WILD RIDE
South Florida Riders – Book One
Breezie Bennett
Are you ready for a
Wild Ride?
A smoking hot wide receiver with a tattered reputation. A feisty tomboy with dreams of being a sports agent. Can he build his brand with a fake fiancée? Can she snag the promotion she desperately wants? Sure. If he can keep it in his pants and she can resist taking the ride of her life. Fall in love with Leo and Frankie as their romance slides from fake to forever.
WILD RIDE
Copyright © 2019 Mia Frisiello
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights to reproduction of this work are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the copyright owner. Thank you for respecting the copyright. For permission or information on foreign, audio, or other rights, contact the author, [email protected].
Published by Palm Island Publishing
Cover Art: The Killion Group Inc.
Digital Formatting: Author E.M.S.
Table of Contents
WILD RIDE
About the Book
Copyright
The South Florida Riders Series
ONE — Leo
TWO — Frankie
THREE — Frankie
FOUR — Leo
FIVE — Frankie
SIX — Leo
SEVEN — Frankie
EIGHT — Leo
NINE — Frankie
TEN — Leo
ELEVEN — Frankie
TWELVE — Leo
THIRTEEN — Leo
FOURTEEN — Frankie
FIFTEEN — Frankie
SIXTEEN — Leo
SEVENTEEN — Frankie
EIGHTEEN — Leo
NINETEEN — Leo
TWENTY — Frankie
TWENTY-ONE — Leo
TWENTY-TWO — Leo
TWENTY-THREE — Frankie
TWENTY-FOUR — Leo
TWENTY-FIVE — Frankie
TWENTY-SIX — Frankie
TWENTY-SEVEN — Leo
TWENTY-EIGHT — Frankie
TWENTY-NINE — Leo
THIRTY — Frankie
THIRTY-ONE — Leo
THIRTY-TWO — Frankie
EPILOGUE — Leo
About the Author
The South Florida Riders Series
Wild Ride
Slow Ride
Easy Ride
And yes, there will be more. For a complete list, buy links, and reading order of all my books, visit https://breeziebennett.com/. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to find out when the next book is released!
ONE — Leo
“Get your stupid ass in here, Sterling.”
I know I screwed up, but c’mon, it was just a strip club! Completely innocent. Even still, knowing my NFL career could be at stake because of a stupid drunken bachelor party had my heart in my throat like I was running to catch a game-winning pass in overtime.
“What’s up, Ryan?” I nod at the dude who has got to be the world’s most uptight sports agent, and that’s saying a lot. The poor man probably lost a week’s worth of sleep over me getting a thirty-second lap dance.
“Leo Sterling.” Ryan draws out each syllable of my name through a deep sigh. “You know, I would say I expected more of you, but that would be a total lie. I’m not even slightly surprised.”
I respond with a smirk and an eye roll, choosing to ignore the tiny pang in my chest that comes with knowing I disappointed someone. “I know. Look, man, the videos are out, the damage is done. Just tell me what I need to do to fix it so I can put all this shit behind me and get the Riders to the playoffs.”
Ryan Kingsley, world-class NFL agent and conniving asshole, works from an all-glass corner office of a skyscraper in Fort Lauderdale. Looking past him, I stare out of the windows and watch the sun beat down on the Atlantic Ocean. I love this state. I love my team. Nerves creep up again at the prospect of losing it all. I clench my jaw. Stupid fucking strip club.
The office door opens suddenly, and I turn around to find a pretty girl wearing a blue skirt and slightly too large sweater.
“Here are the files you requested, Mr. Kingsley. Is there anything else you need?”
Oversize Sweater Girl doesn’t so much as glance my way. No surprise that Ryan already has a new secretary. The last one didn’t last two weeks. It’s mildly shocking, however, that she doesn’t even bother to check me out.
“Frankie,” Ryan growls at the poor chick. “Will you please say hello to Leo Sterling, the star wide receiver of the South Florida Riders and, at the moment, grade A fuckup?”
The girl forces a chuckle and pushes a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
“Nice to meet you, Frankie. I’m the disappointment.” I glance at a pair of deep-green eyes behind thick-framed glasses and throw her my token panty-dropping wink. Was that an eye roll? Or just a slight look of disgust? I give her the benefit of the doubt, because working for Ryan has got to be no picnic. That asshat will rip her to shreds by the end of the week. People think NFL players are jerks. Hah! They should meet our agents.
Frankie nods and swiftly walks out of the office. The sweater might not be working, but I can’t help but notice the way that dark blue skirt hugs her round ass.
Ryan notices me looking over my shoulder at his new assistant’s backside—oops—and slams his palm on the desk. “Sterling! This is serious business. Your career is on the line. My career is on the line. The Riders’ spot in the playoffs is on the line.” He paces back and forth behind the desk, wiping beads of sweat from his thinning hairline.
“Chill out, bro. It was just a lap dance. I can handle it. What do I have to do?”
Ryan takes a deep breath and sits back down across from me. “It was not just a lap dance. It was a lap dance at a bachelor party for the quarterback of your rival team, dipshit. Do you have any idea how messed up that looks?”
“Cassano’s my boy from Clemson, and as of last Saturday, he only gets to bang one chick for the rest of his life. The occasion definitely warranted some innocent flirting with strippers after a few too many shots of Jack.”
Ryan presses his fingers into his temples and ignores my attempt at an explanation. “Listen. You may be a conceited, self-righteous dick, but for whatever reason, you’ve been blessed with the ability to catch a football.”
I wonder if Ryan Kingsley has ever even touched a football.
“The league is holding a press conference this Friday.” Ryan stares hard at me. “The team needs you, and the people have to like you. This shit is a business, and they are our customers.”
“So, I just have to talk my way out of it at the press conference. Easy enough. God knows I’ve talked myself out of worse.” I half smile at Ryan, partially to give him confidence in me, but mostly just to piss him off.
“That’s not going to be enough this time, Leo. The fans need to believe that you are more than just a douchey professional athlete who throws Benjamins at strippers and breaks the hearts of innocent girls. You can’t bullshit your way out of this with your damn charm and shiny hair.”
“Well, other than that and my football catching, what the hell do I have?”
“You need
a woman. A girlfriend—no, a fiancée.”
I snort. “You’re kidding me, right? I’m in deep shit for fooling around at a strip joint. How would having a fiancée fix that? Oh yeah, and not to mention the obvious problem of I don’t fucking have one.”
“Of course you don’t have one! Because you’re too busy banging your way through your groupies to get serious.” Ryan’s voice escalates with anxiety.
“Hey, man, there’s a shit-ton of girls who would kill to be in some serious-ass relationship with me.” I nod at my phone in reference to my infinite list of Instagram DMs. I’m sure they all want to be my girlfriend, right?
“Great. Then find one. It’s going to be a season-long gig if we wanna really sell this thing.”
My mind starts scrolling through the list of girls I know who could possibly want to be my fake fiancée for an entire football season. It’s shorter than I originally thought.
“Do I pay her?” I look up at Ryan. “No, wait, that’s prostitution. That’s illegal.”
“My God, you are an idiot.” He drops his head into his hands. “You’re not having sex with the girl, Sterling. You’re pretending to be engaged to her.”
Oh. Right. “Dude, Friday is literally the day after tomorrow. There’s zero chance I can find a chick that desperate in less than forty-eight hours.”
Just as I’m starting to feel a hint of panic settle into the pit of my stomach, the door swings open and Big Sweater, Nice Ass Girl walks in again.
“Frankie! Perfect timing.” Ryan turns to me. “Frankie will do it, and she works for me, so she’s already getting paid and she can’t say no.”
The stunned girl tries to hide her obviously disgusted response to Ryan’s creepy-ass comment.
She straightens her back. “Do what, Mr. Kingsley?”
“Pretend to be Leo’s lovely little fiancée.”
The assistant and I instantly share a look of shock and mutual hatred for the man on the other side of the desk who so easily controls both of our lives.
Frankie quickly pushes her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose and collects herself. “Yeah, I don’t really think that’s in my job description. I’m sure you’ll find a lucky lady, though.” She throws me a smirk.
Do I sense…condescension? Maybe there’s some sass under that sweater. Maybe something else, too. I could tell if the thing weren’t so damn big. Seriously, who dressed this poor girl?
Frankie turns to walk out of the office.
“Then you won’t have a job,” Ryan sternly calls after her. Wow. I always knew he was a dick, but this is seriously a new level of dickishness.
She freezes. “Just…give me a moment.” Walking out of the room, she slams the door behind her.
“Would you really fire that girl already just because she doesn’t want to be a fake NFL fiancée? She’s your assistant, not an actress.”
“She’s training to be an agent, Sterling. What better way to learn the job? But the only person’s job you should be worried about is yours.”
All right, I guess I gotta go win over the boyish little trainee. I remember her ass in the tight blue skirt. I guess I could get behind this. Figuratively, of course.
TWO — Frankie
I know you, Leo Sterling. I know your type. I can predict your every move, on and off the field. And I want absolutely as little to do with you as possible.
I’m well aware that working for a jerk like Ryan will be a pain in the ass and that my dream of eventually being a sports agent will put me in very close quarters with unfathomably arrogant athletes like Leo. It’s par for the course with my career path, one I chose so that I can stay as close as possible to the one true love of my life—football.
I look at the picture on my desk of Tebow, my six-year-old pit bull, to calm my nerves at the very thought of pretending to be engaged to some egotistical football star. “You wouldn’t stoop that low, would you, buddy? Of course not. You have integrity.” I slump down in my chair and bury my face in my hands.
Suddenly, I feel a strong tap on my shoulder and get a gentle waft of some expensive cologne. I look up to meet the deepest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, framed by locks of silky dark hair and underscored with a jawline that could cut a diamond.
“Hey.” Leo leans against my desk in front of me, perfectly positioning the bulge in his khaki pants directly at my eye level.
Jesus Christ. I try to ignore the warmth that floods my body at the thought of what’s beneath those khakis and pull my gaze up to meet his.
“I have a proposal for you. A business proposal. Wanna grab a cup of coffee?” He reaches out his hand and flashes me a smile that makes my knees melt. I refuse the hand and lift myself out of the chair.
Having a little weakness for athletes like Leo Sterling doesn’t make me pathetic, it makes me a normal human. And it definitely doesn’t mean I’ll fall for him.
“All right. One cup of coffee.”
After a silent elevator ride, we walk out of the office to the coffee shop next door, and suddenly I’m kicking myself for wearing this stupid baggy sweater. And then I’m kicking myself for giving a damn whether a cocky NFL player notices my boobs. His rock-solid tricep brushes against my arm and sends a chill down my spine. God, he’s sexy. He oozes that douchey confidence of an athlete, the guy who can get absolutely any girl he wants, and all you want is for him to choose you…
No. Stop it, Frankie. You’ve been down this road before and you know exactly where it leads. Heartbreak and misery. Your career is all that matters right now, and Leo Sterling is just a deliciously chiseled way for you to get one step closer to achieving your dreams.
“One medium black coffee and…” Leo turns and gestures to me.
“Make it two, please.” I resist the urge to insist on paying for my own coffee, because, well, there’s a wage gap, and he makes zillions anyway.
“Black coffee?” Leo raises his eyebrows at me. “Not usually a lady’s first pick.”
I cringe at the word lady. “Ah, yes, Leo Sterling, best wide receiver in the NFL and grade A womanizer. You know exactly how all girls like their coffee, and you consider yourself a god between the sheets. Am I right?”
He laughs and backs up, raising his hands defensively. “Whoa, there, sassmaster. Just figured you might want some mocha macchiato latte garbage. And you are right. I have references.”
The wink and nod he shoots at me half makes me want to throw up and half makes me want to rip his clothes off and screw him in the middle of Starbucks. What an ass.
“If you’re going to be my fiancée, I’m gonna need to know a lot more than just how you take your coffee.” Leo sits down at a table and nods for me to sit across from him.
I sigh and wave my hand through the air dismissively. “All right, propose to me.”
He chuckles, a laugh so sexy and deep it melts me. “Okay, so here’s the deal. Even though my agent is the biggest jerk on the planet, I assume you want to keep your job, yes?”
More than he could ever know. “Yes. I’m almost twenty-seven, and this is my first shot at becoming a legit sports agent. I’ll do anything to keep it.” I nod and will myself to stay focused.
“Okay, before we get into the details of our fake engagement, I gotta ask because you don’t see a ton of female sports agents handling NFL players. So, why football?”
I laugh. “Do you have all week?”
Leo looks me up and down and bites his obscenely sexy lips. “I got time.”
I ignore the sudden urge to lean across the table and bite those lips even harder. “All right, the short version is that I grew up with three older brothers, and I’ve been living and breathing the game basically since I was born. While other girls were playing with Barbie dolls, I was outside running plays and getting tackled. Football is everything to me. My dream is to eventually be an NFL agent. Like Ryan, but without the God complex and receding hairline.”
Leo lets out another hearty laugh. “So you’re a football nerd. That’s awesom
e. I can dig that.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Yeah, well, you’re gonna have to ‘dig that’ if you want to save your reputation and your team.”
“All right, future Mrs. Sterling.” He claps his hands together and shifts to the edge of his seat, inching closer to me. “Here’s the situation. It’s a season-long commitment, and then we can end it with a low-key breakup, just-didn’t-work-out sort of thing. Friday is the press conference, but I’m gonna need you all season. The media and the fans are gonna be on me at every game, shoving mics in my face, asking about my sweet and forgiving darling fiancée.”
“What about my job?”
“Pretty sure your boss just said this is your job.”
True. “Okay, I come to all the Riders games as it is, and I definitely wouldn’t mind the upgrade to wife-and-girlfriend pricey section box seats.”
“Perfect. And make nice with the wives, please. No sass.” He points a warning finger at me from across the table.
“You mean I can’t play my ‘take a shot for every Louis Vuitton bag’ drinking game?” I pout sarcastically.
“If you want alcohol poisoning. But listen, the press coverage doesn’t stop when we get off the field. You have to be seen going home with me every night and coming and going from my house. You can’t be slipping out at three a.m., either.”
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