by Erin Hayes
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Will you excuse me?”
Jimmy chuckled. “I told you she cares about her players.” He turned to me. “Can we talk to you next week?” He gestured at his friends. “These fellows are thinking about arranging for some sponsorships of their own.”
I fell back into my role as team owner. “Of course. Just give my secretary, Kathryn, a call, and she’ll set up something for this week.”
“Sounds good.” Jimmy waved me off. “Now get down there and take care of those boys.”
I headed toward our training facility, terrified about what I’d find when I got there.
Like all pro teams, we had our own x-ray machine on-site. That’s where I headed first, hoping to find Clancy there.
I rushed through the halls of the training facility attached to the stadium, the sound of my heels clicking against the tiled floors like an echo of my pounding heart.
When I first offered Ashley a job as a trainer for the team, I had thought that trainers did some of the same things coaches did. I hadn’t realized that the trainer actually was more along the lines of a physical therapist, working with players on specific muscle groups and on recovering from injuries, and so forth. Luckily, I’d been able to insist that Ashley have an entry-level position, so she was doing some of the training on the job.
And I’d never been so glad that I hired her as when I heard her laugh ring out, along with Clancy’s.
I followed the sound to a room where Clancy sat on a padded bench, his leg stretched out before him, as one of the team doctors, a man I’d met only once and whose name eluded me, showed my roommate and my—what? My crush? My friend, at least, and maybe more?—an x-ray image on a tablet.
Ashley saw me first, and she knew me well enough to throw her hand up in an attempt to stop me from panicking. “It’s just a sprain, Madison. He’s fine.”
Without even thinking about it, I rushed toward Clancy and threw my arms around his neck. He caught me, his enormous arm wrapping around my waist.
And then we were kissing. We crashed into each other like lovers who’d been separated for years. His lips were pure Clancy—soft and searching, but also strong and determined.
I was certain that now that he’d started, he’d never quit kissing me.
“Maybe we should come back later,” the doctor suggested.
“Definitely.” Ashley’s voice held a hint of laughter. I heard their footsteps retreating down the hallway.
With a possessive sound deep in his throat, Clancy lifted me off the ground with the one arm around my waist and hauled me into his lap so that I was sitting sideways across him.
As he settled me against him, his erection pressed into my ass. I moaned at the feel of it, as enormous and thick as Clancy was, and the sound made it twitch.
I hadn’t even realized how much I wanted this man until we’d started kissing.
I probably should have been horrified to be kissing a pro player straight off the field. But I loved the way the smell of him surrounded me. I wanted to pull him into me, make him mine completely even as I gave myself to him.
I also probably should have felt anxious about Andre’s reaction when he found out. But we had discussed this possibility, and Andre had already accepted it—at least as far as Clancy was concerned.
I hadn’t, however, talked to Clancy about it.
As our kiss heated up, Clancy’s hand drifting to my breasts—his enormous hand spanning my entire chest—I knew I had to say something.
I pulled my lips away from his. “You know about me and Andre, right?”
He stilled. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“No. Not for me, and not for him. I just need to know that it’s not a problem for you.”
He frowned. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Madison. And I don’t know if I can stand to share you.”
A rush of tears flooded my eyes and I blinked them back. I hadn’t realized quite how much I wanted this.
His hand moved up to cup my cheek and his voice softened. “But I’m willing to give it a shot.”
“Wait. What?”
He smiled. “I said I’m willing to try it out. I don’t know how it’ll go. Then again, it’s impossible to ever know how any relationship will turn out.”
Relationship. He’d said relationship. My stomach began turning little flip-flops. We were really going to do this. I was going to have two boyfriends. With both of them agreeing to it.
I leaned in and gently pressed my lips against his mouth. “I’d like that,” I said.
He grinned, and I could feel his lips curving up. “And this sprain means I’ll be out the next two games, so I’m going to have a little extra time.”
In answer, I pressed myself to him so that my breasts pushed almost flat on his chest and I slipped my tongue into his mouth.
He reacted fiercely, possessively, taking control almost immediately, his tongue sweeping through my mouth and tangling with mine. His hand gripped the back of my hair, the other hand cupping my ass to hold me firmly on his cock. I whimpered, wanting more.
“Well, isn’t this interesting?” I recognized the voice that accompanied a flash of light.
When I pulled away to glance at Jacob standing in the doorway, Clancy and I were both breathing hard.
Had my ex-boyfriend just taken a picture of me kissing Clancy? I didn’t see a phone, but his hands were in his pockets.
“How did you get in here?” I demanded.
Jacob shrugged. “You might want to increase your security guards’ pay. They’re awfully susceptible to bribery.”
God, he was such an asshole.
“Why would you bribe my security guards?”
His voice turned plaintive, but I could hear anger underlying the words. “I just wanted to see you, Mads.”
“Don’t call me that.” I clamped my mouth closed. That was Jacob’s specialty—distracting me with irrelevant details when we fought.
“I don’t think you should be here.” Clancy’s Alabama accent got more pronounced, his words slower and more drawn out when he was angry.
I needed to remember that in case he was ever pissed at me.
Of course Jacob didn’t recognize it. “Down, big guy. I just want to have a chat with our girl here.”
Uh-oh. He was making the mistake of thinking that just because Clancy was big and a jock, he was also dumb.
Clancy was far from stupid.
He was also pissed.
Carefully, he lifted me up as if I weighed no more than a child—which, believe me, I did—and set me gently on the ground.
When he swung his legs around off the table, I squeaked in protest. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that,” Jacob mocked.
I dropped my hand to Clancy’s knee and spoke quietly. “Not now. Not yet.”
I waited until Clancy nodded, and then marched to the intercom system and pressed a button. It crackled to life. “Hi,” I said. “Security? This is Ms. Harte. I need you to send someone down to escort an intruder out of the building.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man on the other end replied.
“Okay.” I turned to face Jacob. “You have until they get here to tell me why you came to Birmingham and what it is you want.”
“I missed you, Mads.”
“Bullshit. You kicked me out of our company. You’re here because you want something.”
“I want to try again.”
Clancy growled deep in his throat—and this time it wasn’t out of passion. It was pure rage.
Oh, fuckity fuck. I still didn’t know exactly why Jacob was here, except maybe to get his hands on some part of my inheritance.
And that wasn’t about to happen. I’d trusted him once and he’d tried to destroy me.
I would never let him get close enough to trick me again.
Ignoring Jacob, I turned to Clancy. “We should talk later, okay?”
He nodded. “Definitely.”
“Okay. I’ll go get the doctor. And you,” I said to Jacob, “had better go. Security’s on the way.”
He gave me a long look, glanced at Clancy, and then turned away. But not before I saw the expression on his face.
He was furious.
And I had the distinct feeling that we weren’t done yet.
I wondered if they had exorcists for ex-boyfriends. That would be a great business idea.
Chapter 10
“What the fuck is this?” the director of public relations, Sydney Knowles, demanded as she slapped a newspaper on my desk.
I blinked up at her, then frowned down at the newspaper. I couldn’t remember the last time I read a newspaper. Well, aside from after I allegedly assaulted a reporter. I read those articles. That was the first time I ever met Sydney, who tore me a new one about maintaining my public image. She also saved me, too.
Gingerly, I picked up the newspaper and opened it up. It was the local Birmingham newspaper. “Not sure I know what the fuck this should be,” I said mildly, hoping to get a smile out of her.
I didn’t. If anything, I pissed her off more.
“Flip to the Entertainment section,” Sydney said. “Section D.”
I did. And I froze, seeing the main headline on the page. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right,” Sydney said. She crossed her arms and glared at me. “I thought we worked on your public image. On how to conduct yourself. And this...this isn’t the appropriate way.”
I didn’t have an answer for her. Because the article’s headline screamed, IS NEW HAMMERS OWNER RECRUITING A TEAM OF HER OWN? And it wasn’t speculating about sports.
No, it was speculating about my sex life.
My heart sank as I read further down the page to see a picture of Andre and me kissing, along with one of me and Clancy from the night before.
Dammit. I knew Jacob had taken a picture.
And there was even talk about Rodney. The author of the article had mused that I was trying to bridge the gaps in the team leadership by sleeping with them.
“Assholes,” I muttered. Seriously, it was no one’s business but my own who I was interested in. Who I kissed. Who I had sex with.
And I’d only slept with Andre. Kissed Clancy. And zero anything with Rodney. So the damn thing wasn’t even correct, even though it hit close to home.
“Do you mind telling me what this is?” Sydney pressed. She still hadn’t uncrossed her arms, still hadn’t stopped looking like she was shitting a brick.
“Nothing anyone should be talking about in newspapers,” I said, sitting back in my chair.
She didn’t look impressed. “It looks like you’re trying to turn this into some sort of harem for yourself, Madison.”
I snorted. “Still nothing that should be public.”
She made an annoyed sound at the back of her throat. “Madison, you’re the owner of a football team now. You can’t just sleep with all the players—”
“I’m not sleeping with all the players,” I snapped. I angrily pushed the newspaper away from me. “Someone is running a smear campaign against me.”
“And how are there pictures of you with Andre and Clancy if that’s not true?” she fired back.
I glared at her, projecting my anger at this onto her. “Because I have my own private life.”
“This isn’t some sort of office romance, Madison.”
“Oh, oh!” I let out a harsh laugh. “Trust me, I know how badly office romances go.”
“Madison, I cannot keep working as the director of public relations if you keep doing this.” Sydney pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is something I can’t cover up.”
“People just need to stay in their own lane,” I practically snarled. “Can you do anything about it?”
“We’ll see,” she said and sighed. “But...don’t keep doing this.”
I felt thoroughly nagged by her storming in here like this. Thing was, I actually liked Sydney, even from that first moment that I met her. She was a transplant to the Deep South, much like me, and she was responsible for the Hammers’ public image. It was a hard job, especially with the team’s record for the last two years, and I gave her major props for it.
But I hated her scrutiny.
She left my office, looking as angry as I felt. After a heart-stopping kiss from Clancy yesterday, I now had to deal with this shit. The thing was, this was way too much like what had happened with Jacob—I’d dated him, and my life had disintegrated around me.
I knew what happened when you mixed business with pleasure. I knew it, and still, I fell for it. Down the rabbit hole, this time with three guys.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
I read through the article, feeling my cheeks heat up with every word of the sensationalized piece. And there, in the last sentence, was the last bit of incriminating evidence that Jacob-Fucking-Reeves was behind this.
These three players have all gone “Mads” for her.
Mads.
Jacob’s nickname for me.
I knew he had to be the one who’d taken the picture of me and Clancy. This just clinched it. He was their informant. He was trying to ruin my public reputation, which, let’s face it, wasn’t that good to start with.
“Motherfucker,” I whispered through gritted teeth as I pulled out my phone. I had deleted Jacob’s contact information way back when we broke up, and I swore that I would never speak to him again. But, surprise, surprise, I had been so in love with him that I remembered his number, even now.
Yeah, I was pretty pathetic.
I dialed his number and called him.
The phone rang twice before he picked up. “Mads, to what do I owe this call?” So he still had my number programmed into his phone. He sounded cheery. Happy, even.
Prick, prick, prick, prick!
“Stay the fuck away from me, you fucking asshole,” I snarled into the phone.
There was a pause. “Madison, what’s wrong?”
“You know exactly what’s wrong.” I slapped my hand on the desk and stood up, feeling my emotions rise in anger. “Stay out of my personal life, don’t you dare speculate about my relationship with my players unless you want me to sue your ass for defamation. You don’t have any inside information. Unless you want me to go to the press and tell them that you wanted a golden shower from me.”
Everyone had their kinks. I knew that. But, fuck, he made me angry, so I had to bring it up.
There was a short, disbelieving laugh from him. “That was just a joke, Mads. We’d been drinking that night and—”
“It’s none of anyone’s business,” I finished for him. “So get on a plane back to San Francisco and stay out of my life.”
I didn’t wait for him to come back with a reply. I hung up on him, and I wished I had one of those old school phones with a cord and a cradle, because I would have slammed it on there. Several times.
I paced around my office, trying to reconcile what had just happened in my mind. It was all stupid, all ridiculous.
And I hated it.
Goddamn, I was mad.
I had to get out. If I didn’t leave now, I would throw something through my window. And probably jump after it.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out. Kathryn, the receptionist, called out to me as I made a beeline for the elevator. Usually, I made an effort to say hi to her and talk, but right now, I thought it would have been a bad thing for me to stop for too long. I just waved at her, punched the button and headed to the ground level of the stadium.
Should I go home? To the lockers? Maybe try to find Ashley and get her opinion on this debacle?
Dammit, where would she be? Suddenly, I needed to be home with my best friend and cry my eyes out.
Fuck.
“Hey, Miz Harte,” Elliott, one of the janitors who worked for the stadium and the first person I ever met here, said to me. “How are you doing today?”
“Peachy keen,” I lied. I didn’t want to bring it up to Elliott, especially if
he hadn’t seen it. I combed a hand through my hair, about ready to crawl up the walls. “Have you seen Ashley? She’s the new trainer.”
Elliott considered me for a long moment. “I think I saw her by the locker rooms,” he mused.
Probably trying to find a football player herself. I didn’t think Sydney would appreciate that either.
“Thanks,” I muttered, as I headed off toward the locker rooms. With how busy the stadium got during game days—and it was still a challenge to fill every seat—it now felt like I was in a ghost town as I wandered around to get to the locker room. And the longer I was by myself, the more panicked I felt. Angry tears sprang in my eyes.
Seriously, where was everyone?
“C’mon, Ash, where are you?” I muttered through gritted teeth.
“Haven’t seen her.”
I turned around to see Rodney leaning against the wall. He looked like he had just showered after practice, his dark hair still damp, and there was a sheen on his skin. His brooding expression dissolved to something akin to...concern?
“What’s wrong, Madison?” he asked.
I let out a gasping laugh. “Nothing. Everything. It’s just...I...”
He pushed himself off the wall and strode closer to me, and I could feel the heat of his body. The scent of his cologne assailed my senses, and I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply.
No. One does not freak out about the media being halfway right about your relationship with two football players, and then swoon in the presence of the third.
I needed to get a grip on myself.
Before anything else happened.
“Hey,” Rodney said. “You can talk to me.”
Another short laugh from me. “No. I can’t. Because everyone would think I’m some sort of hussy.” Or Jezebel. Coach Mack had called me that once.
He frowned. “What?”
I shook my head, taking a step back. Doing anything I could to put up a wall between us. “Never mind.” Because that was all I could say.
He stepped forward, closing that distance, and my hormones went crazy again. Goddammit, he wasn’t making this easy, and my resolve was weakening by the second.
“Hey.” He reached out to squeeze my shoulder. Beneath my shirt, my skin burned at his touch, and I nearly groaned. “What is it, Madison?”