe.”

“And she had the nerve to sue you?”

“I guess she felt the amount of
networking
she’d put into my career, along with the so-called emotional investment, entitled her to something.”

“I can’t believe you paid her. She never would have won that case.”

Sometimes he couldn’t believe he’d paid her, either, but most of the time he considered it money well spent. “By paying her off, I was able to tie the money to an ironclad confidentiality agreement. If we’d gone to trial, win or lose, she could say anything to anybody, and everybody would have known what a blind, stupid sap Joe Kowalski was.”

“You do realize there are people out there—like Tina, for example—who think you did something horrible or perverted to her.”

“Better they think that than think I’m so pathetic I fell for a gold digger.”

“Oh, that is such a guy thing to say.”

Yeah, it probably was, but maybe she had no idea what it was like to feel that stupid. He’d not only been duped by a woman, but a woman he’d been intimate with. A woman he’d asked to be his wife. Even now he couldn’t stomach what a moron he’d been.

“So now you know my deep, dark secret,” he said when the silence stretched on.

“You make it sound like you did something to be ashamed of, but at least you tried.”

Something in her voice made him look over at her. “Did you ever come close?”

“Mostly just
arrangements
with fellow career-obsessed singles. Coworkers with benefits. I thought I was close once, but when he started making noises about getting married and starting a family, I realized I didn’t love him more than I loved my job.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he hit Save and shut down the laptop. “This is depressing. Let’s go see what the family’s doing.”

Oh, yeah. Like she really wanted any part of that. “I don’t play volleyball. I…don’t know how.”

“Liar,” Terry chirped. “Remember the whole
we all went to high school together
thing? I’ve seen you play.”

“And I suck.”

“I didn’t say you played
well
.”

“And now I’m not playing at all.”

Bobby shot up off the picnic table bench. “Uncle Joe said you were gonna play!”

Or she’d be breaking his dumbass rules and she wouldn’t get to ask him a question. “Fine, but I want to be on the same team as Terry.”

“That’s not how we choose teams,” Brian said, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, but your aunt has a mean spike and I do
not
want to be on the opposite side of the net.”

Terry laughed. “My spike isn’t all that mean anymore.”

“We won’t divide evenly this year,” Danny pointed out. “There are thirteen of us.”

“I’ll keep score,” Keri was quick to offer. “I don’t want to mess up the math.”

“We’ll count Bobby and Ma as one player,” Terry said.

It ended up with Mary, Kevin, Mike, Lisa, Joey, Bobby and Steph on one team and Leo, Danny, Brian, Terry, Joe and Keri on the other. And the ball was an oversized inflatable, slightly weighted beach ball designed to look like a volleyball, but smaller, lighter and a lot less painful if you took it in the face.

Keri found that out personally a few minutes later when Mike decided to take his frustrations out on the ball and she didn’t duck quick enough. Fortunately, as the ball bounced off her face, Joe dove across the grass and kept it from hitting the ground. Danny sent it over the net and, though Joe did give her a quick glance to make sure she was okay, the play went on.

Until Steph ended up on her Uncle Kevin’s shoulders, slamming the ball back over the net with ease.

“Hey, that’s against the rules,” Keri protested.

“No rules in The Annual Kowalski Volleyball Death Match Tournament of
Doom
,” Joey yelled at her from across the net. “Whiner!”

“Cheater!” she yelled back, earning boos and hisses from the cheating team.

They tried to offset the advantage by putting Brian on Joe’s shoulders, but since Kevin was taller than Joe and Steph was taller than Brian, they remained at a disadvantage.

Until the cheating team scored five unanswered points. Before she realized what was happening, Joe’s head popped between her legs and he was hoisting her onto his shoulders.

“Oh my God!” she yelped. “Don’t you dare!”

She would have struggled, but Joe was already trying to stand up straight, with Terry’s help, and she was afraid she’d fall. This wasn’t like playing chicken in the pool, where a big splash was the worst that would happen. Joe was tall and the ground was hard.

“Quit squirming and pay attention,” Leo barked as Lisa prepared to serve for the other team.

As the ball came over the net, Joe sidestepped to line her up with it, but the swaying motion caught Keri by surprise and—instead of slamming the ball back over the net—she gripped a handful of Joe’s hair to steady herself and watched it sail past.

“Ow! Easy on the scalp, babe.”

“Put. Me. Down.”

“Hit. The. Ball,” Leo ordered.

The next time the ball came over the net, she was ready and, though she kept her left fingers tangled in Joe’s hair, she reached out with her right hand to hit it back.

“I did it,” she yelled.

Then Steph spiked the ball back over the net, where it hit Joe in the face because he couldn’t let go of her legs to defend himself.

“Ow,” he said again.

“I’ve got it this time,” she promised.

Almost ten minutes of intense volleyball ensued until, with the score evened up, Keri was pretty sure she could feel Joe’s knees trembling through his body.

“Are you going to be able to put me down without dropping me?”

It sounded like he tried to laugh, but the sound was a little breathless. “Sure. Hey, Pop. Gimme a hand.”

In the process of getting her down, Leo’s hand inadvertently grabbed her ass, which made everybody laugh, causing her to be unceremoniously dumped on the grass. Joe collapsed beside her, his face red with exertion.

“I’m not twenty years old anymore,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Neither is Kevin,” she replied.

He turned his head to frown at her. “If we’re going for the cheap shot, let me point out Steph’s a little
lighter
than you.”

She would have slapped him, but Leo loomed over them, casting a big shadow and pointing at Keri. “Next year, you ride on Kevin’s shoulders and Steph can go with Joe. That’ll even things out.”

Her smile froze in place.
Next year?

There wasn’t going to be a next year and this was exactly what she’d been afraid of
before
they’d even had sex. His family thought they were a couple. Not only did they think they were a couple, but his father obviously thought they’d still be together in a year’s time.

“I think it’s time for a lunch break,” Mary declared and there was a chorus of agreement and a mass exodus in the general direction of shade and the drink coolers.

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Joe told her.

So he’d noticed it, too. “I warned you this would happen. They think we’re together.”

“So what? It’s not like they haven’t survived my break-ups in the past. They survived you leaving. They even survived Lauren. I’m sure they’ll be okay this time, too.”

Well, he didn’t have to make it sound like she was so easily discarded, either. “By the way, even if I was here next year, I’m never playing volleyball with you people again.”

He stood up and then grabbed her hand to haul her to her feet. “Next year? That was only the first match of the day, babe. It’s not called The Annual Kowalski Volleyball Death Match Tournament of
Doom
for nothing.”

“I hate you.”