“I can assure you, under normal circumstances, parents don’t loathe me before they’ve even met me.”
That makes her smile turn to a glower like I’ve tripped a silent alarm. “Well, I’m glad to hear you haven’t tried to ruin the lives of all your ex’s families. Just mine.”
My chest caves, a physical recoil to her verbal slap. Part of me wants to defend myself, wants to insist that what I did was for the good of the sport, the good of the peopleplayingthe sport. But it wouldn’t make a difference to her opinion of me, or her father’s. They think I just wanted to sniff out a good story and make money from their private lives.
“Look, I can snipe at you till the cows come home about you being a shit human being for prying into people’s personal lives for sport.”
“Mostly for money.” The words are sour in my mouth. Let them think what they want was all well and good until I buried my dick in a woman whose respect, as it turns out, I want.
I hold back my tirade, because who needs to talk about the fact my story actually exposed something illegal, something that’s in the process of being cleaned up in the community. Trials pending, bad people got fired frompositions where they could keep doing bad things. But who cares that, ultimately, my digging around in her dad and his friends’ lives made things better for the sport and those who play it. Certainly not this woman, who seems convinced I’m some kind of spawn of Satan himself.
I don’t want a medal or anything, but an acknowledgement that I wasn’t the problem would be fucking nice.
She grunts. “Right. Can’t let morals and ethics get in the way of a good payday now, can we?” She shakes her head. I contemplate giving her the tirade anyway, pushing back, giving her a piece of my mind, but it’s not the time, it’s not the place, and she clearly won’t hear it even if I do. She needs a bad guy, they all do, and I guess that’s what I’ll be. At least for now.
“Ugh. This isn’t going to work. I can’t even get through a hot chocolate without wanting to rip your arms off and beat you senseless with them.”
“My prosthetic leg would do way more damage.”
Her jaw drops, face going bright red. It’s not until I chuckle at my own joke that she visibly relaxes. “So noted. Then next time I get the urge, I’ll impale you with your peg leg, Captain Hook.”
My chuckle morphs into a full-on belly laugh. It’s rare for someone to poke fun at my… situation. People—especially those who know how it happened—tend to shy away from talking about it, looking at it, or even acknowledging its existence, never mind making fun of it. Her quick wit is a breath of fresh air, and a much-needed dose of normality I haven’t felt in a long time.
She’s not going to let the fact I’m an amputee make me a victim. To her, I’m still an arsehole, just an arsehole with a robotic limb. I can work with that. Actually, I kind of love it, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“If you want to fake date for a while until we get the scandal funk off us, count me in. God knows I don’t needany more disgrace right now either.” I need to find the straight and narrow path, so my editor doesn’t get trigger happy and fire me. He’s the only one patient enough to keep me on the payroll. If I lose this job, I can’t think of a single other publication or broadcasting corporation who would hire me given my CV. I’m tooproblematic.
That stirs something in my chest, a dark knot of anxiety I can’t get rid of. The idea of losing my job and having to sell my house and move home with my mum, proving everyone right about my inability to function as a grown-ass, disabled man, is stomach curdling.
She takes a giant mouthful of hot chocolate, closing her eyes to savor it as she swallows. “You’re in?” Her green eyes swim with questions, but her shoulders sag in relief.
“Sure.” I shrug. What’s the worst that could happen?
She takes another drink before leaning across the table. “Then we’re going to need some ground rules.”
CHAPTER 12
Robert
If I thought one Morrigan sister was terrifying, there isn’t a word in existence that describes all three staring me down at once.
We’re sitting at Rhiannon’s dining table. It was somehow deemed a safe place for us to have our second meeting about what kind of arrangement this was going to be. Except I’m having doubts, and eyeballing the door, wishing it would open from just the power of my panicked stare.
Yesterday at Froth, we decided to take some time to think about what boundaries we needed to have. And here I am, twenty-four hours later, facing three of the fiercest women’s rugby players Ireland has ever seen. Like Monday mornings aren’t ball aches enough in their own rights.
Rhiannon’s sisters aren’t supposed to be here.
We said we’d keep it a secret, only the two of us would know that our dating arrangement was fake.
So… that begs the question, why are they all here?
The tea has been poured; we’re all taking slow sips of the still-steaming liquid instead of actually talking to one another. And from the way Aoife is glowering at me, I need to startsleeping withbotheyes open at night. My knee starts drumming under the table, but it doesn’t seem to have drawn anyone’s attention yet, so I let it bounce. I need somewhere for this nervous energy to go.
The air is thick with unspoken tension, with accusations, with a tenuous peace that could fracture at any minute resulting in my head on a spike.
“Why’d you do it?” Surprisingly, it’s Clíodhna who speaks first. And, to her credit, she’s gone for the jugular. No fucking about. Straight to the point.
I look her in the eye. Don’t let them smell fear.
