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With wide eyes, I stood there frozen.
Until she declared, “Cat got your tongue, Quarterback?”
It was then that I knew I was right, and it all made sense.
“Sophie?”
“Are you saying you don’t recognize me?”
I hadn’t seen her since the night I’d broken her heart. She’d always been a beautiful girl, but now she was every bit of a stunning woman.
“The line at the bar is at least twenty people deep. How about you be a gentleman and share your drink?”
I didn’t give it a second thought. I nodded for her to come over to me, and she didn’t waver. In four strides she was standing in front of my face, and I knew right then and there…
I. Was. Fucked.
Chapter One
—Jax—
Now
“How the fuck did this get out, Caleb?” I slammed the Sports Illustrated magazine on the table. There in front of our eyes was a ten-page spread on my future with the NFL.
All hell broke loose with the news of my trade from Miami to Fort Worth, spreading like wildfire in a fucking forest. There was no hiding it anymore. It was all over social media, and the press was eating me alive.
My agent, Caleb, held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “I’m handling it, Jax.”
“You’re handling it?” I scoffed out in a snide breath. “If you were handling it, then I wouldn’t be on the front cover of every magazine with the headline ‘TRAITOR’ in big, bold lettering!”
“I didn’t leak the story, Jax.”
“Well, someone sure as shit did, and it’s your job to figure it out—so why are you standing in front of me with your dick tucked in between your legs? You should be out there doing damage control! How could you let this happen? I pay you to make sure shit like this doesn’t happen behind my back. What part of that do you not understand?”
He deeply sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You knew the consequences of your decision to trade, Jax.”
“Yeah, Caleb! On my fucking terms! Instead, I was blindsided this morning with bullshit that shouldn’t have hit the press for another two weeks.”
Caleb inhaled another deep breath before dropping his hand to look at me.
“Whether it was today or two weeks from now, the headlines wouldn’t have changed. We’ve discussed this several times this past year, so these headlines shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. You’ve been playing for Miami since the start of your career, which is almost thirteen years ago. Your diehard fans are going to be pissed regardless of when the news was shared, and you know it.”
I angrily threw myself back into my office chair, knowing he was right. Nothing would soften the blow of my choice to leave a team that was like my family.
The only one I’d ever known.
“You need to relax, alright? I’m handling it. This isn’t the first time you’ve been caught in a scandal, Jax, and we both damn well know this isn’t going to be the last.”
I shook my head, narrowing my eyes at him. “I can’t help the fact that women love to make up stories about me to the media, Caleb.”
“Well…” He adamantly nodded. “Maybe if you stopped fucking them over, they wouldn’t have a reason to make up stories about you. I know, crazy concept and all.”
“Or maybe”—I nodded at him, fully aware of where he was going with this—“if they stopped thinking they could change me, it wouldn’t feel that way to them. I make no secrets of who I am, Caleb. If they want to put me up on a pedestal and think I’m their happily ever after, then that’s on them, not me.”
“I’m just saying it’d be great if you kept your dick in your pants for once.”
I shrugged. “I don’t pay you to have an opinion on where I thrust my cock, Caleb.”
