by Lucy Gilmore
Also by Lucy Gilmore
Forever Home
Puppy Love
Puppy Christmas
Puppy Kisses
Thank you for downloading this Sourcebooks eBook!
You are just one click away from…
• Being the first to hear about author happenings
• VIP deals and steals
• Exclusive giveaways
• Free bonus content
• Early access to interactive activities
• Sneak peeks at our newest titles
Happy reading!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2021 by Lucy Gilmore
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Stephanie Gafron/Sourcebooks
Cover image © MilosStankovic/Getty Images
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Excerpt of I Hate You More
About the Author
Back Cover
Chapter 1
If there was a way to hide a heavily pregnant golden retriever under a desk, Hailey had yet to discover it.
“Bess, love. This would be so much easier if you’d just sit.” She paused and watched as the dog panted, squirmed, and licked the top of her favorite red Converse shoes. There was no sitting of any kind. “Okay, then stay. Lie down. Heel. Didn’t your previous owners teach you any commands?”
Bess wriggled out from between Hailey’s legs and began pacing the length of the office. It was a small room, a windowless hole that held the floor’s air-conditioning unit in addition to Hailey’s desk, so the dog didn’t have far to go. Her swollen belly swayed and undulated with each step.
“Jasmine is going to eat you alive if she sees that dog.” A smiling face appeared at the office door. As usual, Penny looked perfectly put together and amused to find Hailey in what could only be described as a mess. Which, to be fair, was daily. “Quick… Give her a football to play with. Maybe Jasmine will think she’s here for a photo shoot.”
It wasn’t, as her coworker’s irreverent tone suggested, the worst idea in the world. They—along with a dozen other people currently staffing this office—often performed photo shoots. With dogs. And footballs. In fact, one might argue that was all they did. As the official offices of the Puppy Cup, the canine counterpart to the professional football game held every February, making dogs look adorable for the camera was Hailey’s stock-in-trade.
Well, she was technically just a production assistant on the show, so her stock-in-trade had more to do with grabbing coffees and running errands than anything else, but the idea held true. Someone had to help wrangle the fifty different puppies that appeared on-screen every year to play with stuffed balls, chase one another, and otherwise adorably simulate the game of football during the Kickoff Cup’s halftime.
Hailey Lincoln was that someone. In fact, Hailey Lincoln had been that someone for six years. While other people were promoted and celebrated and otherwise applauded for their professional choices, she remained exactly where she was.
On the floor. With a dog.
Hailey sighed as she dropped to Bess’s level. “I know how Jasmine feels about having animals in the office, but I didn’t have a choice.” She put out a soothing hand, but the dog had no intention of being soothed—which was fair, considering the half-dozen puppies taking up the space where her intestines were supposed to go. “I couldn’t leave her at home. Not this close to her due date.”
“You should have called me for help,” Penny said. “I know people.”
As was almost always the case when Penny made an offer like that, Hailey wasn’t sure how to take it. On the surface, it seemed legit, and Lord knew she could use the help. Bess wasn’t Hailey’s dog, but she was her responsibility. As her foster placement until the puppies were born and could be found good homes, Hailey had signed on to keep the animal safe and happy—and the more hands on board with that, the better. But Penny was nice to everyone, and always with that same friendly smile and air of unconcern, regardless of how obnoxious they were. She was even nice to the guy who delivered sandwiches from the deli down the street, and he’d once followed Penny home and keyed her car because she wouldn’t go on a date with him.
“Thanks, but I don’t want to be a bother.” Hailey forced a note of cheer into her voice and added, “Besides, it’s more exciting to live on the edge like this. Will Jasmine fire me? Will I be thrown out without a reference? Tune in at eleven for the update.”
Penny chuckled obligingly, but like the friendly overtures, it could just as easily be a sympathy laugh. Hailey was about to let her coworker off the hook with a smile and a wave, but Bess began panting anew. From her vantage point on the floor, Hailey could detect the light scent of acetone assailing her nostrils—a warning sign the dog wasn’t getting all the nutrients she needed.
“Uh-oh,” Hailey said. “Before you go, would you mind smelling her breath? I hope she’s not developing toxemia.”
Penny’s response to this was a gasp. “Don’t move,” she warned from her position in the doorway. “Scratch that. Don’t blink. Don’t even breathe.”
Assuming Jasmine was heading their way, Hailey cast a panicked look around the small rectangle of her office. There was nowhere to hide—not herself and not Bess, whose breath was really starting to worry her.
But then Penny spoke again, this time with a slight squeal. “You’ll never guess who’s walking down the hall. Hailey, I told you not to blink. You’re blinking.”
It was true. She was blinking. She was also breathing and moving, but only because she enjoyed her life on this earth, however little it might appear to someone as glamorous as Penny.
“Cole Bennett,” Penny said. “It’s Cole Bennett. My heart is leaving my chest. My blood is on fire. I might die.”
At the mention of the quarterback of the Seattle Lumberjacks, local celebrity and football god, Hailey’s body underwent a similar change. Her pulse leaped and a ho
t thrumming filled her veins, but she fixed her attention on the dog instead. She wasn’t going to fall for that trick again. Her coworkers liked to pull it out at lunches and meetings and pretty much anywhere Hailey could make a fool out of herself—which, to be fair, was a lot of places. The last time one of them had faked a Cole Bennett sighting, Hailey had actually stood up so fast she’d nearly fainted.
“Well, maybe he can get down here and smell Bess’s breath,” Hailey said. The dog panted in agreement, sending another hot blast of that worrisome smell her way. “Do you think anyone would notice if I slipped out for an hour or so?”
A body lowered itself to the gray carpeted floor next to her. Much to her surprise, it wasn’t the long, lean figure of her coworker. In a former life, Penny had been a ballerina, and she had both the posture and the waistline to prove it. This figure, however, was much bigger. Broader. Built like the kind of man who—
“What are we smelling for?” he asked.
All the air left Hailey’s lungs at the sound of that voice. Lots of men were big and broad, but only one of them spoke with that low, dulcet richness. She barely had time to register what was happening—or, more to the point, who was happening—when a pair of impossibly large hands came up to cup either side of Bess’s head and pull her muzzle close.
“No, don’t…” Hailey began, but it was too late. Cole Bennett’s face—that gorgeous, flawless, famous face—was pressed against the nose of an unknown golden retriever in the final days of her pregnancy. Bess was an absolute darling of an animal, and her sweet disposition made her about as easygoing as they came, but there were certain rules to this sort of thing.
The most important rule was that when it came to mothers and their babies, all rules were off. Bess was 100 percent within her rights to view this oversized stranger as a threat and act accordingly.
Fortunately for them all, Bess took one look at him and began to enthusiastically lick.
“Well, hello there,” Cole said, laughing as the dog’s tongue explored his cheeks and chin. “I normally like to buy a lady dinner before things get this far, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.”
Hailey doubted he’d appreciate the same level of enthusiasm from a lady like her, so it was a good thing she’d long ago memorized the exact angles of his face. His cheeks were wide-set and well sculpted, his chin a perfectly chiseled square. Sometimes, when he stood in profile, it was like looking at a statue of a man rather than the real thing.
“Ohmygod,” Penny said as Cole gave the dog one last pat and rose to a standing position. Both she and Hailey had to step back—not because of Cole’s size, which was substantial, but because his presence expanded to fill the tiny office. “It’s really you.”
The comment wasn’t as silly as it sounded. Even if Cole Bennett hadn’t been the most famous quarterback in the entire American Football Club, he was a man to admire based on pure physicality alone. In addition to his perfect facial bone structure, he had piercing blue eyes, a swoop of luxurious brown hair, and a dimple in his right cheek that flashed every time he smiled. And that wasn’t even counting the body attached to it all.
“I can’t believe it,” Penny added breathlessly. “This is even better than the dream I had where you flew me to Spain in your private jet.”
Cole paused in his acceptance of Bess’s adoration to bask in Penny’s. It took him all of five seconds to appraise her, but it was obvious he was pleased with what he saw. Most people were. In addition to her former ballerina physique, Penny had a rich copper skin tone that matched her name and a smile so natural that it was impossible not to return it.
“I don’t have a private jet, but if I did, you’d be the first person I’d invite to Spain with me,” he said with a wink. “Ibiza is beautiful this time of year.”
Penny sighed her pleasure at this piece of nonsense, but Hailey only felt more out of her depth than before. Cole Bennett had never been to Ibiza in January—she’d bet her life on it. With the Kickoff Cup looming on the horizon, Cole’s life was a blur of practices and playoff games. This time of year, he probably didn’t have time to sleep, let alone whisk women away to glamorous international getaways.
If Cole sensed her confusion, he didn’t show it. He nodded down at Bess. “What’s her breath supposed to smell like? It seems kind of fruity, but in a chemical way.”
That confirmation of Hailey’s diagnosis was all she needed to hear, if only because it gave her something concrete to focus on. Penny and Bess might be able to get away with slavish adoration of the man, but Hailey wasn’t about to prostrate herself at his feet. Which, she knew, were size twelve. She also knew he preferred to wear Nike cleats when he was on the field, but ever since he signed a sponsorship deal with Ball Zone, he’d been running around emblazoned in their logo instead.
Not that she was obsessed or anything. Everyone was aware of Cole Bennett’s footwear habits. They were impossible to ignore. If you ever watched a commercial or picked up a trashy magazine, he was right there, shoving his feet in your face. The rest of him was usually there, too. Arms and legs and those million-dollar hands…
“Well, Bess.” Hailey allowed her curtain of mousy hair to cover the side of her face so she wouldn’t be tempted to stare at him. She scratched the dog’s chin. “If he thinks your breath smells like chemicals, then it’s probably toxemia. You and I are going to the veterinarian—but first, we’re eating second breakfast.”
“Second breakfast?” Cole echoed.
Hailey flushed at the way he phrased it, full of equal parts curiosity and judgment. “The meal between breakfast and lunch?” she offered. “Beloved of farm folk and Hobbits alike?”
Her first breakfast had been one sad, solitary English muffin consumed over the sink at five o’clock that morning between gulps of scalding coffee. Football players weren’t the only ones who had a lot of work to do this time of year. Puppy football players had their fair share, too.
“That sounds good,” Cole said as though she’d issued an invitation instead of an explanation. “I could eat.”
Looking at Cole Bennett head-on was like staring at the sun during an eclipse, but Hailey forced herself to straighten her stance and meet his eyes. Yes, the man had a 72 percent completion percentage over the course of his career. Sure, he earned twelve million dollars a year in base salary alone. And okay, he was wearing a well-fitted blazer that made the most of an impressive pair of shoulders. But this was her domain. Four partitioned walls covered from top to bottom in puppy photographs might not seem like much to an outsider, but it was all she had.
Unfortunately, Cole didn’t seem to have any problems returning her gaze. If he found anything impressive about a twenty-eight-year-old production assistant of average height and weight, with freckles covering every inch of her exposed skin, he didn’t show it. Nor did he appear to move, blink, or—in a way that would do Penny proud—even breathe.
“I really should get Bess looked at,” Hailey said, hoping to move things along before she made a fool of herself—a bigger one, anyway. “She’s been worrying me all morning.”
Cole didn’t take the hint. He tilted his head and, with the bland disregard of a man used to being in command of the room, asked, “What does it mean? The way her breath smells?”
Since he was blocking the door, Hailey had no choice but to answer. “She’s pregnant, and I’ve been struggling to keep her calories up. That smell could mean she’s not getting enough nutrients. She’s got six babies in there that are demanding a lot of her resources.”
“What can I do to help?”
It was on the tip of Hailey’s tongue to disclaim any right to Cole’s time or energy. They didn’t normally get such high-profile visitors in their little corner of the football world—and by normally, she meant ever. The most she could claim was once sharing an Uber pool with the announcer from the stadium. For the quarterback of the Lumberjacks to show up unannounced
and in person at the Puppy Cup production offices was nothing short of bizarre.
Then again, this was an emergency. She wasn’t in a position to look a gift quarterback in the mouth.
“Do you have a car?” she asked, moved by desperation to ask for the one thing she needed most. “Bess could use a ride to the vet.”
Penny squeaked. “Hailey, you can’t ask him that!”
“I know, but they won’t let me on the bus with Bess anymore. They said she’s not a service animal, so she’s not allowed.” Hailey turned to Cole and, realizing what she’d just done, added, “Unless you’re busy, of course. I understand if—”
He interrupted her with the flash of his signature smile, complete with the dimple. “I’m not busy. Does this mean you want to stop for food on the way, or should we eat after?”
Hailey could only blink up at him. She had no idea what was going on here—if this really was a prank or if she was going to suddenly find herself standing naked in front of her elementary school classroom—but she wasn’t sure she could handle it right now. Bess needed food and veterinary care, and the sooner, the better. If this ended up being some elaborate joke that Penny and the rest of the office had put together, Hailey was never going to forgive them.
“Did you make an appointment to see me?” she asked suspiciously. “Or am I just supposed to know what this is about?”
Instead of taking offense at this line of questioning, Cole chuckled and held out his hand. It seemed almost too good to be true—to actually touch him, to shake hands as equals—but Hailey managed to slip her palm against his.
“I did this all wrong, didn’t I?” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. He didn’t let go right away, his massive palm engulfing hers. “Bursting in here without an invitation or an introduction. I always forget about that part. I might know who you are, but you don’t know me from Adam. Let me start again. You’re Hailey Lincoln, production assistant for the Puppy Cup. I’m Cole Bennett. I play football for the Lumberjacks.”
There was so much about this speech to unpack that Hailey had no idea where to start. Of course she knew who he was. The idea that she could live in Seattle and be ignorant of the man who pretty much dominated sports and news headlines for six months out of every year was ludicrous. Even more ludicrous was the idea that he knew who she was.