False Start: A Fake Dating Sports Romance (Red Zone Rivals)

I couldn’t fucking believe it.

Maybe only a few seconds passed, but it felt like I stood there for hours staring at Madelyn James — at a woman who used to be a girl who broke my fucking heart.

Wait, not Madelyn James.

Madelyn Hearst.

My nostrils flared with what that meant — that she was married, that she really did move on as easily as I thought she had once I was out of her life. I’d stalked her online for longer than I’d ever admit out loud after she so easily let me go, until the night I’d realized holding onto her, onto the idea of us, was pointless and hazardous to my health.

I’d blocked her, then.

And apparently, she’d gotten married and moved to the West Coast.

Now, she stood in the foyer of a mansion, her ginger hair resting in long, slightly curled waves over her shoulders. Her brown eyes were framed by thick black lashes, but they had dark bags beneath them. It didn’t just look like she hadn’t slept well.

She looked… exhausted. Bone-deep tired in a way I’d never seen her before.

Then again, I hadn’t seen her in years.

It didn’t matter that she wore a white blouse with some floppy bow wrapped around her neck, and a pencil skirt that hugged her slight hips. I still saw her in cut-off shorts and a spaghetti strap top, no bra, no makeup, her skin sun-kissed and begging to be touched.

She was small, even in the six-inch heels she wore. She’d always been petite, but this was different.

She was standing small, like she was afraid to lift her chin, like she wanted to shrink away and not be seen.

I knew what it was like to see a woman shrink in on herself, to try to become invisible. I’d seen my mother do it all my life.

This wasn’t the Madelyn I knew.

A war of emotions rioted inside of me. I wanted to scream at her, to grab her arms and shake her and demand she tell me what happened all those years ago.

I also wanted to ignore her, to treat her like the scum of the earth — the way she made me feel when she walked away from me.

And more than any of that, I wanted to hold her.

I wanted to pull her into me, brush her copper hair from her face and ask what happened to my girl — because she wasn’t here now.

This was only a shell of the Madelyn that used to exist.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me,” I said, arching a brow. “You’ve never been pretty when you lie.”

Her hand was still shaking a bit as she removed it from where it covered her mouth. She tried to stand a little taller, swallowing, her eyes finally lifting to mine. And again, I felt that war raging inside me.

I wanted to be a colossal dick to her and make her hurt.

But I also wanted to know why she looked so hurt already, wanted to wipe whoever made her feel that way from the face of the Earth.

Fortunately, I’d played the role of cocky, self-absorbed asshole for long enough that it was almost my true personality. So, I grinned at her discomfort.

“Of course, I remember you,” she said weakly.

I waited for more, but nothing else came. She just stared at me, in shock or disbelief or both.

I blinked, and a scorching night from my youth flashed behind my eyes. I saw my hands tangled in that copper hair, saw the freckles that dusted her collarbone, saw how those warm brown eyes looked up at me shyly before I slid inside her.

I could still hear the exact gasp she let out when I did, could remember how her nails dug into my shoulders just slightly and her eyelids fluttered shut. It was the first time she’d felt a man that way, the first time she’d let anyone touch her like that.

It was the first time for me, too.

I’d had countless women since that night, and yet they were all forgettable in comparison. It was only that first time that still clung to me like tree sap.

As if she was lost in the same memory, Madelyn cleared her throat, turning on her heel and gesturing to the large pivot door that was already open and giving a view of the foyer.

“I’m happy to guide you through the home, if you’d like, or you can explore on your own,” she said, leading the way inside. It was like watching someone put on a mask or slip into a costume too big for them. She was pretending like this was an everyday occurrence, like seeing me for the first time in years didn’t shake her to her core.

Maybe it didn’t.

That thought stung me like a wasp as I dragged my feet to follow. I swallowed it down, along with any feelings trying to stir their way to life, and I put my own mask in place.

“I doubt you can guide me anywhere in those,” I said, letting my eyes rake down her lean legs and catch on her stiletto heels as I walked past her. It was easy to do, my strides three times hers.

I waited for her to snap back at me, because that’s how it used to be. I was a mouthy motherfucker, and she was the poor girl assigned to babysit me when I was far too old for it. My parents didn’t trust me, which pissed me off. So, I made it my mission to break the poor girl they chose to be my caretaker.

Unfortunately, it was her who broke me in the end.

But Madelyn didn’t sass back. She didn’t peg me with an insult three times as good as mine the way she so easily used to. Instead, she shrank even more in on herself, looking down at her shoes with her cheeks tingeing pink in embarrassment.

And I instantly felt like an asshole.

I paused, an apology on the tip of my tongue, but it dissolved like sugar when the knot in my chest reminded me of our history.

“Tell the truth — is this place worth the price tag?” I asked, waltzing past her and into the sitting area. It was an open-seating plan, the ceilings tall, the windows lining the back of the house stretching from the marble floors all the way to the wooden beams. The view of Mount Rainier was a cool one, I admitted to myself, but overall, the place didn’t really impress me.

It felt like something built in the 80s and half-heartedly updated to try to feel modern.

“It’s a lovely home,” she said, and I eyed her over my shoulder, because her voice was so damn weak it didn’t make sense.

She couldn’t look at me, just kept her eyes on her shoes.

“The location isn’t the best,” she admitted. “If you want easy access to the Seattle nightlife. But if it’s quiet solitude you’re looking for, and privacy, then this is a great neighborhood.”

I nodded, considering. And then a thought hit me.

“What if I don’t like this one?”

“Then don’t buy it.”

“Will you help me find the right one?”

At that, she stiffened, finally lifting her gaze. “I…” She shut her mouth again, her eyes flicking between mine like I was a crossword puzzle clue she didn’t quite understand. “You want me to be your agent?”

“Well, it beats the hell out of you being my babysitter.”

Her lips popped open a bit, and then I swore she almost smiled before she looked down at her shoes again.

“If you don’t like this one, I would be happy to show you other listings,” she said softly. “I’d like to know more about what you’re looking for so I can help find you the right house.”

I turned to face her fully, folding my arms over my chest. “I thought you’d shoot me down.”

She shrugged, glancing at me quickly before looking down again. “I need the commission.”

Those words felt like little rocks pelted at my head. They stung, both because I hated the thought that she only considered putting up with me because of the money she could get out of me buying a house through her, and because I hated that she needed money enough that she had no choice but to agree to work with me when I knew damn well she didn’t want to.

My stomach was a churning sea from the whole interaction. She was the last person I expected to see this morning, and yet now that I had seen her, I had this unrelenting desire to do whatever I could to see her again.

“Sounds like we’re in business, then.”

She nodded, but her brows knitted together like she’d just sold her soul to the devil.

I scrubbed my hand over my mouth, looking around the stupid house before walking the few steps that separated us. “Not this one,” I said.

“You haven’t even made it past the foyer.”

“I don’t need to.”

She opened her mouth, then sighed and closed it again. Finally, I saw a bit of her fire emerge, saw her eyes harden and her lips purse together.

“Perhaps we should discuss what it is you’re looking for before we see any other houses,” she clipped, turning on her heels and walking toward the front door. “That way neither of us wastes our time.”

“Is that your subtle way of telling me I wasted yours?”

“You’re a big boy. Figure it out.”

“There she is,” I said on a laugh, and I caught up to her in four long strides. Then, I blocked her from taking another step.

She halted before she ran right into me, her eyes widening a fraction as they climbed up my chest to meet my gaze.

“I thought I lost you there,” I teased. “All that looking at your shoes shit isn’t the Madelyn I used to know.”

Her chest rose on a long, slow inhale, her throat constricting with a swallow. Then, her eyes fell to my chest, losing focus, like she was on another planet instead of less than a foot away from me.

“The Madelyn you used to know no longer exists.”

With the finality of those words, she slid past me, contorting her body so she didn’t so much as brush against me as she did.