Infamous: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Novel (5 page)

F
uck
, fuck, fuck!

Not even a full day into my task and I lost the client.
Literally.

I let out a loud groan of frustration as I buried my hands in my hair and resisted the urge to pull. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I had been too stunned by him saying that he only came here because he thought it meant two weeks of sex to stop him and I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do to get him back.

Where would he have gone? I tried to think of local strip clubs that he might have wandered into in hopes of a quick lay, but the memory of his obvious distaste of the borough led me to believe that he would have gotten a ride into Manhattan before he looked for something here.

Which meant it was going to be even more impossible to find him.

I rushed to my bedroom and pulled my phone off the charger, my fingers hovering over Lauren’s speed-dial button for a moment. I stopped when I remembered that she had e-mailed me Jared’s cell phone number the day before and I searched through my messages to find it.

After three rings, it was directed to voicemail. I growled and dialed again. This time, it only made it to two rings.

He was dismissing the calls. I wondered if it was because he didn’t recognize the number, or if it was because he did.

The third time, it didn’t even ring. The phone had been turned off.

Fucking perfect.

I wasn’t foolish enough to think that he would bother listening to a voicemail if I left one, so I ended the call and opened the web browser. I rushed around and grabbed my purse while it was loading the local gossip sites, hoping that if someone spotted him and posted the location, I could get there and keep him out of trouble before another scandal arose. I scrolled through the latest news on each site, but saw no sign of Jared.

During the elevator ride down to the lobby of my apartment building, I lost connection to the websites and groaned. Once I stepped outside, I attempted to reopen the pages— but my phone rang before I had a chance. With a wince, I accepted the call.

“Hi, Lauren. How’s Paris?”

Lauren bypassed the pleasantries. “A friend just called to inform me that Jared walked into his bar ten minutes ago and ordered bottle service. Where the
hell
are you?”

“We had a fight and he bolted. Where is he? I’m hailing a cab now.”

“SoHo. I’ll text you the address. What are you fighting about?”

Thankfully, a cab pulled over for me and I opened the door. I told the driver to head towards SoHo before I said, “He’s mad because I told him I’m not going to screw him and he apparently expected it. So he took off to find some elsewhere.”

The cab driver raised an eyebrow and glanced back at me in his rear view mirror as I slunk down into the seat. I could practically hear her eye roll over the phone and I prayed that she would understand.

“Just get him out of there before he makes a fool of himself. All right?”

“Text me the address—I’m on the way.”

I ended the call before she could berate me and read off the address to the driver. I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor while I waited to arrive, hoping I’d get there before anything bad could possibly happen.

* * *

“
P
rincess
!”

Oh no.

What
should
have been a ten minute drive wound up taking forty, courtesy of a fender bender that had traffic backed up because the drivers refused to pull their cars from the road until the police arrived. I had held onto the hope that Jared was a grown man and could keep himself out of trouble until I could get there.

Which—in all fairness to him—he
did
stay out of trouble. For the most part.

But how much trouble could a person really get into when they were busy tossing back shot after shot at the bar?

“You’re drunk,” I stage-whispered, hoping he’d be able to hear me over the thumping bass while trying not to draw too much attention to us. “We need to go.
Now
.”

“Hold-Hold up. Got to close the tab, sweets.”

Jared nearly stumbled back to the bar, bracing himself against it as he dug into his back pocket. How the hell he managed to get so plastered in an hour was beyond my comprehension. When I stepped up beside him and heard the bartender tell him what he owed, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

“Shit,” Jared mumbled, reaching his hands up and patting over his chest with a frown before he turned to me. “You seen my wallet? I just had it.”

The bartender overheard and motioned to a security guard who was lingering nearby, but I held up a hand to stop him.

“Sir, that won’t be necessary. Can you just point me to where my client was sitting so I can look for his wallet? If I can’t find it— I’ll settle his tab.”

The man nodded, but still motioned for the guard to come stand nearby. When Jared pointed out the booth he had been sitting in before moving to the bar, I crawled beneath the table and winced when my hands immediately found something sticky.

“This is so disgusting,” I grumbled as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to use as a flashlight. A moment later and I spotted the wallet, then cringed as I noticed an empty condom wrapper a few feet away.

The knowledge that people had sex in places like this made me weirdly grateful that I didn’t have much of a social life. There was no question that I’d much rather be at home reading or doing pretty much
anything
besides being in this kind of environment. It wasn’t my scene by a long shot.

I went to brush my jeans off after I stood up, but my sticky hands kept me from doing it. When I returned to the bar I shoved the wallet against Jared’s chest and pleadingly asked the bartender, “Do you have any hand wipes? Like the ones for chicken wings?”

“No, but the bathroom is right there,” he offered, pointing toward a small nook in the corner that I hadn’t noticed before.

I turned to Jared and heatedly whispered, “Pay your bill then wait here. Do you understand? Do. Not. Move. I’ll be
right
back.”

“Mmkay, princess,” he muttered back as he dug into his wallet for a card.

I moved as quickly as I possibly could—thanking all the gods in heaven that there was only one woman in line for the bathroom and she let me cut ahead when I told her I only needed to wash my hands. After scrubbing the sticky mystery substance from my palms with a grimace, I dashed back to where I left Jared.

Who, of course, was missing in action.

“
Oh my god
,” I groaned. “Where the hell did he go now?”

“
Ahem
.”

I looked over to the bartender who was smirking with amusement and gesturing toward the dance floor. I spun around and scanned the floor, groaning when I spotted Jared being dragged toward it by two overeager blondes. In his defense, he
was
putting up a fight about it—wildly gesturing back with one hand toward where I was standing before he finally turned enough to see me.

The moment his glassy eyes locked on my angry ones, he broke into a wide grin. The girls pulled at his arms but he shrugged them away absentmindedly before moving back toward me.

“You came back,” he whispered in awe.

I gave him a ‘what-the-fuck’ look as I said, “Jared, I didn’t
leave
. I was washing my hands after crawling around on the floor to find your wallet.”

He seemed surprised and for a split second, I was sure he was going to open his mouth and tell me he didn’t believe me. Instead, he reached down and grabbed my wrists— bringing my hands up to his eye level to inspect them.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.
Oh
. I told you to stay put,” I grumbled before I pulled his arm over my shoulder and started guiding him to the door.

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” I said with a grunt when he leaned a little too much weight on me and nearly sent us both toppling over. I was nowhere near tall enough to hold up his massive frame like this for very long.

We made it outside and I was in the process of hailing a cab when Jared craned his head down so much that his lips brushed against the shell of my ear.

“
Home
. Sounds nice.”

I jolted with surprise and looked up at him questioningly. But he had already straightened himself back up and was letting his eyes roam the streets, drunkenly grinning at every person who looked his way.

I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so bothered by his choice of words, but I strongly suspected it had something to do with how perfect it felt for Jared to refer to my apartment as ‘home’.

As I helped him into the cab, a flash went off to my right. I instinctively knew what it was, but didn’t waste time looking over to confirm it. I just slid into the car and told the driver to haul ass— praying it had been a fan snapping the picture and not a photographer.

“
N
ow this is more
like it,” I said as I folded my arms over my chest and raised a brow at April.

She was donning a sexy red thong and nothing else, lounging comfortably on her bed. My bed. Our bed.

Whatever way you sliced it, she was giving me a come-hither look like she had been waiting for me.

Oh hell yes.

I crawled up the bed and settled between her spread legs, growling when she arched her back and pushed her tits up in the air. My intention had been to kiss her first, but I wasn’t going to pass up such a delicious opportunity.

Just as I stuck out my tongue to lick a tight pink bud, a loud ringing startled me. The noise was so sharp that I sat up on my knees and covered my ears, my head feeling like it was splitting in two.

What the—

I shot up in bed and instantly regretted the quick movement when my stomach rolled and my head pounded. After a brief moment of confusion, I identified the sound that interrupted my dream as my cell phone, which had been placed on April’s nightstand and plugged into the charger.

Last I recalled, I had switched it off. Which meant April must have turned it back on.

The phone stopped ringing and I glanced around, the girl in question nowhere to be found. But since I had obviously made it back to her apartment, I could safely assume that she was out on the couch.

Did she bring me back last night?
I wondered as I swung my legs off the bed and leaned forward, willing my stomach to stop gurgling.
Fuck, I haven’t been this hungover in a long damn time.

My cell started ringing again and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I knew I shouldn’t.

I pulled it off the charger and swiped to answer before I hoarsely said, “Yeah?”

“What in the ever-loving
fuck
is wrong with you, boy?”

With a wince, I pulled the phone a few inches away from my ear. “Good morning to you, too, coach. How’s the off season treating you?”

“It was treating me pretty damn well until I saw a picture of your drunk ass making the rounds of those gossip magazines. They’re calling you an alcoholic now.”

Shit.

“Coach—”

“What happened to that intern who’s supposed to be watching you? I can only imagine the brick that Lauren is probably shitting right now.”

The thought of Lauren reaming April for a mistake that was entirely on me just made me feel even more sick. Coach was still berating me for doing the exact opposite of what I agreed to do, but I was only half-listening. I knew I fucked up. I didn’t need him to tell me that.

What I needed was to
fix
it.

“Coach, I gotta go. I need to talk to Lauren.”

“Boy, you listen here. I—”

“Later.”

I ended the call and chuckled a little at the mental image of his face turning red as he clutched his phone, but the amusing thought only distracted me from reality for a moment. I slowly stood from the bed and waited a minute for the room to stop spinning, then headed out to find April.

The bathroom was empty and so was the kitchen. The couch had been slept on, but it was only obvious because the stack of blankets had been neatly refolded and moved to the other end. I searched for a note from April but came up empty. The only thing I found that was proof she had been there was the bottle of Aleve that she had left on the kitchen table.

I popped a pill into my mouth and leaned over the sink to catch some water, then swallowed it down. With a resigned sigh, I plopped myself into a chair and dialed Lauren’s number. She answered on the second ring.

“I guess you aren’t comatose.”

“What a lovely greeting,” I deadpanned. “Do you know where April is?”

There was shuffle on the other end, followed by a curt, “How the hell would I know that? You realize I’m on the other side of the ocean.”

“So you haven’t talked to her.”

“Not since last night and not for lack of trying,” she said—pausing for a second and growling. A moment later, I heard the sound of a zipper and I could feel the dread coiling in my gut. “Her phone’s been off all morning. I’m packing now—I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Look—”

“It’s fine, Jared. I made a mistake thinking an intern could handle this task. I should’ve known better. I’ll be—”

“Let me talk!” I shouted, sick of being interrupted. “Look, this is entirely my fault. Not hers. Stop overreacting and let me handle this one, all right? I promise there will be no more fuck ups while you’re on your honeymoon. Consider me a permanent fixture in this apartment until the results come back. Is that good enough?”

There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. “When I spoke to April last night, she said you stormed out after a fight. I know the majority of the blame is yours— I
have
met you, after all— but she should not have let you out of her sight.”

I felt like an asshole. Intern or not— this was still April’s job and it looked like my defensive reaction to being rejected was about to make her lose it. Even though I was still dying to sleep with her, I needed to make this right if I wanted to have any chance in hell.

“Lauren, please.” I paused, letting the word sink in for a moment before I continued. “Give her— and me— one more chance. I don’t want April to get in trouble because I was being a jackass.”

The silence stretched on for so long that I began to wonder whether the call was dropped. But my phone never beeped to alert me of it and after nearly a full minute, she let out a groan.

“
Fine
. One more chance. Only because I can tell how depressed William is about me wanting to leave.”

Thank god. I couldn’t care less about her reasoning— only that I had at least partially fixed things. Now, I just needed to apologize to April.

If she ever comes back.

“Do you really not know where she is? She didn’t leave you a note?”

“No. Just a bottle of Aleve on the table.”

“Hmm. I’ll keep trying her cell. Let me know when she gets back.”

“Will do. Let me know if you get in touch with her.”

“I will do no such thing. As long as I have your word that you’ll stay in that apartment, then I’m happy to let you sweat this one out. She likely just wanted to escape from you for a while.”

I growled my irritation, but nodded to myself. “Fine, fine. I suppose I deserve that.”

“You do. We’ll talk later.”

“Bye Lauren.”

The call ended without a good-bye from her end, but I was used to it. I sighed and dropped my phone on the couch beside me, propping my feet up on the coffee table while I resigned myself to waiting for April to get back.