First and Ten: A Contemporary Reverse Harem (A Team of Her Own Book 1)
Page 16
But no, he wasn’t going to think about Madison. Not when he had a new girlfriend. Not when he was the one who ended up with the company they started.
He should be happy. Ecstatic, even. The world was his oyster.
Except, he just felt numb.
“Are you okay, babe?”
He looked up from the glass and gave a grim smile to his girlfriend and former assistant Leah as she stepped into the living room of their shared apartment. She was wearing a set of sexy lingerie, expensive, scintillating. Her rocking body and tanned skin looked glorious in that black lace. She was so much better-looking than Madison could ever hope to be.
If it were yesterday, Jacob would have gone over to Leah and ravished her on every surface of the apartment, claiming her as his own. Making sure that she still called him boss.
Today, his thoughts were elsewhere.
“Yeah,” he said as he plucked the olive out of the martini and put it into his mouth. He bit down, and the flesh of the olive popped. He closed his eyes and chewed thoughtfully. “Just a long day,” he said, finally.
“Is this about what happened at the office today?” Leah leaned against the arm of the chair, and he could feel the heat from her bare body on his skin.
He loved her, but damn, she could be vapid sometimes.
“Yeah,” Jacob muttered.
“You want to talk about it?” She rubbed his shoulder, and Jacob couldn’t remember the last time he felt his libido hit ground zero.
“No.”
Desperate to do something with his hands—and to keep her questions at bay, he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. As a supposed tech guru, he should have cut the cord a long time ago, but for some reason, he hadn’t canceled his cable subscription yet. Maybe it was because he could just turn on his TV without too many steps.
As it was, the channel was on some sort of football game in Seattle. As a kid, Jacob had played football, but as soon as he found video games and computers, he left that world to focus on something he had a gift for. Sure, he kept his body in shape—he wasn’t an idiot—but he could care less about some guys running a football down a field once a week. He only had a passing curiosity and knew enough about football in case the guys brought it up at work.
Definitely not for him.
In fact, he was so disinterested in the game, he picked the remote to switch the channel.
“Is that...Madison?”
Leah’s question gave him pause, because the question was so damn ridiculous. If Jacob didn’t want anything to do with football, Madison was even further from the concept of the game. He doubted she ever held a football in her life. Hell, he doubted that she knew San Francisco had their own team.
But he stopped at Leah’s question long enough to pay attention, to really look at the brunette on screen with the whole football team.
“Holy shit,” Jacob muttered, sitting forward so forcefully, Leah almost fell off the chair. He even sloshed a little bit of the martini on the marble floor, but he didn’t notice.
Because that was Madison Harte on the TV. His Madison. With the…
“With the Yellowhammers?” He had barely heard of them, except that they sucked, and there were bets that the team would be sold off or dismantled by the end of the season. Weren’t they in some random place?
Like in... Louisiana, maybe? No, wait. Alabama.
What the hell was Madison doing in Seattle with a football team from Alabama?
He turned up the volume on the TV to go over the roaring in his mind.
“...brand new owner Madison Harte has brought the Hammers to their second win in the preseason,” the reporter was saying, around the cheers of the stadium. “And she says it’s not their last.”
“How weird,” Leah said with a lilting laugh. “I never thought...I’d…”
“Hush,” Jacob muttered, waving her away. But Leah wasn’t done, because the footage cut to a wide shot, where Madison was standing with the team, too close to three of the players. And as if that weren’t enough, one of them put his arms around her shoulders. She looked happy. Almost...flirting with the men around her.
“They’re hot,” Leah said automatically, like she was entranced by the players.
The jealous alpha male in Jacob woke up at the visual and nearly snarled in response. Because that was his Madison. And why should he be miserable when she looked…
“She looks happy,” Leah said with a sigh. “Good for her.”
Yes, good for her. Somehow...in the aftermath of their breakup, Madison became the owner of a professional football team. It was ridiculous. Insane, even. And didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Jacob.
But the proof was right there in front of him.
Maybe with her new money, she’d be interested in investing in the company. Or, maybe...at least Jacob could figure out how the impossible happened.
A trip to Alabama was in his future.
His lips parted, and he snickered softly. “Madison Harte, the owner of a football team?” he murmured. “This has got to be an interesting story.”
And maybe, just maybe, she could consider taking him back.
To be continued in Second and Five
About the Authors
About Erin Hayes
Sci-fi junkie, video game nerd, and wannabe manga artist Erin Hayes writes a lot of things. Sometimes she writes books.
She works as an advertising copywriter by day, and she's an award-winning New York Times Bestselling Author by night. She has lived in New Zealand, Hawaii, Texas, Alabama, and now San Francisco with her husband, cat, and a growing collection of geek paraphernalia.
You can reach her at erinhayesbooks@gmail.com and she’ll be happy to chat. Especially if you want to debate Star Wars.
Read More from Erin
www.erinhayesbooks.com
About Margo Bond Collins
USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung," turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.)
Read More from Margo
www.MargoBondCollins.net