Hard Knox
Page 1
Table of Contents
Books by Amber Malloy
Title Page
Legal Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademark Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
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About the Author
Totally Bound Publishing books by Amber Malloy
Spies R Us
Spies R Us
Kill Shot
Perfect Stats
Winning Her
Perfect Stats
HARD KNOX
AMBER MALLOY
Hard Knox
ISBN # 978-1-83943-399-3
©Copyright Amber Malloy 2020
Cover Art by Louisa Maggio ©Copyright June 2020
Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2020 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.
Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.
Book two in the
Perfect Stats series
Everything comes easy to quarterback Gavin Knox—women, football, even money. However, the only thing he truly wants but can’t win is the beauty of his dreams, Remy Bell.
A simple favor to save the girl turns into the quarterback losing his heart.
As beautiful as she is fun, Remy Bell has only one problem—a psychotic killer with political power wants her dead. Always a ‘two steps ahead’ type of gal, she plans to outrun the maniac. Marriage and a sweet life in the football star’s hometown in Canada would give her the cover she needs, but Remy doesn’t stick around long enough to find out. She travels all over the world, photographing the most beautiful and devastating events, but her now-husband’s tabloid activities lead her to the one place she should avoid…back home.
Superstar Gavin Knox wins at everything. However, once he scores the girl of his dreams, he’s suddenly in danger of losing the one thing he has always needed. Before she can slip through his fingers, he offers her a deal she can’t refuse—marry him for Canadian citizenship, which will protect her, and after five years, they can divorce. Knox is positive that she will fall head over heels in love with him, but it doesn’t happen. After six years of marriage, two playoff titles and a third on the way, Knox is forced to contend with a successful wife almost more famous than he is.
Determined to get exactly what he wants, which includes having Remy and a family, he devises a stupid scheme that puts everything he’s worked so hard for in jeopardy.
Dedication
To the woman who used to make me read Stephen King to her on long drives.
Thanks, Mom
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Heisman Trophy: The Heisman Trophy Trust
Comcast SportsNet: Comcast Corporation
TMZ: Warner Brothers Entertainment
Entertainment Tonight: CBS Studios Inc.
The Incredibles: Buena Vista Pictures International
Olympics: United States Olympic Committee
Pulitzer Prize: Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia University
Time: Time USA LLC
The New York Times: The New York Times Company
People: Meredith Corporation
National Geographic: National Geographic Partners
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: J.K. Rowling
Patrón: The Patrón Spirits Company
Chicago State University: Thurgood Marshall College Fund
Uber: Uber Technologies Inc.
FaceTime: Apple Inc.
Netflix: Netflix Inc.
Carl’s Junior: Carl Karcher Enterprises Inc.
Romeo and Juliet: William Shakespeare
Us Weekly: American Media Inc.
Facebook: Facebook Inc.
Hello Kitty: Sanrio Company Limited
Game of Thrones: Home Box Office Inc.
Conan the Barbarian: Robert E. Howard, Universal Pictures, EMI Films
Boy Scouts: Boy Scouts of America Corporation
Wayne’s World: Paramount Pictures
Starbucks: Starbucks Coffee Company Corporation
USA Today: Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC
Hotel Peninsula: The Peninsula Hotels Group
Chicago Sun-Times: Sun-Times Media IP, LLC
Vogue: Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.
Tom Ford: Ford, Thomas C., Individual
TASER: Taser International Inc.
iPhone: Cisco Technologies
There Goes My Hero: David Grohl, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear
Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Nissan: Nissan Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation
Playtex: Playtex Marketing Corporation
Vicodin: Abbvie Inc.
Fox Sports: Fox Media LLC
Superman: DC Comics General Partnership
Lex Luthor: DC Comics General Partnership
The Breakfast Club: John Hughes, Universal Pictures
Dudley Do-Right: Alex Anderson, with Chris Hayward and Allan Burns
Solo: Dart Container Corporation
Perry Mason: Erle Stanley Gardner, CBS Television Distribution
Lexus: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation
Android: Maurice, George T. dba Android
Laboratories
Training Day: Warner Brothers Pictures
iMac: Apple Inc.
O’Hare International Airport: City of Chicago
Cookie Monster: Sesame Workshop Corporation
Scooby-Doo: Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc.
PlayStation: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC
Bluetooth: Bluetooth SIG Inc.
60 Minutes: Don Hewitt, CBS Productions
20/20: Roone Arledge, ABC News Productions
The Stepford Wives: Columbia Pictures
Chanel: Chanel, Inc.
Google: Google Inc.
Bob’s Big Boy: Big Boy Restaurant Group LLC
Will County Gazette: LGIS, Will County Gazette
Disneyworld: Disney Enterprises Inc.
Universal Studios Florida: Universal City Studios LLC
White Castle: White Castle Management Co. Corporation
Mr. Mom: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Prologue
With less than a minute on the clock, Gavin Knox faked right and threw the ball to his running back. His teammate’s gravity-defying catch took place in the end zone, resulting in their game-winning touchdown. As the band played the school’s fight song, the student body of Michigan Institute of Technology flooded the field.
Letting out a ferocious howl, Knox snatched off his helmet. For the second time in a row his team was headed to the championships. With only one more year left in college, Knox looked forward to the Heisman Trophy Ceremony and a single digit position in the professional draft.
It may have seemed arrogant on his part to assume that he had a right to any of those things, but he had worked his ass off. He had mapped out his whole career since the age of twelve. In his freshman year of high school, Knox had transferred to America from Canada to secure his spot in the pros. He’d then followed it up with enrollment at a Big Ten college.
Intending to get drunk off his ass, Knox scanned the crowd for his best friend, Hawk. On his way past a couple of his teammates, he slapped their heads as he moved closer to the stands—and that was when he saw her. A chocolate-colored honey ran straight at him. Her letterman jacket showcased her body-hugging, tight sweater and perfect tits. Since she was focused on something over her shoulder, Knox felt safe to peruse her banging-ass body without judgment.
However, once she turned those big, almond-shaped eyes in his direction, his whole world came to a sudden and glorious halt. Shiny black curls bounced up and down, framing her heart-shaped face. Simple and utter perfection barreled straight at him.
As she licked her full lips, instant wood clouded his mind. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Fate had other plans. Flashes of what life would be like if he didn’t talk to her propelled him into action. Knox reached out to snag her around the waist, bringing the beauty inches from his mug.
“Where did you come from?” he asked her.
Confusion shuttled across her stunning face before she tilted her head to the side and smiled. “Nowhere.”
“So you just fell out of the sky?” It might have sounded lame, but he meant every word of it.
“Technically, you grabbed me. So, what happened here?” She checked out the field. “Did you win something big?”
“If the answer’s ‘you’, then sure.” As he looked into her eyes, he almost forgot the last few minutes of his life.
“Do you mind?” She glanced down at the ground. “The air’s kind of thin up here in Giantsville.”
Though he was reluctant to let her go, he set her down.
“So, what…? Are you like the main guy?” she asked, looking totally serious.
Knox laughed. He couldn’t help it. Obviously she didn’t care about football. “Something like that.”
“Which makes you a supastar, right?”
Positive that she didn’t have a bra on under her soft, cream-colored sweater, he desperately wanted to feel her body against his one more time.
“Are you going to tell me your name?” he asked abruptly. She glanced over her shoulder at something. For a split second he wondered if she had a boyfriend, but, truthfully, he didn’t care.
“And make it easy for you? No, but”—she raised onto her tiptoes and Knox leaned down to meet her halfway—“dream about me, okay? Then just maybe…” The warmth of her candy-scented breath heated his cheek.
Tempted to tip his head down a little farther to intercept her lips, he froze and hit the dreaded blue screen.
“Hey, man, congrat-u-fucking-lations!” His friend Hawk grabbed him in a big bear hug. When the melody of her laughter kicked him into gear, he realized that the beauty had disappeared.
Knox searched the crowd but couldn’t find her. “Where did she go?” he asked.
“Who? What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t see anybody.”
Positive that she’d given him a hint to her name, he ran through the possibilities in his head.
“The press wants to talk to you. Then we’re going out to celebrate.” Hawk patted him on the back and led him toward the locker room. Still shell-shocked by his encounter with the hottest girl he had ever laid eyes on, he reluctantly followed his friend.
* * * *
Once they had been deemed champions for the second year running, Knox only had to worry about finals, which were right around the corner. He rested on his ability to memorize things quickly. In other words, he planned to coast. Not in the least bit worried about his grades, he hit the coffee shop in the quad.
“Hard Knox!”
He nodded at a table full of people he didn’t know. Winners were always recognizable on campus. In his first year, no one had even known his name. Pretty sure some of his teammates were at the Half Full Coffee Shop, he skimmed the busy hub.
When he saw her, every nerve in his body rejoiced. “You!” Knox stumbled over a few coeds who were unlucky enough to litter his path to her.
“Hey, jerk!” someone called.
“So-o-ory,” he offered, without being sorry at all.
They mocked him over his Canadian dialect slip-up and he repeated his apology, this time making an attempt at sincerity as well as better pronunciation.
In his free time, he had searched for the girl who’d run into him at the playoffs. After a while, he’d convinced himself that there was no way she existed on this worldly plane. With only one thing on his mind, he hurried to intercept his real-life hallucination.
“Supastar!” she cried with a teasing tone. “Don’t tell me you won something else.”
Tight jeans, camo jacket and a tank with a bra. Dammit, he groused in his head. “If it’s not you, then the answer’s no.”
“Ah-h-h.”
“Ni-i-i-ice, white boy. We like this one,” someone commented from a table full of chicks who stared at him with different degrees of expression, which ranged from mocking to flat-out humor.
“Gavin, but everyone calls me Knox,” he introduced himself. “And you are?”
“Ah, come on now. No fair… You stumbled on to me. You didn’t really look.”
“What?” he asked, shocked. Knox never got turned down. This wasn’t a hard-to-get act she was putting on, but it was something else that he couldn’t figure out.
“Ladies,” she asked her friends, “does the campus coffee shop count?”
“No!” everyone yelled.
“Hey, I thought you were on my side,” he muttered.
“For some reason, they all think that,” someone muttered. All the chicks laughed at his expense.
“One more time, Supastar—and with feeling,” his dream girl said, her eyes sparkling with humor. “Then you can get a name.”
“MIT Campus has over forty-three thousand students. Do you actually think this is a one-off? Let me guess… You do this a lot.” The corners of her lips twitched into a devastatingly sexy smirk. He turned to her table of friends. “How many guys get an actual name?”
“So far”—one girl with a buzz haircut counted on her han
d, then switched to the next—“none.” The table laughed, a hard ‘don’t give a shit’ rip. It plainly expressed that none of them cared if they hurt his feelings or not.
“Then when I do really, really look for you and succeed, I want a name and a date.”
“When?” she repeated his words before she bit her lower lip. “The confidence on you, Supastar…”
“And no bullshit coffee or lunch. I’m talking a real date.”
“O-o-oh, girl, I like this one,” her friend said.
As she held out her hand, that teasing smile never left her face. He wanted to snatch her to his chest and kiss her breathless. Needless to say, his six-foot-six frame wouldn’t save him from her bodyguards, who hadn’t taken their eyes off him from the minute he had shown up.
Knox settled for the slight touch of her hand and shook it. “Deal.”
* * * *
Instead of studying for finals, he had spent the last two weeks searching for phantom hot girl. Almost positive he could skate on an eighty in his Financial Accounting and Reporting course, he hadn’t bothered to pick up a book.
He got a text from Hawk.
Where are you?
Knox answered.
Stalking my dream girl.
Then he erased it before it was sent. His friend would think he was crazy. Knox put his phone back into his pocket and took out a fifty-dollar bill.
“They’re in the last bay down the hall,” the security guard who had called him said.
Knox slapped the bill into the man’s palm on his way past. Describing Hot Girl to people had become a painful endeavor that he felt had equipped him to teach as a subject for an entire semester. Confessing that he hadn’t known one thing about her had become downright embarrassing. Sadly, it had turned into a nut-slamming experience when he explained this to black people.
After they understood that he was indeed serious, their amusement had immediately switched to pity. Knox had a feeling that even if they had known, they still wouldn’t have told him. Hot Girl had no social media of any sort.