14. Chase

FOURTEEN

chase

Eden's eyes widen at my statement.

She and I don't owe each other anything, but I care for Eden—far more than I should—and she deserves to know why I can't help her with such a big favor.

My hands clench into fists. "Remember when I told you things between Heather and me weren't good?"

"Yeah, you just never went into it."

I meet her eyes. "Yeah, we didn't talk too much after that."

Our gaze holds for a moment before I look away. "Anyway, at the time I wasn't ready to talk about it. Especially with all bullshit the PR for the team was spewing. It was for the great All-American image the clubhouse wanted me to portray. I mean, I played America's game. My wife was a former beauty queen."

Pausing, I raise my gaze to Eden, who's staring down at her bottle. "Anyway, we weren't happy. Heather was…"

How does one speak ill of the dead? Even if it's the truth? I'm going straight to hell for what I'm about to say, but I'm being honest. "Heather was a demanding, spiteful bitch. "

Eden's jaw drops. "Wow. That isn't at all how any of that came across."

I nod my head once. "Yeah, the PR department for the clubhouse certainly earns their salary."

"I guess so."

"Anyway, things weren't great. I wanted a divorce, but stupidly I didn't have a prenup?—"

"Wha—"

"Don't ask. Anyway, I knew she'd try to take me to the cleaners. So I had to play my cards carefully."

I look down at my hands, slowly uncurling them.

Once upon a time, my right hand held a baseball like it was an extension of my arm. But it would never hold a ball in quite the same way again.

Sighing, I continue. "Then she told me she was pregnant. I was happy and yet I also felt…trapped. And I can remember thinking to myself that it seemed odd since by this point, we hadn't been sleeping together much anymore. But there had been one random night…"

Eden clears her throat and shifts in her seat. I glance up and grimace.

Her lips are pursed together as though she's tasted something sour. I can't say I blame her.

If she started talking about any of the guys she'd been with since me, I'd lose my shit, no doubt about it.

Hypocrite much, Hanover?

"The point is, I knew I couldn't divorce her yet. I mean, she was about to have my child. She said she was about two months along. I went with her to the doctor's appointment, heard the heartbeat, and…"

I clear the emotion from my throat. "I knew without a doubt I had to try and make it work for the sake of the tiny peanut on the screen whose heartbeat raced in my ears. "

The ultrasound is something I'd filed away deep in the recesses of my brain. After everything that happened, it was just too much to think about. "I need more beer. Want one?"

She nods and stands as well, picking up our plates. "How about we get this cleaned up before you continue?"

It's as though she senses that what comes next will be hard.

She doesn't know the half of it.

I'd never told a soul what I'm about to tell her.

The strange thing is, I trust Eden implicitly, despite our rocky past.

We clean up the dishes and kitchen in silence. But I need to hurry up and get this off my chest before I slide all the way back to that dark place I'd been in right after the accident.

I grab the last two bottles of beer, and in silent accord, we head into the living room.

In spite of one wall of the room overlooking the yard and the ocean beyond it, the large, open room is dim as the storm rages outside.

To save energy, we light a few candles instead of turning on the lights. They cast a warm glow in the room, throwing shadows of the flames on the walls around us.

Eden sits on one end of the sofa, tucking those long legs up underneath her. I set the bottles on the coffee table and sit at the opposite end from her.

"So, you heard your baby's heartbeat," she says.

I nod, my elbows on my knees, both hands tucked under my chin. "About two weeks later, we went to dinner. I'd been on a long road trip, one of the longest stretches since we got married, and we hadn't talked much either. Kept missing each other on the phone. She said she had something she wanted to talk about."

Rubbing my damp palms up and down my thighs, I do my best to keep the combination of residual guilt and anger at bay .

"Heather was out at the Hamptons house. I had the car service take me out to the house from LaGuardia, since I didn't keep my car in the city. We went into the village, had a nice dinner, at least for a little while. Then she started in on me about being gone so much, but what the hell was I supposed to do?"

Try as I might, I can't seem to stop the tangents of frustration that come out.

"It's my job, for Christ's sake. And God knows she loved the lifestyle my job brought her."

Bitterness tastes like metal on my tongue, and I hate that it's still there.

I glance over at Eden to find her watching me quietly but with no judgment in her eyes.

She lowers her chin as though to say "go on" but never verbally pushes.

"Anyway, I ended up drinking too much, and she'd still never gotten to her point. I decided it was better for her to drive us home. She threw a fit because she hated driving, but there was no way I was leaving my Ferrari there in town."

I shake my head, a humorless smile on my lips. How different life would have turned out if I'd just left the car there.

"It was the worst decision I could've made. Heather ended up driving us home, and we argued. She was so angry with me for a number of things. Drinking too much that night, being gone…you name it, she was pissed about it. And that's when she told me."

I blow out a breath, willing my dinner to stay down and my stomach to stop tumbling.

"Turns out, she never loved me and wanted a divorce. She'd starting seeing someone else two months after we got married and continued to see him for the entire two years of our marriage. "

Realization dawns in Eden's eyes and she gasps softly. "Oh no. Chase, don't tell me…"

"The kid wasn't mine. It was the guy she'd been fucking around with behind my back."

She closes her eyes but doesn't say anything, thankfully. I can't tolerate pity. I'd seen enough of it after Heather died.

"Long story short, we started yelling at each other. And I asked her…" I swallow against the lump in my throat. "I asked her who the poor fucker was that she'd suckered into her web of lies. She looked over at me, took her eyes off the road, and told me who it was just as a flash of something caught my eye in front of the car. All I remember is yelling at her to watch out and then we were spinning. After that, I woke up in a tangle of metal."

My vision goes hazy and I'm back on that dark road, the smell of earth mixed with gasoline, smoke, and blood all around me.

"I looked over at Heather and saw that she was…dead. Her side of the car had taken the brunt of force when we hit the tree. I kept passing out and waking up. My arm was bleeding. I felt it, but I couldn't move to see how bad it was. The last time I passed out and woke up, I was being lifted into an ambulance."

I rub my bicep over my T-shirt, brushing over the scars. "I had surgery on my shoulder, and they put some pins in it. The next day I woke up, and the police came in to get the story of what happened, what I could remember. I never told them about our argument. I just told them that Heather swerved to miss a deer and we hit a tree. And they confirmed she and the baby died at the scene."

I fist my hand again, regret coursing through me, but when I hear a sniffle, I turn my head.

My heart hurts to see tears coursing down Eden's face.

When our eyes meet, she wipes them away. "Chase, I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

"Thanks. But it was my fault. The accident."

Her eyes widen. "How can you say that?" Her voice pitches higher with every word she says.

"Because it's the truth, Eden. My wife and a child who never had a chance at life are dead because of me."

Her lips turn down into a frown. "Chase, that's ridiculous. You weren't even driving."

My skin crawls, and I shoot up off the couch, crossing the room to the windows.

The storm outside matches the chaos in my head.

I turn back to her, hands on my hips. Anger runs hot in my veins, and the only place I have to channel it is to the woman sitting across the room from me.

The woman who, no matter how hard I try, never seems to leave my thoughts for very long. Even when I was married to another woman.

"I made a selfish decision. I chose a car over my wife. I might not have loved her the way a wife deserves to be loved, but she was still my wife. And the last words I said to her were full of hate."

Eden rises and crosses the room to stand in front of me. "Chase, it's normal to feel guilty in cases like this."

"Yeah, I know. Survivor guilt and all that shit." My voice was full of disdain. "Spare me the psychobabble, Eden. Been there, done that. During the year I recovered from the injury, the team made me go see a therapist. I had to be cleared to play again."

She looks away for a moment before bringing her gaze back to mine. "You can't keep blaming yourself for it, Chase. You didn't kill Heather and you didn't kill her baby."

"Well, how about this to add to my guilt? If I hadn't been such a selfish prick, my baseball career wouldn't be over. How's that for mourning your wife? That I mourned my career more than I did her?"

By the time I say the last word, I'm shouting.

"How long were you and Heather together?"

I blink. "In total, three years."

"And how long have you been playing baseball?"

"Nearly my whole life. I started in T-Ball. You know that."

"Exactly. Baseball has been your whole life. It's understandable that you mourn it. You lost a vital piece of your life, Chase. And anyone who says different is a liar."

Losing baseball had been like losing a limb, not just injuring it. Baseball was a part of me I was so comfortable with, I knew every move.

Until I didn't.

My chest heaves with the pain of losing my livelihood—still there even four years later.

But Eden's logic loosens the giant chronic knot in my stomach just a little bit.

I hadn't loved Heather, and she'd fucked me over, but her parents and family had loved her. She'd been someone's daughter and sister.

I'd wanted out of my marriage, but that hadn't been the way I wanted it.

But I hadn't been driving the car either, had I?

Why does it sound so different coming from Eden than it had from all the shrinks I'd seen after the accident?

I've never told anyone how I felt, not even the shrinks, but they knew. They're paid to know these things. Still, it didn't quite sink in like it did coming from Eden.

I swallow hard and turn back to the storm. There's something comforting in watching it rage.

To hear Eden say it wasn't my fault is like she'd found and rescued me after being lost, tumbling around in the dark .

There's more to tell and I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But at this point, I feel the need to tell her all of it.

I sigh and rub the back of my neck, facing her again. "There's more."

Eden's stare is steady on me. "Does this have anything to do with you fighting with Ty Richardson?"

Fuck, this woman is smart.

I frown. "You saw that, huh?"

Her lips curve in a half smile. "Hard not to when it's splashed all over the Internet and TV."

I lift a brow. "I thought you didn't watch entertainment news."

"You made the nightly news, Chase."

I wince and my frown deepens.

"Heather had been seeing Ty Richardson behind my back the whole time. And it was his baby."

Her eyes widen. "That's who she was cheating with?"

"Yep."

"Why would he do that?"

"The guy has had it out for me ever since I set foot in the clubhouse. He thought I had taken his spot on the roster, and he was on his way out."

"Yeah, well, he was. He'd lost his mojo. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I never could figure out why they kept him."

"He was a decent backup. But he didn't want to be backup. It was a cut in pay and a blow to his ego." I shrug. "I guess he figured since he couldn't one-up me on the field, he'd do it off the field."

"That's why you guys were fighting on TV."

"He'd run his mouth to me and about me one too many times, and I lost my shit. It was the last straw. I was still a starter, but my pitching was for shit and we all knew it. That only served to piss him off, and he needled me about the fact that I couldn't throw a strike anymore."

I breathe deep, trying to relieve some of the pressure in my chest. "In the end, he got what he wanted. I threw the first punch and with the way it was filmed, it looks like I hit him unprovoked. I ended up reinjuring my arm, and I was deemed nothing more than a liability to the team. Both physically and for team morale. I was benched for my next game, and a week later, I went in and asked to be let out of my contract."

She shakes her head, her forehead crinkled in confusion. "Why would you do that? Baseball was your life. Didn't you only have another half season or so left on your contract?"

"For someone who wouldn't return my calls, you sure know a lot about me."

A pink blush stains her cheeks, and she rolls her lips inward. "I watch the news."

"Right," I say with a smirk. "You watch sports?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Bullshit, Mitchell."

"Okay, fine. I don't watch sports, but I did watch sports news when you were involved, okay? Happy now?" She huffs, the motion lifting and lowering her chest in such a way I'm momentarily distracted.

I don't known a damn thing about her in the years we've been apart, but she knows all about my demise. And now she has the real sordid details.

"To answer your question though—yes, I only had six months. Which made it easier to get out of my contract. It was a mutual decision. I couldn't win a game if my life depended on it. The media spun the video and the story so that I ended up looking like the bad guy. Even if I'd wanted to play for another team, no one would touch me. My reputation as the Hollywood Golden Boy was shot to hell. "

I turn my head toward the window. "I shouldn't have gone back after the accident. I had all sorts of setbacks with the rehab and then with all the shit that went down with Ty…I was fucked in the brain and that was a bigger problem than the team doctor could crack. After everything that happened, it was easier for me just to get out and move on. Get out from under all the media scrutiny and the lies and just be able to breathe."

"These last few years have been shitty for you. I'm so sorry, Chase."

"For which part of it?"

"All of it. For losing your wife, for being betrayed by not only the woman who was supposed to love you but also by your teammate. For losing the one thing in this world that meant the most to you."

There's a pang in my chest as I look down into her eyes, eyes that hold unshed tears, making them gleam like turquoise gems in the dimly lit room.

Shifting closer to her, our bodies brush together. "You're right. I did lose the most important thing in the world to me. But I didn't lose it on that night."

Her eyes meet mine and there's a swirl of emotions in them.

Hope, fear, desire, hurt, surprise.

"What do you mean?"

I cup her face in my hands. My thumbs stroke the soft skin of her cheekbones, her eyes sliding closed for a brief moment before opening again.

God, she's beautiful. Stunning.

And it's more than just her physical looks. She stuns me with her understanding and lack of judgment when that's all I ever saw in the months after the accident.

Why did I ever let her go?

"I mean you, Eden."