Page 71 of Look What You Made Me Do

“Yeah.” Ella nodded. “But because he refused to name the first woman, he was discredited amidst all the controversy. Then he was sidelined, then he was sacked.”

“What happened to the Winchester guy?” Daisy asked.

“Nothing. He retired and is now some hot-shot sports caster.”

Rosie blew out a breath. “That’s… a lot.”

“Did Simon not know?” Ella asked. Apart from Cameron, he was the biggest football fan she knew.

“I suppose so.” She shrugged. “If it was as big a scandal as you say, he probably assumed we already knew?”

Yeah, probably. Who’d have thought a subscription to ESPN would be more valuable than three university degrees?

“So, I’m guessing that Jake has bowed out because he’s worried media attention will rekindle the scandal?”

“Yup.”

Ella stared morosely into her drink as Rosie drummed her fingers on the table. She wished she could travel back two days and not have made that call to Suzy. Glancing at Daisy and Iris she asked, “What am I going to do? How do I fix this?”

The two older women had lived and seen much in their lives. And between Daisy’s pragmatism and Iris’s psychic ability they always seemed to know just what to do or say.

Daisy regarded her over the rim of her whiskey glass. “Go and talk to him.”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to talk to me. And even if he did, I doubt I’ll be able to change his mind.”

“So don’t try,” she said. “This must have stirred up a lot of crap from his past. Talk to him about what he’s feeling.”

Ella almost laughed at the suggestion. Jake had never struck her as a guy who talked about his feelings.

“He likes you,” Iris added. “He likes you very much.” She grabbed her cards and laid them out in a quick spread. Nodding briefly, she announced, “The cards are favorable.”

Ella sighed. Far be it from her to question the cards.

15

To say Ella was intimated by where Jake lived was an understatement as she knocked tentatively on his apartment door an hour later. She’d called Pete, expecting him to refuse to divulge his boss’s address but he’d given it to her with his blessing and wished her luck as he disconnected.

She’d always assumed he lived somewhere nice but this was prime real estate. The luxury apartment block towered high over Greenmount Park Beach overlooking Lake Michigan and, up here on the forty-second floor, she was guessing he’d have a pretty spectacular view of said lake.

Ella knew in that vague kind of way she knew anything about football, that players earned a lot of money during their careers but she’d never thought about Jake’s bank account.

Nor had she thought to google it when she was checking him out earlier. She supposed because he’d never flaunted it?

Two years ago he’d been pulling beers behind The Rusty Nail in Trently. Two months ago he’d been pulling beers behind the bar at The Touchdown. Which he owned. And worked at. He wore jeans and T-shirts and seemed perfectly at home eating lethal home-made curry on the back porch of a southside bungalow.

He made sure an ugly stray had found a home and was volunteering his coaching services to save a school in one of the city’s most economically depressed suburbs. Yes, he drove a BMW but she was pretty sure from this apartment and its fancy AF lobby, he could have been driving a Lamborghini.

There was no reply to her knock so she repeated it, a little firmer this time. Pete had said he was home with no plans to go out anywhere which meant he was ignoring it. Or possibly her if he’d checked through the peep hole she could see in the center of the door.

“I know you’re in there, Jake,” she called, giving another knock. “Answer the damn door.”

Still nothing.

She thumped on the door. “I’m not going away and I’m only going to get louder.”

Of course, there was probably super fancy security to go with this super fancy building so if he called them, she’d be screwed.

“Jake! Stop being such a damn coward and talk to me.”

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