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She didn’t know who’d done it, but her gut was telling her the answer was going to be the person she least wanted it to be. Kevin was an unlikely candidate, since he was still in the hospital, though he’d been around for Alex’s first appearance. But it would take a hell of a lot of effort for a guy in traction to call up a sports blog. No, it wasn’t him.
Liv, too, was unlikely. Her daughter, though chatty, wasn’t going to talk about Alice’s love life to strangers. Liv had gone nine years without spilling the beans about Matt in school, so her dropping the Alex bomb didn’t seem plausible.
As for Misty, while her mother might not approve of Alice dating another baseball player, she also still owned a VCR and had a hopelessly out of date cell phone. It would never occur to Misty to contact an online sports blog. She wouldn’t even know what a blog was.
Then there was Alex. She’d hoped so badly she could trust him—he’d insisted he could trust her, in fact. Could he have leaked the story? And if so why? Was it for publicity? To get his name back on everyone’s radar? He’d said and done all the right things to make her believe he was a good guy. Alice had thought he was the best guy, someone she could imagine building a future with.
Now she was flustered and confused. She didn’t want to believe he was capable of throwing her under the bus for the sake of his own fame. Everything she knew about Alex made it impossible for her to think he could do that to her. But things were going up in flames, and her relationship with him was the reason for it. Even if he wasn’t responsible for it directly, she was still experiencing the worst-case scenario she’d imagined at the start.
How could she have been so goddamn stupid?
How many times did someone have to get burned before they stopped playing with matches?
She’d known it was a bad idea to get involved with a player, yet she’d taken the risk anyway. And now she had to face the firing squad all on her own.
Donovan was sitting by himself in the umpire office, rocking slowly in his desk chair. When she walked into the room, he didn’t look up. Not a great way to start.
“Sit down.” He kicked out a wooden chair with his foot, not meeting her imploring gaze. If he wouldn’t glance at her, she was in serious trouble. Even an apologetic half-smile would have been a relief, but Donovan was more grim than she’d ever seen him.
Including the time she’d taken an elbow to the face earlier in the spring.
She plopped down in the chair, dropping the balled paper into the empty garbage can. She wasn’t exactly planning to keep it for her scrapbook.
The whole romance with Alex had been a mistake. She’d taken a risk, and now shit was hitting the fan in a serious way. She was angry, mostly at herself, but she was pissed at Alex by extension. He’d told her they could make things work, and like an idiot she’d believed him. She had thought she might be able to get everything she wanted, and now…? She sighed inwardly and set aside her anger for the time being.
“What’s up?” she asked, trying to sound innocent but knowing perfectly well there was no point.
“Don’t play dumb, kid. It’s not gonna fly today.”
“Okay.”
“Alice…” His voice was low and rough, like he was fighting against some unspoken emotion. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“You maybe think an apology is a good place?”
“Would it help?”
He huffed out a breath. “Goddamn you, girl. I wanted so badly for people to be wrong about you. Hire a girl and it’ll never work, she’ll just sleep with the players. That’s what they told me. But I thought to myself, no, Alice wi
ll be different. Alice takes this seriously. Alice is a fucking professional.”
“I am a professional,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Sleeping with a player? That’s your idea of professional?”
“This is ridiculous. It’s one blog.”
“No, this is serious. I’ve been fielding calls all morning. The league wants you out. They seem to think the best way to deal with this is to cut the infection out before it spreads.”
“So in this metaphor, I’m an infection?”
“Yeah, was I too subtle about that?”
Alice was quiet.
“You have to know this looks bad,” Donovan went on. “You’re not a stupid girl, so you have to know how it comes across.”
