Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels) (29 page)

Griffen crossed her arms and gave him a look filled with determination. “Austin and I are not leaving. If we run away, they’ll just find us.”

“Dammit, Griffen.” The tenuous grip on his temper slipped. “They’ll eat you alive. Let me handle this.”

She didn’t back down. In fact, she lifted her chin and gave him a level stare. “I will not run away. If you want to leave, fine, but Austin and I are staying right here.”

He pulled in a deep breath. God, he wanted a drink. “At least let me take Austin back to your dad's. Just for a day or two until I can deal with this. I don’t want those bloodhounds near my son.”
 

She nodded in agreement, then went upstairs to tell Austin to pack an overnight bag. He watched her walk away, her back straight, her head held proud, and couldn’t help but admire her. She had more strength than any woman he knew. In the face of adversity caused by the media circus, she was ready to stand and fight.
 

And they’d do it together.

Sixteen

GRIFFEN HEARD THE garage door closing, signaling Jed’s return. He’d insisted on staying with her, so after taking Austin to her father’s, he’d gone to his motel room for his things. He didn’t bother checking out, reminding her that everything they did now would be under public scrutiny. He’d tried to make her promise to unplug the phone, but she’d refused to hide.
 

She set a filter in the basket and counted the scoops for coffee just as Jed walked into the kitchen from the garage. One look told her his earlier temper had cooled, but he was still upset. She could see it in the tensing of his jaw and the set of his shoulders. “We’ll get through this,” she said as she flipped the switch for the coffee maker.

The grin he gave her didn’t soften the weariness in his eyes. He pulled her into his arms, holding her as if his life depended on it. “I’m sorry this happened,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. She loved being held by him, loved feeling the power and strength of his arms around her. Regardless of the threat to her sanity and her heart, she hung on tight. “It’s not your fault. How could you know this would happen?”

“I should have known better. I
am
sorry, Griffen.” Regret filled his voice. “I never meant to hurt you and Austin.”

She leaned back and looked up at him. “None of us expected this,” she said and meant it. They’d been so caught up in their own personal drama, they hadn’t given a thought as to what could happen once the media got wind of their situation. She should have known better, but how could she? She’d never been exposed to press releases and media reports. Hart just wasn’t the type of town to garner much attention. Until now.

The phone rang again and Jed sighed. “Has that been going on since I left?”

She nodded. “Mattie called, but I let everything else roll into voice mail.”

“I need to get a hold of Steve and find out what went wrong. Then we’re going to have to unplug that phone.”

The coffee maker finished, and she reluctantly stepped out of his embrace. After pouring them both a cup, she added a splash of creamer to hers, then followed him into the family room. She sat on the end of the sofa and curled her feet beneath her. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, and although the day had been a long one, sleep was the last thing on her mind.

Jed pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, then dropped into the chair behind Griffen’s desk and called Steve. “What the hell happened?” he asked when his lawyer answered.

“I don’t know what to say,” Steve said. “Someone leaked the story. I’ve ruined my associates’ weekend and have had them scrambling all night trying to find out how it happened. We do know a file clerk in the investment firm sold the story to TMZ. I’ve been on the phone with Yorke and your publicist. We’re working damage control.”

“You’d better do something,” Jed snapped angrily. “I’m not going to have my son’s picture plastered on every national news show.”

“Calm down, Jed,” Steve said in a placating tone. “They can’t do anything like that without Mrs. Somerfield’s permission.”

“They sure as hell didn’t have a problem releasing his name.” The temper he’d thought cooled shot back up to the boiling point. “Sue the firm. That trust account was confidential. Isn’t there some law about protecting the identity of minors?”

Steve muttered something he couldn’t quite make out, but sounded a lot like not being fresh out of law school. “I’m a step ahead of you. Half my team is in the office working on it already. We’ll have court papers filed first thing in the morning.”

Not exactly satisfied, Jed told Steve to get back to him later when he had more details. As he placed a call to his agent, Griffen went into the kitchen.
 

“Where the fuck are you?” Bob Yorke demanded the minute he answered.

“In hell,” he fired back. For all his running, where had it gotten him? Nowhere, other than into the arms of a woman he knew he should’ve stayed away from, only he couldn’t. For the life of him, he simply could not walk away—yet. They had a connection that extended beyond the past, and something he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put a label on, kept him by her side. It wasn’t as if she’d done what no other woman since Dani had managed to do to him. No way had he let her into his hardened heart.

Liar
.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this kid of yours?” Yorke asked.

As soon as this latest mess was cleaned up, he was firing Yorke. The man was supposed to be his agent, supposed to have his best interests at heart. Lately, the only interests Yorke seemed to have was in saving his own ass. “Because it’s none of your damned business,” Jed said. “Your business is my career, not my private life.”

“Your private life keeps interfering with your career. What you have left of it,” Yorke countered. “You’ve let this go too far. The owners are ready to pull out and your endorsements are drying up. It’s time, Jed. It’s over.”

“It’ll be over when I say it’s over.” Dammit, he didn’t need Yorke blowing him shit, too. He had enough to handle, and he a son to protect. Only then he could think about his own future.

“Not any longer,” Yorke said. “According to the doctors, you don’t have a choice. Look, the owners put a generous offer on the table. Take it and make everybody happy, Jed.”
 

Jed said nothing. He couldn’t because the more he thought about it, the more retirement sounded like the option he’d end up taking. The game had been his life for so long, the thought of leaving it behind was tough to face.

“Wouldn’t you rather retire with dignity?” Yorke asked, his tone snide and condescending.

Jed’s temper immediately shot through the roof.
If
and
when
he retired, it would be his decision and no one else’s. “Go to hell.” He disconnected the call. The bastards. The dirty—

“Jed? Is everything all right?”
 

Her soft, husky voice drifted through the red haze of his anger. She held a plate filled with pastries, like she was Betty fucking Crocker.
 

“
No
,” he said. “Nothing is right.”

Concern etched her pretty face, and he felt like a jerk. She set the plate on the table in front of the sofa. “How can I help?”
 

“Get the hell away from me,” he muttered, wanting to kick himself the moment the words left his mouth. God, she didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

She straightened and planted her hands on her hips. “What is your problem?”

“Not a goddamn thing, all right?” he snarled, more out of his own frustration at allowing the entire situation to spin out of control. But that didn’t excuse his first class prick routine, and he knew it.

Fire lined her gaze as she advanced on him. He scowled at her, but she didn’t back down. Anyone else would have run for the hills when he was in a mood like this. But not her. Oh, no, she faced him, letting him see what she thought of his attitude. Which wasn’t much, obviously.

“I’m not happy about any of this, either.” Griffen knew she was making matters worse by snapping back at him, but dammit, this affected both of them. Jed wasn’t the only one involved here. “Don’t expect me to put up with your crap, Maitland. It isn’t going to happen. So you can stop taking it out on me.”

He gave her a hard look, then crossed the room to stand in front of the fireplace. Resting his arm on the mantle, he propped his boot on the stone hearth and stared at the logs stacked there. “You don’t know what they’re like, Griffen. Your life won’t belong to you any longer. I don’t want that for you or Austin.”

Her heart snagged at the torment in his voice. True, she didn’t have a clue what all the attention would be like, but she must have known somewhere in the back of her mind that it would happen sooner or later. Maitland the Maniac drew attention, whether on the football field or leading his nefarious, and often falsely reported, lifestyle.
 

“There will be questions,” he said. “Questions you aren’t prepared to answer. What you don’t give them, they’ll find on their own and they aren’t real particular about accuracy, only their damned ratings.”

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked. “Is there something else about you they can drag through the dirt to make you look bad?”

He turned on her, the hard lines of his face prominent, anger blazing in his eyes. “Not me.
You
. How does that feel, Griffen? How will it feel when they start speculating and second guessing, implying I was the cause of your marriage ending, or maybe that your ex found us in bed together. They’re going to camp out on your doorstep, talk to your neighbors, wonder why you went out of business, why your house is for sale. They’ll imply that you came to me for money.”

“But that isn’t the truth.”

“They won’t care.”

“But I didn’t even know you when I was married to Ross. Besides, what he did to me has nothing to do with you. Or us.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet apart, his stance arrogant, his voice damning. “Don’t be so sure. They found out about Austin because I set up a trust fund for him. Some low level employee decided to make a few bucks by selling the story. It won’t be a stretch for them to think you came to me for money.”

“That’s nonsense. And I’ve told you before, I don’t want, or need, your money.”

“It’s done. He’s my son, and it’s done. End of discussion.”

She didn’t care for his high handedness or his going behind her back. But she understood. He was only looking out for his son. That didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If there’s a hint of sleaze, the bottom feeders will find it and exploit it to the
nth
degree.”
 

“That’s not fair.”

He shrugged. “It’s all about ratings. The bigger the scandal, the higher the returns.”

She dropped onto the sofa. “This can’t be happening.”

“Well, it is. So you’d better tell me everything or I won’t be able to answer their questions. And believe me, if it looks like we’re hiding anything, it’ll only get worse.”

She looked away. Telling Jed the truth, the humiliation of her stupidity wasn’t something she relished, but he was right. Unless he knew the truth, how could he defend her to the press? She looked back at him. He hadn’t moved, his stance still as arrogant as ever.
 

She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There was nothing sleazy about Ross’s affair, unless you call running off to Jamaica with his twenty-something secretary sleazy. When he left, he wiped out everything. Our savings, CDs, our investments, even the business accounts for Antiquities. He only left me enough money to cover the mortgages on the house for a couple of months, but that was it. Thank God he left Austin’s college fund alone, but I think the only reason he didn’t touch it was because it wasn’t in his name.”
 

“That son of a bitch.”

“I thought so, too, for a while,” she said. “I was making enough money to keep the store running on its own, but not enough to manage both the business and the house, the car payments, the bills.”

His eyebrows drew together. “How bad is it?”

“I was up to my ears in debt, but I trusted Ross. I let him handle everything and was foolish enough not to question him.” She shook her head at her own stupidity. “I was living in a house of cards and never knew. When he left, I found out the hard way that he hadn’t paid the bills in months. Nearly every credit card was maxed, and the balances were astronomical. The only thing that was current was the mortgage. Pretty sad for a professional financial planner.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” His demanding tone revealed the sharp edge still clinging to his anger. “You know I could have helped. I offered to help.”

“And I appreciated the offer, but I had to do this on my own. You have to understand, once I got over the shock of having to dig myself out of the financial mess Ross left me in, I was angry. Not so much at him, but at myself. I couldn’t believe I was so blind that I didn’t see what was going on. When I quit beating myself up, I came up with a plan and went to work.”

“Yeah, about that.” He pulled in a deep breath “There’s something you need to know.”