Page 43 of Meet Your Match
He was too busy staring at me.
I sucked in a stiff breath, blinking repeatedly before I finally tore my gaze away and adjusted my purse on my shoulder. I muttered unheardexcuse me’sas I pushed through the team and the lucky girls who’d been selected to join them. I pushed farther, out of the ropes and through the crowd until I burst out into the humid night air. It was so hard to breathe, I gasped, trying and failing to fill my lungs.
I didn’t see the car we’d come in, didn’t even give myself time to think of calling one. I just started walking in the direction of the skyscraper holding me prison for the month I was doing this job, squeezing my eyes shut hard to try to clear what I’d just seen before I opened them again and put one foot in front of the other.
I hadn’t made it twenty steps before I was spun in a circle, Vince sliding his hand into the crook of my elbow and pulling me to a stop.
“You’re leaving?”
I blinked at him, eyes catching where he had lipstick smeared on his neck.
A harsh laugh burst from my chest.
“I’m surprised you noticed,” I snapped, and then I ripped away from him and started off in the direction I’d been walking before he stopped me.
“Let me get you a car.”
“I can walk, it’s not far.”
“You’re in heels. And it’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m fine.”
Vince jogged around to stand in front of me, blocking my path. “What’s going on? Why are you mad?”
“I’m not.”
“So you breathe like an angry dragon and storm around town because you’re having a grand time?”
I scoffed, skirting past him. “Go back inside, Vince. I’m sure yourfansare missing you.”
He didn’t follow for the next several steps, but then he jogged to catch up to me, blocking my path once more. I noted that he had been texting something on his phone, but he slipped it into his pocket when he caught up to me.
Probably telling his little groupies to meet him back at his place.
“Maven,” he said. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
His eyes were lazy and glazed. He looked so sleepy and sexy and confident, and he watched me like he already knew the answer.
I glowered. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted you to surprise me again, and found myself dreadfully disappointed.”
That beautiful, scarred brow lifted into his hairline. “How so?”
“You’re just like every other rich, professional athlete that the rules don’t apply to,” I said, shaking my head. “And it’s just so unoriginal.”
Vince frowned at that, almost laughing like he was confused. “Therules?”
But then the laughter faded, and something like recognition washed over him, smoothing out every feature of that beautiful, stupid face.
“You’re jealous.”
My eyebrows shot up into my hairline, indignation swirling with something akin to being stripped naked and put on display for the world to dissect. I swallowed all of it down, guard firmly in place.
“Wow.” I pushed past him, shaking my head, but he rounded me before I could take two more steps.
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Get a grip,Tanny Boy,” I shot at him, lifting my chin and standing even higher on my heels. “You couldn’t make me jealous if you tried.”
