“Yeah. Apparently this had been going on for some time. I can’t even tell you how sick I felt. They didn’t see me, and I ran upstairs and hid in my bedroom. I never wanted to come out. I couldn’t believe my dad was doing that…and my poor mom. I don’t know if she knew or suspected.”
Amber didn’t tell him everything about how she’d felt. It had been sickening and horrifying, but she’d also felt so incredibly betrayed. The man she’d grown up idolizing was a cheater. She’d been traumatized by that, for months unable to concentrate, going into a shell. She’d tried to act normal around her parents with that disgusting secret eating away at her, looking at her father differently, avoiding him whenever she could.
“But when our housekeeper sued Dad for sexual harassment a year or so later, she knew and so did the whole world.”
“Christ.”
“Mom filed for divorce and we left him. He declared bankruptcy. Mom kind of had a meltdown. Neither of them had any money. So things were…tough. Not to mention humiliating. It was all very public.”
“No shit. I do remember hearing about that. I was only a kid myself when he played, but it was big news in the sports world. I just hadn’t thought about it in a while and would never have connected the two of you.”
“It was big news everywhere. Reporters were stalking us for weeks.” She rubbed a shaky hand over his shoulder. “I don’t tell anyone who my dad is. Luckily ‘Johnson’ is a common enough name that people don’t realize. I got out of L.A. as soon as I could, but for a few years I had to look after my mom. She basically fell apart when that all went down.”
“Fuck, Amber.”
“Don’t. Just listen. I’m telling you why I am the way I am, not asking for sympathy or…anything. Okay?”
“Okay.” His voice was gruff.
“So, you know all the embarrassing stuff he did after that. Charged with bankruptcy fraud because he tried to hide assets. Namely, his Super Bowl rings. He…God, some of this is embarrassing…he hired, er, escorts, and tried to pay them with bad checks. Then he was charged with…Crap, I don’t know how many things—grand theft auto, filing false financial statements, possession of ecstasy, cocaine, human growth hormone.”
Duncan growled.
“He pled guilty to some of the charges so the drug possession ones would be dropped, and he ended up in jail for three years.” She hitched a shoulder. “So that’s my story.” She lifted her head. “Please don’t tell anyone who my dad is.”
“I won’t say a word,” he promised. “But even if people know…it was him who fucked up, Amber. Not you.”
“I know. But it’s still humiliating. That he did those awful things…”
Duncan was silent for a few long moments, no doubt thinking about what she’d just told him. Did he think less of her, knowing her ugly past? Was he having second thoughts about being involved with her, now that he knew about her father? She started to tense up. “Duncan…”
“Shush.” He molded his hand to the small of her back and pulled her tighter against him. “It’s okay. It’s just…some things make sense now. A lot of things.” They both went silent.
She absorbed his warmth and compassion and let the tension inside her release.
“Is that why you didn’t want a modeling career?” he asked a while later.
“Yeah, partly. Although I really didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life, anyway. I kept doing it because it made Mom and me enough money to live off, but I hated the attention. People in the business in L.A. knew who I was.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Again he fell silent. Then he said, “I was pissed at Hallsy.”
Where did that come from? Her fingers went still on his shoulder, then curved into him and squeezed as she made the connection between him judging both her and Max without knowing what was really going on with them. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I was pissed because he wasn’t playing great. He was distracted and his head wasn’t in the game and…fuck.”
She got it. She got the guilt that was now eating at him because he hadn’t known the magnitude of the problems Max and Ariana had been facing. “You didn’t know.” She kissed his chest. “Nobody knew.”
“We should have known.”
“Maybe. People keep things private, though. Now he’s done what he had to do, he’s where he has to be. With his wife.” He nodded and she hoped she’d made him feel a little better. “I have to go to work soon.”
Duncan sighed. “Yeah. Come on. I’ll drive you there and pick you up after.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
In a heartbeat she was flat on her back in the bed with over two hundred pounds of pissed-off male holding her down. She stared up into his face.
“I know I don’t have to,” he growled. “I offered because I want to. I’ll probably be at the Sin Bin later, anyway. I want to take you home with me tonight. I want you in my bed, in my arms, all night. I want to wake up with you in the morning. And I want to fuck you and make you feel good and make you accept that I like doing things for you.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “Okay, then.”
In a flash his anger was gone and he was grinning. “Good. Let’s get going.”