Hard & Deep: A Football Romance

Tracy pulled him up by his shirt, raising his back off of the bed. Anger made her strong.

"How did he contact you?" Her voice was cold as death.

"Look, I don’t want to…" he whimpered.

Without even thinking, Tracy slapped him. Her palm stung with the strength of it, surprising even herself. She wasn't typically prone to violence, but the thought of Tice knowing all her weaknesses because she had trusted this man made her blood boil.

Tracy leaned in close to his face, "We can do this all night, Mr. Baxter."

"555-8524." He turned away, obviously as disgusted with himself as she was.

She released his shirt and climbed down, straightening her clothes once she was off the bed. She grabbed a nearby pen and notepad and scribbled the number down, tossing the pen aside when she was finished.

Tracy started toward the exit.

"You’re just going to leave me here like this?! I told you that I had no choice. Who knows what those guys could have done to me? Please Tracy, you have to believe me." Gordon's voice held fear and a growing anger.

But it was nowhere near the rage she felt burning in her core. This man had lied to her. He had offered her friendship, then tried to convince her to cheat on her boyfriend, all while sending information along that could get her or Mr. Hayes killed.

She paused near the bedroom doorway and, without turning around, said calmly, "Mr. Baxter, you’re fired."

The long walk

out of the hotel was a bittersweet one for Tracy. Although she still didn’t know who the man from her dream was, she had some of the answers that she had been seeking. Some answers, but just as many questions. Who was the man from her dreams? And why would the Tice family care about her restaurant?

"The restaurant," she whispered, realizing what she had just done.

Everything, it seemed, had been ruined. She no longer had a head chef, not to mention the fact that he had betrayed her so deeply. There was no time to hire anyone else and, even if she did, how would she ever be able to trust them after everything that had happened?

She wanted to cry, but knew it wouldn't change anything. She leaned against the smooth marble of the elevator and let the tears come anyway.

Chapter 23

She hurried through the main lobby. There wasn’t another soul in sight, save for the two front desk clerks who waved her goodbye.

Outside, posted against one of the tall, Romanesque columns holding up the reception area, Mr. Hayes waited for her silently. When she finally saw him, after almost walking past without a second look, her heart sank. She didn’t want him to find out like this. There wasn’t even enough time for her to process what Gordon told her, let alone enough for her to find the right words to say to him.

She could only imagine what he thought, seeing his girlfriend come out of another man's hotel room late at night. There was really only one thing he could think and it broke her heart.

"What is going on, Tracy?" His voice was soft. There was a pain there that made her throat tighten.

She stopped a few feet away from him and lowered her head.

"We need to talk," she said. “There's some things you need to know.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, eyes dark and sad. The two walked to his car silently and got in. As soon as the door shut, he turned to her.

"Why are you here?" The calmness in his voice surprised her. If their situations were reversed, she would have been screaming by now.

"What do you know about John Tice?" she asked, unsure of where to begin.

“What does John Tice have to do with you being at Gordon's?” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair while his eyes closed. “Why would you do this me?”

"Gordon has been spying on us and giving the information to John Tice." She put her hand on his knee, hating the way he flinched at her touch. “I went to find out why. Nothing more. I wasn't with him.”

“You weren't?” Relief flooded his features, though it was quickly replaced by shock. “But, John Tice? What does Gordon have to do with him?”

“I don't know,” Tracy replied. “All I found out was that Tice hired him. That pretentious fuck has been watching our every move and relaying it back to Tice. There's something going on and I don't like it.”