Page 13 of Her Player

Rhett shrugged. “I never told you to lock yourself away. I’m simply handing out options.”

Brynn spoke out. “How long were you standing out in the hallway listening?”

“Long enough,” is all Rhett said as he stared down at me like I was the only one in the room.

“I have a property,” I said before Coach could open his mouth. “The Willow Estate. On the outskirts of the city. It has a gate and enough space for all of us. The press won’t be able to get near it.”

I glared at Coach. “Unlike your penthouse, which someone flew a drone up to so they could photograph my daughter’s naked back through the glass.”

Brynn spoke up for him, and that’s how I knew she finally returned to the conversation. “We can get blackout curtains for all of the windows.”

“And I’ve already reported the invasion of privacy to the authorities. The sheriff said⁠—”

I just held my hand up before I pinched the bridge of my nose. Fucking hell, at least they had done something in between figuring out this fucking disaster and barging into my office. I didn’t like any of this. It turned my stomach in ways that made me want to break fucking necks. My daughter, out there and vulnerable to the world, with a man on her arm that didn’t give two shits about what it did to her so long as he got to possess her.

I knew I hated Coach for a reason.

I parted my lips to tell him to go kick fucking rocks before my daughter’s cell phone dinged. I muttered beneath my breath as she pulled her cell out of her back pocket. But the instant her eyes watered after she unlocked her phone made me stride across the office.

I plucked the damn thing from her hand.

She didn’t even fight me as I tilted it toward the light in my office to get a better look. Her best friend, Dani, sent her a text message.

More pictures of her and Coach.

More articles written without their permission.

Both of them, hand in hand, leaving the movie theater. Both of them, embraced, kissing on the front fucking lawn of my goddamn house. Both of them, smiling up at one another while eating in some restaurant I didn’t recognize. Probably not one in the city.

Which meant these fuckers chased them from city to city.

It was the muffled sobs of my daughter that pulled my attention up from the text message on her phone, though. And when Coach pulled her against his chest and I saw her shoulders shake, I ground my teeth together before I settled on what we were going to do.

It didn’t matter that I hated the fucking man.

All that mattered was that my daughter was protected.

“Give me the day to pack mine and Brynn’s things. Rhett and I will meet you at the Willow Estate before dinner and we’ll hash out what we do next,” I said.

Coach just nodded as he draped his arms around my daughter. “We’ll head over and get settled in.”

Amidst all of the drama, however, I barely registered the fact that I didn’t even stop to inform Rhett that he’d have to hole up with us. If nothing else, to make sure that my daughter always had an escort somewhere.

Nor did I catch the fact that not once did he protest.

6

RHETT

Rhett and I will come over with everything before dinner…

It was the only thing swirling around in my head as Coach and Bry left her office. As we packed up and headed back to her place. As we navigated back streets, keeping an eye out for news vans and cameras that could have followed us. I kept a vigilant eye, despite the fact that her voice kept echoing off the corners of my mind.

“You want me to pack your things, or Bry?” I asked when we stepped through her back door.

“Neither,” she said plainly as she clicked her way toward the hallway. “I want you to pull all of the curtains closed in the house. Then I want you to go around and check the lamps. Many of them are on automatic timers. Set the timers to click on and off randomly throughout the day. I want it to look like someone’s here.”

I nodded once before I got to work.