Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(28)

Something new, something crazy, something to break the mold and the predestined path I’ve been walking on in glass slippers since I was twelve.

Of course, that “escape” was never meant to be a real, binding marriage.

I blow air out through my lips as I lean back in the tub.

Yeah, that happened.

Somehow, this whole thing went from a wild and reckless experiment in letting go to waking up naked in his bed with a ring on my finger.

I blush scarlet at the memory of waking up this morning next to the biggest man-whore in professional sports.

Yeah, married or not, that is the last time I will be sharing a bed with that man.

It’s only six months.

Six months I can do - six months I can rationalize and explain. Hell, my own mother was remarried and then divorced again in a shorter period of time - she’ll get it.

I close my eyes for another ten minutes or so, until the water starts to cool. Reluctantly, I stand and reach for a towel.

I should shave my legs.

I immediately roll my eyes at myself: for who? Who exactly am I trying to impress here? Austin?

I snort, shaking my head. Yeah, right.

Of course, I’m still shaking my head as I sit back on the edge of the tub and reach for the razor.



In the whirlwind of the last forty-eight hours, there’s one small, teeny little detail I’ve somehow managed to not think about until the very moment I step out of the bathroom.

And by “little”, I of course mean huge and somewhat glaring.

That would be the fact that I’m now living in a stranger’s house with a grand total of two cocktail dresses as my entire wardrobe.

This is going to be a problem.

I’ve had exactly one change of clothes since fleeing the Chateau Marmont with Austin - hell, since getting ready to go to that stupid gala event with Vince - the one I obviously never actually made it to. I think longingly about the two walk-in closets full of great clothes sitting back at that house.

Something tells me I’m going to need more than two cocktail dresses and a huge diamond ring if I’m going to be living here for the next six months. I need clothes, and clothes are going to obviously require money. And seeing as Vince canceled my credit card, this presents a problem.

I groan at the prospect of doing anything at the moment but falling into the huge four-post bed and falling asleep. But I’m grabbing one of the soft terrycloth robes hanging from the back of the bathroom door and wrapping it around myself. I step out through the double doors of my room to the wraparound terrace to try and find my new “husband.”

I let my fingers trail over the wrought iron railing of the Spanish-moss adorned terrace that seems to wrap all the way around the corner to the back of the house. I follow it, inhaling the scent of jasmine and sage, and actually marveling at how freaking peaceful it is up here in the hills.

I glance down at the lush, tree-lined backyard of the huge house, complete with the custom pool and palm trees.

Yeah, six months at this place? Totally doable.

And then of course there’s the matter of the man I’ll be sharing the house with.

My husband.

My - if nothing else - insanely attractive, bedroom-eyed, cowboy-smiling husband.

The thought brings a flush to my cheeks and a small smile across my lips that I quickly hide.

Stop that, he is not.

Austin Taylor is not a man I’d ever find myself actually interested in. Physical perfection aside, he’s an arrogant, rich, cocky jock, who’s paying me to be married to him.

That’s it.

This “relationship” is employer-employee and nothing else, no matter what the State of Nevada says.

…Like I should give a single crap about what the State that married me in the state I was in says about it.

In-between Kyle leaving and me getting into my bath, I spent the afternoon in my new room familiarizing myself with Austin via the internet - every gory detail.

Sure there’s plenty of articles and interviews out there about how great he is at throwing a ball, or how many records he’s broken even before signing with a pro team. But there might be double that in scandalous stories of his off the field antics - the girls, the partying, and something nose-wrinkling about an eighteen-year-old and a DUI.

Yeah, gross.

I have zero interest in being another statistic or another casualty of hurricane Austin. And I won’t be, that much I am very certain of.

No matter how alluring that smile is.

No, the next six months living with Austin will be fine. I’ll do my thing, he’ll do his. We’ll smile for the cameras, I’ll do the job - and it is a job - I signed up for, and there will be nothing else between us but business.

This is going to be fine.

I’m in the middle of convincing myself of that when I walk around the corner of the terrace and right into Austin, and I freeze in my steps.