Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(14)

“I did.”

She frowns. “What are you, a finance guy or something? Investor?”

I laugh and shake my head, turning to look out at the Pacific crashing down on the beach before glancing down at my inked arms. “Do I look like a finance guy?”

“Are you in the movies or something?”

I laugh again, taking a big lick of my mint chocolate chip and chuckling.

This is amazing.

Somehow, I’ve found the one and only hot girl in LA who has zero interest in sports, or the guys who play them. Somehow, I’ve found a girl who looks this good, and isn’t running some creepy game of trying to get a sport-star millionaire to knock her up.

I haven’t talked to someone in years who didn’t know who I was, or wasn’t trying to get something from me because of it, and it’s refreshing.

I ignore her sleuthing. “So, you want to tell me what this morning was?”

“None of your business?” She tosses back easily.

“Oh I think its worth about twelve-hundred bucks, actually.”

She grins, rolling her eyes. “Fine.” She takes a deep breath and blows the air out messily through her soft lips. “My shitbag of a fiancé cheated on me, I left, and then he cut off my only credit card. How about that?”

Well, damn.

“Yeah, no, that wins.”

Natalie makes a face. “Great, what do I win?”

“A twelve-hundred dollar hotel room and a cup of strawberry ice cream.”

She burst out laughing, and I grin at the change it has on her face. She’s glowing instead of glum, and those piercing blue eyes shine as the laughter trickles from her lips.

This is fun. Of course, she’s gorgeous, which certainly doesn’t hurt, but there’s something about this girl that makes me let go a little - something that makes me drop my usual guard. And any other girl in this situation would look like the walking definition of a walk of shame. Except somehow, she looks totally classy and utterly at ease sitting on the boardwalk eating ice cream in her cocktail dress from the night before.

Barefoot, hair messed up, and smudged eyeliner, and this girl somehow looks downright fucking elegant.

Elegant, classy, cultured.

I cough, clearing my head as I stare at her, trying to push Derek’s voice out of my head. “So, what are you going to do now?”

The smile drops from her perfect lips, and the glow that was at least momentarily there starts to fade.

Nice move, ass.

Natalie shrugs. “Truthfully? I’ve got no idea.” She snorts. “I’m flat broke and out a fiancé, so back to the drawing board I guess.”

I frown. “Don’t you have a job or something?”

“No.”

I arch a brow. “And how’d you manage that?”

She rolls her eyes. “By being from the world I come from.”

I laugh. “And what world is that?”

“Snooty, rich, and closed-off?”

You need someone wholesome, someone cultured - someone unknown and outside the public spotlight.

Technically it’s Derek’s idea from last night. But the idea that hits me like a damn lighting-bolt right there on the boardwalk is doing it my way.

Because right there, like a perfect pass, a hole in the defense, or a play you can read a mile away, the solution to it all presents itself. She needs money, and I need someone like her. No, scratch that. Not someone like her, someone fucking exactly like her.

She’s still talking, saying something about her mother, but I’m not really following as the dots start to connect in front of my eyes.

You can’t ACTUALLY proposition someone like this.

Can you?

I grin, thinking of all the crude, dirty, and straight inappropriate shit I’ve said to girls over the years.

By that scale, asking one to fake marry me for money really is pretty tame in comparison.

Natalie shrugs in front of me, dropping her spoon into the paper cup on the picnic table in front of her. “Anyways, for now I guess I’ll go stay at a friend’s-”

“So, I might have a job for you.”

She blinks as I cut her off, frowning at me. “What?”

This is a terrible idea…this is a truly stupid idea.

I don’t know this girl at all, aside from thirty whole minutes of conversation and knowing how her tongue tastes against my lips. I don’t know a damn thing about her, or her family, or really even if she’s some sort of ax murderer.

The smart thing to do here would be to walk the fuck away. The smart play here would be to drive her to this friend’s house, send her on her way, and then go play Derek’s public image game.

Except, I don’t do, or say, any of those things.

Instead, I lean across the table, level my gaze at her, and say literally the last thing I’d ever in a million years have imagined myself saying to a girl.