Sure Shot (Brooklyn #4)(12)

And there’s plenty to blush about. I remember everything about our first night together. The hesitation on her face when I’d invited her to my hotel room. The shock and lust in her eyes as I’d kissed my way down her body. The sounds she’d made…

Fuck. That was a long time ago. But it made a powerful impression on me.

“Hey, Tank.” The backup goalie—Silas—arrives beside me. “Coming out with us tonight?”

Beside him, his buddy Castro scowls, as if he can’t stand the idea.

That’s okay, because I’ve had enough togetherness already. “You kids have fun,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

When I turn around, Bess has disappeared.





Before leaving the party, I make a pitstop in the mansion’s sumptuous guest bathroom. Then, since I still need to shake Nate Kattenberger’s hand, I go looking for the billionaire. Every ground-floor room is more impressive than the last.

I’m just passing the kitchen when I catch a few words the chattering caterers are saying.

“She left him! Can you believe it?”

“He must have a flaming hemorrhoid for a personality, because I wouldn’t kick him out of bed. Did you see those arms?”

Feeling paranoid, I stand there, listening.

“She must love Texas more than she loves his dick,” someone says with a snicker.

“I read that he cheated.”

“Right? All that temptation from puck bunnies.”

“They say he cheated with a teammate’s wife. That’s why he got traded.”

Oh my fucking God. People will write anything on the internet.

This is why I’d spent the summer hiding from everyone, living in my Russian teammate’s house, taking care of his dogs, trying to decide which Dallas neighborhood would be my home next year.

And then the hockey gods made a completely different choice for me.

I force myself to walk away from the kitchen. I finally locate Nate Kattenberger in his front parlor and thank him for his hospitality.

“Great to have you here,” he says with a firm handshake.

“Great to be here.” Another lie.

After a few more platitudes, I’m free of the party. As I duck out of the garden gate and walk down the sidewalk, I realize I don’t know where the hell I am. I pick a direction and walk a block, but my path dead-ends into a park-like walking path along the river. There’s a terrific view of lower Manhattan, but nowhere to meet a taxi.

So I reverse course, pulling my new phone out of my pocket. Everyone on the Bruisers team carries the same phone. It’s manufactured by the billionaire whose barbecue I just enjoyed. It feels foreign in my hand, and when I open up the Lyft app, I realize I haven’t linked my account to the new device yet. It doesn’t know me, along with everything and everyone else around here.

I walk toward the traffic on what might or might not be Hicks Street. I need a yellow cab, hopefully with a driver who knows where the Marriott is. As I approach the corner, I see a taxi slowing down.

I’m just about to raise my hand when I notice it’s stopping for someone else—a beautiful woman with lush red hair. As I walk toward her, she gives me the death glare that one New Yorker gives another when staking a claim on a taxi.

Then Bess realizes who she’s glaring at, and her eyes widen.

I can’t help but chuckle. Rattling Bess Beringer is the only fun thing that happened to me today. Although the day’s not over yet.





Five





Cinderella Makes a Bad Decision





Bess





Tank stalks toward me, and my heart begins to pound. When it comes to this guy, I have no chill. I never did.

But I finally understand my twenty-one-year-old self a little better. She’d made a terrible mistake—an agent should never sleep with a client—but now it’s suddenly so easy to remember why it happened.

All it takes is one look from Tank, and I remember everything. The way his eyes used to darken while he undressed me. The way he used to pin my wrists together in his hand. The way he ordered me to unzip his pants, and how I obeyed, using my teeth.

He made me feel like a real woman. When he pinned me with that green-eyed stare, I wasn’t the neglected little girl I’d been at fourteen. Nor the college jock with frizzy red hair. That look in his eyes made me into someone else entirely. I’ve never been as brazenly sexual as I was with him.

Twenty-one-year-old Bess hadn’t known what hit her.

“Bess,” he says in a low voice. “Want to share a cab?”

“What?” My throat goes dry. “Did you really just ask me that? We aren’t headed in the same direction.”

“We could be.”

“Tank,” I gasp.

“What? Tell me one good reason we can’t. Is there a guy waiting at home for you?”

It takes me several seconds to respond, because I’m so startled. “No. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is? Maybe you forgot my name for a minute at the party. But we both know you didn’t forget the rest of me.”

“I didn’t forget your name,” I argue. But I can’t have this conversation right here in the middle of Hicks Street.