Chapter One
Sutton
If the heat of late autumn in Texas doesn’t kill me, the stress of this deal just might. Pacing the length of this borrowed boardroom only works to spike my body temperature, but I’m too keyed up to remain still.
Too much rides on this deal going through.
Pressure has become the only constant in my life, a second skin. It pushes in on me from all sides, an invisible, suffocating presence that has plagued me for months.
Failure is not an option.
Losing this young man to another agent is not an option.
I’ve had my eye on Emerson Bratt since we first caught wind of him during his freshman year at Texas A&M, and I’ve closely monitored his college career ever since. Now that he’s about to move into the big leagues, I don’t just want him; I need him.
My agency needs him.
We’re barely staying afloat right now, and although that news hasn’t gone public yet, I have no doubt that when it does, my competitors will gleefully swoop in and pick me apart player by player until all that remains is a silly little girl’s failure and her dead father’s dream.
I close my eyes and tilt my head back.
A millionI told you sosrun through my mind, all spoken in the voices of the many men along the way who told me I couldn’t succeed in their world, didn’tbelongin their world. They mocked me both to my face and behind my back, but I worked my ass off and proved them wrong.
Well, almost. I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth and trying my damnedest to make it look easy.
But the truth is I’m struggling.
If the agency fails before it even flies, I’ll be proving them allrightand honestly, that’s just not an option.
My dad’s legacy deserves better.
Ideserve better.
Hart Strategic Management isn’t just my baby; it’s my father’s lifelong dream. I grew up hearing about the pitfalls of professional football, the ins and outs of the game, and the way so many of those billionaire team owners would step on the little guy any chance they got.
If you weren’t their golden ticket, you were nothing.
A fact my father learned all too well when he injured his knee during his first year playing professional ball. He was out of the game before he’d ever had a chance to prove himself, left without a penny to his name and nothing but unfulfilled fantasies of championship rings to fill his mind.
Swiftly following my father’s injury and subsequent hospital bills that drained what remained of his signing bonus, my mother left us both, and I spent the first quarter of my life caring for a man too stuck in the past to realize his future was passing him by.
But even on his worst days, when his physical pain would rival the emotional scars, he’d sit me down on that old worn couch and point out each play, each formation, rewatching old games, yelling at the screen through new, and teaching me everything he knew about the sport he’d bet his life on—and lost his dreams to.
It was in his honor that I created my agency, and with his beliefs, I built this firm brick by brick, player by player.
But a has-been’s dreams and my relentless persistence don’t seem to be enough. Three years in, and I’m not seeing themomentum I hoped for. Agenting is a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m about to be lunch.
I need a big name, a golden goose.
IneedEmerson Bratt.
Everything rides on this meeting, on this twenty-two-year-old kid.
And he needsme.
Come Spring, he’ll be scooped up by one team or another, and if he’s not properly represented, he might fall into the traps of greed and gluttony. I’ve seen it play out too many times to count; players blinded by the promise of glitz and glam, only to realize they signed their best years away to a corporation that didn’t care about them in the slightest.
Which is why I’m pacing in this borrowed boardroom, ten minutes outside of Texas A&M University, unable to sit down with all the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
