Anna was suddenly hard-pressed to keep smiling. Okay, so she was getting slightly more comfortable with the fact that she’d fallen head over heels for a man she hadn’t known last Thursday. But everything that came with him...frankly, she wasn’t sure when she’d get used to it.
Some people were made for fame. Some definitely weren’t.
It was pretty darn clear which check box her mark belonged in.
Knowing it was perfectly natural for her students to be excited about the news of her marriage, she carefully answered each and every one of their questions. Somehow it got to be recess. After she let her kids out to play for fifteen minutes, in lieu of her usual cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge, she was about to close the classroom door when a well-manicured hand pulled it open.
“Anna. Congratulations.”
Biting back a sigh that she wasn’t going to get the tiny bit of quiet time she desperately needed to get her head on straight, Anna accepted her principal’s congratulations.
“I’ve been thinking,” Celeste Manning began, and Anna forced herself to keep smiling, even as her gut told her to be wary. “As you know, we’ve really had some trouble getting the community to contribute to our fundraiser this year, what with the current economic climate. But, that was before I found out we have a celebrity in the Cougar school family.”
Anna couldn’t imagine Cole at one of their little school fundraisers.
“I’m sure my husband would really love to help the school out, but—”
Celeste’s clapping hands cut Anna off mid-sentence. “Wonderful. I have to hurry back to my desk to let not only our parents, but also everyone in the city know that we will be auctioning off a special dinner with Cole Taylor.”
Anna gripped her boss’s wrist before she got away. “Celeste, you don’t understand. He’s very busy.”
“He couldn’t possibly be too busy for his wife. Besides, our phone lines have been clogged all day with calls from the press. At least now I’ll have something to say to them that will benefit our school.” Celeste glanced down at her wrist and Anna released her. “Although I do have to say, we all feel rather taken by surprise. You should have let us know you were engaged. We would have thrown you a party with cake.”
Cake.
They would have fed her cake.
Anna could barely hold in her laughter until she got the door closed. And if it was slightly tinged with hysteria, well then, at least she had the rest of recess to get ahold of herself.
* * *
Before he went to the tape room, Cole stepped into Julie’s on-site PR office, knowing she often started her day at the stadium before moving to her office across from the Bay Bridge.
“We have a problem.”
Julie frowned as he told her about the paps waiting outside Anna’s school. “Fortunately, Cole, they aren’t legally allowed on a school campus.”
“She feels trapped.” And he hated seeing that fear come back into Anna’s pretty eyes.
“Of course she does. Marrying an Outlaw is definitely not for the fainthearted.” Julie pinned him with one of her trademark no-bullshit gazes, always a little strange on such a classically attractive face. “Look, Cole, I know you wanted to keep your relationship private, but the fact is, if you want them off your back, you’re going to have to give them something.”
The thought of exposing Anna, his sweet, innocent Anna, to the craziness of fame made his gut churn. “No.”
“I’m not talking about a press conference. One interview.” She held up her hand to stop him from telling her where to shove her suggestion. “I’ll handpick the journalist. Trust me, she’ll be thrilled to get the scoop on the surprise marriage of the season.”
“Anna never asked for this.”
“Speaking from personal experience, loving an Outlaw has always been worth the price that sometimes needs to be paid.”
Cole knew he hadn’t done a damn thing in his life to deserve a good, sweet woman like Anna—especially with the bonus that she’d turned out to be a wildcat in bed. But despite the way he couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop touching her—despite how good just being with her made him feel—he had to keep reminding himself that there was no way she was going to fall in love with him.
Unlike Julie, who was willing to make sacrifices in the name of love for her husband, Anna wasn’t in love with the man who’d tricked her into marrying him. She didn’t know about his past, about the fact that while he might be acting sweet around her now, he’d been anything but sweet before.
Anna didn’t deserve to pay any price at all.
Unfortunately, none of that made a damn lick of difference to their current situation. A situation that was entirely his fault.
“Should I make the call?” Julie held up her phone, her eyebrows raised.
“Make the damn call.”
He’d hit the tape room later. First, he needed to beat the crap out of some tackling dummies.
* * *
Anna couldn’t believe the way her day had gone. If she’d been smart, she would have gone with Cole’s suggestion to have the school get a substitute—and stayed in his bed all day.
Instead, she’d naively walked into a situation so far beyond her control, she didn’t have the first clue about how to get it back in line. She’d never seen so many parents come to pick their kids up, especially the fathers of girls and boys who usually took the bus. By the time the last of them cleared out, it felt like she’d been smiling that pasted-on smile for hours.
After hiding out in her classroom at lunch, her colleagues weren’t any better when she got to her weekly planning session. Between the squeals over the size of her ring to the not-so-veiled questions about what it was like to be married to a big, strapping Outlaw—they didn’t care about the married part, just the marital relations part—Anna’s budding headache turned into a biting migraine.
Only her friend Virginia acted like a normal human being. Feeling much as she had with her mother, as soon as they were in the car, Anna said, “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about Cole.”
“You don’t need to apologize for anything, Anna. I can see exactly why you felt you had to keep your relationship private.” Virginia snorted. “I’ve never seen people act so crazy.” Then she smiled. “You look different today.”
Anna had to laugh at an assessment that was all too accurate. “You mean because my hair is standing up on end and my eyes are bloodshot?”
“No. You look happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen you.” Anna shot her a surprised look as Virginia added, “Almost like you’re glowing.”
Glowing? She could actually glow after the day she’d had?
The thing was, despite her exhaustion, just thinking about Cole had a smile moving to her face—and heat coursing through her veins.
He’s worth all of this.
“Anna, can I ask you something?”
Virginia’s hesitant words had caution riding her again. “Sure.” She forced herself to add,
“Anything.”
“I remember seeing a picture of Cole in a magazine a couple of weeks ago and—” Her friend grimaced, shook her head. “Never mind.”
But Anna wasn’t stupid. She knew without being told that her new husband was a lady-killer of serious proportions.
“He was with another woman, wasn’t he?”
For a moment she thought Virginia was going to cry. “You’re married now. You’re happy.
I shouldn’t have said anything, but you’re one of my closest friends. And I can’t stand it if he hasn’t been honest with you.”
Hating herself for being the dishonest one, Anna said, “Thank you for being my friend.”
She wanted so desperately to come clean to someone. And she hated lying to such a close friend, one who cared enough about her to risk their friendship by warning her about possible trouble with her husband.