Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends 3)

Not alone alone—there are eyes watching us from around the room and I already feel as if we’re in a fish bowl. So this is what it’s like living under a microscope…

I got a small dose of it after the media picked up the photographs and videos of Tripp and me after the wedding, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Wonder how Hollis deals with it day in and day out since dating and marrying Buzz Wallace.

I make a show of looking at the drink menu, scanning it but not actually reading it. I’m a lightweight—a simple glass of wine will do. Any more and my head will be facedown on the table as I giggle hysterically and that simply cannot happen.

Not tonight.

Not with him.

“Know what you’re gonna get?” he asks, setting down his menu and crossing his arms over his chest.

His broad.

Sexy.

Chest.

Briefly, my eyes flit to the buttons on his shirt, straining to pop open, the fabric ill-fitting thanks to his muscled physique. I stare longer than I planned to at the top one, its pearly black sheen winking at me, almost allowing the hairs on his chest to escape.

Don’t try to imagine what he looks like with his shirt off, don’t try to imagine what he looks like with his shirt off…

Too late.

I raise my gaze.

“I’ll just do a glass of white wine.” Despite the fact that my nose gets red when I drink it and I’ll most likely have a headache in the morning.

One and done, I remind myself. One and done.

When our drinks come, we’re left staring at each other, a whole lot of silence lingering in the space between us, Tripp unsure of where to look, me not wanting to stare at his chest.

He clears his throat. “So you just graduated from college, huh?”

I sip from the wine glass that’s just been placed in front of me. “Actually, no—I graduated with my master’s last year, but I’ve been in Europe since.”

“Why?” he asks bluntly, not skirting around the question like most people do, politely.

“I wasn’t ready to start working for my parents immediately after college.”

“Why?”

Oh my god. “Because I don’t want to work for my parents at all, and if you ask why, I’m going to strangle you.”

“It’s a valid question. Why don’t you want to work for your parents?”

“Sports isn’t my thing—it’s not my first, second, or third love. I’m only taking the job because I haven’t been able to find anything in my field. I’ve had interviews, but not many people are hiring right now.”

“What is your degree in?”

I squirm. “It’s not a big deal, just hard to get a job right now, and obviously I don’t have the kind of money for a start-up.”

I would if my parents were supportive and wanted me to become an entrepreneur. But as my bad luck would have it, my dad is dying for me to work for him at the office. Therefore, no seed money for launching my own business.

The look he’s giving me is saying, Well what the hell is it?

“Public relations. I have a business degree for marketing, but I would love to represent the creative types. Like authors or even small businesses.”

“Why not work for your family in their office? They probably have a dozen publicists working for them.”

I hesitate, unsure of how much private family information to tell him. “My first choice is not to work for my family. The last thing I wanted to do was rely on them for a job, which is one of the reasons Hollis doesn’t work for our family. I want to be the same way.” I take another sip of wine. “Plus, the PR office isn’t exactly the spot my father wanted me to fill within the…organization.”

The organization. What an odd thing to say about one’s family.

But Dad wouldn’t allow it, hating the fact that I didn’t pursue a business degree with an emphasis on economics. Or contracts.

Or law.

Something on the money side of the business.

Something impressive.

“What are you actually going to be doing for the Steam?” Tripp wants to know, downing half the vodka and water in his cocktail glass.

“I think I’m primarily going to be assisting my dad—he’s under the impression that I want to learn the business, so he thinks shadowing him and learning from him will be a good place to start.” I don’t add that my father has no faith in my abilities as a competent adult, seeing me as a child and treating me like one, too. “I just need one or two years of saving so I can branch out on my own.”

Tripp nods. “Aren’t you living in Hollis’s place rent-free?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m paying her rent. What do I look like, a mooch?”

“You look like the kind of girl who hasn’t had to work very hard.”