Page 42 of A Game of Deception
Those were the facts. The immutable truths around which I’d constructed my understanding of that night.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my voice barely steady.
Leo met my gaze. “Because whatever is happening between you two, it needs to be based on truth. Not from an old misunderstanding that’s destroyed both your lives.”
I stared at him, momentarily speechless.
“You expect me to believe that Xander let everyone think he killed my brother when he didn’t?” I shook my head. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know,” Leo admitted. “He doesn’t talk about it. But I think... I think he believes he deserved the blame. That even if he wasn’t driving, he feels he was still responsible.”
“I need to go,” I said abruptly, gathering my purse. The coffee sat untouched, cooling in its cup.
Leo didn’t stop me. “Just think about what I’ve said,” he urged. “And maybe... maybe ask him yourself. About what really happened that night.”
I nodded stiffly, unable to form words around the lump in my throat. As I stood to leave, Leo’s voice stopped me one last time.
“He cares about you, you know. More than he should. More than is safe for him.”
I didn’t turn around, couldn’t bear to see the sincerity in his eyes. “Goodbye, Leo.”
My mind reeled as I exited the coffee shop, every moment replaying through a new, warped filter. If Xander hadn’t been driving... if Jimmy had... No. It couldn’t be possible, could it?
11
XANDER
I grabbed the medicine ball,dropped it, caught it in a fluid motion, and slammed it against the floor with all my might. The heavy thud reverberated through the empty gym, a brief and unsatisfying release for the tension that had been building inside me since Tara had left my bed before dawn.
“I have no idea.”
Her last words to me. I’d asked her what happened next, and she’d given me the most honest answer possible. Neither of us knew what the hell we were doing. What we were to each other now or what any of this meant.
I picked up the ball again, twisted my torso, and slammed it down with even more force. Sweat dripped into my eyes, my breath coming in hard gasps. I’d been at this for over an hour, pushing my body to exhaustion, hoping it might quiet my mind.
It wasn’t working.
The memory of her kept intruding. The softness of her skin under my hands. The way she’d looked at me in the darkness, her eyes reflecting the faint glow from the city lights outside mywindow. The taste of her. The sound of her breath catching when I?—
I hurled the ball against the wall this time, the impact jarring enough to snap me back to the present. This was pathetic. I was Xander McCrae, for fuck’s sake. I’d had more women than I could count. Beautiful women. Famous women. Women whose names and faces blurred together in a meaningless parade of temporary distraction.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about this one?
I knew why. Because she wasn’t just any woman. She was Tara. Jimmy’s little sister. The girl who’d haunted me since I left Palo Alto. The woman who’d shown up at my door in the middle of the night, looked me dead in the eye, and said,“Let’s fuck.”
God.
I grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from my face, taking deep breaths to slow my racing heart. This was supposed to be my day off. A chance to recover, to process everything that had happened since I arrived in Miami. Instead, I was here, in the team’s training facility on a Saturday afternoon, trying to outrun thoughts of Tara Swanson.
When Leo had left earlier, saying he had errands to run, I’d nearly crawled out of my skin with restlessness. The penthouse felt too empty, too quiet. Every room reminded me of her—of leading her through the living room to my bedroom, of waking up beside her, of watching her slip out before dawn.
So I’d come here, hoping a rigorous workout would center me. Hoping, if I was being honest with myself, that she might be here too. That I might run into her in the hallway, or glimpse herthrough the glass walls of her office, and get some sign of what last night had meant to her.
But the medical wing was dark and empty when I passed it, and the rest of the facility was nearly deserted on a Saturday afternoon. Just a skeleton security crew and the occasional staff member going about their business.
And me, all alone with my thoughts and a medicine ball. Pathetic.
The sound of the door opening made me turn. Ben Carter, with a gym bag slung over his shoulder, walked in, then stopped short when he saw me.
