Page 29 of Hard to Love

Guess the word is out.

Stevie Lancaster has a new agent.

And apparently, she needs to be coddled and handled with kid gloves.

Or so they think.

My dad was the one who always dealt with this side of the business. The day-to-day. The wheeling and dealing. Being my agent, my coach, my business manager, mentor all in one. All I had to do was get on the court and make whatever happened between the lines count.

Am I on the market? Do I want to be?

I glance over to where Finn sits at the desk in the suite. He’s sitting with his back to me, typing away on his computer, his body framed by the darkening Las Vegas skyline. My dad picked Carson to take over for him in the agent department, so I have no reason not to trust his judgment since my father never steered me wrong before. And now Carson has picked Finn.

I’m still not sure how I feel about that—or rather, I know exactly how I feel about that—but I can’t seem to separate his rejecting my request for him to kiss me two nights ago from whatever he seems so busy doing all the time as an agent.

Because let’s face it, I’ve never been rejected by a guy before and it fucking sucks. The self-doubt that creeps in is worse than the rejection itself.

Am I not pretty enough? Sexy enough? Anything enough? Or does he simply see me as a child now?

“But please, keep up the spoiled-brat routine because it makes my job that much more exciting. When you act like a grown-up, I’ll start treating you like one.”

Why does his opinion matter?

Normally, you’d walk away from the person and never contact them again.

I can’t.

In fact, I have to share a suite with the man who rejected me. I’m forced to look at his gorgeous face and be around him and his sex appeal when I don’t want to. The deep rumble of his voice on the phone through the walls wakes me up as he talks to people on the East Coast. His fresh-from-the-shower scent trails him around the suite like a pheromone that dares me not to be affected. Everything about him reminds me of the taste of his kiss and the feel of his hands on my body.

But I don’t like him. Not one bit.

Or at least I tell myself that.

It’s just the challenge of him that makes me take note. Just the need to know why being with me the first night we met was acceptable but now a kiss isn’t.

It’s frustrating.

It’s infuriating.

And to make matters worse or maybe better, depending on how you look at it, the man won’t talk to me unless he has to.

Ever since I got lost in the moment and asked him to kiss me, he’s been as aloof as aloof can be unless he’s telling me what to do or answering a question from me clarifying what I need to do.

There hasn’t been one mention of why he walked away. Nothing. Just a cold shoulder and complete disassociation.

The banter I rather enjoyed is gone.

The cut downs and comebacks nonexistent.

The innuendo that told me he still looked at me as a woman, forgotten.

I stare at Finn’s broad shoulders and hear the clicking of his fingers over his keyboard and want to be noticed.

I drop my bag onto the floor with a thud.

He doesn’t even stutter in his typing.

“Hey,” I murmur.