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I sent the message quickly before looking back up at Drew.
“Look, if you came here just to gloat then you have much less of a life than I’d imagine for a star athlete,” I said.
“Gloat?” he smiled. “About what? Remind me.”
Ugh.
Dammit. I ground my teeth as Drew played dumb. Set yourself up for that one, I told myself while trying to carefully word my response.
“You’re under the impression that you won some bet about getting me hotter than Mike ever could. You didn’t,” I insisted crisply. “But since your superstar ego is clearly as big as it is fragile, I’ll let you go ahead and believe that.”
“My superstar ego is backed by the dedicated stat keepers of Major League Baseball, so you’re a hundred percent right about it being big. Fucking huge, in fact,” he added, grinning as I rolled my eyes. “Fragile though? No. Not so much.”
“Right. Then why did you travel all the way to Long Island just to gloat and give me a hard time?”
“I’m not here to do that. I was satisfied enough with how I got you looking that night.”
“Which was like what?”
“Like you’d just been fucked for hours when all I did was kiss you.”
I sucked on my teeth to refrain from retorting. I didn’t have anything prepared and he was clearly fucking great at using my words against me. Something tells me this dickhead’s great at trash talking the other team, I thought, clenching my jaw and waiting out my seething irritation before I spoke again.
“Okay. Last chance, Drew,” I said slowly between my teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d prefer to talk somewhere private.”
“You barged into my space to bother me – again – so I’m sorry, but you don’t get that choice.”
“Fine.” I watched his bicep flex as he gripped my seat and swiftly pulled my chair over – so close to his that my legs were now crossed between his muscled, man-spreading thighs. Holy shit. “In that case, we’re going to have to get a little closer.” His smirk was inches from my lips as he cocked an eyebrow. “That alright with you? Or does it make you nervous?”
“You don’t make me nervous,” I lied, my heart beating damned near out of my chest as Drew braced himself with a thick forearm on the table, basically caging me in with his enormous body.
“Good.” He eyed my lips. “Then I’ll get right into it. I need to ask a favor of you.”
“You’re kidding. Why would I do any sort of favor for you when you’ve been nothing but a dick to me? Don’t eat that,” I hissed as he stole one of my sandwiches and popped it into his mouth. I anticipated the face he would make a second before he made it. “I told you not to eat it.”
“What was that?”
“A cucumber sandwich.”
“You like eating this shit?”
“No, but I did like the idea of spending an afternoon sitting in this pretty window and reading a book because I woke up feeling kind of good today, and it’s one of my last days before work has me commuting four hours back and forth per day,” I hissed just loud enough for him to hear. “I don’t really have the money to eat at a place like this, but I told myself I’d splurge this once because I deserved to relax
, which I can assure you, I am definitely not doing now that you’re here.”
For some idiotic reason, I actually thought I had a chance at making him feel a shred of remorse right there.
But nope.
“Well, then I have a solution for you,” he said, a glimmer in his eye.
“I doubt you do, but for the sake of finishing this conversation, just tell me what it is you’re here to talk about, and if you can do it in three sentences or less, I’ll be really impressed.”
My hot breaths were short and my chest heaved as I watched Drew smile and study my face for a few seconds. My lips, my cheeks, then back to my eyes.
“I need to show the Empires that I’ve settled down so they won’t trade my crazy ass. After the other night, the New York Post claims you’re my girlfriend of five months. I want us to pretend we’re actually engaged for the next three so I can keep my job on this team.” He cocked his head at the dazed look on my face. “Succinct enough for you?”
