Page 155 of Ruthless Rustanovs

Where the heck was she?

Scott shivered in the increasingly cool night. He’d been waiting on Sola’s porch since the sun was high in the sky. Now it had set, and she still wasn’t home.

Which had him worried. Had she gone to the police? Reported him? Jeez, that was the last thing he needed after what happened last fall. When the trashy girlfriend of a teammate hadn’t taken kindly to his suggestion that she take some pride in herself and dress a little classier.

He should have just walked away when she got in his face, yelling about how no man could tell her how to dress.

He should have, but he loathed mouthy women.

Always had. His dad had never tolerated any backtalk from his mother, and Scott found it grating, to say the least, that so many of his teammates seemed fine letting their wives and girlfriends speak to them in such a disrespectful manner.

So he decided to teach her a lesson. He’d hit that white trash skank—just like she deserved.

Just like she’d been asking for. And all heck had broken loose.

Luckily, they’d been alone in the nightclub’s unisex bathroom, so it was her word against his.

But the teammate she was dating complained to upper management.

And upper management got scared. It hadn’t been Scott’s best season, and the GM didn’t want to deal with any bad press, like the sort that would happen if someone leaked the incident about Scott and that girl to the media.

In the end, it hadn’t gotten out—probably because Scott was only a second-string running back.

He almost never got recognized as an L.A.

Sun most places he went, not unless he was with a few of the better known players.

No one but that stupid girl had been hurt in the end, but unfortunately, the whole incident cast a shadow over Scott’s formerly pristine reputation within the organization.

After that, Scott decided to keep his mind on the game.

Telling Sola not to come down to L.A. for a while, so he could concentrate on proving his worth to his team.

But then Scott missed a pass that could have sent a playoff game into overtime, and all his hard work went down the drain.

As it was, when it came time to renegotiate his contract, his agent had barely been able to convince the powers-that-be to trade him instead of cutting him from the team all together.

And now Sola was nowhere to be found. Scott’s heart pounded with fear. If she pressed charges, that other girl might come forward, too.

He’d seen this happen to one of his college teammates.

One girl pressed rape charges against him, then other skanks started to come out of the woodwork, claiming he’d raped them, too.

They were nothing but a bunch of bottom-feeders.

But they’d ruined the poor guy’s career.

No professional organization would touch him after that, all because he took what those slutty girls were putting on display.

If Scott’s football career had taught him anything, it was that the world outside Omaha was filled with big-mouthed women. Which was why getting drafted by the L.A. Suns had felt to him like being dropped into a cesspool of sin.

Finding his sweet Sola in a city full of mouthy harlots had felt like a miracle.

A nice Catholic girl, and pretty to boot.

She was a bit fleshier than he liked, and she insisted on living with those two faggots.

But he’d been willing to put up with a few extra pounds, and he’d overlooked her living situation, since it kept her out of an even worst den of sin—those art school dormitories.

He’d even forgiven her for cutting her hair, so that she looked like some kind of lesbo feminist—yet another type of degenerate found in California.

After all, she’d been growing it back out ever since, and though it wasn’t nearly as long as it had been when they’d first met, in a few years he’d probably forget she ever showed up at his door with that awful haircut in the first place.

He’d thought moving to Omaha—a good city with people who knew right from wrong—would be a fresh start for them.

And after the rough season he’d had, he wanted nothing more than to settle down into a nice, normal life with Sola.

He’d even booked a marching band as part of his proposal plan and then spent all week imagining her tears of joy when she said yes.

But she didn’t say yes. In fact, she tried to break up with him. And when he’d tried to reason with her, she turned into his worst nightmare.

He shouldn’t have hit her. He knew that.

She obviously hadn’t been thinking straight when she suggested they break up.

Neither had he. For a while, he’d actually thought of letting her go after she’d proven herself not to be as docile as he’d originally believed.

Also, she’d publicly embarrassed him when she turned down his proposal.

Real men didn’t allow women to embarrass them like that.

After he hit Sola for mouthing off to him, he’d nearly walked away from the relationship altogether.

But then he’d come to his senses the morning after their fight.

He’d spent over two years building a foundation for a good marriage with Sola.

He had a life plan for them. He wasn’t going to give up on their relationship or his plans just because she was being stubborn about his marriage proposal.

That wasn’t how winners operated. And no matter what the Suns told his agent, Scott knew he was a winner. He just needed to try harder with her.

He’d forgive her for what she’d said, and he’d apologize for hitting her, and they’d move on from the whole thing, just like they’d moved on from the hair episode. That’s what he’d decided the morning after their fight.

So he’d driven all the way up to Valencia again with a huge bouquet of lilies…

only to find it empty when he rang the doorbell.

At first he’d waited patiently on the concrete steps.

But then after about an hour, he decided to let himself in with the key he’d secretly copied one weekend when she’d been visiting him in Los Angeles.

Just to make sure she wasn’t inside and ignoring his knocks.

She definitely wasn’t there, but her closed laptop was parked right on top of her desk. Which meant she hadn’t gone to class.

Scott opened the laptop, and almost immediately, an IM rectangle from her best friend, Anitra, popped up on the screen. Oh, BTW, how did the break-up with the douchebag go? Did he cry?

Acidic hatred almost cancelled out every good, peaceful feeling Scott had managed to muster up since driving up here.

So that was why his sweet Sola had tried to break up with him!

Her witch of a best friend put her up to it!

He’d only met the girl once, when she’d come home to visit her family in California for the holidays, but Scott hadn’t taken to her at all.

During the dinner he’d magnanimously treated her and Sola to, Anitra had spent the majority of the meal taking everything Scott said the wrong way. She’d glared at him when he expressed concern over a girl her age going to school so far from her family.

“Women my age do just fine on our own, thank you,” she’d answered.

And she’d become downright hostile when he pointed out that it would be hard for her to find a good husband if she put in the same kind of hours as they did on those doctor shows.

She’d decided she couldn’t handle any of Scott’s well-meaning observations, and now that she-devil was doing everything in her power to tear Sola and him apart.

Well, she wouldn’t get away with it, he decided, standing up from the desk. As soon as Sola came back, he’d talk some sense into her about that best friend of hers.

He was even willing to lie if that was what it took.

Girls were always fighting over guys. He’d tell Sola that Anitra had tried to come on to him behind her back, and he’d turned her down.

That was why she didn’t like him—because she was so jealous of everything Sola had: her beauty, her agreeableness, her lack of boastfulness—for example, Sola never went around showing off to everyone about how smart she was.

Sola would believe him. She would have to. He carefully tidied everything, like he always did when he checked in on her like this without her knowledge. Then he went back to the porch and waited for her to return.

But she never did, and eight hours after his arrival, his sense of determination began to sour.

Where could she be? At the police station? With another guy?

Both thoughts sent a rush of outrage through his body.

She had better not have opened her mouth to anyone about their argument.

That was their business. She’d been out of it when he left her on the living room floor yesterday, but next time he’d warn her.

Just like his dad warned his mother. Opening your mouth when you weren’t supposed to always came with consequences.

Eventually his mom learned better than to go the authorities every time Dad got a little too rough with her. And Sola would learn, too.

These things happened. But there was no reason to bring the police into private matters.

However, as the night wore on, Scott began to relax a little. But not much. If she wasn’t here, and she wasn’t reporting him to the police, where was she?

The sound of wheels coming to a stop over concrete cut off his suspicious thoughts.

Sola! he thought, his heart soaring when he saw the Lexus she’d been driving the day before pull up into the driveway beside the main house.

But then the car’s real owner, not Sola, got out.

“Professor Krantz!” Scott called out, jogging over to him.

“Oh, Scott. Hello.” The professor said, his voice distracted as if he were in such a rush, he could barely spare three words.

“Have you seen Sola? I’m afraid we had a bit of a misunderstanding and I wanted to apologize.” Scott held up the flowers as evidence of his remorse.

Brian, however, just frowned at the flowers. “What kind of misunderstanding?” he demanded, his eyes going sharp with reproach. “I saw her face, young man, and she doesn’t need some barbaric football player—”

He suddenly cut himself off. “But oh dear me, why am I bothering with you? I have to go inside to Eddie and then figure out how to get us out of this mess.”

“What mess? Is it something I can help with?” In Scott’s experience, old people loved when you took an interest in their problems. And Sola considered this man to be like her second father, so if helping this gay guy was the way back into her affections…

But Brian only glared at him and said, “No, I highly doubt you could be of any help to anyone in this situation. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

Scott watched as the professor headed toward the main house’s back door, then disappeared through without so much as a backwards glance at Scott.

Which meant he completely missed the murderous look on Scott’s face.

Batty old faggot, Scott thought angrily.

He thought he could just dismiss him? Scott didn’t think so.

He’d come back here every day until Sola returned.

He’d get her back, and when he did, he’d make sure she never saw that hateful witch Anitra or that faggot professor ever again.

And Sola would come back to him. It was only a matter of time.