"You should be praising Melissa for the excel lent job she did of entertaining her two clients last night," Dominic said.
Tom's eyebrows drew together. "You were there, too? I thought JP and Melissa had ..."
How could her father possibly think she'd fall for a slick horndog like JP? She was way smarter than that.
And if Dominic hadn't barged into their conversation, "rescuing" her, she'd have had the satisfaction of giving her father a piece of her mind. Instead, he'd swiped it right out from under her.
And that's when it hit her: Dominic and her father were two of a kind. Neither of them trusted her to make the right decisions. Neither of them thought she was capable of taking care of herself.
She held up her hand. "Enough. I've heard more than enough. I'm here this morning to take notes on how my clients are playing." She gave Dominic a hard look. "They're waiting for you on the field."
His dark eyes were unreadable. With a curt nod he headed onto the field, his helmet gripped tightly in his hand.
Then she met her father's eyes. "Here's the deal. For one week, you aren't going to second-guess me. You aren't going to lecture me. And you aren't going to jump to conclusions. I'm going to work with my clients however I see fit. If JP hasn't signed with a new team by the end of the week and you deem my performance unworthy of the McKnight Agency, you can fire me. No hurt feelings. No recriminations."
A muscle in her father's jaw jumped in anger. "I'm trying to figure out why I shouldn't just fire you right now. If any other agent spoke like this to me, he'd be history."
Melissa shrugged. "You certainly could do that." She wasn't afraid of her father anymore, and wondered why she ever had been. "But then, you might risk losing your best agent."
He blinked once. Twice. "One week," he said, then walked to the group of agents over by the doughnuts and coffee.
Melissa's mouth curved into a smile. She'd finally surprised him. For the first time in his life, it seemed he didn't recognize the woman standing before him. Maybe he'd never really known her at all.
And maybe she hadn't known herself.
She took a seat and tried to focus on JP's blocking and pass routes, but she was continually distracted by Dominic.
Though not for the usual reasons.
Dominic had always been one of the most consistently excellent players in football. Where most guys had their share of down games—even a down season, if things were really rotten—Dominic earned his salary every single outing. His plays were inspired, finessed, and rarely outmaneuvered by the defensive line.
But this morning he was a bona fide disaster, with a bad case of the drops. He couldn't hold on to anything thrown his way. She winced as he was crushed beneath a linebacker. She'd have been embarrassed for him if she hadn't been so worried about the pain he had to be in.
Her father's words came back to her: He's getting close to retirement.
After one bad play too many, Dominic limped over to the sidelines and JP moved in to replace him. Come Monday morning, no matter how much pain Dominic was in, as his agent she'd have to lay down some hard truths. If he continued to perform so far below his usual level—especially if he took this crappy performance into the start of the new season—future endorsements, not to mention lucrative new contracts, would be very hard to come by.But under no circumstances would she run to his side to make sure he was okay. Because that was something a girlfriend—or a wife—did. Not a three-day f**k buddy like her.
The Outlaws' physical therapist pushed and flexed Dominic's arms and legs and chest. "Anything hurt?" Dominic grunted. Everything did, just like always. But although his body had taken a real beating on the field today, it was his pride that hurt like hell. He'd been asleep out there, a total liability.
Seeing Melissa look so pale and so sad had shaken him deeply. He'd never meant to cause her such pain. When she'd walked into the stadium that morning, he'd been struck again by the fact that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known. But his reaction was more than sexual. Her beauty went deeper than her face, her skin, her body.
She radiated goodness from within.
And she didn't trust him, didn't believe that he loved her.
And why the hell should she? he wondered as the therapist pulled his foot into his glutes to stretch his quads. He'd rejected her, seduced her, then lost his mind in her foyer and acted like a complete ass.
Dominic grunted at the painful stretch. Post-scrimmage had always been a time for reflection, but his thoughts usually centered on the game.
Today, the only thing he could focus on was Melissa.
"I've never seen you so tight," the therapist said. "Been doing anything out of the ordinary lately?"
Oh, just nonstop sex and guilt-induced insomnia.
"A couple of late nights," he finally said.
Matt began to work his torture on Dominic's other leg. "You sure are lucky," he said enviously. "Regular guys like me have to work our asses off just to get a pretty girl's attention. You must have to turn them away like crazy."
Matt was right. The easy part was getting a girl into bed. The hard part was knowing when you had the right girl.
And making sure you didn't screw it up.
Fucking up in high school had made him shut down the wildness inside, allowing it to be unleashed only on the field. Had he turned into an emotionless scrooge? A man who couldn't recognize love when it slapped him in the face?
It had taken Melissa only three days to uncover a part of Dominic that he'd kept hidden nearly his whole life, to realize that his childhood had been all about responsibility. Without his telling her anything about his shithead stepfather, and the crushing guilt he'd lived with for two decades, somehow Melissa had tapped directly into Dominic's deep, dark core.
He'd always thought that passion was a weakness and had never allowed himself to feel this way about anyone else. But with Melissa, he'd had no choice.
He loved her. Passionately.
Somehow he needed to make up for the callous way he'd treated her. He needed to tell her he loved her again—the right way, without jealousy and possession clouding every word. He was going to admit all his sins.
And then, for once he'd sit the f**k back and listen to what she wanted, rather than what he thought was best for both of them.