“Because you know my father lives in Allendale. If I said I went to Northern Highlands and grew up in Allendale, I was afraid you’d ask more questions, and I didn’t want this mess to come out in front of your friends. Who I just met.” She let out a long breath and looked ready to collapse. “Please understand that I wasn’t purposely lying to you or trying to trick you. I should have told you from the beginning. Now you know why I didn’t want to pursue a relationship with you. I was afraid of how my father would react. I still am. I don’t trust him. He’s like a neanderthal sometimes.”
“He can’t do anything to me, Amber. He’s not going to jeopardize the Super Bowl. Everything he does is for the betterment of the team. I know he’s going to be pissed that I went behind his back. I’m pissed too. If you would have just told me at the beginning, I would have approached him like a man and told him I had genuine feelings for you. Now, it looks like I’ve been intentionally deceiving him. And that’s not cool.”
She stared at him, brows pinched together and fire in her eyes. “It’s not just about you, Robert. How do you think he’s going to react when he finds out I’m dating his star O lineman? His number one?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Didn’t you wonder why my last name is Morgan and not Gaston? It’s because I changed my name. I took my mother’s maiden name because I didn’t want to be associated with him. I wanted no connection to that man.”
“Why?”
“You have no idea how cruel he can be.” Pain radiated from her eyes, and her entire expression took on one of grief. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, and her throat bobbed. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just suffice it to say that he thought I was going to use his name and affiliation with the NFL to further my career. He didn’t think I could do it on my own.”
“That’s crazy.” A flash of anger burned in Robert’s gut, because Amber was highly intelligent and deserved every accreditation she received.
“Maybe to you it is, but it’s real to me. Why do you think I hang every award and article on the walls in my office? Because it’s a big fuck you to my father. I need to see them there to remind myself that I’m one of the best in the industry. I constantly hear his voice in my head telling me that my name—hisname—was going to carry me in my career. So, I denounced my affiliation with him. No one knows he’s my father.” Tears brimmed on her lower lids, and she looked up to the ceiling so they wouldn’t fall. She pressed her lips together and slowly shook her head, clearly battling internal turmoil.
“I don’t care what he thinks anymore,” she finally said. “I swore I wouldn’t get involved with an athlete because that’s what he expected of me. Like it demeaned my credentials and my professionalism. Fuck him.” She flung her arm in the air. “I don’t give a shit what he has to say about it. Let him berate me all he wants. I don’t give a fuck.” She gulped. “I’m only worried that he’s going to take it out on you.”
Robert had no idea her relationship with her father was so strained and twisted, and he understood her reasoning a little more. But it still hurt that she didn’t confide in him. Coach could be a hard-ass and was set in his ways, but this was too extreme. “We’re adults, Amber. We can date whoever we want. He may not like it, but he’ll get over it. He has no choice because I love you. He’s going to be mad as hell that I went behind his back, though. That’s why I’m pissed. We could have avoided the drama by telling him months ago. Now it’s going to blow up in our faces.”
She stared at him and slowly shook her head. “I wish it were that simple.”
His mind was still spinning. He couldn’t comprehend that he’d been in a relationship with Coach’s daughter all along, and that she hid her identity from him. She had her reasons, but he couldn’t help feeling betrayed and lied to. “I feel like the rug just got ripped out from under me. My whole life is upside down right now. And it couldn’t come at a worse time. This doesn’t just affect us, Amber. This could disrupt the entire team. This could fuck up our shot at the Super Bowl. My whole team is gonna fucking hate me!”
New tears filled her eyes like giant pools of water, and she frowned. “I wish things were different. I wish he wasn’t my father.”
Robert recoiled at her last statement. “Why would you say something like that? That’s terrible. I know this puts us in a fucked-up situation, but he’s still your father.”
She was shaking her head again. “You wouldn’t understand. Your father has always been there for you. Mine hasn’t. And that’s not all. He’s not the perfect man you think he is. You put him on a pedestal, and he doesn’t belong there.”
Obviously, she had serious issues with her father. Issues that Robert didn’t understand. It really wasn’t his business, but he wished she would confide in him and let him know why she thought so little of a man that he looked up to and respected. There had to be more to the story. He began to wonder why she felt the way she did, and his stomach knotted because he suddenly didn’t want to know.
“I was going to wait until after the Super Bowl,” she said. “I can’t apologize enough. I feel terribly guilty for hiding it from you. And I feel horrible that you’re mad at me.”
His anger dissipated slightly, but every part of him buzzed with frustration. “I’m not mad. I’m just . . . OK, I’m mad as fuck. But only because you put me in a really awkward position.”
“What was I supposed to do? If I told you from the beginning, would you have walked away?”
“No.” He didn’t have to think about the answer for a second. It rolled off his lips.
“Then what? You would have told my father that we were dating, and how do you think he would have reacted?”
“He wouldn’t have liked it.”
“That’s it?” Her brows skyrocketed. “He wouldn’t have liked it?”
Robert knew Coach had a hot temper and could fly off the handle in an instant. The man went from cold to burning hot with the flip of a switch. “All right,” Robert conceded. “The shit would’ve hit the fan.”
“Exactly. And you’d be in the doghouse. He would’ve sidelined you—or worse—despite what it would’ve done to the team.”
“He wouldn’t have—”
“No? You don’t think his temper gets the best of him?”
“Not when it concerns the team.”
“Because nothing is more important than the team,” she said, bitterly. Sarcastically. Then her whole body deflated. “I just wanted to wait until the season was over to tell him. I still do.”
