Linebacker’s Second Chance(36)

That’s what he does to me.

I want to throw away everything, all the caution, all the barriers I have built up, for a chance to be with him. But I staked his career on this engagement—and long ago, it seemed like Mack made it clear he wasn’t interested in me at all.

His brother Jared told me that it would always be over between me and Macklin Pride—he wasn’t ready to get married, at least not to a poor farm girl like me. I try to remind myself of those hateful words when Mack catches my eyes.

Mack takes my hands, and a shock runs through me, activating that place of deep, deep longing. “We can always back out. Tell them I have the flu, and so do you. And then we disappear forever.”

I shake my head, and that conflicted feeling comes back to my body. “You’ll get fired. You’ll get kicked out on your ass and blacklisted from every other team in the league. You won’t be able to play again, not this season. You know what that does to a player…” My voice trails off. He’s looking at me like I’m his prey, like he’s the hawk that just caught a glimpse of me and couldn’t resist. I think of his taste on my lips, how good it felt to make him come, how sweet it was to let myself melt into his arms, how he played me like a musical instrument, how I came for him while he watched me with those predatory eyes.

“Doesn’t matter much to me, Ren. I don’t want to go ahead with the party if you have any hesitation about it at all.”

“You can’t do this to me, Mack. Not like this. I know you think you feel something for me, but what happened the other day, that was some long overdue… fun.”

“Bullshit, Renata.”

“What was that?” I stifle a laugh at his serious tone.

“I said that’s bullshit. You know it, and I know it.”

He bites one lip like he’s meaning to say something else, but the words won’t come. I wonder what’s hidden under the surface. So many people discounted Mack, said he wasn’t intelligent just because he was big and made of muscle and preferred the ins and outs of football to calculus. When I looked at him, I always saw something different—his skill and ability to calculate what was needed in a football game. And more than that, an uncanny talent for reading people, an empathy that never seemed in line with his size and strength. Both of those things seemed to have vanished when he started drinking so much.

But now, I see the man standing in front of me—closer to the person he was when I knew him in college. Closer to the man I fell in love with.

He’s still the man who left you, Renata.

Even still, I’m tempted to jump into his arms and tell everyone else to go screw themselves.

But the caterers are already here, and Kinley is due to arrive any second—along with the owner of the team. There’s nothing on earth I want less than this, but it’s the plan we made. It’s all written up in the contract, and there’s not much we can do at this point, as much as we might want to make it all disappear.

A stabbing guilt hits me. It was different when he was just the man who broke my heart, the party boy with the reputation for breaking hearts by the dozen. But that’s not the man I see standing in front of me. That’s not the Macklin Pride I knew in college--and from the moment I appeared, staring down at him, his whole act has changed. Like everything made a lot more sense for him as soon as I showed up in his life again.

That couldn’t be.

I keep feeling like I’m in limbo, a hell of my own creation.

I don’t know why Macklin left me six years ago, and I don’t know how the hell to get him out of an engagement he insists he doesn’t want. Hell, Kinley even went out and bought her own ring, quite likely accompanied by the other football player she’s sleeping with.

“I want to figure a way out, Mack. But we have to wait until after this. The engagement is contractually obligated, but my lawyer did say that we could likely get out of the marriage after the season is over.”

“Jesus,” he grumbles, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I never should have agreed to this.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “And I swear, Mack, I’ve done this a dozen times, but I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have done it with you. Marrying off your ex probably isn’t a good idea, but I was bound and determined to make sure you keep that job. Your family’s farm… you keep it going, don’t you?”

He shrugs, and his face goes blank for a moment. “I guess I do. Let’s just say I’m not keeping as high a take-home salary as a lot of the other guys I know. It’d be damn nice to get a raise, I can say that for sure.” He pauses. “But Renata, at what cost? We already know Eddie and Kinley are taking us for a ride. If we get in any deeper, what else is gonna happen?”