The Total Package (26 page)

Dani sat alone on the patio and wrapped her arms around herself and began to shake. It was worse than she could’ve imagined. Not only was he not going to forgive her, he was going to turn his back on his own child. He didn’t even stick around long enough to find out whether he had a son or a daughter. She was wrong again. The truth hadn’t brought her a single ounce of relief. Dani didn’t think she had any tears left, even as they began to roll down her face.

CHAPTER 19

TYSON’S ONLY REGRET
about having left in such a hurry was forgetting to take his reliable old football with him. Since Logan gave it to him, all those years ago, he had never needed it more. That tired piece of pigskin really did have the power to calm him. But he couldn’t go back and get it with Dani still out there.

He switched to automatic pilot and went right into his closet to do the next best thing. He changed into his running gear. As he sat down on the bed to tie his sneakers, he caught sight of her clothes still piled on the bed. He forced out of his mind the image of her in his shirt. He went back downstairs and called a cab. He should’ve made her do it herself, but since getting sober, he always tried to be a gentleman. Plus she really did need to be gone, and soon. It had been a long time since he’d thought about doing something he would actually regret. Then Tyson hustled out the front door.

And he ran. He waited for the rhythmic pounding of his feet to catch up to his furiously pumping heart, washing away some of his angst. It took longer than he expected, but he knew it wouldn’t fail.

At first his inner dialogue was harsh, to match his anger. He tried in vain to conjure up the memory of that night, but it was futile. So was trying to get the time back. Precious moments with a child that would have enriched his soul and healed the scars of his past. No matter what he had done wrong, it didn’t warrant the sentence he, and subsequently an innocent child, had received. His child.

Dani Carr had withheld information, the most important information of all the whole time she had taunted him and teased him. She’d had ample opportunity to tell him he had a child. In this miserable world, children deserved unconditional love by anyone who was willing to provide it, and he could have given that love, and received it.

And then he remembered something Logan had told him as he trained to get back in the game. Perspective is perception. At first he had blown it off as just another one of Logan’s inspirational phrases. But as Tyson looked back over how he’d conducted his life, he began to wonder just how much of it applied.

He’d been passive for way too long. Barrow, Logan, Marcus, all had managed to get into his head and manipulate him. And he let them, at times willingly. Was it because they were men? As soon as he thought Dani was doing it, he was full of righteous indignation . . . but was that fair?

He was momentarily sick inside, thinking of the possibility that he had drunkenly fathered children all across the country. But the women from that part of his past were the type who would’ve stood front and center, demanding he claim responsibility and pay up. They never would have kept such news a secret.

But Dani Carr was not that kind of woman. She never had been. When she told him she loved him, she had meant it. Then, after he broke her heart, she transferred that devotion to someone who carried a piece of him.

Tyson realized he knew what he could expect from men. But women were very different creatures. They needed a different set of survival skills. One more time he was compelled to take his own inventory. First he had put women on pedestals, starting with his mother. Then came a time when he looked at them as toys. Eventually, when they tried to play his game, he began to view them as villains. And Dani was the only woman who had the honor of being all three.

As the sweat poured off him, Tyson’s head began to clear. He started walking back in the direction of home. He was fatigued, drained both mentally and physically. Tyson knew Dani wouldn’t be there when he got back. They were both well versed in the fight-or-flight response. What a pair they made. He stumbled when his knees nearly buckled with the realization: despite everything, he really did love her. And you can’t love someone on your terms, only theirs. Marcus was living proof of that, and once again, Marcus had been right.

He took a shower and went back out to the pool, where his football was waiting. He sat down on the chair and resumed tossing it up in the air. And then he held it. Without realizing it, Tyson cradled it in his arms like he would a newborn, thinking of the time he couldn’t get back.

Tyson had a choice to make. There was no way he would go back to living his life the way he had before he found out. He wouldn’t be an absentee father. He could continue to waste more time and make his child’s life a battleground or he could man up and move his family forward. He could be the kind of father that his own father wasn’t, and start to heal that betrayal as well. Now the thought of having a child filled him with a sense of pride and belonging. Within an hour, he was in his car speeding to the hotel.

Once again, he needed to find Dani Carr.

He blew into the hotel lobby, determined to get her room number, even if it meant shameless flirting, deceit, or strong-arm tactics. Before he could reach the front desk, he felt a hand on his shoulder, practically spinning him around.

“What did you do?” Marcus barked. To Tyson’s surprise, there was panic written on Marcus’s face.

“It’s going to be okay. I’m going to clear this up right now,” Tyson said quickly, breaking away from the grip. “I’ll explain later.”

“Dani’s not here,” Marcus replied, watching Tyson’s face fall. “She sent me a text and was gone before I could get back.”

They were too late. There was no point trying to call her; they both knew she wouldn’t answer. If he left right away maybe he could make it to the airport in time.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Marcus growled.

“What did she tell you?”

Marcus shook his head in disgust. “She didn’t tell me anything other than she was finished and it was nice working with me. But when I left her in your capable hands, she seemed pretty optimistic. Looks like you saw to that.”

Tyson stared at Marcus, dumbfounded.

“She worked for you, Marcus, or should I say ran your interference. I know you know her address. Where did she go?”

Marcus continued to shake his head. “She never volunteered that information, and I never asked. Whatever you did, it must be a real deal breaker.”

“She had my baby and never said a damn word to me!”

“Well, duh, you just figured that out now?”

“You mean you knew? She told you?” Tyson could feel his blood pressure reaching blastoff.

“Of course I knew, but she didn’t tell me. She didn’t have to. I mean, I knew she had a kid because her boss let it slip, but think about it: what single twentysomething with her sort of celebrity status sits all alone in a hotel room night after night after being transferred to one of the hippest, most happening cities in the country? She could have been painting the town red with any guy, but she was pining for you. Damn, for someone who claims to be so enlightened, you really are dumb as a bucket of rocks.”

“Don’t you dare lecture me, Marcus. No one watched your back more than I did. Now we can either stand here swapping insults or we can try to track her down.”

Marcus may have found religion, but he still had all the street smarts of his childhood: “Come on. I know the best place to start.”

They drove together to the Mavericks’ front office and proceeded to tag-team Clinton Barrow’s secretary for Dani’s address, even after she politely told them she couldn’t give out that sort of information.

“Mr. Palmer,” she said, trying to reason with them, “I’d lose my job for that. It would be like giving out your address to some fan.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Marcus scoffed. “We all have the same employer.”

“Not anymore you don’t.” A voice came from behind them. Both men whirled around to the sound of it. It was Clinton Barrow, who for the first time, looked rattled. “Dani Carr no longer works for this organization.”

What Barrow didn’t share were Dani’s parting words in the e-mail she sent to him along with copies to everyone on her command chain. It told him in no uncertain terms what exactly she thought of him and his organization, and suggested a few profane things he could do with his team and then to himself. The audacity of being addressed in such a fashion and having it exposed to so many had left him steaming.
Cheap Yankee trash,
he thought. In the throes of press week before the Super Bowl, he didn’t want to risk bad publicity, so he had put her on the back burner to be appropriately dealt with later. He would start by making sure she’d never work in broadcasting again. Although he was fairly certain that had been her plan all along, or she never would have sent that e-mail. The thought of being unable to punish an underling by destroying her career only infuriated him even more.

“We know that,” Tyson said. “We want her home address.”

“What in tarnation for?” Barrow asked suspiciously, and then attempted to redirect the conversation. “Never mind that now. You boys have a plane to catch, a press week to get ready for, and a game to play. We’ve already lined up another reporter to cover Marcus.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Marcus protested.

“And I’m not leaving until you tell this lady to give me Dani’s address, Clint,” Tyson reiterated.

Barrow could feel his nerves beginning to fray.

“Look, boys, I don’t know what’s going on here, but y’all seem to have your priorities backward. Does this woman have something on either of you that I need to worry about?”

“No,” both men said in unison. Marcus because he had never told Clinton Barrow anything in the past, and there was no reason to start telling him anything now. Tyson because for the first time in more than five years, he viewed Barrow as an adversary and not a savior.

“Great. There’ll be plenty of time for you to worry about your love lives after the game. Now let’s get a move on. Saddle up!” Barrow clapped his hands together and turned to leave.

“I don’t think you understand, Clint,” Tyson told his boss’s back. “If I don’t get what I’m looking for here, there isn’t going to be any game. Not for me.”

All Tyson meant was that he would never be able to get into the proper head space to play until he talked to Dani. But Clinton Barrow stopped cold in his tracks. He turned slowly back around to face Tyson and Marcus. His eyes narrowed and his cheeks started to take on some color through his bronze permatan. It was probably the first time the polished billionaire had received an ultimatum.

“Are you threatening me, Palmer?” Barrow’s voice was silky smooth and laced with venom.

It was in that moment that Tyson realized just how one-sided the loyalty in their relationship had truly been. As long as he toed Barrow’s line, he’d been in his good graces. Now he knew how quickly he could fall out of favor.

“All I thought I was doing was trying to get an address. I’m not threatening you.” His face hardened. “So don’t threaten me.”

Barrow looked like he was trying to figure out if Tyson was capable of calling a bluff.

“This is how you repay me? After everything I’ve done for you? You’d be dead or in a gutter somewhere if it weren’t for me.”

“And I’ve repaid that debt, several times over. Today it’s my turn to set some rules.”

“If you don’t show up and play, I swear I’ll see you bankrupt for breach of contract.”

“Oh, I’ll show up all right. And I’ll take the sack for every down.”

“You’ll spend the greatest game of your life sitting on the bench!” Clint bellowed.

“I guess that’s where I’ll come in,” said Marcus in the same insolent monotone that they all knew, completely unaffected by the threats and the yelling. “I will come down with the worst case of slippery hands that the league has ever seen. I might even set some new records for dropsies.”

Barrow’s upper lip began to curl up with the snarl. “You gutless wonder, since when did you start giving a shit about anyone other than yourself?”

“Probably around the same time I realized I’d always have to keep one up my sleeve when it came to folks like you. Now I’m just looking at a grown-ass man throwing a temper tantrum.”

Theo and Sal could be seen swiftly coming down the hall in response to Barrow’s shouting. Marcus pointed at shiny-headed Sal with his finger before they got too close. “Stay right where you are, Baldylocks, this isn’t your fight.”

The two men waited for some sort of direction from Barrow, but Clint did nothing more than give a slight single shake of his head without looking at them.

Satisfied that both men were going to keep a safe distance, Marcus turned his attention back to Barrow. “So what’s it gonna be, boss? You gonna sit your two star players or you gonna play ball?”

Clinton Barrow’s white-hot glare went from one man’s determined stare to the other’s. And then he began to grin. In the next moment, his toothy smile emerged, one that didn’t reach his eyes. It was the smile he usually wore for publicity’s sake.