the bed now and grabbing a pair of shorts. “And then he threatened to kill me or at least ruin my career, so you made the decision to never speak to me again.”
She started to respond, but he waved his hand to stop her. “And, I know, I went along with that, so I’m to blame, too, but, Jesus, Jocelyn. Fate and the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball franchise may have just handed me everything I ever wanted professionally.” He stepped into the shorts, eyes blazing on her. “And five minutes before that, you handed me everything I ever wanted personally. And, damn it, I want both.”
“What about what I want?” One time in bed and he got all the control? Anger and resentment fired through her sex-sated cells. No, it wasn’t going to work that way.
He stared at her, as if the question made no sense. “You said you loved me.”
And he’d never said it back. “I was in the middle of a climax.”
He frowned. “Not exactly.”
“Close enough.” A lie, a complete lie. But he hadn’t said it back, so…
“And you said you made a decision not to leave.” He stabbed his hand in his hair, inching back, thinking. “But you haven’t told Lacey, have you? So, we’ll just go to L.A.”
“Will we?” She shot out the words much harder than she’d intended.
“Jocelyn, listen to me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You can’t call the shots in my life. I don’t want to go back there with all that crap hanging over my head. You can’t…” Not go to the Dodgers. It was unthinkable.
She let out a long breath as the realization of what she was doing dawned. Once again she held the keys to his career. Last time she’d let him go have it. But this time? If she asked him to stay he would, once he gave it some thought. He was that noble, that loyal, that completely rock solid and reliable.
And, once again, she knew that the right thing to do was going to hurt like hell.
“When are you going?”
“Right away,” he said, reaching for the phone. “The interview is tomorrow morning. I have to call Scott now.”
“And I have to…” Figure out what the hell to do with my life—and with my father. “Go see my dad.”
His eyes flashed at that. “Since when do you call him anything but Guy?”
“Since I found out that he had a great tragedy.”
“A miscarriage isn’t exactly like he lost you.”
“But he did lose me.”
Will almost choked. “Because he damn near killed you! And he threatened to kill me.”
“But before you knew that, you forgave him, Will. You took care of him. You worried about him. You valued him. You…” Did she dare say it? Yes. “You loved him.”
He just sighed. “But now I know differently.”
“So you actually stopped loving him?”
“It made me…” He held his head like it was going to explode. “Yeah, I did. Look, we’ll figure it out. We’ll put him somewhere. We’ll make this work, Jocelyn. I don’t want to wa—”
“So you can stop loving someone that easily?” The reality of that made her breathless. “Just because they did one thing you think is wrong? You just walk away?”
“No, I—”
“What if you found out I really did have an affair with Miles Thayer?”
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but she saw the impact of the question. She didn’t care. She had to know. She had to know what he was made of. Because if he wasn’t who she hoped he was, then he wasn’t worthy of the risk.
When he didn’t answer, she pushed harder. “Would you stop caring about me because I did something that was repugnant to you?”
He swallowed. “I don’t know why you don’t tell the truth.”
She had. To him. Wasn’t that enough? “You know what your problem is, Will?”
“Guess I’m about to, right?”
“It’s all or nothing with you. What did you say you wanted with me? What was the word you used? The word I heard you whisper in the bushes the morning you saw me climbing out of bed in the villa?”
This time his reaction wasn’t imperceptible at all. He drew back, frowning. “What did I say?”
“Everything. You whispered ‘everything,’ just like you did in bed half an hour ago. Just like you told me in my villa. You want everything because you are an all-or-nothing kind of guy. There’s no gray area.”
He crossed his arms and bobbed his head a little, no argument at all. “What the hell’s wrong with that?”
“It scares me,” she