Page 129 of Pucking the Team
“The woman who spilled the details of our night together.”
“That’s her?” Eduardo asked. He peered out.
“The blonde?” Ben asked.
“Yeah, bat-shit crazy.” Dylan pursed his lips.
“Maybe you hurt her,” I said.
The Jeep picked up speed again.
“Nah, I’m a decent guy, or at least I hope I am.” He squeezed my hand and looked me in the eye. “I didn’t lead her on.”
“Youarea decent guy,” I said, seeing the desire for my approval in his eyes.
“We agreed it would be a night of fun not marriage and kids,” he went on, “we said goodbye the next morning with that agreement intact, yet when I went on tour and stopped responding to her millions of texts she got nasty. I was polite, always polite, but I had games to win, a team to support. I wasn’t ready for a relationship.”
“She wanted more from the beginning,” I said matter-of-factly. “From the moment you said hello.”
“She said she didn’t.” His brow creased in confusion. “Several times.”
“She lied. Some people do that.”
“Then she shouldn’t have. Because it meant her heart got involved when mine hadn’t.”
The tension radiating off him was palpable, so I decided to drop it. But it was clear this woman hadn’t forgotten a thing. A night with Dylan’s special brand of kink had clearly got into her system, and she wanted more. Would she be a problem in the future? Only time would tell.
“We should be all good now. You can relax, honey.” Theo threw me a glance. “We’ll be on the freeway in a minute and well away from the hotel.”
“Are they following?”
Ben and Theo both checked the mirrors. Eduardo and Dylan glanced over their shoulders and out of the back window.
“No,” Ben said. “We’re good.”
My cell rang. I reached it from my purse. Trevor.
“Hey,” I said. ‘What’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up. You, Pippa, you. You’re what’s up, my little runaway bride.”
“Er, why?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. We’ve spent years keeping your private life private. Top supermodel, highest paid on the runways, elusive, aloof, untouchable, and now this. Now your name has gone stratospheric with the pap shots to match, and I have no idea about your love life, nor does anyone else and…and…oh dear Lord above, the speculation, the gossip, the rumors.”
I set the phone on my lap and hit speaker. The guys needed to hear this so they knew what I was dealing with. “Go on.”
“My phone is blowing up,” he said, his voice higher than usual. “Alerts with your name bouncing around like some kind of meteor shower. What the hell have you been doing with this hockey team? Have you any idea how this looks? And they have pictures of you in Cardiff with Ben Evans and you wearing the Westwood—it seems he’s the one who took off your wedding dress that night and not your fiancé—and then there’s Theo Evans, his hottie of a brother in some park giving you a foot rub and, and…”
“It’s okay, Trevor.” I pressed my index fingers on my temples. “Please breathe.”
“Breathe! Breathe! It’s only okay if you don’t mind being pictured with all these muscle-bound guys with jawbones that could sharpen flint and off-the-scale hockey talent.”
His words stuck. Yes, they were hot and talented, and maybe I didn’t mind being photographed with them. But it was the way the pictures had been taken and the tittle-tattle that surrounded them I didn’t like. The ones with Eduardo at Mae’s shoot I knew I’d love forever. They were different.
“And Eduardo, the Frenchman. Sweet Jesus, the guy is sex-on-a-stick and—”
“Why thanks, Trevor, appreciate it, man.” Eduardo spoke toward the phone and then grinned at me.
