Beauty and the Baller (Strangers in Love #1)(9)

Someone moves in the room, and the music is turned down considerably. My bets are on Mrs. Meadows. I shake my head. She really is something, trailing me to the party in her nightclothes.

“Oh. I’ve heard of you,” Miss Texas says, a light dawning in her green eyes. “You went to school with my sister.”

I squint at the glossy red hair. The Tyler family had four girls, all gingers with M names. It dawns on me. “You’re Marla’s little sister?”

Miss Texas sniffs. “Yes. She lives in Dallas now. She married Brad.”

I wince. I might have kissed Brad, Marla’s long-term boyfriend, in tenth grade, and I might have made sure Marla knew about it . . .

“Good for them. Where’s Coach?” I ask the room.

“That would be me,” a deep voice says from behind me. There’s arrogance mixed with exasperation in his voice, and my lips tighten. Metaphorically, I pull up my big-girl panties and mutter, Bring it on, jock-ass.

Steeling myself, I turn to face him, seeing the french doors from the den have been opened, which is probably where he came from. The back entrance leads out to a glittering blue kidney-shaped pool, lit by underwater lights. There’s even a waterfall. Modern, sleek-looking chaise lounges dot the area. Girls in bikinis walk around. A few men. Finally.

I focus on him, gasp, and then shut my eyes, hoping he’ll disappear. But when I open them, he’s still there.

No, this can’t be right . . .

But the logical side of my mind says, Fate just bitch-slapped you.

I bite back a groan.

Holy shit.

Ronan Smith.

The worst, most horrible, can’t-even-think-about-it-without-cringing one-night stand ever.





Chapter 3


NOVA

I feel dizzy, as if I’ve been suddenly transported to another dimension. My hand finds the edge of the island and clings to it.

It’s been over two years, and he looks the same yet different. Wearing plain navy swim trunks, his body is exquisite, with broad rippling shoulders that taper down to a muscled chest, a six-pack, and then a sharply defined V. He’s shockingly tan and healthy looking, a stark contrast to the pale, gaunt-faced man from before.

His height is around six-four, and his legs are slightly parted in a warrior stance. A towel is around his neck, and he reaches up with a muscled forearm to rub it over his face.

I look at his lips. That night, at certain moments, they were thin and tight, but now they’re plump, the bottom one lush and extravagant. That kissable mouth almost softens the scars on the left side of his face.

I don’t dwell on the scars or the jagged line down his face, although part of me appreciates them, wonders how they’ve changed him, if they’ve created depth. I itch to paint him, scars and all, but mostly, it was always his eyes that fascinated me. Tonight, they’re a blue-gray color, an icy winter storm. The night I met him, they were a hot gunmetal color, smoldering with heat.

Dark, straight brows frame his chiseled face, and his wet hair is slicked back. When it’s dry, it’s a mink-brown color, chin length, and wavy.

Someone—a pretty girl, twentyish—comes up between us, thank God, says something cutesy, and puts a glass of iced tea in his hands, and he murmurs a low “Thank you.” I use the time to gather myself as the girl chats him up. He never takes his gaze off me, though, the lines around his eyes tightening in a way that tells me he’s clocked me—he remembers.

An arc of electricity hums over my skin, and my breath quickens.

How is it possible that he’s here?

He doesn’t fit. I always pictured him still in New York, maybe in that penthouse room at the Mercer Hotel, lying on his stomach, his lips parted as he breathed the sleep of someone who’d had too much to drink. The top sheet was tangled around one of his legs, his bare ass taut and firm. One arm hung off the bed, the other curled under a pillow. He never stirred when I gathered my clothes and slipped out the door in the early hours of the morning. I ran through the hotel, and it wasn’t until I got in the cab that I let the tears fall. What I’d thought was special . . . wasn’t.

I used to gaze at his billboard in Times Square on my way to work. You’d see professional players hawking cologne or underwear or sneakers, but nope, his thing was literacy. TRANSPORT YOURSELF WITH READING. He sat on the steps of the New York Library with a book in his hands and a wide smile on his Henry Cavill face. It made my heart flutter.

He drapes his gaze over me, one that hints at keen intelligence. He lingers on my faded shirt, scans my joggers and black Converse, and then moves slowly back up to my face. He takes a sip of his drink, slow and easy. “You all right?”

Hell no.

I expected some mediocre ex-baller, and it’s him.

I open my mouth to say—

Miss Texas slyly eases the other girl vying for Ronan’s attention out of the way, then juts between me and him, a plate of chips and dip in her hands as she offers it to him. At my feet, Sparky, a great predictor of nice people, hisses, breaks my hold on his leash, and lunges for Miss Texas.

She shrieks as she drops the plate, and it shatters. Sparky screeches, darts between her legs, pauses for a moment to swipe at the flowy leg of her pantsuit, gets his claw stuck in the fabric, fights to release it, and then roars triumphantly when he gets free.

Back arched, he runs and hisses the entire way out the back door.