Page 23 of Playboy Pitcher
“You will,” he warns.
My keys fall from my hand as I grab onto his wrist with both hands. “Why do you want it so bad?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Answer me!”
“Retribution!” he roars, and I recoil at the searing hatred in the word. It’s not at all what I expected, and he knows it. “An eye for an eye,” he continues, his chest heaving as if Pandora’s Box, not only opens; it explodes. “I want to destroy Roger’s legacy for destroying my career!” As I fight to breathe, his hold around my throat tightens, bursts of maniacal laughter tumbling out of him. “I want to dismantle that fucking team piece by piece, piss on it, and then move it somewhere cold and miserable. I hate your old man as much as you do. Maybe more.”
Now, I flinch. “Why?”
Drake’s eyes flash, and if I didn’t know him like I do, I’d swear it’s not with anger, but sadness. Little by little, he loosens his grip, until his arm falls by his side. “Because he put me on waivers.”
Ah, waivers. Baseball’s backdoor way to trade, downgrade, or simply dump dead weight. The thing about a backdoor is sometimes it’s the revolving kind that swings around and smacks you back. Dad knew they were a risk and was never one to use them as a threat. Especially since Drake carried a half-million-dollar contract. If he put him on waivers, he must have had a damn good reason.
“So? You were a shitty pitcher.”
He either doesn’t hear my insult or is too inside his own head to care. “I didn’t give a shit. Fuck Miami. The Yankees or the Sox were where the real money was at.” He stops dead, turning eyes on me blazing with fire. “Only no team picked me up, so dear old Dad tried to send me back to the minors. That was a fucking insult.”
I know what happened from that point—the fate of any player who refuses to downgrade. “You refused and lost the rights to your contract.” He smirks, but there’s no malice behind it, only anticipation. “But you were a free agent,” I argue. “That’s not Dad’s fault.”
“I knocked on twenty-nine doors, only to have every single one slammed in my face. I was blackballed, sweetheart.” Taking a step forward, he enforces every word with a jab to his forehead. “Given. A. Scarlet. Fucking. Letter. By. Your. Father.”
I shake my head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Dad was a lot of things, but vindictive wasn’t one of them. He loved baseball more than anything. He wouldn’t have compromised the integrity of the game.”
Like a predator lying in wait for its prey to drift close enough for the kill, Drake’s lips curl into a wicked smirk. “That’s where you’re wrong. There’s one thing he loved more.”
A sick feeling swirls in the pit of my stomach. He’s lying. He has to be. The entire world, including my father, believed Drake and I parted mutually and amicably. I made sure of it.
“What’s that old saying? ‘A father protects his daughter from crying or else makes those who make her cry pay for their crimes.’” He catches my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Then again, you always were the eternal victim, weren’t you, Willow? That asshole protected you until the day he died.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The dickhead looks almost giddy as he taps his thumb against my chin and winks. “That’s a discussion for another day. It’s getting late, and I have a date with the missus. She’s somewhat insatiable. Loves it when I bend her over her daddy’s desk.” Turning my chin to the side, he leans in close. “You remember what that’s like, don’t you, Willow?”
I shake, not from fear, but from sheer rage. Knocking his fingers off with the back of my hand, I pull back and swing with the other. Only my fist never hits its target. Drake catches my wrist mid-punch and holds it between us.
“Twenty-eight days, princess.” Rotating my arm, he holds my stare while lowering his lips and kissing the inside of my wrist. Cursing under my breath, I try and fail to pull away. “This wasn’t supposed to get messy, Willow,” he muses.
“And now?”
“That’s up to you.” I draw in a sharp breath as his hold tightens, my bones pleading for mercy under the strain.
I frown up at him. “Is that a threat?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t get the chance.
Another rustle of wind blows through the trees, bringing with it a hint of fresh-cut grass and leather as the sound of a duffle bag hits the concrete.
“Take your hands off her before I break them off.”
Chapter Eight
People will tellyou pride is a sin. Maybe for them. However, for a LaCroix, pride isn’t so much of a sin as it is a self-fulfilled prophecy. It’s a trait embedded so deep in our DNA we couldn’t escape it even if we tried.
The men in my family bleed ego, piss confidence, and shit vanity. My uncle’s pride turned him into a felon. My father’s pride turned him into a workaholic. Andmypride… Well, it’s turned me into a has-been before I had a chance to be an ever-was.
Still, I manage to hold my head high as I walk past the steel-gray letters tacked to the top of the stadium entrance. Letters that spell the name of the man who, for four weeks out of every year, lived and breathed this facility.
