The Bombshell Effect

by Karla Sorensen

  “His daughter,” I repeated slowly, choosing to ignore his entirely accurate statement that I didn’t always react well in surprising situations at this level of importance. “His daughter is our new owner.”

  Coach scraped a hand over his haggard looking face. “Yeah. None of us have ever met her. I don’t think she was around much the past few years.”

  “She wasn’t around at all, Coach.”

  “You paying attention?” he asked grumpily.

  My mouth flattened before I could answer. “No, but he and I talked about her a grand total of one time in the past twelve years. He wanted to know what my plans were for our bye week, which happened to be over Thanksgiving that year. I told him, then asked him the same thing. And you know what he told me? He’d had Thanksgiving at his assistant’s house for the past decade because his daughter never came home.”

  Coach grimaced.

  The thought of Faith ever abandoning me like that felt like someone was choking the air out of my lungs with tight fists. Yeah, the man was rich as hell, but his daughter was the only family he had. Who does that?

  “She was living somewhere in Europe,” I said when Coach didn’t say anything. “Off playing dress up. Some business she’d tried to open failed horribly from what he told me. And now we’re giving her the reins of all of this?” I gestured down the hallways.

  Anger ripped through me, frustration like a hot wind coming right on its heels. Because whoever she was, she hadn’t done a damn thing to earn the right.

  Coach rubbed his forehead and sighed heavily.

  “Does she know anything about football?” I asked furiously.

  “I don’t know, Pierson, but you better not ask her that in this meeting.”

  I propped my hands on my hips and worked to breathe evenly. “I don’t like this. I really, really don’t like this.”

  “You don’t need to like it,” he reminded me with lifted eyebrows. “You need to play football and play it well. That is your job.”

  “Got it,” I said through tight lips. A burst of laughter came from the conference room, and I put on my game face, hypothetically speaking. Coach saw the transformation and nodded in satisfaction. “She in there?”

  “I don’t think so. Cameron wanted to explain it to the captains first before she came in for introductions.” He pointed at me again. “Now, no matter what you happen to think about this situation, remember that she lost her dad last week, and this situation can’t be any easier for her than it is for us.”

  I barely held back my snort of disbelief. Yes, it must be terribly trying for the only child of Robert Sutton the Third. The woman probably became a billionaire the moment his heart stopped beating. Growing up with that kind of wealth at your fingertips was unfathomable to me.

  The son of a school secretary and a mechanic meant that we never went hungry, always had a roof over our heads, and clothes that fit us, even if they were secondhand. But my roots were humble and as blue collar as the grease-stained uniform that my dad wore every single day of his life.

  He’d drilled into my sister and me that wealth was fleeting, money wouldn’t cure unhappiness, and if you were smart, you’d keep your head down, pay your bills, and live a life that didn’t break your bank account, saving the rest so your family would have a good future.

  Growing up in mansions and a world of private planes and boarding schools was as foreign to me as if someone had dropped me into a different country without speaking the language. The wealth I had now still felt fragile and flimsy, which was why I lived modestly. I never wanted Faith to think that her privileged life was anything she was entitled to. That it was normal. Because I damn well knew it wasn’t.

  “You coming?” Coach asked when I hadn’t moved.

  Following him in, I greeted the other two captains. Dayvon, our left tackle, was huge and hulking and terrifying when you didn’t know him, and he was the only man I’d trust to protect my blind side, which he did amazingly well. He held his fist out when I passed, and I bumped mine against it.

  “Hey, man, did you thank Monique for those cookies she gave Faith?” I asked him.

  At the mention of his wife, he smiled widely, his teeth bright white against the dark skin of his face. “She wants to take that girl home with her every time you bring her in. Says that after having four boys, she needs to try one more time so she can get a little girl just like Faith.”

  I laughed, a small knot of tension unwinding in my chest as we spoke. I could do this. It would be fine.

  Logan, our veteran safety and the captain representing the defense, lifted his chin in greeting. I did the same. No fist bumps for us or small talk since Logan was a quiet guy when you weren’t part of his inner circle. Not something I would hold against him. He led the defense the same way I led the offense, by example and with thorough preparation.

  Cameron, the team president and CEO, sat at the opposite end of the long rectangular table, flipping through some papers in front of him. When I reached the empty chairs on the other side of Dayvon, he held his hand out. His face looked more lined than usual, so maybe everyone was having some trouble adjusting to the change.

  “Pierson,” he said when I shook his hand. “Thanks for coming in.”

  “Of course.” Like I had a choice was what I wanted to say.

  Once I sat, Cameron took a deep breath and glanced around the table briefly. “I received a call from Robert’s attorneys the day before last, informing me of a trust he’d created just a couple of weeks before his heart attack. Given that Robert and I enjoyed a forthright working relationship for many years, I have to assume he thought he’d have time to explain his actions to me, which, unfortunately, didn’t happen. He and his late wife only had one child, and it was my understanding that her relationship with Robert was not a close one. I’m under the impression Miss Sutton has gotten as little clarification as we have to explain why he took these steps.”

  While that information settled into the tensely quiet room, I took a few moments to slow my racing thoughts. Perfect. Not only did she not earn this, but she also wasn’t expecting it and had no preparation for what to do. It took everything in me not to bang my head against the table.

  “The reason I’m explaining this to you now, before she and William join us,” Cameron continued, referencing our general manager, “is so that we don’t subject her to the awkward announcement that she had no warning she was about to own a professional football team. It’s for this reason,” his voice turned firm, and I knew that four of us were getting crystal clear instruction for how we were about to proceed with this meeting, and the team meeting the next day, “that we’re making sure you—the leaders of this football team—are on board to extend her grace as she assumes this massive responsibility and ensure that the rest of the team does as well.”

  “Of course,” Coach Klein said, his hands folded neatly in front of him. “Right, guys?”

  Dayvon nodded. “Might be good to get some fresh blood in here.”

  Logan glanced at me briefly like he was checking my reaction before speaking. Or maybe it was because my hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists and my leg was bouncing furiously under the table. He looked away. “No argument from me.”

  I didn’t answer right away because I felt like any words coming out of my mouth would be filled with the four-letter variety.

  After another deep breath, I realized every eye at the table was aimed in my direction, and I lifted my hands up, knowing what they needed me to say even if it felt like chewed up glass coming up my throat. “She’ll get every bit of the respect that we gave Robert.”

  Cameron let out a small sound of relief, his suit-clad shoulders dropping slightly. “Excellent. They should be here any second.”

  From down the hall, there was the indistinct murmur of William’s low, gravelly voice along with an answering laugh. They were too far away for it to sound like anything other than generically female. I had nothing against a female owner, but still,
my gut was screaming at me to run, that something was wrong, that shit was about to go very, very badly.

  Despite my less-than-stellar interactions with my neighbor, I was no sexist. I wanted Faith to grow up to be any damn thing she wanted, which was why I’d worked my skin off my bones to ensure her those opportunities. So why was my spine crawling like I was situated in the crosshairs of a loaded gun?

  Just before they entered the room, something snapped through my ears at the sound of her voice, but it was nothing I could place, nothing I could pin down with certainty. We all stood to greet her, and as soon as I got the first glimpse of her dress, everything around me slowed to a sluggish, weighted crawl.

  It was almost as if my brain couldn’t process what I was seeing, so the vision of her was reduced to blocks of color.

  Tan shoes.

  Tan legs.

  Red dress.

  Blond hair.

  Red lips.

  White teeth.

  Blue-green eyes.

  When it all snapped together, I lost my breath in a pained whoosh. This could not be happening.

  As she smiled brightly at Dayvon, giving him her full attention, I realized she hadn’t seen me yet. My next-door neighbor, the one who had called me an arrogant asshole less than twenty-four hours earlier, was the new owner of the Washington Wolves. And she hadn’t seen me yet.

  Suddenly, I understood the rampant tug of nerves and the unshakable feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong. I swiped my hand over my mouth and let out a slow breath, straightening my shoulders and holding my head up high. I could do this. I’d stared down three hundred-pound linebackers who wanted to rip the helmet off my head as they tackled my ass to the ground.

  I could do this.

  She turned in my direction, and I saw the moment it registered. The hitch in her step, the narrowing of her eyes, the slight purse in her scarlet red lips.

  “You,” she whispered.

  Everything stopped. All eyes turned in my direction. The temperature in the room with that one hushed word from her went from cordial to downright glacial.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. The chest I’d ogled while she shoved cupcakes at me.

  There was absolutely no part of this that could end well.

  “Well,” Dayvon said, injecting obviously fake warmth into his voice. “Y’all know each other already?”

  6

  Allie

  In all the mental prep work I’d done leading up to this meeting, I hadn’t planned for this contingency. When I’d decided on my dress, heels, and hairstyle—not to look pretty, but to look kickass and mildly threatening—I didn’t question whether I was ready to meet the men who led the team.

  But the man in front of me, who’d lost all the color in his handsome face at my appearance, was something I could not have planned for.

  And God bless my long buried acting skills and the little angels hovering around me at that moment because my voice was even and smooth when I spoke. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  Okay, maybe my acting skills were a touch rusty because the words sounded like ice picks coming out of my mouth all aimed in his direction.

  His thick throat worked on a heavy swallow as he watched me extend my hand, nails tipped with my favorite OPI red, Vodka and Caviar, and my wrist tinkling with the slender gold chains I’d worn as my only accessory. There wasn’t a single noise in the room as everyone watched us. The attention was heavy enough that I felt it raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Like someone was trying to push his arm back down, he lifted it slowly, enveloping my hand in his own. His large fingers positively dwarfed mine, and the callouses on his skin were warm and dry, rough in a way that I was not accustomed to.

  As the feeling of his hand on mine rippled down my arm, all the hairs there lifted, too, in a slow, rolling wave until they stopped at my shoulder. I wanted to rip my hand out of his, that wave was so strong. But there was no way in hell I would blink first.

  “Luke,” was all he said. There was a tightness in his voice that made my lips curl up deliciously.

  William adopted a smile so fake it almost made me laugh as he stepped up next to Luke. No one was dumb in this room. It was clear we’d met before, and I could almost hear their questions as if they were shouting them.

  How did you know each other?

  What the hell did he do to her?

  Did they sleep together?

  “Miss Sutton, this is Luke Pierson, our quarterback. He’s been with the Wolves for twelve years, so if there’s anyone out on that field you can trust, it’s him.” William clapped Luke on the back, and he jumped, blinking away as his hand slid out of mine. My fingers curled into my palm as if they’d been zapped. “Luke, this is—”

  “Alexandra Sutton,” I interrupted, pinning Luke with as cool and even of a stare as I could manage even though my stomach was a tight, vibrating ball of unexpected nerves. “I guess I’m your new boss.”

  His jaw clenched, and his dark, dark eyes narrowed slightly on my face. There was a gleeful streak of energy that punched through my body when I smiled at him. Petty to the hundredth power, I could admit it. But as we stared at each other, I knew he was thinking about how he’d spoken to me when I showed up at his door and our exchange just the night before in my backyard.

  Unlike the other times I’d seen him, he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Today, his inked, muscled arms were covered in a simple blue dress shirt that fit him like it was custom made, which it probably was. It was a good look on him, intimidating just because of his sheer size but a good look nonetheless.

  The coach cleared his throat, and I turned slightly to take his hand. He was a stern looking man in his fifties if I had to wager a guess. But his eyes were warm as he welcomed me to the Wolves, so I let out a quick breath.

  The last person at the table that I hadn’t met was a tall, lean man with a sternly handsome face and serious eyes.

  “Logan Ward,” he said with a firm handshake. He didn’t smile, but there was still something about him that didn’t come off as rude. Not exactly.

  As we all took our seats, they waited until I’d taken mine first, and then all eyes were on me. Even Cameron—the polite, if a bit icy—CEO, was taking his cue from me for this small gathering, which had been called at his request.

  The first man I’d met, Dayvon, gave Luke a quick, confused look, but he shook his head in a tiny, almost undetectable motion. His color was starting to return to his skin, but every inch of him looked tense and tightly leashed.

  “Gentlemen, thank you for coming in,” I started, making sure my fingers were knit together firmly before I set them in front of me on the table. When I’d walked into the building, an intimidating glass and steel thing trimmed in glossy black and red, I’d made a promise to myself that I would not show them an ounce of nerves. I promised myself that they would be able to find no fault in how I’d present myself as their team owner. The night before, as I got ready for bed, I knew what I wanted to do.

  After washing my face, I dropped the towel on the counter and saw both of my parents staring back at me. In my nose and mouth, the color of my hair, and the heart shape of my face, I saw my mother. And in the set of my jaw and the aqua green of my eyes, I saw my father. Eyes that changed color depending on what I wore were one visible thing I’d gotten from him. Growing up, it had felt like his DNA was only a small shred of who I was as I couldn’t identify anything innate as being Robert Sutton’s daughter.

  But looking into my eyes, I had to convince myself that he would not have given me this massive thing if he didn’t believe I was capable of handling it. Forcing myself to believe that was the only way I was managing to stand, metaphorically, where I was standing.

  The six men around the table watched me with a curious mix of wariness, curiosity, and anticipation, but they stayed silent until I spoke again.

  “My father loved thi
s team, and while it may have taken me by surprise to learn he was leaving it to me, I promise you that I will do everything in my power to continue the legacy of success he’s built over the past twenty years.” I smiled at each of them, my mouth only wavering in the slightest when I stopped at Luke.

  He’d hunched over, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was in pain. Coach Klein elbowed him, and he sat up straight, looking anywhere but at me.

  Cameron gave Luke a quick dirty look that surprised me, and William continued smiling like that alone would snap the tense cord between Luke and me.

  Clearing his throat, Cameron gave me a tight smile. “Of course, everyone in this room is committed to that same legacy, and we’ll do whatever we can to make this transition as easy as possible. Obviously, there are only a couple of weeks before the season starts, but if you’re up for a crash course in football ownership, then we’ll give you the best one possible based on what we’ve all learned from your father.”

  I was about to thank him when Luke’s chair squeaked obnoxiously from the motion of him leaning backward. He froze when everyone looked in his direction. Coach Klein closed his eyes briefly, looking very much like someone was digging a knife into his ribs.

  William just kept smiling.

  “Thank you,” I told Cameron. “Joy was kind enough to pass along the contact information for two other owners who she thought would be willing to speak to me. She thought that might be helpful as well.”

  William’s smile broadened as he listened. “Yes, Joy is a remarkable asset for you. She worked with your father longer than anyone in this room did. Great idea. Good.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Excellent.”

  Luke scrubbed a hand over his face and made a sound deep in his chest that sounded like he was in pain. The reactions to that were varied. Cameron looked like he would strangle Luke with his bare hands. Coach was rubbing the back of his neck and staring at a fixed point on the wall. Dayvon was giving Luke an incredulous stare as if he’d sprouted a second head.