Page 68 of Lucky Shot

Those were his words, weren’t they, when he opened my car door?

I have to be here—contractually.

Those were also his words.

It’s hard to know which to listen to. Instinct tells me the latter because I know his contract determines many of his activities.

But did he “have to” put his arm around me? Compliment me? Dote on me?

That’s what’s confusing, and I just don’t know what to think . . . what to feel.

Perhaps it’s just a Cinderella story.

Perhaps tonight will be the only night where I feel like a princess after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Hardy

It’s taken me long enough to track her down.

And that’s only made the thoughts of peeling her out of that red dress and laying her down tenfold.

I hate these ostentatious events. They’re boring. They’re pretentious. They’re something my mum and Monty live for. And the fact that Whitney bowed out said so much about her character.

You commit to the wrong types. To women who want the spotlight with you and who crave the attention you attract . . . What’s so wrong with seeing what it’s like with someone who is real and who has a life in a sport you love but in a different capacity? One who doesn’t care about the flashing lights around you?

Lennox’s words ring truer than anything right now as I stand before her in her hotel room. The red dress is now lying over a chair and she’s wearing a white, fluffy hotel robe. Her hair is up, but her makeup is gone. She erased part of tonight—the mask—but not all of it.

“You don’t have a shirt on,” she says with a huff, her gaze struggling to stay on my face.

“Because I was in my room when Ari finally texted me back with what room number you were in. It’s not like you were answering me or anything.”

“So, what? You stripped your shirt off and ran over?” She rolls her eyes, but I love the way she swallows forcibly and how her eyes lose the battle and dip down.

“Yes. That’s exactly it.” My words drip with sarcasm, but it was more that I was impatient and needed to see her.

“Why are you here?” she asks and crosses her arms over her chest.

“You said you had a question for me. You didn’t ask the question so I’m waiting to hear it.”

Please. Pretty please say it’s because you fucking want me. My balls tighten at the thought, and my muscles tense. But her sudden hostility says it’s far fucking from that.

She struggles with whatever the question is. If there were a foosball table here, no doubt her hands would be braced on it even if she was still wearing that red, fucking addictive dress.

“I know you coming to the academy was a PR stunt to make you look better, to soften up your image, but is that what tonight was too?”

“Pardon?” That’s the last fucking thing I expected out of her mouth. Not after the evening we just had.

“You heard me. Cinderella story. Me being whisked away from my poor roots to the big city. The prince waiting to open the car door and usher her into his world. The press waiting mercilessly to capture all of it and put it on blast to the world. It certainly made you look like the hero with me clinging to any and everything you are to have a better life.”

I burst out laughing and then it fades when she simply lifts her eyebrows. “You’re serious.”

She nods. “Is it?”

“No. Absolutely not,” I say as she takes a step closer. “You think that’s why you’re here tonight?”

“I think you’re so used to everything revolving around you that you never once thought about the collateral damage of that. Like my life spilled into the ether for public consumption. The poor orphan. This trip here and the whole Cinderella narrative. I’m neither of those people, and yet that’s who I’m being pegged as.”