Kyle would have been embarrassed if it were anyone else he was answering. But from the minute he’d pulled his SUV into the four-car garage and Julia had stepped into the house, he’d sensed her discomfort. The more he revealed, the more her unease had grown. If he’d given her any answer but the truth, she’d have known.
And bolted without a second thought.
“Look, can we at least talk about this in the kitchen?” he asked.
“Just tell me you don’t have a five-course meal planned and staff ready to wait on me,” she said, obviously trying for a lightness she didn’t feel.
He sensed the seriousness behind the joke. Good thing he’d been sure he still knew her well. “No staff, no courses, just you, me, pasta and garlic bread.”
Awareness crept into her eyes and her tight expression eased. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Come see for yourself.”
She grinned and her lips lifted in a genuine smile. The burdens she seemed to carry suddenly fled. “You remembered!”
“Do you really think I could forget?”
He’d always refused to bring her to the run-down apartment where he’d grown up. But there was one night when he’d changed his mind. Her parents had been too busy at the hospital and missed one of Julia’s awards ceremonies at school and his father had left to visit a relative out of town. Kyle had gone to the ceremony, standing in the back until it was over, just so she had someone in the audience. Then he’d brought her back to his place, cooked her spaghetti and garlic bread to celebrate her award and slept with her for the first time.
“I wasn’t sure before,” she admitted, her gaze sweeping around the house he’d bought as a statement to himself and to the world.
I am somebody, he’d thought as he signed on the dotted line. It might have been the smallest house on the island, and he might have gotten a foreclosure deal because of someone else’s misfortune, but last year when he’d signed his three-year thirty-million-dollar contract and bought this place, he’d felt like a king.
For a little while. Until reality set in along with the emptiness of the huge house. Then he realized he was stuck with a big parcel of real estate and nothing else. This place had never felt like home.
Until Julia had stepped inside.
“But I’m sure now.” Her voice cemented that thought. “You haven’t changed in here…where it counts,” she said, pressing her hand to his heart, which pounded hard and fast inside his chest.
“You’re sure about that?” he asked, needing to know that someone still knew him, not the marquee player expected to perform.
“That you’re still you? That this house doesn’t mean you’ve lost the things I loved—liked most about you?”
His breath caught. Even if she’d changed her mind about saying the word, something strong and important still existed between them.
She nodded. “If you cooked me spaghetti and garlic bread again, then yeah, I’m sure.”
And just like that, the wariness and distrust she’d been feeling faded and she stepped toward him until he was enveloped by her fragrant, sensual scent. The years melted away and suddenly she was in his arms, his lips coming down on hers and taking him to the only place that had ever felt like home.
At one time Kyle’s kiss was the answer to every dream Julia had ever had. Every hope, every wish and every fear. That had changed, but for the moment, she wound her arms around his neck and gave in to the familiar feelings.
It had been so long since she’d experienced this kind of need, desire, and she welcomed the sensual assault on her body. The shared kiss was a duel that merged the past and the present, until nothing mattered but the here and now. And when he paused, her stomach flipped, because she was sure he meant to stop. Instead, he tilted his head for a better angle, a tighter fit, and slid those delicious lips over hers once again.
He kissed her, long drugging kisses that melted her will and resistance until she curled her fingers into the back of his shirt, urging him closer. He complied, his body aligning with hers, his mouth never once releasing her own. She leaned into him, feeling every hard plane and defined muscle.
Was she ready for this? With the man who’d been her first? Who she’d also once thought would be her only? Her last?
He broke the kiss and she wondered if he’d sensed her sudden uncertainty. “After that, I hope you’re still hungry for dinner.”
She met his gaze, his eyes a stormy hue of conflicted emotions. So she wasn’t the only one. Good.
“I’m still hungry,” she assured him, well aware of her double meaning.
In surprisingly comfortable silence, Julia worked beside Kyle in his huge, state-of-the-art kitchen. She put the garlic bread in the oven and heated the water on the stove for the spaghetti. He opened a bottle of wine. They sat next to each other in the cozy eating area of the kitchen, and while they ate, he told her stories about his early days in the majors, making her laugh more times than she could count.
Dinner was delicious, reminding her of the night he’d cooked for her in high school. Their first night together. And while she was thinking about that, he leaned back in his seat and nailed her with his deep-blue eyes.
A wary tremor rippled through her.
“I think it’s time to catch up, don’t you?”
She swallowed hard, so not ready to go there.
But apparently he was. “What happened after I left?” he asked, going right for the jugular.
Julia felt her emotions closing up all over again. She stiffened and forced out a reply. “Life went on.”
He rolled his eyes at her deliberate evasion. “Can you be more specific?”
She could if she wanted to. She didn’t. “My sister got worse and eventually died.” Man, that word still tripped her up and she forced down the huge lump in her throat.
Though he placed a hand on her shoulder, he didn’t offer her a reprieve. He wanted answers and obviously would wait until she gave them.
She expelled a harsh breath. “Fine. I went to college a semester late, wanting to be around for my family. I thought my parents would turn to me, but they didn’t. They barely turned to each other.” She clenched and unclenched her fists, uncomfortable speaking the truths she lived with. Even to Kyle.
“Not even your father leaned on you?” he asked softly.
She’d confided in Kyle how close she and her father had been before her sister’s illness.
She shook her head.
“So it was like losing him twice.”
She managed to nod.
But it was so much more than that. She’d already lost Kyle a few months before, and then what remained of her world had crumbled around her. It had taken all the strength she had to pick herself up and simply live.
These days, she recommended therapy for the survivors. Back then, nobody had suggested the same for her.
He brushed his knuckle down her cheek. “I’m so damn sorry,” he said gruffly.
He should be, she thought. He’d left without looking back. But that was in the past and she knew she had to let it go if they were going to be friends now.
“So what about you? What happened to you in the intervening years?” She turned the tables, finished discussing herself. “You told me the fun stories. Now tell me about your hard times.”
Turnabout was fair play, she figured. And she wanted to know everything that had happened to him in the years since she’d seen him.
He cleared his throat before speaking. “When I went into the minors, I reverted to the guy you met when you started tutoring me. I was nothing like the one who’d mellowed out from being with you.” His eyes were murky as he delved into his memory.
The admission didn’t surprise her. She’d been devastated at his reaction when she’d refused to come with him. He’d shut down, barely looked at her. She’d known then she wouldn’t hear from him again.
“You were still angry I didn’t come with you?”
He nodded. “But I was also angry at the world and felt like I had something to prove. I mean, every guy who comes up in the farm system has attitude. A guy wouldn’t make it into the minors without a good amount of arrogance, but I took mine off the field, too.”
He paused and she didn’t push him. He’d continue when he was ready.
“Luckily, I had a good mentor who bailed me out—literally—and he stopped me from blowing my one shot.”
“Jail?” she asked, horrified it had gone that far.
“One night in a holding cell until I sobered up. The other guy declined to press charges and the cops let it drop. Roger Carstons made me take a hard look at myself and told me to make a choice right then and there because he wouldn’t be bailing me out a second time. I got it together after that.” He sat, arms folded, back stiff, obviously waiting for her to react.
“It would have been a huge waste if you hadn’t.” She knew how much internal strength he possessed, considering no one had looked out for him before.
Whoever this mentor was, Julia was grateful he’d come along. “You moved up pretty quickly after that, right?”
“Good guess?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Once you started hitting the news, it was easy to follow your progress. I never forgot about you.” Even if he’d never followed up on what had become of her.
It didn’t matter that she’d refused to go with him. He should have known she couldn’t have left her family. He could have come back for her. Kept in touch. She tried not to let the truth come between them now, but it still hurt. And she was unwilling to open up her heart to him by admitting it.
“You became a name pretty quickly,” she said, keeping her focus where it belonged and was safe. “I was still in college and you’d already had a shot in the majors.”
“I got lucky when their pitcher blew out his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery. Sucked for him, shot for me. The powers that be in Seattle called me up and gave me a chance.”
“And you made the most of it.”
He nodded. “I did. I went from earning a hundred and fifty grand to millions within three years.” He shook his head, as if he could barely believe it himself.
“And this house was the proof?”
“Yeah.” He let out a dry laugh. He rose and began collecting the dishes and taking them to the sink.
She stood and helped in silence, giving him the space to tell his story his way.
“Can you imagine what it was like, a kid who had to make a package of hot dogs last for weeks when my father was on one of his binges? I had money to buy whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I bought this place among the biggest stars in the country and thought, I have arrived.” He patted his chest with pride.
But there was no self-respect in his eyes. “I signed, I moved in and I realized something important.” He turned, his back to the sink, and faced her.
“And what was that?” she asked, almost breathless in anticipation.
“I was still alone.”
Despite the pain she’d experienced because of him, her heart ached for him now. “What about your father? All these rooms, does he ever—”
“No.” He slashed his hand through the air. “I never heard from him until I signed that contract. And before you ask, yeah, he knew where to find me. He chose not to until I had money to keep him in alcohol for the rest of his life.”
“I’m so sorry.” It seemed they were both saying a lot of that.
“I’m not. Not about him. And not about the rest of it, either. It’s a pretty damn good life. Yes, I may live alone in this big house, but I’m not exactly suffering.”
She grinned, laughing at his summation. “Good point. I do get why you bought this place. It’s just that for a minute, I thought you’d become someone else. Someone I didn’t know.” And not knowing him anymore scared her, she realized now.
“Oh, you know me. Intimately.” He paused. “And if you don’t want to know me that way again, it’s time for me to take you home,” he said, his eyes raking over her, devouring her with his hungry gaze.
When he looked at her that way it was so easy to put the past away and let herself forget, but she couldn’t. She’d had enough pain and heartache for a lifetime.
Still, his pleading yet hungry look shook her to the core.
“You’re shameless,” she told him.
“Does that mean you’re staying?” His teasing tone told her there was no pressure.
And she wanted to stay.
Desperately.
But she couldn’t simply open herself up to him that way again. She could never just have sex with Kyle. If she let herself get that kind of close with him again, it would destroy her when the relationship ended.
And that’s what men did. They left her. Kyle had left her. And now that she knew how far from reality his life really was, she couldn’t go back. For Kyle, a reunion would be fun for a little while and help break up the loneliness he experienced from time to time. But eventually, his big glamorous life would pull at him and he’d leave her again.
She shook her head, regret filling her.
“I didn’t think so.”
She caught the disappointment in his tone. Saw the sexual frustration they’d both be dealing with tonight in his taut expression.
But there was also understanding in his eyes.
“I’ll see you when you bring Michael to the stadium tomorrow?”
She grinned. “Like I said. Shameless. Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He strode over to the counter and grabbed his keys. “Nothing but the best,” he promised. “VIP treatment all the way.”
“I’m sure Michael will love it. I have to say, it’s way more than I expected when I asked ASRL to put me in touch with you.” They walked toward the garage that housed his cars.
She’d seen a Porsche, driven in his Escalade. How many cars did one man need? As many as he could afford, she thought, understanding his need to fill the void in his life.
He flipped on the garage light. “What I’m doing for Michael has nothing to do with trying to impress you,” he said, clearly offended.
“Did I say that it did?”
“You implied it. You said it’s more than you expected. I work with kids all the time. Ask Macy. Read the press. This weekend is about Michael.” He spoke in a defiant tone. “But this is about you.”
He turned, pulled her into his arms and into a heart-melting kiss.
One that tormented her through the long night alone in her very empty bed as she counted down the hours until she would see Kyle again.
Kyle dropped Julia off at her apartment. He walked her to the door and left her with a long kiss. One she allowed, but one that left him colder than the previous kiss. Ever since he’d coaxed her—make that forced her—to discuss her past, she’d put up definite walls to keep him out. He realized now that he’d screwed up royally by wallowing in his own pain and disappointment and never going back for her.
She’d been a daddy’s girl and had never apologized for it. One day her father was there for her, the next he was gone, consumed by his other sick child. Then Kyle had stepped into her life and they’d filled each other in ways their younger selves could never have understood.
And he’d abandoned her, too.
No wonder she’d closed off. The question was, could he break through those barriers?
Or had he really lost her forever.