Razor's Edge: A Bad Boy Romance (Bad Boys of Football Book 2) (6 page)

The attorneys grinned in unison, motioning for me to stand up and follow them.

“This interview is over. Come with us, Ms. Jackson,” one said.

“Why? I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t have attorneys,” I tried to explain, but one of the attorneys grabbed my elbow and led me out. When we were a safe distance away, he released my arm and said, “We were hired by Mr. Razor. He thought you might need help and, by the looks of it, I think he was right. Now, let’s gather your things and you can leave with us. Mr. Razor will meet you at our office.”

I
 
knew she’d look good and hot when I got here, but I never thought the heat would be from anger and not from the incredible body she walked around with. Even as angry as she was, she was so unbelievably sexy. As much as I loved that about her, I didn’t want to hear her scream at me unless she was screaming my name in bed or wherever it was we happened to be at the time.

“Are you listening to me? It sure doesn’t seem like you are. Hello?” Hillary’s voice shook from the strain.

“Yes, I’m listening. I think, I hear your hips calling me,” I said, licking my lips with anticipation. Someday soon, I hoped to taste her.

She glared at me again, her hands on her thick hips. “What makes you think you need to take care of me? I didn’t do anything wrong and, unless I’m having memory lapses, I don’t recall us ever stopping by your ex-wife’s house, so why are they saying we were there? What do they think you did? And, more importantly, why am I being dragged into any of this?”

I didn’t have an answer for her other than to say, “Stephanie is out of her damn mind. She spent the last three months wreaking havoc on my life. Things were going well -- really well -- until she had a miraculous recovery from her ‘don’t-have-time-for-this’ parenting style and decided she wanted to try to be a parent again.”

The attorneys I hired sat stoically watching our exchange. I was thankful for their silence because, based on the way Hillary reacted, they’d have a difficult time diffusing the situation. This was my problem. Although I never went to Stephanie’s house that night, I had thought about it. Of course, I wouldn’t have wanted to take Hillary with me. I did a lot of crazy things in my life, but not that crazy. I was all about having more than one woman at the ready, but not my ex-wife. Never my ex-wife. Been there, done that. And, I should have never done it in the first place. Other than having had my son, nothing else worth my while came out of the relationship. Not a damn thing.

Kelly busted through the double doors like the world had ended. “What in the Sam Hell did you do now?” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

I cringed, remembering Hillary’s husband’s name was Sam.

She stepped right up to me, prepared to beat me down if necessary. “What part of don’t do anything stupid did you not understand? I told you not to get into any trouble. I told you to keep your ass at home and let me handle things, but no, you couldn’t handle that. Why not, tough guy? Is your big ass ego so big it blocked your ears and you didn’t hear me tell you to let me do my job?” If smoke could come out of a human being’s ears, I’m convinced it would have billowed out of hers as she glared up at me.

“Here, kiss me.” I leaned down to allow her access to my cheek.

Huffing and puffing like the little hothead she was, she readily smacked my face. “Sometimes I can’t stand you.”

I didn’t flinch. The slap wasn’t strong enough to do any real damage. Everyone else, however, gasped in horror.

Smiling, I winked at her. “I missed you, too.”

“I hate you,” she said, pushing me out of her way so she could grab a seat to sit down on. “Now, tell me everything and, I swear to God if you lie to me, I will dropkick you so fast, you’ll run all the way to Canada before you’ll feel safe again.”

I absolutely loved her. I swear, I did.

Hillary stepped toward me tentatively. “Who is
she
?”

“My wonderful attorney; isn’t she gorgeous in a Mae West kind of way?” I continued the kissy face routine for Kelly. I figured it would either calm her down or make her lunge across the table at me, but either way, I’d be thoroughly entertained by her reaction. She never disappointed.

Kelly growled. “Is this the one?”

Oh, here we go!
I hoped Hillary could handle herself. I was pretty confident she could, but Kelly was like a force of nature when she was angry. Or happy. Or kidding. Who was I kidding; Hillary was going to crumble under the pressure.

To my surprise, Hillary made a noise remarkably similar to a rabid dog. “Who the hell are you?” She challenged Kelly. Towering over her at all five-foot-five inches tall, Hillary looked like a giant. A curvaceous, seductive giant, but a giant nonetheless. “How are you going to come in here, looking at me like I had anything to do with what this egotistical, lying ass, good-for-nothing--”

Kelly interrupted her with her own round of insults directed at me. This wasn’t going as I planned at all. “Spoiled, rich, jerk-of-a-man, who wouldn’t know his di--”

It was time to stop this. Now, I was uncomfortable. “Enough! I’m standing right here. You don’t have to fight over me ladies. I’ll take both of you.”

The attorneys I’d hired had horrified looks on their faces. Two of the three were sweating profusely while the other held his head in his hands.

I looked over at the trio, the high paid legal eagles, and said, “Calm the hell down. This is every day for me. Welcome to my life.”

Kelly wasn’t through with me yet; I could tell by the look in her beady little eyes. But she was also very protective of me and wasn’t about to let a group of vultures pass judgment on me and my circumstances. While she huffed and puffed her way back to some semblance of decorum, she turned her attention to the paperwork that was strewn across the table in front of her.

Hillary, however, wasn’t done at all. I couldn’t blame her for being angry. She had gotten thrown into this unexpectedly, but I had no doubt that in the end, she’d come around and understand, I was only trying to protect her. I knew the way Stephanie operated. I knew she’d eventually pull an elaborate stunt to make me look bad. I hadn’t expected she’d accuse me of assaulting her. Again.

A few months before we got married, she’d accused me of assaulting her. She’d told so many lies, I couldn’t quite remember which one I was actually accused of, but whatever it was, the media ate it up. I was all over their radar for weeks. They followed my every move. Stephanie hoped it would ruin my career. I was the bad boy football god. I was the one everyone wanted. They called me The Arm and I spent every day of my life trying to live up to the hype surrounding my image. Then, Stephanie started making demands. She wanted me to finance a new strip joint with some questionable characters. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what they were up to and I didn’t want any part of it, so I refused and she found a way to make it look like I hit her. I didn’t, but it took a long time of me having to kiss her ass and play nice before anyone, including the courts, would believe me.

Kelly looked up at me, anger still evident in her eyes and asked, “This isn’t going to be another one of your marriage emergencies, is it?” Her eyes floated over to Hillary.

“Excuse you?” Hillary was still angry.

“No, it’s not like that. Stephanie was a mistake. A huge mistake. I’m not doing that again,” I answered.

She eyed Hillary again. “Good, because that’s the last thing you need. The last time you did that, we ended up here, in this situation. Don’t forget that.”

Ansel, one of the attorneys I’d hired to represent Hillary, cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it would be nice if one of you three would explain to us what in the hell is going on here. What were we hired to do exactly? Who do we work for?”

Kelly slumped back in her seat, releasing the papers she held in her hand into the air. “Welcome to the circus -- the E.J. Razor circus. We don’t have a bearded lady yet, but we sure do have a lot of elephants in the room. By the way, there’s no refunds, so sit your happy ass down and enjoy the show.”

He sank into his seat, taken aback by Kelly’s way with words. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Here’s the gist of it as I understand it,” Hillary started, defiantly. “This jerk hired you to represent me without my knowledge or consent. Apparently, while he and I were supposed to be out on our first official date, he managed to sneak off and do God knows what to his ex-wife and was trying to use me as his alibi. I don’t know how he managed it because, and here’s the kicker, we never actually started our date because The Arm, as he’s apparently called, got himself arrested before we stepped foot in the restaurant.”

The attorneys sat with their mouths gaping open.

I nodded, laughing to myself, “Yep, that’s the gist of it alright.”

Ansel sat up straighter in his chair, looking at me and asked, “Did you? Did you manage to get away and assault your ex-wife?”

Kelly interjected. “You know; you can’t ask him that. He’s not your client. He’s my client. He’ll probably be the last client I’ll ever have the way he keeps jacking everything up. I don’t know the particulars of how you three Christian Dior sock puppets got here, but I’m willing to bet, it’s not because of your brains.” Kelly was an equal opportunity offender. She didn’t care who you were or what your station in life was, if she didn’t like you right away, she was never going to like you and she was going to make sure you knew it.

“What my sexy little attorney is trying to say,” I started as a collective sigh interrupted me, “is I hired you because I knew the police would come after Hillary. They don’t have any proof I did anything to Stephanie. I can guarantee it because I didn’t do anything to her. When the school principal called me and told me a couple of detectives had come around asking questions about Hillary, I knew she would be blindsided, so I called you, and here we are.”

Hillary stood up and looked out the window. “And, there they are.”

I heard them before I saw them. The familiar desperate hum of their voices told me the media had gotten wind of my latest scandal and were chomping at the bit to get their claws into me and make me front page news -- again. “The media?” I asked.

“Sure looks like it. Now what? What did you drag me into?” she asked.

“I
 
said, have some fun, not get yourself suspended. What in the holy heck happened that night?” Felicia was just as surprised by all this as I was.

I shrugged, tears streaming down my face, smearing what little makeup I wore. “I wish I knew. E.J.’s attorney -- a little hothead with attitude up the ying yang -- tried to explain it to me, but it still makes no sense. I don’t live in that world, so maybe I’m not supposed to understand how it works, but it sounds like EJ’s ex-wife has a vendetta against him and is trying to do whatever she can to make him lose custody of Edge.”

“And, what? She’s coming after you now? That’s not right. You didn’t have anything to do with their relationship. Do I need to make a phone call? If I do, I can end this shit right now,” Felicia offered.

I laughed.

“All I have to do is call my cousin. He’ll come down here and take care of it for you. I swear, E.J won’t know what hit him,” Felicia promised.

Scrubbing the tears from my eyes, I teased her. “What are you? From the hood now? Don’t say stuff like that. People will think you’re crazy. I’m going to figure this out. I’ve been through worse, right? I mean, it’s not like I did anything wrong. I don’t know Stephanie, EJ’s ex-wife. She shouldn’t have any beef with me.”

Felicia clicked her tongue at me. “And you think I sound like a hood rat, Miss I-don’t-have-beef?”

As much as I wanted to engage in a back and forth with her and our special blend of insults, I couldn’t. I’d struggled with a massive headache the size of one big football player who thought he was someone special and a heart that had been running a marathon since the moment officers showed up at my job yesterday.

“Okay,” Felicia changed her tone. “Let’s find something to keep you occupied until Cantor gets himself together and realizes you didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know how many times police detectives have come to the school to talk to me. This is Chicago, not an amusement park. Police are always hanging out at schools. First, you need to clean this place up. Since when did you stop cleaning house?” She looked around at the detritus of the colossal temper tantrum I threw last night after I left the attorney’s office.

“I do clean house. It’s been a little stressful lately, so I haven’t had time to do much of anything. In fact, I still have unpacked boxes in my bedroom. The way it looks, I might never get a chance to unpack. I won’t need any of the antiques I bought in Spain if I’m in jail,” I groaned.

“Now you’re being dramatic. You’re not going to go to jail. They’ll eat you alive in prison. I think living in Spain made you weak. I think that love fest marriage of yours made you forget you’re from here. You grew up in one of the toughest cities in the country. Why are you going to let some football player’s drama mess your life up? I know he’s fine and I pushed you to give him a chance, but no amount of sexiness trumps common sense,” Felicia said as she moved a pile of books from my sofa to the littered coffee table.

We spent the next couple of hours brainstorming ways to supplement my income until Principal Cantor and the school board allowed me to return to work. I never imagined I’d be out of a job. I’d worked hard to be able to get to this point. I did everything right. Stayed on the straight and narrow. Yet, somehow, here I sat, living in the heart of the city in an apartment I could barely afford, widowed, and now, without a job. How did my life come to this?

I knew exactly how I wound up here. It all started the moment I reconnected with EJ. When I was a kid and he was still Edgecott, not a tall, muscular football player with colored contacts and a new last name, I couldn’t have even begun to fathom he and I would have ended up in the situation we were in now. He was part of the reason I avoided men like him. Some women loved bad boys. They tripped over themselves to get close to one. I wasn’t one of those women. I liked men with more brains than brawn. I valued substance over fluff. Muscles and seductive smile aside, E.J. was nothing more than a six-foot-two-inch tall handsome ball of trouble. I didn’t need it. I refused to get more involved. It wasn’t going to happen. Now, I had to figure out a way to reverse this train wreck and make things right with my employers.

“I don’t know how to do anything else. I have to get my job back,” I said, startling Felicia as she continued organizing my mess.

She offered a kind smile. “Honey, I really think you should lay low and let the attorneys sort this stuff out for you. That way, you’ll come out of this looking good and Cantor will look like the bully he is. You know how to do plenty. You speak Spanish fluently; why couldn’t you teach English as a second language or tutor or something like that?”

I appreciated that she was trying to help, but I really thought if I went to the school board myself and explained the situation, I could make them listen to reason and get my job back. They’d see this was all some sort of a mistake. I’d done nothing wrong. And, as far as I knew, neither had E.J. At least, that’s what he kept trying to tell me.

“You know what you need to do is change your number,” Felicia said, motioning to my cell phone.

“I can’t do that. What if they call me? Then again, what if they don’t? I might have to actually go see them. I’m sure once they heard me out, they’d know I wasn’t a troublemaker. I don’t go out threatening people’s ex-wives. I don’t even know who she is,” I said.

Felicia stood with her hands on her hips, staring at me with a look of disdain. “I’m talking about changing your number because your sexy football friend keeps calling you. Your phone has vibrated four times in the last fifteen minutes. You might not have gone to dinner with him, but you sure as sugar must have done something with him to have him sweating you like that.”

“What? That better not be him calling me. I told him I never wanted to see his face again,” I said, rushing to pick up my phone and remind him of that.

“Good, I was beginning to think you were trying to avoid me,” he whispered, a hint of relief in his voice.

I stammered at the smooth sound of his voice. It always made me tingle when I heard him speak, even if I was angry with him, which had been the case on at least three of the five or six occasions I’d seen him. “Didn’t I… Didn’t I ask you not to call me anymore? Why can’t you follow simple instructions? I don’t want or need any part of your drama. This was a bad idea in the first place. I had a weak moment. I had no business trying to date one of my students’ parents. Now, I have the police asking me questions, a scorned ex-wife out for blood, and no means of employment because of my huge mistake.”

“Wait; what? You’re out of a job? They fired you? For what? You didn’t do anything wrong! No one did. I can’t believe this shit. Open your door. Let me in so we can talk about this,” he ordered me.

“Why do I have to open my door? You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father and you’re definitely not someone whose orders I have to follow. I’m not opening a damn thing for you. Now, don’t call me back and don’t you ever show up at my house unannounced again,” I threatened him, but it was all for naught.

Felicia mouthed an apology as she held the door open for E.J. to come inside the apartment.

E.J. wore a scowl on his face, but turned it into a smile as he took in the disaster zone of a living room and my cluttered kitchen. “You live here? Are you sure it’s safe to be in here? I don’t want to catch anything.”

Felicia laughed like he’d said the funniest thing she ever heard. “Right? I told her this place is horrible, but it’s your fault, so you might want to help her clean it up while you’re here.”

Embarrassed and annoyed, I unleashed my anger on both of them. “Excuse me, but if you two don’t like what the apartment of the woman who lost her husband, moved back to the United States from Spain, managed to find a job and try to put her life back together, and recently got screwed over by some womanizing egomaniac looks like, you two can both leave.”

They stared back at me wide-eyed.

“Now!” I ordered.

After a moment of silence, I thought I’d made myself quite clear, but when they both started laughing full-on belly laughs, I knew I’d wasted my breath yet again.

“Here, I’ll help you clean up while the two of you sort your crap out,” Felicia offered.

I shook my head. “No, I can do it. I don’t need anyone messing with my stuff.”

Felicia gave me a sideways glance. “Okay, but maybe you do need someone messing with your stuff. Maybe that’s what your problem is -- your
stuff
hasn’t been messed with a long time.”

My face and neck reddened.
Why did she say that in front of E.J.?

“Well, that solves everything.” E.J. licked his lips.

I glared at Felicia. “Are you insane?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. I think, I’ll go and let you two talk. I have enough drama in my house to keep me busy. Lord knows I don’t need more drama. Have fun and try not to get arrested.”

As she walked out of the apartment, I fought the urge to run after her and stop her, but at the same time, a part of me wanted to hear E.J. out. In spite of how much of my life he’d managed to destroy, I was still drawn to him. I don’t know what that said about me. Had I turned into someone desperate? Someone I didn’t recognize?

After the door closed behind Felicia, E.J. turned to me and said, “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

Shocked, I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could respond. “Did you apologize to me? Wow. I can’t say I was expecting that.”

Looking defeated, E.J. sighed. “Look, this is a disaster for me too. It’s a bigger disaster.” His eyes welled with tears. “I’m fighting for everything here. I’m fighting for Edge’s life -- his future. Our future.” As if he was close to bursting from the stress of it all, E.J. spoke at rapid fire, telling me everything he was feeling. “She wants to take my son. My little boy. I don’t know what I’ll do without him.”

All of the anger and disappointment I’d wrestled with had to be cast aside. I think, for the first time in our lives, I finally understood who E.J. was behind the mask he wore. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you. I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help, but I’ve never been in this situation before. You could have given me a heads up. That would have at least helped me to know something big was happening.”

E.J. scrubbed his face with the backs of his hands. “Man, I didn’t come here to cry. I came here to talk to you. I wanted to explain I had nothing to do with whatever happened with my ex-wife. I never touched her. Not like that.” Sighing, he added, “She hates me. That’s why she’s doing all this.”

I felt sorry for him. To think someone hated someone -- the person they had a child with -- as much as this woman apparently hated him, made me sad.

He took a seat on my sofa, slumping down into it. “I’m going to lose my boy,” he said as his shoulders started to quake.

I didn’t have the heart to admonish him for the problems he’d created for me. My heart begged for me to comfort him. I had to. I sat down next to him and offered him my hand.

E.J. lifted his head up, deep pain in his eyes. He moved his head closer to mine. Heat penetrated between us.

I couldn’t resist. I closed my eyes instinctively, waiting for him to kiss me.