As he looks over in my direction, though, and his eyes flick down the length of my body...it doesn’t appear that he cares that I just rolled out of bed.
In fact, he almost seems to like it.
The heat in his eyes makes me feel that way, anyway.
I chalk that look in his eyes up to him sweating on his treadmill. I take a few more photos, let him know I’m heading inside, and I go up to my bedroom to shower.
After I scroll through all the images I just took, of course.
Once I’m dressed and my teeth are brushed, I find Luke in the kitchen pouring Lucky Charms cereal into a bowl. “Want some?” he asks.
I shake my head and move toward to the massive refrigerator to check out Debbie’s breakfast options.
“There’s a fresh pot of coffee,” he says.
“Do you have any flavored coffee cream?” I ask from the depths of the fridge.
He nods. “Top shelf on the left.”
Once I have my coffee, I carefully slide onto the stool and pull up the photos I took of Luke on my phone. I pick out one of my favorites, do a little light editing, and whip up a caption that mentions how he loves his job and works hard to keep his body field ready even in the offseason.
“Ready for your first post to Instagram?” I ask him.
He glances over at me, and I snap a picture of him pouring milk into his cereal bowl. It’s such a normal, everyday thing for a guy to be doing in his kitchen, but it shows him in an element very few people have ever seen him in. He looks warily at me for a beat then grabs a spoon and steps toward me. “Show me what you’ve got.”
I slide my phone over to him, and he looks at the picture and then up at me.
I grin. “That, my friend, is what we in the business call a thirst trap.”
“Yeah, you said that before and I still don’t know what it means.”
“It’s when you post a hot pic with the intention of getting attention,” I explain. “The more likes and comments you get on a photo, the more Instagram will see that you’re a worthwhile user, and the more they’ll show your account to other people.”
“And that picture of me, a sweaty mess from running all morning...that’s a thirst trap?” He looks at me with disbelief, and I giggle.
“You have no idea how hot you are, do you?” I ask.
He raises his brows. “I worked up a pretty good sweat, so yeah, I have some concept of how hot I was.”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I meant.”
He laughs. “That doesn’t make it any less weird that you’re telling me how hot I am like it’s no big deal before I’ve even had my cereal. It’s a big deal, Ellie.”
“Why?” I challenge. “You already told me I’m off-limits. I work for you now, and my goal is to show the world how hot you are, how kind you are, and, above all, how essential you are to the Aces. It all starts with thirst trap number one. So do I have your approval?”
“God, you really like making me step out of my comfort zone.” He sighs heavily, and then he shrugs. “Go ahead. Do what I’m paying you to do, and if I live to regret it, well, then that’s on me.”
“You won’t live to regret it. Just trust me.” I click the post button and cross my fingers that I’m doing all the right things to help him and that neither of us will live to regret my words.
CHAPTER 2
Prove your worth.
Despite all the other words he said to me—like the fact that he’s going to get me a (huge-ass) ring so we can really be pretend-engaged and maybe really get married even though I still think he was just kidding about that—those three are the ones that keep playing on repeat.
I need to figure out how to spin this news.
It’s now my job to make him look like the good guy for being engaged to one woman when he knocked someone else up.
I sigh as I stare at the blinking cursor on a very blank screen.
I’ve got my work cut out for me.
No matter what way I spin this, he comes out looking like a horny douchebag.
Unless it isn’t really his baby.
I need to find out how far along she is. I need some sort of concrete evidence that it might be his. “Luke?” I yell across the house.
“Yeah?” he yells back. I think he’s in his office, and he walks into the kitchen a few seconds later. “What’s going on?”
“When was your bonus night?”
His brows push together, and then he squints like he’s trying to think back and I see the moment it clicks almost like a lightbulb going off above his head. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, opens an app, and counts. “Seven weeks ago this past Saturday. We went out for Bryant’s birthday.”
“Who’s Bryant?”
He gives me a you-can’t-be-serious kind of look, but he answers anyway. “Jaxon Bryant? Star running back of the Aces?” He says them like questions, and I just shrug because I still don’t know who he is.
He shakes his head and laughs. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t know a thing about the game, let alone a blood relative of a player.”
I hold up both hands. “Sorry! Josh has only been playing here a year. Ask me about a player on the Bears and maybe I’d know.” That’s a lie. I wouldn’t know.
“Was that your only question?” he asks. “I’m going through some paperwork from my agent.”
“When did you break up?” I ask.
“I don’t know. A few months ago?”
“Not good enough. I’m trying to figure out your spin here, and you’re not giving me much to work with. So unless you want to come off looking like a d-bag who can’t keep it in his pants, I need a date.”
He stares at me for a beat in a bit of shock, and then he raises a brow and shoots me a sly smile. “I like when you get all authoritative over me even if what you just said was really kind of mean.”
I know I’m blushing, but I force myself not to react to his words. Instead, I raise my brows in a silent way of asking what his answer is.
He blows out a breath, and then he looks at his phone again. I peek over and see him scrolling through his calendar, and I bet if I asked Michelle when they broke up, she’d have a date and time down to the minute.
“It was January, right after we lost the playoffs. She thought she was being cute when she called me a loser, and that was it. I was done.”
“What a bitch,” I say. “And you still gave her a bonus night?”
“I was so fucked up I don’t even remember it,” he says. He slides his phone back into his pocket. “She was there when I woke up in the morning. We were both naked. I put two and two together.”
“You were wasted, banged a woman you can’t stand, don’t remember it, and she shows up claiming she’s carrying your baby a convenient seven weeks later?” I ask. It’s not adding up, and I don’t trust Michelle. But I have to find a way to make Luke look like a good guy without tearing down a pregnant Michelle to the press. Public sympathy will be on the pregnant lady’s side regardless of how I spin it.
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” he says. “What are you suggesting?”
“Maybe a paternity test? I don’t know how these things work, but I can research it for you.”