Page 24 of How to Play the Player

“It’s not a big deal,” I say, though we both know otherwise. “I have work to focus on anyway.”

“Sure,” Jake agrees skeptically.

“Tomorrow?”

“The venue tour with Jonathan, Kiera, Lyla, and Quinn. I’m guessing that’s why you were checking your calendar when I walked in.”

I check my calendar, confirming the appointment I’d completely forgotten after making the bet.

“Right,” I mutter.

“Good luck with your little…challenge,” Jake quips, rising to leave. At the door, he pauses. “A word of advice? Remember she’s got as much to lose as you do. Maybe more.”

After he’s gone, I stare at the closed door, contemplating his parting words. Quinn risking her contract seems reckless, desperate even. What does clearing her name really gain her after all this time? Unless…

Unless she truly is innocent.

I shut down that line of thinking as quickly as it forms. There’s no question about what happened. She betrayed my trust, plain and simple.

The real problem isn’t her guilt or innocence. It’s the frustrating way my body still reacts in her presence despite everything she’d done. It’s the momentary tension that fills the air when our eyes meet. It’s the fact I notice details about her I should have forgotten the moment I discovered her deception against me.

Fourteen days of seeing her, being near her, without letting these unwanted physical responses dictate my actions. And knowing Quinn, she’ll use every trick at her disposal to make me break first. I know, because it’s what I’d do. But after years of building walls where she’s concerned, I don’t intend on making it easy for her.

Quinn’s Office

Quinn

“What the hell did I just do?”

I pace the length of my small office; my heart feels like a jackhammer.

The words had tumbled out before I could stop them—a challenge born from frustration rather than strategy. And now my entire future hinges on what had essentially been a moment of emotional recklessness. But backing down would’ve only confirmed what Nathan already believes about me.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, pulling me from my spiral. Lyla’s text flashes on the screen.

How’d it go? Still alive?

I sink into my desk chair, trying to steady my breathing, and hit Call instead of texting back. The things I want to say are easier to speak than to type.

She answers on the first ring. “That bad, huh?” Her voice is equal parts sympathy and curiosity.

“I may have done something incredibly stupid.” The words come out in a rush. “I made a bet with Nathan.”

“A bet.” Her tone flattens with disbelief. “What kind of bet?”

I close my eyes, already hearing her reaction before I say it. “The kind where I bet he can’t go two weeks without vaginal sex, much less make a show of it to the press”—I swallow—“and then he bet I couldn’t resist him in that time.”

The silence on the other end stretches until I wonder if the call dropped.

“Lyla?”

“I’m processing.” Her voice returns, carefully measured. “Let me get this straight. You bet the man who changes women faster than he changes clothes that he can’t keep it in his pants for two weeks.”

“Right,” I reply.

She continues. “He then countered by basically daring you to try and resist him, a man who oozes charm and sex.”

When put that way, it sounds even worse. “Essentially.”

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