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Mark was sitting on Grace’s desk, which wasn’t an unusual sight per se, but the dark look on his face was. “Alex,” Grace greeted him, getting jerkily to her feet. “You’re back.”
His PA’s face was pale, her hands flailing uselessly at her sides. His smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
Grace’s gaze darted to Mark, then back to him. “Izzie’s been trying to reach you.”
He fished his phone out of his pocket. It was still on airplane mode. He’d missed five calls from Izzie?
An uneasy feeling snaked up his spine. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, I think so—she—” His assistant darted another glance at Mark. “I told her you were on your way. She’s coming over.”
His gaze narrowed. “What is going on, you two?”
“NYC-TV just ran the preview of your story,” Mark said quietly.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Curry told me the story sided with Sophoros...”
“I think they went in a dif—”
His name blared from the television. A picture of him in a New York Crusaders uniform flashed across the screen. A headline ran in the ticker beneath it. Painkiller Addiction Destroyed Football Hero’s Career.
Blood whooshed in his ears. His legs went weak. He clutched the side of Grace’s desk and stared at the screen. This couldn’t be happening. Izzie had buried that information.
A clip of his old teammate Taylor Johnson flashed up on the screen. The host previewed an exclusive interview with him that evening: an athlete from the inside on how drugs were destroying professional sports. His blood ran cold. How could Johnson know? He hadn’t been in the locker room that night. Xavier had been the only one with him, telling him not to do it.
A mad feeling of unreality enveloped him. This was impossible.
The host moved on to preview the weather. Alex stared at the screen, hands clenched at his sides, fighting the urge to tear the television from the wall. The clatter of high heels tapping across the tile floor brought his head around. Izzie half ran the last few steps down the hallway. He took one look at her panicked expression and pointed at his office. “Go.”
She put her head down and did as she was told. He sucked in a lungful of air, walked into his office and slammed the door. She jumped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“What the hell,” he bit out, “was that? Xavier and I were the only ones in the locker room that night.”
“Taylor said he saw you take the drugs.” Her voice was low but steady. “He knew the dealer. Had an issue himself.”
His insides felt as though they were on fire. “Who told Bart about this?”
The color drained from her face. “I didn’t mean to, Alex. I gave him some notes and—”
“I don’t care how,” he roared. “Did you or did you not give Bart Forsyth the information about the illegal painkillers?”
“Yes,” she choked out. “But I didn’t mean to. I—”
“Stop,” he thundered. “Stop.”
He stood there, legs spread apart, her answer tearing him to pieces. He’d been dying, begging for her to say no, she hadn’t done it. But she had.
“That’s all I need to know.” His voice was so low, hollow-sounding, he didn’t even recognize it as his own. “Get out.”
“Alex, please, you have to listen to me.”
He shook his head. “That’s been my stupidity all along, Iz. I did listen to you. I believed in you. And you were just playing me for a fool.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “What do they say, ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’”
“Alex, no. I—”
He threw up a hand and stalked to the door, twisted the handle, and threw it open before he said or did something unforgivable. “Get out of my life, Izzie.”
She didn’t move. Just stood there staring at him, her face paper-white. She was a really good actress, he decided. How had he not figured that out?
“I’m so sorry,” she said finally, as if she knew nothing she said could make it better. “I swear I never meant to hurt you.”
He hardened his heart against the tears shimmering in those beautiful eyes of hers. “The cameras aren’t running, Iz. You can turn off the waterworks.”
Grace gasped behind her. He waited until Izzie had walked out, then slammed the door. If he never saw Isabel Peters again, it would be too soon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IZZIE OPERATED LIKE a robot for days. She forced herself out of bed, into the shower, onto the subway and to work, but she was functioning at half capacity, if that. She ate when she remembered to, which wasn’t often, she slept through an entire weekend and didn’t bother to work out. Not even her girlfriends’ attempts to get her out for a drink were successful. She felt like wallowing in her misery, so that’s exactly what she did.
Her first day back to work after Alex’s story aired, James called her into his office. He had been acting as though he hadn’t known about the drugs, he’d said, so he and Bart could get the story to air without her tipping off Alex and his lawyers. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t furious. She’d never seen him so angry. He could hardly speak to her. So he banished her to her desk, told her to keep her head down, and he’d figure out her punishment. Which may or may not include firing her. The execs still hadn’t made up their minds about an anchor and he wasn’t sure he could support her even if they chose her.
She was happy to put her head down and focus on her job, because it allowed her not to think about the mess she’d made of her relationship with the man she loved and gave her a chance to think about the future. To think about what she really wanted. Because she’d spent too much time with her eye on a prize she wasn’t sure was even for her.
Her mother came over one night with two bottles of wine, and they drank one each. It was, it seemed, the only part of her life that was going in the right direction.
A couple of weeks into her exile, James called her into his office. It was the first time he’d spoken to her one-on-one since that conversation about her future. She walked in, palms sweaty, heart hammering in her chest. Please, God. Don’t fire me.
He looked up from his schedule and waved her into the chair opposite him. “You remember the story Bart did on the River City Collegiate Warriors—the high school football team that’d been pegged for the state finals this year until they lost their coach in the big accident on the turnpike?”
She nodded. It was a hard story to forget.
“They’ve been struggling, but they still have a chance at state. I want you to go out and do a follow-up story on them. Put together a nice rah-rah piece that makes everyone feel good.”
She sat up. “James—”
His mouth hardened. “I’m giving you a second chance, Iz. Get out of my office and prove to me you’re the professional I know you are.”
She got jerkily to her feet. He wasn’t going to fire her. She was going to keep her job. The fog that had enveloped her brain these past few weeks lifted as she made her way to her desk. She had a chance to turn this around. So football was Alex. So it might break her heart to do this. She needed to put her feelings aside and act like a professional. James was right. She might not know if she wanted that anchor job, but she did love her current one. And she was going to knock this story out of the park.
She went to the River City practice that afternoon. It was impossible not to watch the tough young quarterback trying to rally a team that had lost its heart and not think of Alex. Of how terrifying it must have been for him to walk out onto that field that night knowing his career was hanging in the balance. How she, who’d wanted to be the one to prove to him he could trust again, had been the one to destroy him.
The ball of hurt that had permanently lodged itself in her chest expanded, making it hard to breathe. If she learned nothing else from this heartbreak, she needed to learn she was enough. Because that was all she had.
She pulled in a deep breath, waiting for the oxygen to remind her a broken heart couldn’t actually physically hurt her. That someday she would get over Alex and move on. Because it was over. She hadn’t heard from him since that awful scene in his office when he’d looked at her as if he hated her. She was pretty sure he did.
Her eyes blurred as she watched the quarterback throw a bullet down the field for a touchdown. His teammates swarmed around him, slapping him on the back. They were regrouping. It was time she did too.
Jim Carter, the River City assistant coach in charge of the team until they found a head coach replacement, waved at her to join them on the field. She plastered a smile on her face and went down. Carter, a harassed-looking guy in his early forties, flashed her a distracted smile. “Sorry ’bout that. We’re still a little all over the place without a head coach.”
Izzie frowned. “I heard there were lots of candidates.”
“Haven’t found the right fit. We’re lookin’ for someone with Division One experience, and that ain’t easy to find.”
Alex had Division One experience. She bit her lip. “Would you take someone part-time? Someone with a great deal of experience to help out?”
