Page 13 of Well Aware

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “They felt like I got special treatment with Iris. They hated that she was always ‘fucking up the vibe.’ I don’t know. But I wasn’t willing to leave her. She’s my baby. What did they want me to do? We’re gone for days on end sometimes. I can’t afford a nanny, either. Our pay is on the higher end of the league, but that wasn’t enough to cover a full-time nanny.”

“Beaufort encouraged Benedict to put in a state-of-the-art childcare facility here. Plus, there’s two other women that will also be bringing their children on the road with us. We have a team nanny willing to help.”

“That’s also why I came,” I admitted. “But I want to be abundantly clear. I don’t plan on staying any more than this season.”

She got to the end of the long hallway and opened the door that said “locker room.”

“I know,” she said. “We just need to win this season. Just help us win. Beaufort’s already promised to give you any help you need this year.”

That I could do.

Especially seeing as I would be working with one of the best defensive players in the business, Nettie Windsor.

I’d played against her for so long, my defense to her forward, that I felt like I knew her really well. Even if all we did was meet on the soccer pitch.

“I’m here,” I said as I looked around at the empty locker room. “Is everyone already out at the field?”

“Probably,” she admitted. “We were late.”

“I’ll get changed,” I said. “I’m just watching today, anyway. So I can’t technically be ‘late’ for practice.”

Four hours later, practice was over, Iris had been dropped off, and I was meeting the new management.

Apparently, everyone was meeting them for the first time.

The old management had been let go. Every single one of them except for Ellis.

There was only one last person that we were waiting on, and that was the new CEO himself, Beaufort Vanderbilt.

I could see him up in the bleachers talking to Nettie’s man, Boone. He had his back to me, but there was something eerily familiar about him that had my heart rate picking up.

How would I…

Then he turned around and started heading down the stairs of the stadium toward us.

He had his head down, his hands tucked into his suit pants.

The blue striped tie he was wearing was blowing in the wind, and his hair was altogether different than it had been the first time I’d met him.

He also no longer had an untamed beard.

As he stopped at the edge of the wall that separated the stadium from the field, my heart leaped into my throat.

His eyes, such a beautiful amber, focused on mine.

And we both froze.

I’d stared into those eyes up close just twelve hours ago as he’d…

I cursed myself and tried to not think about our encounter.

I saw the same thought cross in his mind.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes frozen on me.

“Do you know him?” Nettie asked.

I forced myself to look away from Beau—Beaufort—and glanced at Nettie. “Uh, we met at The Mercantile yesterday. Kind of.”