Bad Boy's Cinderella: A Sports Romance (2 page)

I was pretty sure I went red, like a fucking loser, and in an effort to bring her to my side, I muttered conspiratorially, “I think she really wants that dress.”

Barbara made an unimpressed “Mmhmm” sort of sound.

“How much is it?”

She told me, making me suck air in through my teeth. Why did women’s designer dresses cost so damn much? It was pocket change to me, but I had no doubt that it was the kind of treat someone like Kylie only bought herself once every few years. Not that she looked poor, but she could probably get a decent amount of rent out of the same chunk of money. No wonder she had looked almost pissed when I’d told her she had the first right to buy the dress, and then now, emerging from the dressing room, looking pretty much miserable in some faded jeans and a loose white sweater, the coveted red dress hooked over her arm.

“Here,” she said on a heavy breath, holding it out for me to take from her. “Hope whoever you’re buying it for enjoys it.” She stared at it for a long moment, then fluttered her eyes shut for an instant and turned away, clearly pained.

Then she picked up a small stack of paperwork from the side of the counter, hooked a purse over her shoulder, and offered both me and Barbara a sad little smile before she headed for the door. Her eyes caught on mine for a moment too long, and maybe I imagined it, but I could’ve sworn there was a tiny spark there as we exchanged glances, and it was that flicker of connection that had me saying, “Hold on.” Because no one gets away from me twice. The chances of me running into her in another store, on another random Wednesday morning, were too slim for me to take the risk. I had to have her.

She paused and looked over at me, brows raised in expectation, and I twitched my fingers around the dress in my hand.

“What if you could have this dress?”

She stared at me, clear suspicion on her face, even as a glimmer of hope lit her up as she glanced down at the dress. “What do you mean?”

“There’d be a catch.” I gave her one of my most charming smiles. “A date,” I added. “I’ll buy you this dress if you go on a date with me.”

D
id I hear that right
? There was a rush of white noise in my ears, making me think I’d imagined the words I’d just heard spill from his lips.

He couldn’t…? Surely not.

I swallowed past the sudden flutter of my heart and clarified, “If I go on a date with you, you’d buy me that dress?” He nodded, and I caught sight of Barbara squinting suspiciously at his back. I kind of got Barbara’s point, even as my stomach gave a slow, swooping lurch. “Sounds a little…”

Mild horror passed over his face as realization caught up with him, and he raised a hand. “All above board. I promise.”

I wanted to believe him, since I was pretty sure this wasn’t some kind of weird escorting situation, a payment-for-services-due sort of thing. Still, though—who bought expensive dresses for women on the off-chance they’d get a date out of it?

Football players
, my subconscious whispered to me.
Whose fathers owned a multi-million dollar football teams and stadiums
. They could do anything, pay anything, own anything. I was standing in front of one of the richest men in San Francisco, and he wanted to buy me a dress.

Not just that—he wanted to go on a
date
with me.

My knees weakened.

Of course I knew about Reade Lennox. Everyone did. He was the most eligible bachelor in the city and I couldn’t crack open a newspaper or load a media website without seeing his face. It was alway a photo of him with some model, or an article about some bar brawl he was in. And I was pretty sure his team was having some troubles right now, although he wasn’t showing it right now—his eyes were bright, his smile flirty and charming, and he was looking at me as if I was the important thing here, not the dress. He definitely knew how to play the game, and he was famous for it. Everyone knew that.

He’d tried this before. Not the dress part, but asking me out. We met at April’s wedding, and he must’ve gotten my number from Breck. He left a voicemail suggesting a dinner. And I’d ignored it. I didn’t even really know why, because I certainly found him attractive, with his broad shoulders and model-perfect face angles, the brush of stubble on his jaw and the brown eyes so dark they were almost black. Right now as I tried not to stare at him, his t-shirt was just tight enough, straining over a muscular chest, and the v-neck showed a hint of bronzed skin that left my mouth a little dry.

I was insanely attracted to him, and he’d been nothing less than pleasant when we’d met, but still I’d ignored his follow-up call. Something about how much my life sucked right now, the roommate situation, my dad, my work—all of it leaving me feeling as if going on a date with someone from such a vastly different world would be too much for me to deal with. Plus, he was a literal man-whore. I was pretty sure I’ve seen him photographed with every Victoria Secret model there was. And everyone knew he had anger management issues. I did not need that in my life.

Aside from that, I couldn’t help but let my nerves run rampant at the idea of dating someone so high-profile. He wasn’t just some guy. He was
the
guy—the one every single woman for miles around wanted on her arm. And he’d fixated on
me
.

He hadn’t let my silent rejection of him knock him back, though, because here he was, again, asking me out. Confidence, they called that. I called it cockiness. It kind of made me a little warm between the thighs, to be perfectly honest.

“My sister’s birthday party is this weekend,” he explained, “and I need a date. If you’re willing to show up on my arm, I’d love you to be wearing this.”

Not a dinner then. Nothing stuffy and awkward. A birthday party—music, guests, chatter, drinks. Something informal and low-pressured. I could do that.

Couldn’t I?

I took another look at that wide, solid-looking chest.

Yes, I could definitely do that.

I cleared my throat and said, “All right.” It came out croakier than I planned, and my cheeks burned an instant red.

His eyes lit up, like he hadn’t expected me to agree. Which didn’t make sense to me, because surely a man like this had no idea what rejection felt like.

Except I’d rejected him, hadn’t I, by not returning his call. I’d already said no to him once before.

“Yeah?” he clarified, and there was something about it that melted my heart a little.

I cocked a smile, and said in a dryly teasing voice, “I really want that dress, so…”

He grinned at that, managing to transform his face into a self-satisfied smirk. My stomach fluttered.

“Can I have your address, so I can pick you up?”

“I’ll text it to you,” I said, and then added with a smile, “I’ve got your number,” putting the whole ignored-voicemail thing into stark clarity between us.

He nodded wryly and said, “You might think about using it next time,” and I gave him my best enigmatic look as I turned away.

“We’ll see.”

I left him shortly after, with him promising to have the dress sent to me in time for the party, and my ears felt warm as I exited the store, the skin on my palms tingling, gut tightening up at the feel of his eyes on me as I left. There was something about him that drew me in, made me want to stay and talk with him, memorize the lines of his face. My stomach twisted pleasantly when I thought of our upcoming date.

The coffee house was thankfully quiet when I set up my work at a back table, working through the various invoices and menu plans I had to deal with for the next few weeks. It left me with a little headache—not the menu part, because I loved that, but balancing the numbers, working out what I could afford, where I would have to cut corners, which clients I would disappoint the most. The fact was, there just wasn’t enough money to deliver the kind of service I wanted to, and at least one client was going to give me an earful for it.

Several cups of coffee later, with a mild well of stress in my gut, I gathered up my things and headed back home, wanting nothing more than to take a hot bath and watch some crap reality TV before heading out to the event I was catering later that evening. I was laying on a Sweet Sixteen for some high fashion model’s daughter, and I’d already clashed with them a dozen times in the past month over menus and dietary requirements. I needed the night to go well.

Unfortunately, my plans were brutally waylaid by a certain semi-naked sex machine currently taking up residence in my kitchen, steadily eating his way through the cake I’d spent hours on yesterday, creating it for the Sweet Sixteen tonight.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I stood unnoticed in the doorway, watching Mandy’s boyfriend guzzle down the cake like he was the world’s most disgusting vacuum cleaner.

Then reality caught up with me, and I saw red.

“What the fuck—are you kidding me?” I dumped my keys, bag, and papers on the counter and watched as the sounds startled him into choking on his mouthful. He had pink frosting smeared on his lips and some in his hair, with smatterings of sugar dusting his wiry chest hair, and part of me wanted to just walk away from him before I vomited at his feet.

But he regained control of himself before I could act, and he croaked, “Hey, green eyes. This is fucking
amazing
.”

“It’s for a client, you asshole,” I hissed, marching over to him and snatching the fork out of his hand. “I’ve got an event tonight!”

“Oh.” For half a second, he looked chagrinned—and then a nasty smirk spread over his face and he shrugged, dragged his gross fingertip through the frosting left on the plate. Just as he was making a show of sucking my hard work clean off his horrible finger, I felt a sharp
snap
in my brain, and I was
done
.

“That’s it,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him away. “I’ve had enough. Out.” I shoved him, while he continued to grin inanely as if highly amused by my display of anger. “Out!”

Mandy came stumbling into the room, yawning and rubbing her eyes, somehow managing to look entirely debauched in a floor-length pajama dress and glossy hair. “What’s going on?” she asked through the yawn, and I was furious with her too now, angry that she’d been able to sleep away her day after keeping me up all night hammering her headboard into the wall. Angry that she looked so unconcerned with her boyfriend’s behavior. Angry that she’d come into my home and acted with nothing but disrespect from day one.

Angry that she wasn’t April, when I really needed my best friend right now.

“Your boyfriend here isn’t welcome in my apartment anymore,” I growled at her. “I wanted one roommate, not two.”

Suddenly, fiercely, like a splinter right down the center of my rib cage, I missed April more than ever, and I had to fight the urge to deflate under the weight of it. I couldn’t show weakness. These two would walk all over me forever if they saw me soften now.

Mandy crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a deep scowl. “If he goes, I go with him.”

And—okay. It wasn’t what I had been aiming for, but right now, it sounded like the greatest idea in the world.

“Fine,” I bit out. “I could do with the peace anyway.”

The gross boyfriend took the opportunity to lean into my space and leer, “Hey, just because you haven’t gotten laid in a—”

“Out!”

Mandy hadn’t lived in the apartment long enough to have properly unpacked, so it only took her and her boyfriend thirty minutes to load up their car and storm out, slamming doors and giving me death glares and demanding a refund on the rent paid upfront.

Which,
shit
. I hadn’t considered the rent in my fit of anger, and now not only would I leave myself short after depositing the refund back into Mandy’s account, it also meant I’d be leaving someone else short, too. And his needs were far greater than my own.

Of course, he chose that moment to call me, just as I was drowning myself in a miserable glass of cheap wine in my silent kitchen, staring at the remains of the cake and wondering how the hell I was going to pull another one out of thin air in the next, oh…two hours.

Answering the phone with a sigh of resignation, I listened to the automated voice asking me if I would accept the call from an inmate, and then tried to hitch a smile onto my face when the comforting deep timbre of my father’s voice filtered over the line.

“Hey, Dad.”

“How’s my princess?”

“Fine,” I lied. “Are you okay? You still getting on all right in there?” He’d had six okay-ish months in prison, with about another eight still to go, and so far he’d managed to avoid any major trouble. Apart from a few bruises that he sported way in the beginning, for which he never gave me an explanation.

“Yeah, sweetie. Everything’s good.” His tone was heavier this week, as if the drag of prison life was weighing him down, but he wouldn’t let me know that. Always protecting me, even when he really could do with some of my strength. “Looking forward to seeing you soon, though.”

I screwed up my face, wincing, and mumbled, “Listen, Dad, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it up there this month.” He said nothing, the line freezing, and I plowed on: “I need to find another roommate before rent’s due, and in the mean time I’ve got to pile on as many clients as possible in case I have to cover things by myself for a while. You know?”

“I get it, Kylie,” he said, and the understanding in his tone almost made me want to cry. Even now, when he was in the worst place, he still put my needs first. “What happened to April?”

“She got married, remember? Moved out. I got another roommate for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

“That’s a tough break, kid. Don’t work yourself too hard now.”

He’d always been like this, ever since I was a child, stacks of homework and my eyes itching with tiredness. “
Pack it in for the night
,” he’d tell me, stroking a hand over my hair, and the same thing years later, cooking for a hundred people at an event, my face sweaty and my legs aching and his calming voice telling me to drink some water, sit for a while, take a break. Always looking out for me. And here I was, now, letting him down.

I sighed and bit the bullet. “Look, about your commissary account this month…”

“I know,” he said instantly. “You don’t have to say it. I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t worry about me. I got a few things I can trade.”

God
. The thought of him giving up the few items he got to call his own in there, all because I couldn’t get my act together enough to pull in some spare cash for him.

Right now, in this moment, I felt like the worst daughter in the world.

“I’ll get the rent covered as soon as I can, I promise,” I said, throat tight. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to draw the soft sound of my dad’s breathing right in to my very soul. “Get you some more funds.”

“Don’t say any more about it. We’re all good.” He paused a moment, and then said in an overly chirpy tone clearly designed to disguise the strain in his assurances, “So look, I got another few minutes here. Tell me what’s going on. You met any good guys recently?”

I responded with my first instinct: “No.” The obvious answer. The answer I’d given him for so long now that it was pretty much habit by this point.

But as I said it this time, as the word fell from my lips, a familiar face flashed before my eyes. The charming, smiling face of the man holding onto a beautiful red dress.

I cleared my throat, face heating up.

“Nope. No guy.”