Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(6)

Derek quickly shakes his head. “Oh, no, nothing like that. We’ve already put together some eligible candidates.”

“Eligible candidates?” I swallow another third of my glass, feeling like I’m going to be sick. “Do these women have fucking resumes for this shit or something?”

Derek looks at me plainly. “Of course they do.”

“Jesus fucking Ch-”

“You need someone who fits the part,” Derek rattles on. “Someone classy, someone with poise - nothing fake or plastic, like your usual.”

I groan, shaking my head and reaching for my glass as I look past Derek, when the door to the bar opens, and she walks in.

And damn, what a walk.

She moves like she was born in those heels, the little back dress painted onto her body like it’s a second skin. It’s not slutty, or skanky at all, she just looks goddamn classy as fuck in it - like some sort of movie star.

And in this town, that’s actually hard to pull off.

Her long dark brown hair is pulled back over one shoulder, and those sparkling, crystal blue eyes flit briefly across the dimmed room before she just sort of floats towards the other end of the bar.

The world suddenly goes still, and I grin.

This is exactly the type of distraction I need right now.

“Austin, you need someone wholesome, someone cultured - someone unknown and outside the public spotlight,” Derek drones on, oblivious to the fact that he’s completely lost the war for my attention.

She moves with elegance, like she some sort of royalty or something. Head held high, shoulders back as she glides towards the bar. I watch, utterly ignoring whatever Derek is saying as she smiles easily at the bartender, those perfect pouty red lips pulling back across a dazzling smile as she tucks a strand of hair back behind her ear.

The handful of whiskeys and the total lack of anything to eat since breakfast is going to my head, but I’m focused like I’m about to rattle off a play on the starting line of a game.

“Goddamnit, Austin, we’re not done here.”

Derek is swearing as I pat his shoulder, my attention firmly on the girl at the end of the bar.

“Let’s put a pin in this, buddy.”

“Austin, for fuck’s sake-”

“Yep, sounds good man.”

Derek says something else, but I’m not even listening anymore as my eyes suddenly narrow on the yuppie looking prick in the suit jacket leaning against the bar next to her. I can feel my jaw tighten as I see him slide close to her, and the look on her face as she glances around the room.

I don’t know shit about this girl, or her situation, or what’s even really going on with her and that guy at the far side of the bar. And I know damn well even as I move down that way that getting involved is the definition of Derek’s whole “predilections towards fucking my own shit up” theory.

But those eyes, and those lips, and that damn creamy skin of her neck and shoulders has me on autopilot.

This is a fucking terrible idea.





4





Natalie




“So listen a sec, I gotta ask you somethin’.”

I groan for the fifth time in as many minutes, looking up to glare at the douchey looking guy in the open-neck dress shirt and sports coat. For the fifth time, he flashes me what I’m sure he truly believes is his most charming smile, which would admittedly be slightly more charming without the bit of food stuck between his teeth and the stale beer breath.

I tighten my lips at the man with the slicked-back hair who seems hell bent on ignoring every single social cue in the world as he leans against the bar leering at me. “What.”

He grins widely, like he’s been waiting for this moment. “Were your parents thieves? Cause honey, they stole the stars outta heaven and put ‘em-”

“In my eyes - right. Wow, I’ve never heard that one,” I say dryly, cutting him off. I reach for the martini in front of me and take a large swallow of it, feeling my eyes water as I force it down. “Un-amusingly, my father was actually a thief.”

He blinks quickly, the smile falling from his face. “Oh, uh-”

I try and spot the bartender to signal a mayday, but he’s busy at the far end of the bar, pouring a shot for two guys down there with their backs to me.

Wonderful.

With zero food in my stomach, the two nips of gin from earlier are making me dizzy and slightly fuzzy. The huge martini in front of me that I’m already halfway through isn’t exactly helping in that department.

But that was the entire point of coming here - numbness, solitude, escape. I just want to disappear - to get lost in my own booze-soaked escape, which is why a dim hotel bar on an empty Wednesday night seemed like a great idea, until this idiot plunked down next to me.