“Daisy, you’re freaking me out,” James said, sliding the door shut behind him. Daisy wrung her hands as she paced the far edge of the patio. He cut a formidable figure, powerful and masculine in front of her sliding door. He beckoned to her with his mere presence, which was something she hadn’t counted on when the idea first slid out of her, hot and shaky, at the nail salon with her mother. “Did something happen?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean—” She pressed a palm to her forehead, forcing herself to stop pacing. “James. I’m so confused.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, coming to her side. His arms went around her waist and she fought to not melt against him, to let him clear her thoughts with those steamy kisses or more well-timed sex. Because that was part of the problem too. It was easy to get muddled around James Sullivan. He made it easy to forget. To lose focus. To slink into a seductive fantasy world. “Is this about the interview on Sunday?”

  She knew she couldn’t keep her reaction off her face. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she nodded. “It’s part of it. It’s definitely part of it.”

  “What do you want to hear?”

  She smirked. “Is that your approach? Just find out what I want to hear and tell me that?”

  His brows knit together. “No. I just mean—”

  “Because based on what I saw, it seems like maybe that has been your policy,” she said, some of the vigor returning to her. The clarity. The frustration. “If you have issues with my approach, or my methodology, or any of that, I really wish you would talk to me instead of airing your complaints to the press first.”

  He laughed, but it was humorless. “Excuse me?”

  “Your astounding lack of confidence in the work that I’m doing with the team was clear to me,” she said, her throat going tight. Uh-oh. Reel it in, Daisy. But it was too late. The train had left the station, and now she had to ride it all the way to wherever the destination happened to be. “And you’re entitled to your opinion. That’s honestly not the main problem—”

  “First of all…” James huffed, propping his hands on his hips. “Hang on. There are other problems? I don’t even know where to begin right now.”

  His tone made her bristle further. “I’m trying to tell you.”

  “By all means,” James said, swooping his hand in front of him, “go on. I appreciate the personal invitation to get dressed down.”

  His words made her pause, her mouth parting from the surprise of them—and the acid bite of his note. “That’s not—I’m not dressing you down, I’m trying to have a conversation—”

  “Yeah. Sure. It sounds like it.” James sniffed, shifting from one foot to the other. Anger streaked beneath his skin; she could practically see him pulsing with it. And now she wondered if maybe she’d overstepped. Gone too far. Made too much of a mess out of this, without any possibility of resolution.

  “Listen. The last two weeks have been…I’m not going to sugarcoat it, a nightmare. It’s like every day that goes by, I can see more and more of my career dissolving in front of my eyes.”

  He scoffed. “Dissolving.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter what I do, or how hard I try—people will find a way to link my every professional move back to the fact that I started fucking the quarterback.”

  Her voice wavered with her last words, and she swallowed a thick knot in her throat. If her career was dissolving daily, her composure right now was dissolving by the second.

  James’s jaw flexed and he shook his head, looking past her at the backyard. “You know, that’s pretty fucking low. I expected a little more from you than that.”

  “James. I don’t know how you can call it any other way. The press will not—cannot—get over the fact that we are romantically linked. They were goading you in that interview on Sunday. And you fell right into their trap. Why you fell into their trap is another conversation, but the fact that they’re laying it for you to begin with—that’s what I’m talking about here.”

  “Daisy, I didn’t even fucking say anything to them about your training,” James said, his voice growing louder with each word. “Did you listen to the full interview? They asked me if it was risky to switch coaches mid-season. I said yes. Because it is.”

  “There was more to the interview than just that,” Daisy said, raking her fingers through her long hair. “You looked disgusted at some points, and I—” She faltered, remembering her mother’s advice. Don’t hold him to those words. It’s about the bigger picture. “It’s not just that, James. So you gave a bad interview. The fact of the matter is…I can’t keep dealing with the fallout every time you misspeak. My competency is being questioned daily. Hourly. And my career has taken a nosedive over these past two weeks. How much longer before it crashes entirely?”

  James stared at her, his jaw flexing. “So that’s my fault?”

  “I’m not saying—”

  “It’s funny how one little interview gets twisted and now you think I’m the reason your career is tanking.” He scoffed, shaking his head with disbelief. “Ridiculous. Maybe you should stop googling your name so damn much and focus on what’s actually happening here.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You actually think googling my name is all I do?” She tossed her hands out to her sides. “Wow. So you really don’t think I know what I’m doing here.”

  “I never said that,” he spat. “I’m just sick and tired of everyone getting all bent out of shape about the media. Emma is coming to me every other day terrified that something bad is going to happen because of what’s being reported between us. She needs to stop reading this shit. And you need to stop reading this shit.”

  “Well, that’s even more reason to look at what we’re doing here,” Daisy said. She could hear the high-pitched tone in her voice and hated it, the way it sounded like she was slowly growing hysterical. “Your daughter is being affected by this. James, we gave it a shot. This is affecting us in ways we didn’t plan.”

  His brows knit together again. “What are you saying?”

  “I think you know—”

  “I want to hear you say it,” James said, enunciating every word with threatening clarity. “You’ve been dancing around this shit—now just say it. Besides, I’m getting pretty upset that you’ve been going along like everything is fine when clearly you’re just taking the time to draw up an exit plan.”

  “An exit plan!” She laughed incredulously. “Trust me, there’s no plan here. I’ve been winging it right alongside you.”

  “I wasn’t winging it,” James said, his sharp features looking both stern yet hurt. “I knew what I was doing. But I was wrong. This was a mistake.”

  His words sliced like a knife, and tears pressed at her eyes. “Don’t say that.”

  “Give me a reason not to,” he challenged. “Or better yet, just tell me what you brought me here to say.”

  Silence stretched between them, foreign and unsettling compared to the noise of their argument. Daisy’s chest heaved as she struggled to tamp down her emotions, to bring back her normal speaking voice, to hang on to any shred of composure that might help her make it through this.

  “I can’t let my career slip between my fingers,” Daisy said, her voice barely above a whisper. She kept her gaze fixed on James’s piercing brown eyes, forcing herself to say the words that she knew she had to. “I’ve fought too hard to get where I am. I can’t give that up. Not for you, not for anybody. And we had fun. Too much fun. But I just don’t think we should do this while we’re both on the Sharks payroll.”

  James’s face was stony as he watched her, his expression so neutral that it sparked even more anxiety inside of her. His silence continued, unbearable. She shook her head, studying the ground.

  “Really wish you could have given me a heads up at the beginning,” he finally said, his voice low and wavery, “that you weren’t in this for real. That it was just something fun for you on the side. Then I wouldn’t have told my daughter, and you could have spared at least one person unnecessary heartbreak.”

  She pinched her eyes shut. He didn’t just lob a spear into her heart, he’d gouged and twisted. “I still want to talk to Emma, I want to be there for her—”

  “Sure. Nine-year-olds do a great job at handling relationships that end, let me tell you.”

  Tears returned to her eyes. “James, please. This has been an incredibly difficult couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah.” He sniffed, turning toward the door. “You know what would have been cool? Actually talking to me about this before you made your decision. Instead, you invite me over here like a CEO ready to fire somebody.” He scoffed, shaking his head, disappointment written across his face as he looked over his shoulder at her. “But I guess I’m the dope. I actually thought we had something good going. I wasn’t testing the waters—but you were.”

  James tugged open the glass sliding door and let himself into her condo, closing the door before she could squeak out a response. A moment later the front door slammed. She sank into her patio chair as she heard the engine of his Escalade rumble to life. A moment later, rubber against pavement.

  And he was gone.

  16

  James was mad the entire way home, stewing over each and every last thing Daisy had said.

  He was mad when he let the nanny go home.

  Mad when he went upstairs to press a kiss to Emma’s head and told her goodnight.

  So mad that he couldn’t fall asleep that night.

  It was somewhere in the restless throes of night when the anger transformed into sadness. When he felt the wall of resistance shatter inside of him, and he was left with the naked hurt.

  Why, Daisy?

  Of course he felt rejected. How could he not? But at the same time, now that some of the anger had subsided, he could better understand what she’d been saying.

  Didn’t mean he was any less pissed about being dumped by the woman he had been falling head over heels for. Shit, he’d been ready to take things even further. He’d been happier than he could remember being in eons. Maybe even a decade. Not only were he and Daisy an incredible match, but the way she got along with Emma was the type of relationship he could have only dreamt of.

  And now it was all gone.

  James barely slept that night. And when his alarm went off at 5 a.m., he dragged himself out of bed like a zombie for what was sure to be a grueling day.

  He didn’t want to see Daisy, not for a long time, but avoiding her would be impossible with their work arrangement. So maybe she’d been right. Dipping their toes in the waters of a serious relationship while technically colleagues wasn’t exactly smart, even if it was allowed. Now they had to face the consequences.

  He just wished he could fast-forward past the awkward part, past the part where he figured out how to tell Emma and get to the day when he could look at Daisy again without feeling rejected, hurt, or heartbroken.

  Because yes. That was the worst part of all.

  He wasn’t just blindsided. He was heartbroken.

  He’d fallen harder for Daisy than even he realized.

  “Hey, buddy,” Maxwell said, nudging him during the early morning workout session. “You okay?”

  James could barely nod. “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “Everything fine?”

  He didn’t have the energy to figure out what to say about his situation. So he blurted, “Daisy and I broke up. Don’t wanna talk about it.”

  Maxwell nodded, clapping him on the back. “I’m here if you need anything.”

  He needed to sleep for a few days or get really drunk, but neither of those were an option for him mid-season. So instead, he’d work his ass off. He focused on his bench press, but soon all the hairs on his body stood on end. A moment later, he heard Daisy’s voice. Of course. His stomach sank and he set the bar back, his biceps shaking from the exertion. He expelled a big breath and then sat up, reaching for his sweat towel.

  Daisy’s brown gaze waited for him when he sat up, but she quickly looked elsewhere as she tended to something that Mark was saying to her. James gritted his teeth, tugging at both ends of the towel.

  Of course he wanted her to succeed. And he’d do anything possible to enable that. He just didn’t think her professional success had to come at the expense of their personal success, together.

  But maybe he was being selfish. Maybe he was being blinded by love. Pain streaked through him again, and he tossed his leg over the side of the bench press. This was the mopeyest day he’d had in a long time, and he was hating every second of it.

  “Hey. Coach said to take it easy today, okay?” Daisy’s voice at his side made his chest hurt. He didn’t look at her as he nodded. “He wants us all to dial it down a notch, to save some energy for the playoffs.”

  “Got it.”

  Daisy lingered at his side for a moment, as though she wanted to add something else, but then moved along to some of the other players. He watched her walk away, even the swish of her long, black ponytail making his heart twist, acutely aware of how awkward this was. How painful. How sad.

  But that’s how it would be. Because she wanted something else.

  But James wanted what they’d had. What they’d shared.

  And if nothing else, finding Daisy had helped him realize that he was truly ready to go all in with a woman again. He wanted to.

  He’d just found a woman who didn’t want to go all in with him.

  Time trudged forward, a sad blur of football, dance pickups, and homework. Somewhere around day four James realized he needed to break the news to Emma—not just because she continued to talk about Daisy as though she’d be dropping by at any time now, but because he didn’t want her to find out through the internet first.

  Emma didn’t take it well. She cried as much as when he’d told her that her mother would be missing her birthday that year. Which only started his own cycle of guilt and sadness all over again. Emma blamed him, for some reason, and didn’t speak to him for a full day after that.

  From there, things only got touchier. James found a sort of survival mode that allowed him to act as though everything was fine, even though it wasn’t. But it came at the expense of his free time. He threw himself into football harder than he ever had before, as if it was the last raft off a sinking boat. Because on the inside, everything felt like it was sinking.

  It took about a week until Mark and Maxwell reported that the first leaks about their split were hitting social media. Twitter was blowing up about the football heartbreak, and James could only stand the most limited of summaries of what they were finding and reading about.

  And it was a couple weeks after the evening on Daisy’s patio when James could finally articulate it.

  He had fallen in love with Daisy. It had been an easy, natural, unconscious process. They just fit together. They were like best friends and challenging lovers all in the same breath. In fact, he’d never met a more perfect woman for him—or Emma. Which made the loss even harder to bear.

  Because James realized that while he’d been envisioning the natural progression of their lives toward a happily-ever-after, the three of them tucked in James’s brick mansion in Savannah, Daisy hadn’t been seeing any of that. She’d been seeing the birth of her own brand-new NFL career, which was exactly like having a child, except in league form.

  They’d never talked about the future. About what they wanted from each other. About any of that.

  These thoughts plagued him late at night, and sometimes even cropped up during his weightlifting sessions. And on one off Tuesday in particular, he couldn’t think of anything but this.

  Isn’t this supposed to get easier with time? Why do I feel like we’re making a huge mistake?

  His phone rang around 1 p.m., startling him out of his thoughts. Tuesdays had now become his least favorite day, because it gave his subconscious mind ample time to stew. He checked his phone—it was Emma’s school.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Sullivan, it’s Mr. Brown.” Emma’s principal. “I’m calling about your daughter Emma.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  The hesitation from the other end of the phone made him queasy. “She’s physically fine. However, she got into some trouble today, and I wanted to speak with you about it. She threw a drink on a classmate during lunch today, and then talked back pretty harshly to the teacher on duty. It was apparently very shocking, especially for her, since she’s typically so mild-mannered. This is extremely unusual for her.”

  “You’re right,” James said, confusion crashing through him. “That doesn’t sound like my daughter at all.”

  “Has there been anything going on in the home that we should know about? I’m weighing disciplinary measures. She’s been disciplined, of course, but the student she attacked is adamant that Emma gets suspended, which I think would be a reach.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” James said, dragging a hand down his face. “She’s been upset recently, yes. I broke up with my girlfriend—my ex…well, Emma’s been taking it pretty hard.”

  The principal tutted. “That makes sense. The aide told me that Emma claimed the student she fought with said your ex was—my apologies for the language—no good, and the Sharks’ season would crash and burn as a result.”

  A rumbling sigh escaped James, and the principal went on before James could formulate a reply. “I trust you will have a chat with her so this doesn’t happen again.”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Brown. Thanks for the call.”

  James hung up, feeling worse than ever. Sure, he’d been grieving the break up in his own way, but he hadn’t thought that Emma would be so upset she’d start getting in fights about it at school. His heart broke all over again, reminding him of why he’d been an idiot to get Emma involved in a shaky relationship like this in the first place.