She looks down, biting her lip.
“Because I saw your wallet. It was open.”
She looks up, guilty.
“I saw your ID. Cohen Becker. Lakewood FC. And my blood froze. You were my dad’s big signing—the player he’d bet everything on. And I was… the coach’s daughter who’d just spent the night with him.”
She shakes her head.
“I panicked. Pure, stupid panic.”
Everything clicks.
It wasn’t disgust.
It wasn’t boredom.
It was fear.
The same fear I felt when I realized who she was in her office.
I brush my thumb over her cheek, wiping away the last tear.
“Do you know what they told me the next day?” I ask softly. “Nate. The guys. Everyone. They said you were a setup. A journalist. A trap.”
Her eyes widen. “What? No!”
“I know,” I say immediately. “I never believed it. Not for a second.”
I give a bitter smile.
“But you know what I did think?”
She shakes her head.
“I thought I’d done something wrong. That you hadn’t liked me enough. That I’d been… disappointing. That the magic was only in my head, and that for you I was just a mistake to forget before sunrise.”
“No!” she blurts, startled by her own intensity, slapping a hand over my mouth.
I kiss her palm. She slowly lowers it, our fingers lacing together.
“Sloane,” I say seriously. “Listen to me. You are not boring. And none of this is your fault. That guy is a cheating worm.”
God, how I hate him.
The wind lifts, blowing her hair across her face. I tuck it behind her ear, savoring the warmth of her skin against my frozen fingers.
She hesitates.
“There is… a problem, though,” she murmurs, eyes dropping to our joined hands.
“A problem?” My chest tightens again. “What kind of problem?”
“It’s something I didn’t expect. And it breaks every professional rule I have.”
“Sloane, you’re scaring me. Say it.”
She inhales like she’s about to jump off a cliff.
