Out of Her League (25 page)

Work and dinner and the rest of the world
forgotten, he barely separated from her long enough to dispose of the condom
before rolling them both under the covers and holding her close, her face
pressed to his throat, their legs tangled together, as they drifted off to
sleep.

Lachlan couldn’t remember the last time
he’d been more reluctant to answer the phone—and that was saying something,
since he was pretty much
always
reluctant to answer the phone.

As usual, though, the guilt of ignoring
anyone in his family got the better of him.

“Hey, Callum.”

“Hey! Can Michaela hear me?”

Lachlan frowned at his empty living room
and wondered if his brother had lost his mind.

“Uh, no? Why would she be able to hear you?
You called
my
phone.”

“Okay. Good. So she’s not right there or
anything, right?”

Honestly, his brother was a mystery to
Lachlan a lot of the time, but today he seemed extra-specially weird. Maybe
he’d lost track of the date? Lachlan knew Michaela had invited Callum and
Rupert—
unlike
Lachlan—
to the Price Foundation thing in New York, even
though they couldn’t make it this year. But the hockey season could get disorienting
for the people who were caught in the constant pull and push of travel and
games. Sometimes it felt like they didn’t know which way was up until April, or,
if they were lucky, June.

“No?” Lachlan said. “She’s not here, Callum.
She’s in—”

“Look, I just want to say this quickly,
before she comes back, because she’ll totally know I’m telling on her, but I
had to get in touch before tonight.”

Lachlan was sufficiently intrigued by his
brother’s rambling to stop trying to correct him and remain silent.

“This thing. Tonight? It’s the worst. She
hates
it. Last year she was shaking so hard, Rupert resorted to getting her drunk
before we hit the red carpet. I mean, not loaded or anything, but a good buzz.
It barely helped. Though, you might try it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”
Lachlan asked, bewildered and alarmed, the idea of Michaela shaking over
anything making his stomach churn.

“Did she not tell you?” Callum asked, then
muttered, “Of course she didn’t tell you. Okay. Look, tonight is a big deal.
The Price Foundation Gala is attended by everyone in New York who donates, and
a whole bunch of people who don’t, but turn up every year like an entire bank
vault’s worth of bad pennies. The asshole friends who turned their backs on
her, the press, and of course, the douchebag.”

Lachlan stood abruptly. “Blake Whelton will
be there tonight?”

“
Yes
,” Callum said with blatant
exasperation. “That’s what I’m telling you!”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why am I telling you or why will
the douchebag be there?”

Lachlan had a terrible suspicion about the
first answer, but he focused on the second. “Why would the Price Foundation
invite him?”

Callum’s sigh spoke volumes, none of which
Lachlan wanted to believe but needed to hear anyway. “Her parents invite his
entire family because they insist on remaining good friends with his parents.”

“They
what?
”

“I know, it sucks. I’ve tried talking to
her about it, but she doesn’t see it the way I do. The way you maybe do, too.
Her parents dealt with the scandal by pretending nothing was wrong.”

“By pretending their daughter’s boyfriend
hadn’t betrayed her trust and exploited the family’s reputation and her good
looks and fame in order to exact revenge for being dumped and possibly for some
twisted, prurient gratification or to further his own career?”

“Okay, apparently we see it the exact same
way.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry to dump this one you, but
Rupert and I can’t be there, so you’re on point tonight.”

“
Fuuuck
.”

“It’s going to be fine. Just stick by her
side and be her friend, and accept that the press is going to have a field day
with it, and you’ll be fine.” It sounded more like a question than a statement
at the end.

“No, they’re not going to have a field day
at all.”

“They’re not?”

“No, because
I’m in fucking Boston
!”

There was a long, pregnant pause. “What?”

“I’m in Boston. To quote our dear friend,
she’d just as soon not give the press any more reasons to say she’d been dumped
by multiple Morrisons.”

“
What?
”

“She didn’t invite me, Cal. She went
alone.”

“Oh, damn,” Callum said quietly, his bleak
tone terrifying.

How bad was this going to be for her?

“I never even thought of that,” Callum admitted.
“She’s fake dated two brothers now, and when you move on to a woman you’re
actually dating, she’ll get raked over the coals again, won’t she?”

“No, she won’t.”

“Right, because she’s keeping you out of
the press now.”

“No, she won’t get raked over the coals because
I have
no intention of moving on
.”

This pause was shorter but no less pregnant
than the last. “Pardon me?”

“You heard me. Also, in the spirit of full
disclosure, we’ve been having lots of amazing sex.”

It felt good to finally tell the truth, and
even better to listen to Callum squawking like a protective and hilariously prudish
brother on the other end of the line—not in defense of Lachlan’s honor, of
course, but for Michaela’s.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“Why? For caring? For wanting to be part of
her life? For making your best friend
my
best friend?”

“No, you asshole! For letting her go to New
York alone!”

Which brought Lachlan crashing back to
reality. “She didn’t invite me, Callum.”

“Which means she cares, you idiot. It means
she doesn’t think you deserve to be dragged into the craziness. She thinks her
life is a punishment she’s somehow earned. If you know her at all, you know I’m
right.”

Callum was right. And Lachlan
hated
it.
Her own parents made her parade in front of everybody with that fucking asshole
right in the same room, stealing the foundation’s thunder, distracting everyone
from the amazing work she was doing.

And he’d let her leave him home. Let her
think she was doing him a
favor
.

Lachlan was furious with himself. He’d told
himself he wanted to be her champion, and the only way he could do that was if
he was willing to stand up and be counted, no matter who was watching and how
many cameras were pointed in his direction.

Even he was surprised to discover he was
more than willing. This was no sacrifice. It was what he
needed
to do.
What he was meant to do from the moment she found him on campus two months ago
and forced him from his sheltered, small world into her big, bright, crazy one.

Now the only issue remaining was that it was
noon, he was in Boston, and apparently, he had a date—a
real
date—in New
York at six o’clock.

Oh, yeah, and his tux was at the dry
cleaners.

Shit.

Michaela climbed gracefully from the
limousine, the core tenets Lachlan had drawn from her foolish and arrogant
jokes about
Michaela’s Rules for Managing the Public
running though her
head like a mantra.

Head up, smile on, don’t blink
.

Who was she to ever presume to tell anyone
how to manage the public? Her life was managed
by
the public. She’d bent
over backwards to accommodate the press and the gawkers and her parents, who, as
always, stood at the doors at the far end of the red carpet, greeting their
guests. For the first time since she’d been awoken by a friend’s frantic phone
call saying there were pictures of her having sex all over the internet, she
let herself feel angry at them for leaving her out here alone.

Her parents had done the best they knew how
with what they’d been dealt, but in the end, and at any point over the years,
they could have done better. She’d
deserved
better. From a lot of
people.

As if to prove her point, the one person in
all this she’d always, rightly, been angry at, leaped from the very next car
after hers, grinning from ear to ear. The explosion of flashbulbs was more than
even Michaela could manage. Gritting her teeth, she turned her back to the
cameras and watched, dismayed, as Blake strode right up to her.

The hollow feeling she’d been carrying
around inside her chest all afternoon bloomed to something bigger and darker
and almost overwhelming. God, she missed Lachlan. She hated that she was here
alone. At the very least, she should have brought a friend. Maybe Robby. Blake
wouldn’t have had the balls to stride up and throw his arm around her shoulders
if she hadn’t been alone.

He did it to get his face in the papers. So
people would laugh at his audaciousness and write witty photo captions about
bygones apparently being bygones and help him land his next big role. He did it
because he knew she wouldn’t cause a scene, and it made him feel powerful.

Michaela gritted her teeth and watched Blake’s
parents climb from the car. He always came with them, no doubt to ensure he’d
be allowed in. Michaela wished that just this once, there would be an exception
made. Glancing at her parents’ frozen smiles as they watched the annual debacle
unfold before them, Michaela let that hope go.

If she made a scene, if she finally threw
Blake off and told him where he could shove it, she’d have to do it without
anyone else’s help. And when it was over and the pictures were splashed across
every magazine cover and website imaginable, she’d be more alone than ever.

“Michaela!”

It was hard to pick one person out from the
dozens shouting her name, Blake’s name, but she swore she heard a familiar
voice.

“Michaela!”

She turned back to the line of cars as a
yellow cab pulled up, her mouth dropping open as the back door flew open and
discharged Lachlan.

In a kilt.

A hysterical giggle bubbled up from her
chest, a wide grin breaking across her face. Lachlan was obviously relieved
when he saw it, holding her gaze and grinning back.

God, he was handsome in the formal bonnie Prince
Charlie jacket, his knee socks perfectly folded and his sporran bouncing as he
jogged toward them. His eyes narrowed on Blake’s arm around her and even though
Lachlan’s smile was still in place, she thought he looked dangerous. Blake
either didn’t notice or didn’t have the sense to care, totally unprepared when
Lachlan planted his shoulder into the middle of Blake’s chest and checked him
back a good four feet. Lachlan’s other hand grasped her elbow, ensuring Blake
didn’t take her with him.

The press went bananas.

Blake looked so bewildered by this turn of
events, Michaela almost burst into a fit of laughter. Before he could come up
with any kind of response, his parents reached his side and turned him toward
the door.

“I don’t think so,” Lachlan said, his voice
hard but low enough that the press wouldn’t hear him. “You set foot through
those doors, and I will spend the rest of the night making an absolute
spectacle out of all three of you.” Blake’s parents’ eyes bulged in alarm.
Lachlan leaned closer and growled, “Do I make myself clear?”

“You…you
can’t
,” gasped Blake’s
mother. She turned to Michaela. “Your parents will never stand for this.”

Michaela smiled grimly. “They won’t have a
choice.”

For a moment they hovered there, Blake and
his parents clearly uncertain what to do. At last, Blake’s father guided his
family back to the row of cars, only to discover theirs had long since departed
to wherever their driver intended to pass the next few hours. Michaela watched
Blake actually blush, possibly for the first time in his shameful life, before
the three of them marched down the sidewalk away from the hotel, the street
alight with flash strobes capturing their ignominious departure.

Michaela turned back to Lachlan, unsure how
to even begin going about thanking him sufficiently. Before she could come up
with the words, he took her hands in his and captured her gaze.

“I’d like this to be a real date,” he said in
a low, serious voice only she would hear over the melee beyond the red velvet
ropes. “But if you just want us to be friends, that’s okay, too. I’m going to
stick by you, no matter what. From here on in, I’ll be your champion, too.”

“You…what?” she asked, her head spinning.

“I want this to be a real date. I want them
all to be real dates. You’re the bravest, most interesting, frustrating, and
brilliant woman I know, and if it means I have to parade around in front of
these yahoos every weekend for the rest of my life, it will be one hundred
percent worth it, because I’ll get to do it with you.”

And, well, what the hell was she supposed
to say to that? He’d left her speechless, but her smile must have been answer
enough, because then he was kissing her, bending her over his arm and capturing
her mouth right in front of god and country and the New York fucking Times. Her
heart swelled, practically bursting with joy as her hands cupped his cheeks and
she kissed him back.

With a final peck, he set her back on her
feet, his cheeks bright pink and his eyes sparkling with laughter.

“
Wow
,” she said dazedly.

“I thought a more public declaration of
intent was in order,” he said mildly, as if he hadn’t just blow her mind. “Should
I apologize?”

“Apologize?” She gave a breathless laugh. “Don’t
you dare. Though I don’t need to tell you that you’ve just broken every rule in
Michaela’s Rules for Managing the Public
.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, though
he sounded utterly unapologetic. “It turns out a lot of that goes directly
against
Lachlan’s Manifesto on Protecting the People He Loves
.”

Her heart stopped in her chest, even as a
smile bloomed on her face. “It’s a manifesto, huh?”

Lachlan’s gaze held her captive. “Well, I
guess I have a lot to say on the subject.”