God, he could still taste her on his tongue, honey sweet and as addicting as any drug. His stomach clenched at the memory.
“Dammit,” Cedric said in a fierce whisper. This entire situation was driving him out of his ever-loving mind.
He’d forced himself to forget about her. She wanted professional? That’s what he’d given her. She wanted to handle everything through email? Fine. He knew how to use a computer. They didn’t have to speak again if that was the way she wanted this strictly business thing to operate.
But she’d had to come out from behind the cyberspace wall she’d been hiding behind these past few weeks. She was too much of a professional to ask for a personal favor through email.
As Cedric made his way through ticketing and the security checkpoint, he went into autopilot, signing autographs and posing for camera phone pictures with the faithful Sabers fans who treated him as though he’d just made their entire year.
He spotted Payton at a snack kiosk a few steps beyond their gate. Cedric walked up to her just as the cashier was handing her a bag of cashews mixed with yogurt-covered raisins.
“Hello,” Cedric said.
“Thanks for coming,” Payton answered.
“Did you think I would stand you up after you bought a first-class ticket?” he said, lifting his boarding pass.
She stared at the slip of paper in his hand. “I knew you’d show,” she said. Her eyes rose back to his. “You’re a professional.”
He was starting to hate that word. It was what had started this crap between them in the first place. He was tired of this tiptoeing dance routine they’d been engaged in these past three weeks. He wanted the Payton he’d known before Torrian and Paige’s engagement party.
But as she excused herself and headed for their gate, Cedric wasn’t sure that person even existed for him anymore. Was there a way to bridge the chasm that had widened between them? Or would it be easier to just get through these next few months, until they were done with his contract negotiations and Payton had fulfilled the contract they’d agreed upon when he’d signed on with Mosely Sports Management? Then he could start the agent search again.
At this point it seemed his best option. He couldn’t spend the rest of his football career with an agent who barely spoke to him.
A voice called out over the loudspeaker for their plane to start boarding. Cedric encountered more fans as he made his way to the gangway with the other first-class passengers, shaking hands and accepting pats on the back for his performance so far this season.
When he noticed Payton still sitting on one of the uncomfortable chairs at the gate, Cedric went over to her.
“We’re boarding,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “I’m in Group Two.”
“You booked me in first class, yet you’re flying coach?”
She hesitated a moment. “I’m used to flying coach. I figured you weren’t.”
Cedric’s fists clenched in frustration. Her excuse was bull and they both knew it. This was just another way for her to avoid him. But she couldn’t dodge him the entire weekend. It was time they got past this. Even if he dropped her as his agent during the off-season, they still had months of working together ahead of them, and he’d be damned if he spent them swimming in this pool of awkward conversation. They were going to hash this out once and for all.
The gate agent made the last call for first-class passengers. Cedric turned toward the gangway, but not before leaving Payton with a promise.
“We’re talking when this plane lands in Texas.”
One would think they’d spent the entire three-hour flight from New York to Midland, Texas, in turbulence by the level of anxiety Payton had experienced from the moment the plane had gone wheels-up. But the tidal wave of apprehension crashing through her veins had nothing to do with the subtle bumps jostling the airplane. It was what would happen when they landed that had her skin tingling and her chest tightening throughout the entire flight.
She’d seen the look in Cedric’s eyes when he’d issued that parting message before boarding. Idle chitchat was not what he had in mind when he’d said he wanted to talk.
Payton gripped the armrest as the plane rocked again.
She had known their impending conversation would have to happen eventually. They couldn’t go on the way they had these past few weeks, not if they were to have a successful business partnership. But what if he no longer wanted to be in business with her? Sure, he’d signed a contract, but she was in contract law. She knew better than most that contracts were broken everyday. Maybe Cedric thought it was worth the cost of exercising the exit clause to get out of his deal with her.
The thought of losing her only client brought on an instant panic attack, but that was nothing compared to the panic she felt at the thought of word getting out that she’d slept with her only client. Her heart raced like a thoroughbred, pumping erratically as Payton imagined the field day sports bloggers would have with
that
kind of story. It would be open season on the few female sports agents who’d worked so hard to be taken seriously in this business.
Calm down,
Payton reminded herself.
She was jumping to conclusions. No one would find out about that morning in her apartment. As angry as he may be with her at the moment, Payton trusted Cedric not to reveal their indiscretion to anyone.
And as for losing him as a client, she couldn’t believe he would sever their professional partnership, either. She had been great for Cedric’s career. As far as the press was concerned, bad-boy Cedric Reeves had done a complete one-eighty. The only stories being written up about him were to highlight his amazing work on the football field and the charity work she had encouraged. No fights with fans. No wild partying. Nothing negative whatsoever. Cedric would be a fool to drop her as his agent.
No, that’s not what he wanted to talk to her about, Payton surmised. It was their
other
relationship; the one Payton had been fighting since the moment their eyes first connected in the locker room after that Sabers game at the start of the season. She’d told them both for months that they would have to squash those feelings, knowing that any romantic entanglements with Cedric would be the death of her short career as an agent.
But over the past couple of weeks, Payton had begun to question that line of thinking. A person couldn’t help whom they were attracted to.
Yet when she thought of opening herself to the possibility of exploring something more with Cedric, images of the myriad of beautiful women he’d been linked to over the past few years floated across her mind. How could she be sure he would ever truly give up his playboy lifestyle and commit to a serious relationship?
“Passengers and flight attendants prepare for landing,” crackled the captain’s voice over the loudspeaker.
Payton nestled her head against the headrest as the aircraft made its descent. She had no idea what to do about her feelings for Cedric. The one thing she did know was that things had to change. They couldn’t continue the avoidance dance they’d been engaged in these past few weeks.
She and Cedric would air everything out and decide how to move forward. They had an hour-and-a-half drive from the airport to Manchac. Nothing like being confined to a rental car to force conversation.
When Payton deplaned, Cedric was waiting for her just outside the arrival gate, his duffel bag strapped over one shoulder.
“Did you check a bag?” he asked. The chill in his voice that she’d been subjected to since calling him on Monday was mysteriously missing.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’m staying a few extra days. I haven’t seen my mom since the spring,” she continued, as if she needed to justify traveling with more luggage than he had brought.
“That’s a good idea. I’m sure your mom is happy to have you home for a while.”
“Uh, yeah. She is.”
Was this what he’d meant by talk? They would just ease back into normal conversation as if they had not spent the past few weeks avoiding each other the way an anorexic avoids a buffet? What would that solve? She had spent the past three hours preparing rebuttals to every accusation her brain could imagine. Payton felt almost…disappointed.
Bags were already making the loop around the carousel when they arrived. Payton reached for hers, but Cedric put a hand to her arm, holding her back.
“This one?” he asked as he lifted the bag from the carousel.
“Yes, thanks,” Payton replied.
Instead of handing her bag over to her, he pulled up the handle and looked around the airport’s baggage area. “How do we get to where we’re going?”
“I rented a car,” she said, leading the way to the car rental company. The car she’d reserved online was already waiting when they got there. Cedric put her bags in the trunk, then went around to the driver’s side.
Payton closed the keys in her fist and shook her head. “I’m driving.”
“No way,” he said.
“You don’t even know where you are, or where you’re going, for that matter.”
“You’ll tell me. If not, my phone has a navigation app.” He leaned against the driver’s side door, his arms crossed over his chest. “Call me sexist, but I don’t ride in the passenger seat while a woman drives.”
Payton rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she relented, handing him the keys and climbing into the other side of the car.
It wasn’t until they’d made it through the airport traffic and had traveled on the interstate for about ten minutes that he spoke again.
“You ready to talk?” he asked.
Payton jerked her gaze to him. “I thought we had been talking.”
The look he shot her way told Payton her first instincts were dead-on. Idle chitchat was not what he’d had in mind. It had been a buffer, nothing more.
“Okay,” Payton said after a deep breath. She was prepared for this. “Talk.”
“I won’t have another week like the three we’ve just had,” he started. “That was Gus’s way of doing things, avoiding my phone calls, shooting me an email every now and then to pacify me. I refuse to go back to that, Payton.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She had been the one to dictate their communication over the past few weeks. He had tried calling the Sunday afternoon after he’d left her apartment, but Payton had let both calls go to voice mail. He’d caught on pretty quickly thereafter, sticking to emails and text messages.
Could this rift have been avoided if she’d simply picked up the phone and aired things out with him that Sunday? Payton clenched her eyes tight. Way to be a professional.
“I really am sorry, Cedric.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” he replied. He took a deep breath. “I pushed you that morning, after Torrian’s party. I knew where you stood, but I wanted you and the only thing I cared about at that moment was having you. I know it makes me a bastard, but it’s the truth.”
Payton’s stomach clenched. She’d replayed that morning over and over in her head, remembering the way they’d made love and trying to convince herself they shouldn’t do it again.
“So, where does that leave us?” she asked.
“Nothing’s changed,” he stated. “I still want you, Payton. I know you don’t think we should be together, but I’ve never felt this way with anyone else. Everything is just so easy when I’m with you. So…right.”
The emotions in her head waged a war with what she was feeling in her heart. “You have no idea how many times this has played back and forth in my mind,” she said. “As right as it may feel, I just don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“I’m going to prove to you that it is,” he said. “We’re right for each other, Payton. Sooner or later, I’m going to make you see that.”
Chapter 12
C
edric put his fork down and excused himself from the table before he could request a third helping of peach cobbler from the ladies of Manchac High School’s cafeteria. If his high school had had food like this, he would have had to take up sumo wrestling instead of football.
He shook a few hands as he made his way out of the auditorium where a banquet honoring the top performers on the school’s football team was being held. Exiting through a side door, Cedric stepped into the crisp, clean air and inhaled a deep breath. He needed to clear his mind.
When they had arrived in Manchac earlier that afternoon, Payton had dropped him off at his hotel before heading to her mother’s where she would be spending the weekend. It had taken a Herculean dose of restraint to stop himself from begging her to join him in his hotel suite. Thoughts of her consumed him—mind and body; to the very depths of his soul. He had to figure out a way to convince that woman that they were meant to be together.
Cedric reentered the school building and headed back for the auditorium, but he spotted movement at the end of a darkened hallway. He could recognize that form from a mile away; it haunted him in his sleep. He walked toward her as quietly as possible, though quiet was hard to accomplish on the tiled flooring of the high school’s corridor.
Payton didn’t turn, even though Cedric knew she had to have heard him as he approached. She stood before a huge glass-encased trophy display that spanned at least fifteen feet across. The brag shelves were located right off the school’s front entrance, where everyone could see them when they entered the building.
Payton stood with her arms crossed, staring at the trophies, plaques, ribbons and pictures. Cedric’s eyes zeroed in on a picture of a well-built man in a Manchac Mustangs baseball cap. He was surrounded by players, two of them hoisting a huge trophy over their heads. On the man’s shoulders was a little girl of about five, a too-big baseball cap shielding her eyes and a familiar smile gracing her lips.
“He was always larger than life,” Payton said with a wistful murmur.
“He affected a lot of lives,” Cedric replied. He nodded toward the auditorium. “I thought the line of former players wanting to say a few words about Coach Moe would never end.”
A smile touched Payton’s lips. “He would be cursing up a storm over tonight—too much hoopla. He never liked it when people fussed over him. He was the most no-nonsense guy you’d ever meet.” She tilted her head to the side, still staring at the trophy case. After a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, she said, “He would have liked you.”