Page 15 of Wicked Player

To realize the girl I couldn’t get out of my head?

She was sitting in the first fucking row.

With a press pass dangling from a lanyard around her neck. A neck I’d had my hand clamped around barely over twelve hours ago.

Holy fucking shit.

I was So. Damned. Screwed.

Six

Elizabeth

I spent hours digging into Gage Bryant. I scoured his social media, researched his past. I copied down stats and records he’d either already set or was on his way to setting.

So far this season, he’d grabbed the record for most one hundred receiving yard for the first nine games. The previous record held it at six.

I’d studied him enough, trying to ignore how freaking handsome the man was, how genial he came across in interviews. He hosted summer football camps for underprivileged kids. He frequently gave away box seat tickets for families with sick children.

In short, the man came across as the most beautiful Saint I’d ever read about. Amanda had also been right. In the four years since he was traded to Raleigh, there was not a single photo of him anywhere with a woman other than his mom. Not at galas, not at publicity events. He was photographed with teammates and their wives or girlfriends, but he was always the single guy. Which sent a thousand questions spinning in my mind.

How was this amicable, philanthropic, gorgeous specimen of a man, still single?

It was a question I couldn’t look into too much like Amanda said earlier, but that didn’t stop my curiosity. He was minutes from appearing at the press conference and I was seated in the front row. Next to me, the seat was empty, but there was a label marked for Connor Hopkins. My ex. The guy who broke my heart. In the six months since he ended things, while I was still hooked to that damn cross at Velvet and left without unbinding me, I’d avoided him at every opportunity. That alone had been difficult since he worked for a competing local network.

Now I was screwed.

In order to avoid a conversation with him whenever he arrived, I busied myself with studying my notes, flipping through my tablet, reading up on the construction process on the new family and children’s wing. A rustle of movement went through the gathered reporters. Murmurs increased and grew antsy. This was how a press conference always went. The bubbling excitement before a story and one as important as this was for our community had brought in several dozens of reporters.

I glanced at the makeshift stage. The Chief Development Officer, Miles McGregor, was there, fiddling with papers at the podium. Dressed in a well-cut gray suit, Miles was about as old as my parents but carried himself with an air of authority even from where I sat. Two men spoke to him, one who kept looking back behind the curtain off to the side and they walked off the stage. My eyes slid in that direction, the sway of curtains, and a spark of awareness tickled the back of my neck.

How odd. I rubbed my neck and dipped back down to my tablet. I was scrolling through local news when a shadow crossed in front of me, and a voice I knew well spoke.

“Well hello there, Lizzie.”

Connor. Of course. I cringed at the ridiculous nickname. Something no one but him used.

“Connor.” I didn’t spare him a glance.

He took his seat, and I swore he leaned in closer so his thigh pressed against mine. I shifted and crossed my legs, moving as far away from him without bumping the reporter next to me.

“How are you? Haven’t seen you out and about much recently.”

He meant at Velvet where we met and we were ended. I brushed a chunk of hair behind my ear and stared at the stage. This conference could start any second now. “It’s weird you’ve been looking for me. Doubt Mel would like it.”

His girlfriend. The woman he’d started fucking the very night after he walked out on me.

It took effort, yet I resisted the urge to show any emotion. Mostly looking like I wanted to puke. How naïve I’d been to think hot sex in a private room and a few dinners meant we actually had a relationship.

It’d do me well to remember the fiasco with Connor if I sawJohnagain.

“I was hoping I’d see you. I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“No. Now leave me alone.”

“Now, Lizzie—”

“Welcome everyone.” A cheerful, feminine voice rang through the microphone, blissfully cutting off Connor’s impudent retort. Like I care what he had to say. If I could have jumped the stage and hugged my current savior, I would have.

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