“No.” He shook his head with a scowl. “I don’t. But I’ve lost you to him before. And I can’t—”

“I understand.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve been alone for four years, haven’t touched another woman, and you’ve been with him every … fucking … night.” He gritted out the words and I searched his face, trying to understand the frustration I saw in it.

“You haven’t—why not?” I’d seen hundreds of games, thousands of fans. I knew the type of girls, what they wore and how they pounced, especially on the single players, especially on the ones that looked like this man. There had been so many nights where I’d pictured Chase, where I’d cried over what he might be doing and who he might be doing it to. To think that he had been celibate this whole time … it twisted a place deep in my gut. “I didn’t ask you to stay faithful,” I said helplessly, while inside, a part of me sang.

“You never asked me anything, that was the whole problem, a lack of communication.”

It was the merry-go-round of blame that wouldn’t stop, each turn more exhausting, both of us equally to blame. I looked away and he let out a loud breath of frustration. “I tried to be with other women, Ty. I just couldn’t. Every woman that I touched—it just felt like I was cheating on you. Each time, I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

It was what he didn’t say that I heard the loudest. The fact that I hadn’t struggled with the same guilt, the same feelings. For him to not be able to touch another woman—and for me to share Tobey’s bed—my feelings must not have been as strong, my morals not as intact, my love incomplete in some way. I didn’t have an answer for that, no excuse good enough, my cheeks heating with the shame of it all.

“Do you love him?” There wasn’t judgment in his voice, only dread.

“I’m married to him,” I said helplessly. “We’ve been … it’s been four years. We created and lost a child together. It’s not as simple as…”

“So you love him,” he said flatly. “Still.”

“I can’t just delete feelings because of a trade.” Because of a kiss. Because of a fuck. I swallowed. “But I can tell you that my love for him…” I stepped closer to him, placing a hand on his chest. “It doesn’t touch this. It doesn’t even come close. And it never has.”

He covered my hand with his, his touch gentle as it pried my palm away, turning it over, his head dipping to kiss the soft skin of my inner wrist. “I know that, Ty. I believe it.” His eyes lifted to mine, and there was pure torture in their depths. “And if I didn’t love you so strongly, it’d be easier for me to watch you go back to him.” His hand tightened on mine. “Promise me you’ll leave him.”

“For what?” I said, feeling helpless, my world shaky in every piece of its foundation. “What do you want from me?”

His eyes softened, his mouth, when it pressed to me, gentle and soft, a plea of lips against a weak soul. “Everything. I want a life with you. I want to be the father of your children. I want every second we missed and a million more. And I’ll give away the world to get it.”

A sweet sentiment. But I couldn’t leave Tobey, and I couldn’t leave the Yankees. Not now. Not when somewhere in this city, a girl’s death sentence loomed.

85

I leaned back against his chest, on the balcony of the room, eight floors above the street, his arms around me, his mouth nuzzling at the curve of my neck.

“I have to go,” I said softly.

“Don’t.” His arms tightened for a fraction of a moment, the touch weakening my resolve.

I watched a taxi roll to a stop, a young girl stepping out. I thought of April McIntosh, in that dumpster, and wondered if she was taken there by car or carried. “What do you know about the curse?” I asked, my words so faint I almost repeated them. The curse. Such a stupid phrase, yet so fitting for the dark cloud it put over all of our lives.

He stiffened, his arms dropping and he turned me until we were face to face. “My publicist briefed me on them. When that girl was found in my jersey.”

“Julie Gavin.”

“Why do you ask?”

It was cold on the balcony, a stiff breeze hitting my bare arms, and I fought the urge to shiver. I leaned against his chest, my cheek on his shirt, and looked down the street, my eyes floating over dark buildings, past hundreds of sleeping bodies and empty offices, the hour too late for life. “I think of them all the time.” I said quietly.

“You should have brought me back sooner.” There was the hint of a smile in his voice and I frowned.

“We don’t exactly know the winning combination,” I said, pulling away from him. “We’re guessing at everything. What his motivations are, if it’s even a man, if he’s obsessed with you or the World Series…” Just another part of my life that I didn’t know, couldn’t control.

“The first girl died the year I left?”

“Yeah.” Rachel, in the alley.

“And there’s been one every year since? Always on the last day of the season? Or the playoffs?”

“Yeah.” April in the dumpster. Julie at the stadium. Tiffany at our home. RachelAprilJulieTiffany. I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold.

“Maybe it will stop this year. If we win.”

“And then what—it’ll start again if we lose next year?” I pushed away, out of his warmth, and rubbed at my forehead, the stress mounting. It was a possibility that Tobey and I had never discussed, neither wanting to imagine it. This hell might never end. There were just too many people in this city. Too many girls. Too many possible killers. They might never catch this guy. I knew that, in some hopeless part of my heart.

“It’s not your problem, Ty. It won’t be your problem. You’ll be with me.”

“Where?” I lifted my arms, gesturing to the city. “This is my home.” I turned right, pointing to the stadium in the distance. Yankee Stadium. “That is my home.”

“You chose that home before. Back then.” He fixed me with a hard look, his jaw flexing as he crossed his arms over that beautiful chest. “And it hasn’t made you happy.”

No, it hadn’t. Still, the thought of leaving it, them, him … it was terrifying. Would I be able to do it?