Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (8 page)

H
oly hell
, yes.

I let the air exhale slowly as I ease myself down into the scalding hot water, feeling the tension ooze out of me as I sink into it. I close my, letting the water soak the toxins from my skin, and letting myself feel truly
alone
in my head for the first time in two days.

The huge, sunken tub in the en suite bathroom off my new room is huge - huge, steaming, and full of bubbles, and it feels
incredible
. I realize, as I let my head ease back against the edge and close my eyes, that I’ve basically been in varying degrees of drunk or hungover from
being
drunk for the last two days straight.

Gross.

But my new quarters are incredible, I’ll say that much. And yes, Austin’s Spanish-style sprawling mansion in the Hollywood Hills does in fact have
quarters
.

“You married well, princess.”

I roll my eyes as I sit there soaking in the tub. Well, there’s one thing my mother won’t be able to complain about when she hears about this debacle - if she hasn’t somehow already. In spite all my hang-ups and grumblings about being some rich guy’s arm candy like with Vince, here I went and married a different rich guy. Granted, I can already tell the world of difference between Austin and my ex, even only knowing him for two days, but still.

Same game, different players.

I shake my head and bring my hand out of the water, letting the bubbles trail over my fingers and over the glinting of the diamond on my hand - the huge, flashy, screaming lie wrapped around my finger.

Because whatever a marriage ring is
supposed
to mean - whatever it’s
supposed
to signify - this one isn’t any of those things. This one is a joke - a publicity stunt, a facade.

Then why are you wearing it?

I’m alone, there aren’t any cameras or media here - no one watching and scrutinizing and wanting to know how my new “husband” and I met and “fell in love.”

Ugh.

I haven’t even actually faced any of that yet, and I’m already feeling ill at the idea of sitting up there and smiling while I lie through my teeth about our “relationship.”

“Well, Oprah, it was really quite magical. You see, Austin and I met at a bar, where we were both wasted, after which I proceeded to kiss him like a crazy person. And from there - well, gee - from there we found ourselves drawing up an arranged marriage contract on an ice cream napkin, driving to Vegas, getting blackout drunk, and waking up naked and married!”

I snort at the thought of actually saying something like that on national television, visualizing my mother’s jaw dropping to the floor.

I twist the ring around on my finger, but in the end, I leave it on as I ease back into the sudsy water. I close my eyes again, trying to make sense of the last forty-eight hours or so, and how I managed to go from Vince Capra’s accessory to a pro NFL quarterback’s
actual
wife in the span of twenty-four hours.

I mean, remind me why I did this?

Well, for the money, obviously, but I’m not blind enough to think that’s the only reason. I know that somewhere under the surface, really this was about more than just that. I’m not an idiot. I know that “getting money” for a girl like me with my upbringing, and my polish, and my ties to a certain level of society isn’t hard. But this was about craving something more - an escape from Vince and that whole “upper tier” life.

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.

* * *

I
n 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.

He’s shirtless, wearing just a pair of loose, dangerously low-slung pajama pants and a damn
cowboy hat
, and lounging in a deck chair with his hands laced behind his head.

I swallow quickly, my eyes following the lines of his ink across his sculpted chest and torso.

And then he smiles at me - that damn smile, the one I’ve just been convincing myself I’m utterly and completely immune to.

Lies
.

This won’t be fine at all.

M
y entire internal
argument from seconds ago blows away like dust with the ridiculously put-together man stretched out in the patio chair in front of me. My eyes immediately drop from his smirking face to his absurdly perfect tattooed physique - to the hard, chiseled lines of his chest and the washboard grooves of his abs, to the tantalizing lines of his hips curving into the waist of his pajama pants.

I swallow quickly and drag my eyes back up to his face, only to see him smirking at me. I blush, tightening the tie around my waist and reaching up with a hand to close it at the neck.

“Drink?” he nods at the bottle of red wine sitting on the patio table by his feet, and I grimace.

“Yeah, hard pass. I think I finally just soaked the last of last night out of my system.”

“Little hair of the dog,” he says with a shrug, taking a sip of the wine. “It’s actually helping believe it or not.”

I make a cringe face.

He grins. “Better than fucking Gatorade, I’ll tell you-”

“We need to talk about my payment schedule.”

He arches a brow, as his mouth closes into a grin, putting down the glass of wine in his hand. “Yeah, I thought I’d just cut you a check or something?” he frowns. “Do you take checks?”

I raise a single brow and give him a look. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t realize how hooker-ish that would sound before you said it.”

Austin chuckles.

“And yes, I take checks, I’m not a stripper.”

“Well I hope not.” He grins as his eyes drop to my robe. “Because if you are, I think I’m getting ripped off.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Look, I’m bringing it up because I need to buy clothes if I’m going to be living here.”

“I mean, if you’re worried about offending Buckley and me, he and I have a pretty loose rule when it comes to pants in this house anyways.”

“That’s really helpful, thanks,” I deadpan.

He flashes that cowboy smile at me. “I’ll set you up tomorrow so you can get some stuff. Cool?”

“Thanks.”

He nods with his chin at the chair next to him. “You want to pull up a stool and sit a spell?” That honeyed Texan twang oozes from his lips, only magnified by the ten gallon hat on his head.

No, you don’t want to do that. You want to go to bed,
the voice in my head screams.

I’m wearing a thigh-length robe with nothing underneath it. And the man I drunkenly kissed in an elevator, and then drunkenly made out with in a club, and then blackout drunk married in Vegas before waking up naked next to is sitting there in sinfully low-slung pajama pants and no shirt.

Offering me a drink.

Such
a terrible idea. Such a very, very
very
terrible-

“Sure.”

You’re an idiot
.

I cram the voice inside of me into a corner as I pull my robe tight and sit back in the chair next to Austin.

He sighs as he takes another sip of wine. “I’m a cheap beer kinda guy, but the house actually came with a cellar-full of this stuff, and let me tell you, it’s fucking delicious.”

My brow shoots up when I glance down at the label. “Wow, nice.”

“I know, right? Who knew wine could taste good?”

“Austin, that’s a 1982 Chateau Lafite.”

“A what?” Austin raises a brow at me as he takes a $500 mouthful of wine.

I shake my head. “You don’t know much about wine, do you?”

He shrugs. “I know it’s killing my hangover right now. Why, do you?”

“I know that’s a four-thousand dollar bottle of wine you’re drinking.”

Austin’s brow shoots up as he holds the glass up in front of his gaze and whistles before he turns back to me with a questioning look. “Okay, explain how the hell you know that.”

I shrug. “My father used to keep some bottles around the house.”

He gives me a puzzled look. “I thought you were broke?”

“I never
said
I was broke, I just…”

“Don’t have any money?”

I look up and frown at the grinning Austin. “Something like that.”

“But your Dad drinks four-thousand dollar wine?” He snorts. “I think I got hustled.”

I grin, and before I can stop myself, I’m reaching for the wine in his hand. “May I?”

“Hey, what’s mine is yours.”

I stick my tongue out at his smirking face as I take a sip of the absurdly expensive wine, sighing as I let the silken taste trickle down my throat.

“Remember that whole R-Tech thing a while back that was all over the news?”

Austin raises his brow as he takes the wine back from my hand. “You mean the Ponzi scheme?”

“Yeah, that.”

He frowns and I squeeze my eyes shut.
I can’t believe I’m sharing this.

But for some reason, I want
to. For some insane reason, I feel like I should tell my fake husband my real story of my life.

“Yeah, well, that’s my Dad.”

Austin whistles. “Well,
shit
.”

“Yeah.”

He lifts his hat as he brings a hand up to push his fingers through his mop of hair. “You’re seriously
that
Ames? As in Walter Ames?”

“Daddy dearest,” I say with a thin smile, taking the glass back from him and bringing it to my lips. “We’re not very close though - not even from before.”

Austin clears his throat. “So you’re what, broke?”

“Yes and no.” I sigh. “There’s a trust fund setup somewhere, but it’s frozen until after the civil trials are over.”

Austin nods. “Wait, didn’t your mom marry your dad’s lawyer or something?”

“Vice President,” I say with a shrug. “And then divorced.”

“And she doesn’t have money?”

I snort. “Oh,
loads
, but my mother is insane.”

Austin laughs. “Wait, so you’d rather get
fake married
to a guy you don’t know than ask your mom for money?”

I arch my brows over the glass of wine at him. “Clearly, you’ve never met my mother.”

Austin tosses his head back and laughs deeply, the muscles of his bare chest rippling as he chuckles. “Holy shit, and I thought
I
had a fucked up family.”

“Feel like sharing?”

“Not really.” He takes the glass of wine back from me. “So, you grew up rich and now you’re marrying a guy for cash. I grew up in a shack and now I’m
paying
for a fake wife.”

“Eat your heart out, Shakespeare.”

He laughs. “Well, it’s just money.”

This time
I’m
the one laughing. “Says the man who gets paid an
obscene
amount of money to play a game.”

He makes a face. “Nah, it’s more than that.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh,
pleas
e
.
Austin, the whole world revolves around money. Are you going to say you’d just play football for the ‘love of the game’ or something like that?”

“Well, I was, until you blew up my line.”

He winks at me and I hide my blush in another sip of the Bordeaux.

“I love it because it gave me something to hope for, and it got me out of that old life.”

I pass him the glass back. “Right, because of all the money they’re paying you.”

He gives me a wry grin and wags a finger at me. “Touché, but we gotta work on that jadedness, yikes.”

I smile and shake my head. “Not jaded, just a realist.”

“So what’s the deal with this ex-fiancé?” Austin says brightly, changing the subject. “Any more surprises there? Are you in line for a throne or some shit?”

I choke out a laugh. “Who, Vince?”

Austin grins. “
Vince?
You were prepared to be
Mrs.
Vinny?”

“
Capra
,” I say, groaning and shaking my head. “Mrs. Vinny Capra.”

He hoots out another laugh. “What were you, marrying the mob or something?”

Austin jerks his head up when I don’t say anything, and he cocks a brow at me as I shrug. “Wait, seriously?”

“Only in that he and his douchebag friends would throw card games, smoke cigars and quote
Goodfella’
s all night.”

I decide to leave out the part about Vince’s father’s very
real
“family” ties.

Austin grins as he pushes his fingers through his hair. “So am I gonna get an angry
Vinny
at my front door with an offer I can’t refuse anytime soon?”

I roll my eyes. “Doubt it. Unless you try and steal his secretary away I guess.”

“She hot?”

I punch him in the arm as he laughs and holds his hands up. “Kidding, kidding.” He shrugs. “Well, Vin sounds like a world-class douchebag.”

I shake my head and take another sip of wine before passing it back his way.

“You lose track of yourself sometimes, I guess.”

“Well, how he let a pair of legs like yours walk away is beyond me.”

I feel my face blush as his gaze drops to the bare skin of my legs.

“It’s criminal, really.”

I blush bright red as I roll my eyes. “Alright, alright, drop the smooth talk. You already married me, you know.”

He chuckles. “Hey, just saying. Great ass, too.”

I quickly look away to hide the goofy grin and bright red flush on my face.

There’s an arrogance - a bold cockiness to the way he speaks like that to me that I’ve never heard before. It’s flustering, because the way I was raised - every finishing class, every lecture on proper form and polite conversation - tells me I should be getting up right then and storming away from the brash, crude man sitting next to me.

…If not slapping him, for that matter.

Except I don’t want to do any of those things, because there’s something sinfully wicked about the way he looks at me. There’s something about that cowboy smile, and that smug scoundrel look in his eyes that’s totally unlike any man I’ve ever known before.

And it’s exciting.

I swallow quickly as I turn back to him, every intention of pushing the heat from my face and tossing some quip back his way. Except when I do, he’s eased back in his chair, hands clasped behind his back, cowboy hat tilted at an angle, and his legs stretched out and propped up on the low patio table in font of him.

God
is he hot.

And just like, that, my vain attempt at not blushing like a scandalized schoolgirl in front of him goes out the damn window.

Because arrogant jock or not, the man lounged out and grinning next to me is gorgeous.

And very shirtless.

Oh, right, and legally my husband.

And I know I should walk away from this right now. I know I should put one foot in front of the other, smile for the press, and play the part for the next six months. Because all this is is a business transaction, and business transactions do not involve drinking expensive red wine on gorgeous Spanish terraces smelling jasmine and sage.

And they certainly don’t involve criminally attractive football players with dangerously low-slung pajama pants clinging to their insanely well-defined hips.

I quickly shake my head as I forcibly drag my eyes away from the wickedly attractive man next to me. I can feel my pulse beating like a hammer as I reach for the shared glass of wine and take a quick sip from it.

A business transaction, that’s all.

The words sound flat inside my head, because even after saying them three times - repeating them like a mantra - I’m still here. I’m still sitting here on a moonlit Hollywood mansion terrace drinking thirty-four year-old Bordeaux with some insanely hot millionaire football star.

This is how bad decisions are made.

I quickly set the glass down and stand.

“I should go to bed.”

Austin stands, raking his fingers distractingly across that unfairly sexy chin. “Need a hand?”

I blush. “With going to bed?” I swallow quickly, biting at my lip. “I think I can manage.”

“You sure?”

My head snaps back, my eyes darting to his as I just nod. “M-hmm.”

Austin grins. “Okay, I just gotta ask one thing.”

Yes? God yes?

Because part of me wants to say yes to anything this man says. Part of me wants to throw every last bit of caution and level-headed thought right off this balcony and say yes to anything he wants of me.

But then, I might be crazy enough to get married to a man I don’t know for money, but sleeping with him after a transition like that feels…

I shiver.

It feels wrong, and not in the good way.

As wildly attractive the shirtless man in front of me is, saying yes to something like that goes a tad beyond indecent proposal.

“Austin, I don’t think so,” I say quickly, blushing furiously. “That is
not
part of our-”

“Yeah,
not
what I was going to say.” He rolls his eyes. “I already told you I don’t pay for that.”

I can feel my whole body buzzing at the proximity to him - standing so close to me, his eyes piercing right into mine.

“I’ve been wondering.”

“About?” I manage to croak out, feeling my pulse skip slightly as he takes a step closer towards me.

“About us taking our clothes off last night before passing out.”

My face burns bright red, and I quickly look down from his eyes. “We didn’t-”

“No, I know that.” His voice is like honeyed leather - deep and rich.

“But we clearly
thought
about it.”

My breath catches as I glance back up into his face, instantly losing myself in those hazel eyes.

And I might not remember a
thing
about that part of the night, but I know just from looking into those eyes that he’s of course right.

Of course I thought about it.

God
, I’m thinking abut it right
now
.

I swallow quickly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Well, at least we had the good sense to pass out.”

“Oh, totally.” He furrows his brow, nodding. “Definitely the right move.”

“Definitely,” I repeat, aimlessly as I start to lose myself in those deep eyes. “That would’ve been a
huge
mistake.”

He leans close, and I can smell the heady scent of him - like soap and man. I can feel my pulse pounding like a hammer as he grins and brings his lips right against my ear.

“I’m a
great
mistake, princess.”

Oh, God.