Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
AUTHOR INFO
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THANK YOU
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
MORE BOOKS
HIS LAST LOVE
GOLD MEDAL EVENT ROMANCE
MEGAN MATTHEWS
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author recognizes the trademarks and copyrights of all registered products and works mentioned within this work.
Copyright ©2018 by Megan Matthews. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written person from the author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the author at [email protected]
Thank you for purchasing HIS LAST LOVE. I hope you enjoy the fourth (and last) book in the Gold Medal Romance Novella series.
GOLD MEDAL ROMANCE NOVELLA SERIES
His Last Race
His Last Fall
His Last Hill
His Last Love
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To my dog. He’s been at my feet through every word of this series… literally.
CHAPTER ONE
Charlie walks out of the room we watched Cyrus race in together. Once she’s outside, her steps turn to a slight jog. I don’t know how far security will allow her to get, but I hope she has the chance to wish Cyrus good luck.
And I hope the two of them dating doesn’t become a public relations nightmare. When I took this job, they warned me it would be a lot of work keeping everything under control. They didn’t tell me pro athletes are fucking crazy and their lives are nothing but drama. Screw As the World Turns. I’m living in an episode of As the Snow Falls. It’s not what I envisioned when I agreed to the temporary position.
This was supposed to jump-start my career in marketing and public relations, not send me to the loony bin.
Of course it has always been my dream to work on a high-profile account like the Golds. I thought I would be helping set up interviews, prepping questions, or arranging photo shoots. I did not know I’d be a personal assistant. Actually, that’s putting it too nicely. I’m basically kind of their bitch.
“McKenna, why don’t we have a meeting in my office?” Asbell stands behind the couch, his belly straining the buttons on his suit jacket.
That’s not good.
“Right, sir.” I jump up from the couch, leaving it vacant for Marley and Reagan to sit, and follow him and Dexler, the head of security out of the room. No one speaks a word and it’s a little like walking to my doom.
It’s not that I’m afraid of my boss… exactly. It’s more like I’m terrified of him. I spent the last month doing my best to avoid being anywhere near him. We were required to report to athlete housing at the same time the first athletes were allowed here. It only took three faculty meetings of him screaming, spit flying out of his mouth and landing on the table in front of us, before it became my new game to avoid him at all costs. It may be the only aspect of this job keeping me half sane. It’s something else for my mind to focus on rather than the constant issues I’ve had to deal with.
A snowboarder’s hot water isn’t hot enough from the bathroom faucet. A skier’s shower water is too hot. Two figure skaters don’t like the mandatory Team USA uniform and refuse to wear it because it’s not in their color wheel. Another person lost all their hats. Yesterday I had to help hire a special cleaning crew to come in because one of the speed skaters ran out of clean underwear. Laundry service is not something we normally provide. And that’s only a tiny amount of the shit load of issues we’ve fixed. These people are helpless.
Rooms have been broken into, sexual harassment complaints — two against Isaac alone — and now a snowboarder being detained minutes before his competition. How anyone makes it out of here alive is anyone’s guess.
None of it looks good for me.
Asbell walks in his office without stopping and takes a seat behind his desk. Drexler and I stop short, in the space between the chairs and the door. Maybe if I don’t sit down, he won’t have as long to yell.
“Shut the door and have a seat, you two.”
Damn.
Drexler shuts the door and shoots me a look saying everything I’m feeling. We’re screwed.
“I don’t know what to do with you.” His words start softly and slowly increase in volume. “Are you special? Did you ride the short bus to school? I asked for the best of the best and you two are what they sent me.”
“The paperwork had your name —” Dexler’s body tenses in the chair next to mine. He obviously hasn’t learned fighting isn’t the way to go.
“Shut up! You talk when I tell you to talk.” Asbell slams a big fist on the wooden desk. “You’re lucky I didn’t fire you yet. I told Tommy I didn’t want a meathead from the army, but you were highly recommended. Get out of my hair before I change my mind and send you back to the US. From this point forward you don’t take a piss unless you get my approval. Got it?”
Dexler stands. “Yes, sir.” He turns and walks out of the room not even giving me a pity look on his way out.
Thankfully Asbell waits until the door closes before he unleashes his wrath in my direction. “How in the fuck did you let one of your snowboarders get detained by that meathead of a security guard?”
“I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? What if you cost us a gold medal? Cyrus was your responsibility.” The first few drops of spit fall on the word responsibility, but there’s so many more to come. Once he gets started he won’t stop until his desk is flooded.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“You’re sorry. I’m sorry. We’re all fucking sorry.” He’s almost screaming at this point. It’s like internally he knows I haven’t been yelled at over the last few weeks and he’s decided to make up for it by getting it all out now.
This time I only shake my head, fearful if I open my mouth tears will come out.
He ruffles through some papers on his desk. “You have one athlete left in your pack, Oliver Slade, on the parallel slalom track. This is the last year this event will be at the Golds. James and Oliver are our final chances to medal in this event. Don’t fuck up again. I want you to keep your eye on Oliver at all times. I want the two of you bunking together if that’s what it takes to keep him out of trouble.”
I nod my head erratically. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. All my chanting doesn
’t work and I’m forced to blink quickly to stop tears from forming. I refuse to sniffle and let my emotional breakdown be known. There are over twenty athletes on the US Snowboarding team. Four of those men were my responsibility and I let one get detained before his competition. I’m lucky I still have a job. I can’t screw anything up with Oliver.
“If you cry, do it in the hallway. I don’t have time for emotions.”
I nod again and stand. “Right. Thank you, sir.” There’s nothing else to say and I use this as my chance to escape.
I stick my head down pretending to examine the papers on my clipboard so no one sees me cry as I walk away from his office. Oliver’s sheet is far down my pile. He is one of a few athletes I’ve been assigned who hasn’t had some type of ridiculous problem in the last few weeks. I’d like to see it as a good thing, but this job has sucked all the positivity out of me.
Oliver Slade is twenty-five and lives in California — the same state and age as me. That could give us common ground, or make him decide I’m completely not worth paying attention to. It’ll probably be the latter.
It looks like it’s time for me to hunt down my new assignment and tell him the horrible news. The athletes’ dining room is the closest to where I am currently and I turn left in the hallway. I have to start somewhere.
Oliver isn’t there. He’s also not in his dorm room, or the gym and spa area, or getting a massage, or anywhere else. Maybe aliens abducted him. That’s all my career needs.
After two hours of searching I finally give up… for the time being. I’ll have to find him eventually. I’m already in trouble and he’s managed to keep himself drama free for a month. I don’t think a few more minutes while I watch the medal ceremony for the parallel giant slalom will be a big deal.
Hopefully.
Athletes and family members of those wanting to watch the medal ceremony gather in a large circle at the front of the tri-step podium. Reporters fight for space in between. The rest of the regular fans stand farther back. I locate Charlie, Reagan, and Marley in the middle of the madness.
Cyrus steps up to the second-place podium and the official straps a shiny silver medal around his neck. The metal glistens as the light from the arena bounces off the detailed metalwork in the middle. Cyrus waves and smiles from the spot as the United States national anthem plays over the loudspeakers.
Charlie and Reagan scream and I do my best to add to the noise level by sticking two fingers in my mouth and whistling as loudly as possible. When the music dies down to prep for the first-place winner, I turn to Charlie.
“Tell Cyrus I said congratulations. I hope to see him at the winners’ dinner.”
Charlie frowns. “You’re not going to stick around?”
I shake my head. “I can’t. Have to find a snowboarder. You know how it is.”
“Those damn snowboarders,” Reagan sneers. “They always ruin the fun.”
She got that right.
“Who are you looking for?” Marley yells over the Chinese national anthem.
“Oliver, he’s in the parallel slalom event.”
“Oh!” Marley points to her right, indicating a man farther back in the crowd. “He’s right there.”
I stand on my tiptoes to see. She’s right. Oliver is with a group of other men watching the ceremony.
“Thanks! I have a go. I’ll see you later.”
I dodge between the crowd of people, working on getting to Oliver before leaves. When I reach him, his back is turned, and he’s in a heated discussion with another snowboarder. Both of them are talking with their hands in the air. I tap him on the shoulder ready to get this over with.
He turns, a huge smile on his face. “What’s up, buttercup?”
“The end of your good time,” I say having to get as close as possible so he hears me over the noise.
His smile falls. “Oh.”
CHAPTER TWO
I printed off four copies of today’s agenda from the in-room printer all the public relations assistants were given when we moved into the dorm. Athletes complain about their housing, but we’re living here too. The only difference is they eat their healthy crap food year-round, whereas when I’m not here, I get to eat normal people food. Like burgers, pop and chips. Like a regular person. I don’t care what they say. No one in their right mind enjoys eating protein mush for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The papers shoot out of the printer and I attach them to my clipboard in various locations. One on top, one on bottom, one in the middle, and one on my desk in case something happens to my clipboard. My stomach growls thinking of scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes covered in syrup. I feel like Homer Simpson and his love for donuts when I have to wipe a small patch of drool from the corner of my lips. Maybe if there’s time today I can sneak over to the American hotel and pretend to be a guest. Marley and Reagan are always walking around with containers of bacon.
Mmmm bacon.
The first thing I’m doing when I make it back to California is order the biggest shake from Sonic. I’m not even going home first. There is a Sonic on my drive from the airport. I can buy one shake for the car ride and one to drink while unpacking. Hell, maybe I can buy a third and stick it in the freezer. An emergency shake for when I have flashbacks and need help remembering I’m home.
There are two knocks on my room door, and I scowl at the intrusion for breaking up my daydreams of grilled patties with melted cheese, mayo, and pickles. Man I miss food. It’s probably unhealthy how much time I’ve spent over the last month visualizing myself eating a burger.
“It’s open.”
The door squeaks as soon as I yell, my fingers crossed nothing serious has happened in the six hours of sleep I allowed myself last night. A handsome face, with a small amount of dark stubble on his chin and a smile, steps into my room. If he wasn’t an athlete and I hadn’t recently decided all athletes are assholes, Oliver would actually be fairly cute. Handsome. Not in a rugged way you normally think of athletes, but there’s something about him, almost like he has this boyish smile to him. It’s not an immature look, just playful. Like maybe rather than snowboarding he should’ve been a surfer.
“Morning,” he says, his face still bright.
“Do you surf?”
My question obviously startles him as his smile dips. “Like on water?”
“Yes. They surf on water.”
He shrugs. “What is surfing but snowboarding on water?”
I tilt my head in his direction, deep in thought over what he said. Too much thought.
He interrupts before I have time to question him. “Do you plan on surfing today?”
“No.” I close my eyes and wave my hand. Athletes. “Why are you here?”
Now he’s smiling again — a little warning sign in the back of my brain lights up telling me I should be worried — something about this conversation is not going to go right for me.
He leans against my door frame too smugly. “One of my friends found an arcade this week.”
“Okay. And you’re telling me because?”
He widens his eyes like the answer should be obvious. “Because and I quote,” he actually makes air quotes, which hasn’t been cool since it went out of style in the nineties… if it was even cool them, “last night after you followed me around for three hours you said if I left my room I had to tell you. If I ate breakfast I had to tell you. If I walked anywhere farther than my bathroom I had to tell you.”
My nose scrunches up when I remember I did make those demands.
“I’m trying to follow the rules.”
And then it all hits me. I was right. This conversation is going nowhere I like. “So are we going to the arcade?”
His eyes light up in excitement. “Yup.”
Ugh. Theoretically Asbell told me I had to follow him around. He didn’t say I couldn’t boss him into doing what I wanted. If I pitch a fit and tell him he can’t go to the arcade, he’ll probably to sneak out and do it behind my back anyway. I suppose I sho
uld be happy he’s even giving me the heads up.
“Don’t you have to practice today?” Most of the snowboarders have been practicing on the slopes attached to the American resort. The hotel wasn’t built for the Golds, but it has been a ski lodge in the area for many years. The American athletes have commandeered the trails as their own.
“That’s the great part. Check your schedule. I’m not set to practice until this afternoon.”
“Where is this arcade?” I’m not allowing my athlete to run the streets of a foreign city without a translator…or a bodyguard. I wonder if I can make the rules for going so invasive and annoying he’ll give up.
He taps the wall three times, reminding me of a wrestling match where he’s declared himself the winner. “At the lodge.”
“You’re telling me there’s an arcade at the practice lodge?”
“Yup. It’s fate.”
I’ve never heard fate used to describe an arcade before.
“Lunch is hours away. Don’t you think you want to get a nice massage or something beforehand? You have a competition in a few days.” The longer I keep him in this building, the more work I can get done. There are twenty-seven emails I haven’t answered yet and I’ve been working on them the last hour.
“Come on, Kenny. It will be fun.”
“It’s McKenna.”
He smiles, two rows of pearly straight white teeth on display. “I like Kenny better. Plus, if my mom asks, you’re six foot two inches tall with a bushy beard and a flatulence problem.”
My eyes narrow in his direction. “Okay?” There’s no way we’re leaving this room until he explains.
I count out the sixty seconds it takes Olive to answer, and I swear his face turns a shade of pink before he does. “My mom is here.”
“Yeah.” Most athletes have their families here. It’s kind of a big deal, participating in the Golds in all.
His Last Love Page 1
