“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?”
Carter hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “Who were you thinking of?”
She pursed her lips. A team that needed a hero. A man who needed to be a hero again... During their time together, she’d seen how much it had hurt Alex to exile himself from football. Had seen the hollow look in his eyes every time she accidentally flicked on a game on the television. She twisted her ponytail, thinking hard. Would Alex even consider it? His schedule was nuts, yes, but word had it the Messer case was being settled out of court.
She gave Carter an even look. “Give Alex Constantinou a call.”
His brow furrowed. “The way I heard it, the guy wants nothin’ to do with football.”
“Call him,” she said firmly. “I think he might feel differently if he meets the team.”
“And you know this how?”
A sharp pang sliced through her. “I know Alex,” she said quietly. “Give it a shot.”
When Jim Carter called her two days later to say Alex had agreed to stop by a practice, it was a bittersweet moment. Maybe something, something good would come out of all of this.
“Jim, don’t tell him I had anything to do with this, okay?”
He sounded curious, but agreed. She hung up. Walked into James’s office and took herself out of the running for the anchor job. And felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders.
* * *
The smell of fresh-cut grass hit Alex first. The earthy, pungent fragrance of the dirt underneath, turned up by the players’ cleats, came next. They were smells he could have conjured just by closing his eyes. Recalling the hundreds of times he’d walked out onto a field just like this. But today as he did it for the first time in eight years, he knew why he’d never come back.
It felt as though someone was tearing his heart out.