Keeper (Alpha Athletes 2)

Her hand fit perfectly through my arm as if she belonged next to me. She grinned up at me.

“That’s all?”

“How did things go out here?” She was going to try to do damage control on the reporter incident from yesterday. I wanted to know if she was as good as Rick at cleaning up my image.

“I think I made some progress,” she whispered.

“Then it sounds like we’re both keeping our end of the deal.”

Alex and Taylor started answering questions about practice.

“Why don’t you join in?” Aspen whispered. “It will help. Just smile and try not to punch anyone, okay?”

I chuckled. I could never make those kinds of promises.

“All right,” I agreed.

I strutted forward and stood next to my teammates. I looked over my shoulder at Aspen. She had shoved me straight into the lion’s mouth.

Chapter Fourteen

Aspen

I wanted Lachlan to believe I could make his problems go away. But I didn’t have that kind of power. The man had boozed and slept around until I was the only one standing behind him. If his plan didn’t work, I wouldn’t be here anymore either. This fake relationship could blow up in both our faces.

I tried not to think about the line I had crossed with him this morning. Or the line I had agreed to cross with him every night of the Olympics.

I had a lot of work to do while he was at practice. I had to get ahead of the story before Karen found out I was the British star’s girlfriend.

As soon as Lachlan walked into practice I called her.

“Aspen, what’s going on?”

“Hi, Karen. Can we speak for a few minutes?”

I didn’t have a plan on how to tell my boss that I was going to be a publicity girlfriend. She didn’t need to know the rest of our deal.

“How is Rio? Did you find Kenzie?”

“Yes.” I bit my lip. “I sure did.”

“Good. And is he going to make some changes? I’ve had stockholders blowing up my phone all morning. They want us to let him go.”

“No!” I said a little too quickly. “I mean. Yes, he’s going to clean up his image. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make this work. Just tell them he’s a new man. He’ll turn everything around during the games. You can’t let him go, Karen.”

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. Really, I don’t want to go through the messy business of severing ties with a big star like him. It’s never good for business even when the board calls for it.”

My stomach lurched. “But there is one more thing I need to let you know.”

“What’s that?”

This was the most ludicrous conversation I had ever had with my boss. I couldn’t believe I was going to say it. “In order to make a drastic change to Lachlan’s image, we had to come up with a radical plan.”

“I’m listening.”

“And that radical plan includes me.” I winced.

“I’m not following you, Aspen.”