Page 33 of Hard to Hold

I must have done something right in my past life to deserve this—or this is my reward for taking the blame for everything back home. Getting to stare at her in the pinstripe power suit she has on definitely isn’t a hardship, especially when I know what that banging body beneath it looks like.

The funny thing? She doesn’t look the least bit happy about this.

Not at all.

“So,” Cannon says as he rises from his seat at the conference room table, “I think everything you need to know is right here in your portfolios. Schedules of events, press junkets, the like. Inside you’ll also find the three exhibition games you’ll be playing in, Rush. A little something to whet the appetites of American fans.”

“We’ll have a look,” Lennox says, refusing to make eye contact with me still. “And make plans.”

“Perfect. Anything you need, Rush, Lennox will make sure you get it.”

I don’t think he wants me to take him up on that offer. She has a lot of things I need and not a one of them has to do with football.

“Okay,” I say.

“Great. Good. Then I’ll leave you two to go over everything.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder beyond the closed blinds on the conference room windows to the cubicles beyond. “I have a meeting I’m late for, but as you’ll find in the itinerary, we’ll announce your position with the team tonight at the kick-off party, Rush. Then we’ll set off on a two-week press junket to get the word out.”

It’s still hard to drum up excitement for this, but at least there’s Lennox.

“Sounds good.”

We both watch as Cannon grabs his stuff and leaves the conference room. When he shuts the door behind him, bathing the room in silence, I turn to look at Lennox sitting across from me.

“We meet again,” I murmur.

“I can’t seem to escape you,” she says shortly, standing and walking to the window to stare out at the pitch beyond.

“Is that love I feel from you right now?” I ask. “I’m kind of feeling like it is.”

But she doesn’t turn my way, she doesn’t look or break a smile, and I’m confused as fuck over what I’ve done to piss her off. The woman who stared at me in the bathroom last night, with eyes begging me to kiss her, and the woman obviously pissed off are not one and the same.

“This is a horrible decision on your part, Rush. You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice is flat and stern, and when she turns to face me, those eyes of hers say more than I could ever fathom.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

And where does she get off judging me when she doesn’t know me or the reason why I’m here?

Then again it seems that’s par for the course these days.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.” She sighs. “I just wasn’t expecting you or this, or anything really.” She gives the explanation but it takes a few seconds for her shoulders to relax and her expression to soften. Yet, I still don’t buy that she’s happy.

“Neither was I,” I say.

We stare at each other across the space with the game that I love at her back and a future of unknown for me in between us. It’s shit. I can’t explain anything to her.

“Rush.” She says my name as if it’s an olive branch she can’t quite understand why she’s extending. There are so many things I can read into her tone—confusion, disappointment, question—but she shakes her head just as quickly and offers a smile for the first time. “Are we really stuck together in this?”

There’s something in her eyes. Something that tells me she’s on shaky ground, when I’ve never seen her be anything but confident.

“Stuck together?” I ask with a laugh. “Wow, the flattery.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

There goes that stiffening of her spine again.

“Then what do you mean? Is there something about this pairing that I should be worried about? It’s not the bathroom situation, is it? You’re worried that now you’ve seen me naked it’s going to be too hard for you to concentrate on taking work seriously? Is that it?”

“Rush.” My name is part-sigh, part-exasperation, but both confuse me.