Love Game

by Maggie Wells

  Shooting a disparaging glance at the glass in his hand, she brushed past him. “Yeah, because sitting in the dark getting drunk is always the best course of action.”

  “I hadn’t thought about getting drunk,” he mused, letting the door slide shut with a thunk. “Good idea.” With a grace that always surprised her, he turned and walked toward the fully stocked wet bar. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at Kate and Danny’s party thing tonight?”

  “It’s still going on. Your absence was noted,” she added pointedly.

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t much up for socializing.” He tossed the clear liquid he’d been drinking down the drain, then nodded to the crystal tumblers lined on a shelf. “Can I buy you a drink, Mil?”

  She watched as he splashed less than a centimeter of liquid into the bottom of the highball glass he’d been carrying. This time, it was amber, and not clear. Crap. If he hadn’t been drinking before, he was now.

  Ignoring the offer, she opted to switch on a floor lamp. Warily, Millie peered down at her shoes. The nappy faux hide on her Jimmy Choo ballet flats was damp but otherwise appeared none the worse for wear in spite of her stealth approach. When Ty hadn’t answered the ring of the bell, she’d had to activate plan B. Since there was no way she’d chance rolling ass over teakettle down his steeply sloped yard to get to the back door, she’d cut across the neighbor’s yard for a stealth approach to his split-level McMansion.

  Exhaling her frustration, she shifted straight into fixer mode. “Okay. Time to pull up your big boy pants and make a plan.”

  Without taking his eyes off her, Ty tossed the drink back with a flick of his wrist. He fixed her with an oddly defiant glare as he let the tumbler slip from his fingers and drop to the floor.

  “My big boy pants?”

  Millie goggled as the heavy crystal glass rolled across the wide-planked wood without shattering. She stared after it in wonder. Had it survived the fall because his arms were so long and it hadn’t had far to go? Shaking her head, she thanked God she wouldn’t have to add cleaning up shards of glass to her to-do list for the night.

  “Right.” She clapped her hands together. “Your woman has ditched you. No big deal. Happens all the time.”

  “Thank you for your condolences.”

  She let the sarcasm pass. He could expend his anger on her all he wanted. She was more worried about what he said to other people.

  Moving past him into the still-shadowy great room, she spotted the remote control perched on the arm of the overstuffed armchair and made a beeline for it. She pointed the zapper at the screen and switched the power off, plunging them into thick, buzzing silence.

  Feeling steadier, she faced Ty once more. “The real juicy part is she left you for one of your players.”

  Ty planted his big ball-handler hands on his hips. “Thanks for clarifying,” he said gruffly. “I almost missed the juice.”

  Millie rolled her eyes. She didn’t care what her friend Kate said about an athlete’s innate mental toughness. There was nothing trickier than handling a bunch of super jocks and their touchy egos. “I am sorry, Ty, but you had to have seen something like this coming, right?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be making me feel better or something?”

  “I’m not your mommy. I’m not here to kiss the boo-boo and make everything better.” A shiver ran down her spine even as she spoke the words. Awareness. Hot. Tingling. Happened every time they shared air space. Which meant she’d had more than two years to get a handle on her attraction to him. Too bad being near him made her grip feel shaky. “No, my job is to help you put the best possible face on a situation that may reflect badly on the university.”

  He inclined his head slightly but still managed to look straight down his nose at her. “You’re a real pal, Millie.”

  “I’m working,” she reminded him. “I’ll try to be a better pal when I’m off the clock.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Setting her jaw, she studied him, measuring his readiness to step up to the line on this one. “First of all, we have to keep you off the phone. Then, we need to spin your marital situation: amicable split, coming for a long time, you wish her well, blah, blah, blah. When they start lobbing questions about Dante, we keep the focus on your contributions to his NBA career.”

  “So you don’t think I should go on TV and tell the press I want to take a baseball bat to his shins?”

  She blinked, surprised by even the hint of violence coming from this quiet giant of a man. “Do you?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Kinda.”

  “Over her? Really?” The questions, three simple words tinged with seven shades of disbelief, popped out before she could stop them. “I thought you two were pretty much done before all this.”

  The air between them sizzled and cracked with tension. At last, he ran a hand over his close-cropped hair and down to knead the muscles in his neck. “No. Not over her.”

  “Then why?”

  The corners of his mouth curled up in a rueful smile, but she didn’t see even a glimmer of happiness in his eyes. When he spoke, he enunciated each word slowly, as if he were forced to explain his reasoning to a particularly slow toddler. “Because I envy his court time. His career. His future.” He flung one long arm out. “He’s just starting out. No injuries. Nothing holding him back. He’s going to have the career I never had.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Then this could be the strangest midlife crisis ever.”

  He held up both hands. “Hey, I’m not having a crisis, and this is not my fault.”

  His palms looked to be about the size of salad plates. A fact Millie had long found intriguing. But this wasn’t the time or place to speculate about how great it would feel to have those big mitts all over her. She could let her fantasies loose later. When she was alone.

  Besides, the defensive note in his denial told her he wasn’t quite as cool with his wife leaving him for one of his NBA-bound players as he wanted her to think. Feeling the need to do something, anything, to make him realize she was on his side, she reached out and gave his arm an awkward pat. “No. No, it’s not. And I am sorry.”

  He looked down at her hand, a smirk curving his lips as she yanked her fingers away a tad too quickly. “Wow. You really suck at the sympathy thing.”

  Millie had the good grace to grimace. “I’ve never been very touchy-feely.”

  Ty cocked his head. “I’m surprised.”

  “Are you?”

  He took a half step closer. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman to shy away from anything.”

  Proved how much he knew about her. It was all she could do to hold her ground. Not because she was scared of him. More that she might not be able to keep her own impulses in check. Ty Ransom was not only tall, built, and too handsome for his own good, but he was sweet and funny in a self-deprecating way that more successful jocks never quite mastered. A flutter of nerves tightened her belly.

  Flattening her hand on her midriff to quell the internal uprising, she plastered her public relations smile on her face. “Well, I do like a good fight.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “That’s why I’m here. We don’t have to let the press run this thing. Take control of your message instead of spouting off. Make the story the one you want to tell.”

  “I don’t see what there is to control,” he said with feigned nonchalance. “My wife left me for a first-round draft pick. Can hardly blame the woman for upgrading, can you?”

  “Well, truthfully—”

  “He’s got two working knees, more vertical lift than I had on my best day, and according to our good friend Brittany at NSN”—he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper as he referred to the perky blond reporter from the sports network—“charisma.” He nodded to the darkened screen, then shrugged. “God knows Brittany would know.”

  “Brittany doesn’t know squat.”

  He guffawed. “You do have a way with words.” He crossed to
the wet bar and plucked another clean glass from the shelf. “You’re hired.”

  “Thanks, but I already have a job.”

  “See? You don’t even want me,” he muttered as he pulled the stopper off a decanter. “Charisma,” he growled. “Don’t think I ever had any, even when I had game.”

  She hated this. Hated seeing this proud, cocky man lose his swagger over a woman who was little more than a piece of dandelion fluff. Sucking in a deep breath, she approached with caution. “Ty—”

  Order Maggie Wells’s next book

  in the Love Games series

  Play for Keeps

  On sale April 2018

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I have to thank my parents, Robert and Suzanne Kidwell, not only for the gift of life, but for instilling in me their love of Broadway musicals, college football, and books. Not necessarily in that order.

  On our first “real” date, my husband, Bill, offered me the option of seeing a production of Damn Yankees or tickets to an Arkansas Razorbacks football game. Because I am a bit like the infamous Lola, I get what I want, so when I cooed, “Ooh, I love college football,” I got my man.

  I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the late coach Pat Summitt for providing the inspiration for Kate Snyder. A paragon of grace under pressure and strength of character, Coach Summitt was a true champion in every sense of the word. I also have to thank football coach Bobby Petrino. I’d be a big ol’ liar if I said his departure from the Razorback football program under a cloud of scandal didn’t provide a bit of fodder when it came to dreaming up Danny McMillan’s trials and tribulations.

  This book was truly a labor of love. I want to thank my agent, the always enthusiastic Sara Megibow, for falling for Kate and Danny as hard I did. I appreciate your unflagging support and your voracious appetite. You are a superstar!

  To Cat Clyne, Laura Costello, Rachel Gilmer, and the entire Sourcebooks team, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have taken my vision for this book and these characters to the next level, and helped me step up my game as an author. It makes this former DuPage County resident proud to be published by a company founded and run by women, and based right in the center of my old stomping grounds. I’m so pleased to be a part of the Sourcebooks family!

  A huge thank-you to my personal Dream Team. This book, and all my books, are written because Laurie, Christine, Michelle, Carol, and of all the Super Cool Party People believed in me from the start. Big thanks to the sparkling gems of the Diamond State Romance Authors, who keep me on track and semi-sane. A special shout-out to my long-lost-sister-separated-at-birth, Karen Booth, for hanging on to me as we ride this crazy train together.

  Most importantly, I have to thank critique partner extraordinaire Julie Doner. Julie is the reason this book came to life. One night, I said, “I want to write a story with a heroine who is unapologetically kick-ass. Not the gun-toting, fancy martial arts kind of kick-ass. More the kind that comes from being the best at what she does and owning it.” And the rest was…Love Game.

  Oh! And if anyone is curious about Kate’s shoe collection, know that it actually does exist, and it belongs to Julie Doner. She has promised to share pics in my Facebook reader group, so be sure to look for them!

  Mostly, I thank you for picking up this book and reading my story. I appreciate you most of all.

  About the Author

  By day, Maggie Wells is buried in spreadsheets. At night, she pens tales of people tangling up the sheets. The product of a charming rogue and a shameless flirt, you only have to scratch the surface of this mild-mannered married lady to find a naughty streak a mile wide. She has a passion for college football, processed cheese foods, and happy endings. Not necessarily in that order.

  Thank you for reading!

  At Sourcebooks we are always working on something new and exciting, and we don’t want you to miss out.

  So sign up now to receive exclusive offers, bonus content, and always be the first to get the scoop on what’s new!

  SIGN UP NOW!