Chapter Two
“Sorry I’m late,” Charlotte said as she took the stool next to her roommate. Wednesday nights at the bar were how they dealt with the hump day, the weekend’s still too far away blues. It was a tradition they’d started about six months ago when they’d become roommates. They’d forged a friendship based on necessity at first, but it’d quickly moved into genuine territory in spite of not having much in common. “Work was the worst today.”
Shannon spun toward her, her blond curls swishing with the movement. “Did you lay down the law with Lance Quaid?”
Charlotte loosed her hundredth sigh of the day as she let her head fall back. “I did. I’m just not sure it took.”
“Well, now that you got all up close and personal with your new boss, let’s get to the important details first.” She propped her cheek on her fist as a dreamy look overtook her features. “Is he as handsome in person as he was on TV?”
“He’s…” The irritation she’d felt in his office—especially after the meeting where he fired everyone—drifted to the surface again. “Frustrating. Pigheaded. Impossible.”
“So yes.”
Charlotte glanced around, since they were in a sports bar and you never knew who might be listening in, then leaned closer and whispered, “He’s even hotter in person. Like, I accidentally ended up ogling him a few times and forgot to listen to whatever he was saying— I’ll deny that if you tell anyone.”
Shannon squared her arm as if she were about to swear an oath in court. “I promise not to reveal any of your secrets. Although the fact that Lance Quaid is hot is hardly a secret. The Locker Room Report ran an article on him today and added him to the NFL’s most eligible bachelor list.” She grabbed her phone, tapped the screen, and swiveled it to Charlotte.
A quick scan revealed his picture—he was tossing a ball, his arms gloriously bare and sporting a sheen, the strong profile she’d stared at for way too long highlighted along with the confident smirk that drove her crazy in more than one way—the news about inheriting the team, and his eligible bachelor status.
Considering his temper and his obstinacy, he might be a bachelor for life. Actually, Charlotte knew that was far from true. Most women wouldn’t care about that, especially when they factored in his net worth. But the guy had impulsively fired the front office, and now he wanted her to cover his ass.
And my, what a nice ass it was.
When they’d been working on the exact right wording of the job listings and he’d been putting out feelers via a hundred phone calls, he’d paced his office. Her eyes needed a break from the computer screen, so she’d glanced up and accidentally noticed how nicely his backside filled out his tailored pants.
Luckily a minute or so later he’d spoken, effectively downgrading his hotness a level or two.
“Look at the comments.” Shannon scrolled down. “This one says, and I quote, ‘the Mustangs have been out to pasture for years, but this guy looks like he could give me a decent ride.’”
Charlotte leaned over the lit screen, sure Shannon was making it up. But nope, there it was in black and white, and another person had added she’d happily try her hand at taming him. The next person escalated the thread with her remark about riding bareback, and Charlotte’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment on behalf of someone she didn’t even know.
Who posted that kind of stuff on a public page? Judging from the slew of similar comments that were mixed in with statements about his quarterback career and how they were upset/glad/doubtful/hopeful about where he could take the Mustangs, several women and a couple of men, none of whom were overly concerned with things like online etiquette or proper grammar.
Then again, it’d be rather hypocritical to fault them for losing their minds a little over the guy when she’d had trouble keeping hold of hers when they’d been in the same room.
Which was why, after giving herself a mental scolding for ogling him as he was pacing, she’d made a strict decree.
There’d be no checking out any of his assets.
No sniffing the cologne that lingered in the air of his office.
No thinking about how he was still in really good shape.
And her kryptonite—scruff-covered jaws that screamed all-man—was also off-limits.
The bartender asked for her order, jerking her away from dangerous territory where she was slipping on the thinking about Lance’s scruff. She asked for the whiskey that she’d refused to drink at work—it’d been a long day, and she’d just have the one and then she’d go home and prepare for tomorrow.
Silver lining, at least she still had a job.
For a few minutes in that meeting, after Lance had fired everyone, she’d worried she was getting the ax, too. Not that it’d stopped her from doing her job and demanding to know what he was thinking, but that was because she was as good at what she did as she’d claimed to be. Her exceptional knowledge of every rule and regulation and attention to even minor details had earned her promotion after promotion until she was the director of HR, which was a huge accomplishment and a goal she’d worked toward since day one.
But she really did need the job. A huge chunk of her savings had gone toward her dad’s expensive rehab bill. Which was something she worked to keep hidden, even from her roommate, who’d once told her that she allowed the men in her life to walk over her far too much. She’d stated it as nicely as possible, saying they shared the weakness and it was something they were working on together.
What was she supposed to do, though? After nearly a decade of begging her dad to get help for his gambling addiction, he’d finally come to her and admitted he had a problem.
Because of his history and the public repercussions, she needed a rehab center with a stellar reputation for being successful and discreet, and about three weeks ago she’d checked him into one that would treat his addiction and the resulting depression. If it worked, it’d be worth it. And she had to believe it’d work.
“Earth to Charlotte.” Shannon snapped her fingers in front her face.
“Sorry. I’m here now. No more work talk.”
“At least tell me I can hold my head high as a Mustang fan this next season.” Shannon was more of a casual fan, cheering for the team now that she was a local. Her football knowledge was spotty, but she’d picked up a lot the end of last season when Charlotte had been standing on their couch screaming at the TV.
“Yet to be determined,” she said, then quickly glanced around like a paranoid lunatic. While she’d never go into details, she had to be careful talking about the team in general. She’d signed a nondisclosure agreement she’d personally ensured was up to par and took it deathly seriously, to the point she sometimes felt like she couldn’t even cheer for the Mustangs in public for fear she’d slip and say too much.
Working for the team had been a dream come true, one she’d been scared to actually believe for quite a while. After everything that’d happened with Dad, she’d worried people would take a look at her last name, put two and two together, since it’d been a huge story in the news around that time, and reject her without even giving her a chance. Worried she’d end up in a boring office where she didn’t feel as much passion for what she was doing.
Luckily Mr. Price had told her that he judged people on their own merits. Kind of funny for a team that practiced a bit of nepotism, but when you owned enough companies to make you a billionaire, you got to dabble in hypocrisy.
After this afternoon with Lance, she could at least say he obviously cared about what happened to the team. Over the past few years, it’d been more and more difficult to remain a fan. Not that she’d hop on a shiny bandwagon when it passed on by, but it would be nice to not spend every Sunday during the season disappointed.
“Okay, so I guess it’s time to move on to another depressing subject.” Shannon glanced around the bar. “There is a severe lack of guys out and about tonight, and this was the only social outing on my calendar all week.”
Charlotte was glad her drink arrived, and she took a swig before Shannon could say what she was 99 percent sure she was going to.
“That means we’re going to that speed dating thing next door.”
“Tonight?” Charlotte shook her head, cursing that her drink hadn’t had time to work yet. She was exhausted. She also wanted to point out that even if the bar was chock-full of guys, they’d all be marked off the possibility list because she had a new rule against meeting guys at sports bars. It always ended badly. Technically, every one of her relationships had ended badly, but again, football was to blame in a surprising amount of them.
It’d all started with her first boyfriend, who’d found out her dad was the assistant football coach at the college he wanted to attend. Where he also hoped to play after he graduated high school, of course. She’d gotten him his in, and for her efforts she’d acquired her first broken heart.
You see, football kept him too busy for a serious girlfriend. It did not keep him so busy that he couldn’t have sex with a lot of coeds, though. Funny the way that works.
“It’s happening,” Shannon said, undeterred. “We’re going to take advantage of this hot, ballbuster-businesswoman-meets-retro-pinup-girl thing you’ve got going on while you’re already out and about.”
The compliment cracked Charlotte’s resolve to remain firm, despite her best efforts. It had been the exact look she was going for, fashion the one area where she liked to bend the rules a little—not to mention that vintage styles flattered her curvier figure far better than modern ones did.
“Really, you brought this on yourself,” Shannon added, chasing away the warm fuzzies and resealing those cracks.
“How?”
“You refuse to go out after you get home, kick off the heels, and flop on the couch. Remember how we decided we were going to get back out there?”
“I remember you decreed that you were.” Charlotte still wasn’t there yet, but if she’d voiced that when Shannon was on her tear about it last weekend, her roommate would’ve only debated why she should be, and she hadn’t wanted to hear it. This was the problem with simply nodding. People thought you were agreeing and committing.
“We both are. Just like we’re both looking for more accessible guys, ones who want the same things we do. And you have that no-football-guys rule, although I still don’t really understand it. Shouldn’t you have similar hobbies?”
“It’s a precise system. They can enjoy watching a football game now and then, but if they go all starry-eyed when they find out I work for a team or if they start prodding me for insider information, I walk away. No more thinking that eventually they’ll understand I can’t get them access to the players, the field, or what I know about the games before they go down.” It wasn’t easy, trying to find guys not obsessed with football in Texas. Even the ones who were Cowboys or Texans fans weren’t immune to the idea of a behind-the-scenes tour or tickets to games when their teams played. As if she could date a guy who cheered against her team.
“Oh yeah. Makes perfect sense now.” Shannon glanced at her phone. “Eight minutes.”
The last of her drink hit the back of Charlotte’s throat, and as her pulse skittered under her skin, she debated going back on her decision to only have one. It’d help with speed dating but might also not so much help, and she needed to be fresh for work tomorrow and ugh. “How about we go speed walking in the park and see if we can meet a nice serial killer instead? That sounds like more fun to me.”
“You promised to be my wing woman,” Shannon reminded her, and Charlotte groaned. Her roommate’s decision to take more risks and meet more people would’ve been fine if Charlotte didn’t have to go along for the painful ride.
“Painful” was also a good word to describe her last relationship, and it definitely fit how it’d ended. After her year-long relationship had crashed and burned over issues she should’ve realized were too big to overcome, she’d had a hard time convincing herself that love—the true, intense kind she used to dream of as a little girl when spending far too much time alone—existed.
Everyone always wanted something. Wanted you for what you could do for them. Each relationship had taken a piece of her, and thanks to the way she’d grown up, she didn’t have that many to give. Her first boyfriend took another piece, and Ian had taken more than one.
Right now she was using the leftovers to help keep Dad afloat.
Maybe after she’d had more time to heal and Dad was on steady ground, she could find a bit of that shiny optimism she used to have. Maybe then she’d be ready to sincerely date.
But thirty minutes later, as she was sitting across from a guy, not nearly buzzed enough, she thought she’d rather go back to Lance’s office. Regardless of it meaning he’d be over her shoulder, watching her post job listings and insisting on different word choices, as if that would make the best coaches and general managers leap at the chance to work for a team that hadn’t won in so long that most of their fans and even some of their own players had given up.
…
Lance tossed his keys on the counter of his penthouse apartment. It’d been his grandfather’s as well, and he recalled all the times he and his brother, Mitch, had been scolded for running through the halls, both from Mom and his older sister, Taylor, who’d often thought she was the boss of them growing up. The five bedrooms and two floors had been convenient whenever they visited and needed a place to stay but seemed extravagant now that Lance was living here alone.
All the space accented how alone he was, too, and he wondered if it’d gotten to his grandpa during those past few years, after Grandma Price had passed away.
Maybe after Mitch and Stacy get married, they’ll come visit. Taylor can bring her kids, too, so they can help breathe some life into the place.
Added bonus, he could teach his nephews to race through the house. He chuckled to himself as he thought about how Taylor would have to retrain them after they returned home. Kids should be kids, after all.
Lance walked over to the couch, shed his suit coat, and yanked off his tie, glad to be rid of both. For now he’d dress up and look the part of an office flunky, but before long, he was going to loosen the dress code.
Something Charlotte James would undoubtedly take issue with. She’d probably even tell him exactly which section of the employee handbook it violated. A smile crept across his face as he thought about the way she sighed when he was telling her to reword the job postings.
For a rule follower, she certainly was feisty. Honestly, he was just glad he’d have help to sort through the mess, which yes, he’d made himself. Though really, his grandfather had let things slide these past few years, too worried about keeping up appearances to let show that he was tired and rundown, and he forgot things now and again, ones that made running the team difficult.
Not even the family had known the extent of it.
Obviously they’d known the best decisions weren’t being made as far as the team went, but Lance could still remember voicing his opinion about a player they’d traded when he was a sophomore in college, and how Grandpa had told him that it was his team and he’d damn well do what he wanted. He’d added that when Lance ran the team, he could do the same.
It was something he’d occasionally dropped into their conversations, but Lance never thought he’d be running the team so soon. At one point he’d actually thought he’d pass. That was back when he figured he’d be playing quarterback into his early forties and maybe coach a while before Grandpa passed away.
But between Lance’s second knee injury and his grandpa’s stroke, life made it clear that it didn’t respect set plans. Things happened, and you had to read the field again and come up with a new play.
Right now he was searching for open players for his staff, trying to determine who’d be able to catch the ball and help lead his team to victory. He sure as hell wasn’t going to deal with a bunch of babies who’d go crying to HR if he raised his voice or swore over an incompetent move. If he’d done that back when he’d been playing ball, he would’ve been dropped in a hot minute.
I hope the Stangs players haven’t grown soft along with the staff.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he smiled when he saw his brother’s name.
Lance huffed a laugh. He’d heard about the article from one of the PR people who was safe for the time being, but he didn’t put any weight to it. Since his athletic glory days had been a study in how little control he had over what journalists said about him, he simply hoped it’d be good for the team. Maybe extra publicity would make it easier to rebuild.
Sure. He’d grasp at any straws right now.
His phone vibrated again, the ring splitting the quiet. He moved his thumb over the decline button but didn’t tap it when he saw it was his mom. You didn’t ignore calls from Mama Quaid, especially since she’d just keep on calling.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You haven’t responded to my texts about the wedding.” Mitch’s wedding was a week and a half away, which was why he’d joked about his “special time.” And boy was he taking a lot of it, milking the event for all it was worth—he’d expect nothing less from his baby brother, though, and he was happy for him. He just wished the timing was better.
“I’ve been busy.”
“We’re all busy,” she replied. He had no doubt she was overloaded with the endless wedding planning stuff, and there wasn’t any point in arguing his busy—trying to rebuild a team—was a different kind. “We’ve been planning this for a long time, and I expect you to arrive the same day the rest of us do.”
He plopped onto the couch and leaned back against the cushions. No one knew how to throw a celebration like his family, which meant it wasn’t just a wedding but a destination wedding with events starting the Monday before the ceremony.
“I understand that, but there are things you can’t plan for.” Like Grandpa’s death, but he didn’t say that. Not when it’d been her father and she’d had such a hard time saying goodbye—she’d cried for a week straight, the funeral bringing on a wave of tears he’d never seen from her before. The upcoming happy event was most likely what was helping her hold it together, so he’d go along with anything she wanted.
“And there are things you’ll regret missing for the rest of your life. Now, as for your plus one…”
Make that almost anything she wanted. “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I’d be married to my job for the foreseeable future,” he said. “That’s going to be my priority for the next year at least.”
“Pish posh. Your brother managed to get engaged during the season, when he was traveling nonstop for games.” Their parents were college sweethearts who’d been married for almost forty years, and his mom had been obsessed with marrying off her children since the time they hit twenty. Taylor made her happy by getting married shortly after college and immediately popping out a few kids, and now Mitch was ten days away from joining the land of the wed. Lance wasn’t anywhere near there, nor did he want to be. You’d think after ten years she’d give up, but nope. “You don’t want your life to be empty, do you?”
He had way too much experience with empty days, ones where he looked around and found that everyone he’d thought were his friends were long gone.
Maybe that was why he was having trouble adjusting to the giant penthouse in a mostly unfamiliar city. He’d grown up in Raleigh, played for the Tarheels, and then was drafted by the Titans. While there’d been plenty of busy months he’d hardly seen his family, he’d never lived quite so far from them.
“You have to try again someday,” Mom added, as if he needed a reminder of how close he’d been to being engaged before he’d been injured and every single part of his life fell apart. “If you need a push, I’m happy to provide it. Along with the names of a few lovely ladies who’d be happy to attend the wedding with you.”
“Oh, so I get a plus two?”
She clucked her tongue at him, but she was also trying not to laugh, he could tell. At least he’d managed to add a smidge of happy to her night—he honestly was worried about how she was coping with her grief, and what would happen once the wedding stuff wasn’t there to distract her anymore. “How about I give you their phone numbers and you can call them up and see if you click with one of them? Then we can take it from there.”
Saying he didn’t have time to chat up anyone between calls that involved rebuilding the Mustangs was useless. Mom wouldn’t hear it or believe it. Even now, this conversation was cutting into time he should be dialing up associates.
For his mom, he’d take the time.
Cold-calling girls she thought would be perfect for him and getting stuck in awkward, too-long phone conversations? Not so much.
He could only imagine how much worse it’d be when he arrived back in North Carolina, where his entire family would also be “helping” to set him up. His family had always been close, but sometimes they were close to the point of being intrusive.
If he were smart, he’d find a nice girl to take with him so he could skip all the painful forced interactions with women they were definitely planning on springing on him. Then at least he’d get a choice.
Of course he hadn’t been on a date in months, and asking a woman to travel with you on a first date—to a wedding, no less—seemed either crazy or desperate. Or both.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“Not an option. It’s a mom thing that never goes away.”
He smiled, in spite of it meaning she wouldn’t be giving up her matchmaking attempts. “I’ll see you on Monday, Mom. Just don’t book too many activities. I’ll have to do a lot of work while I’m at the hotel.”
“I’ll talk you out of that when you get to the beach,” she said with a laugh, and he shook his head, even as affection wound through his chest.
You’d think his family would understand, what with their football legacy, but like the staff he’d recently fired, they’d grown complacent. Too comfortable. And he wanted that for his family.
But for himself…he wanted something more. He wanted to take control of that legacy and not only return it to its former glory, but to prove he was more than a washed-up quarterback whose career ended way too short.
If he couldn’t break any more records on the field, he’d do whatever it took to ensure the team he’d just inherited did it on his behalf.