PLAYED

And Jess was right.

It really had been a long time since someone had impressed me.

“This overnight woman of yours, this… damn the gods, what was her name again?”

“Riley.”

“Right,” Jess continued. “Thanks. This Riley. You said you found her challenging. Would you say you stand by that assessment?”

I straightened my tie in the mirror.

“I think so.”

“She could be the answer you need.”

I paused. “…Go on.”

“What does Alistair Pritch have that you don’t, Lex? Really think about that for a moment. What makes him way more attractive than you for a corporate, multi-million sponsorship?”

“Choose your words carefully,” I growled.

“I’m not trying to stir you up,” she smiled. “Apply those critical thinking skills of yours. What does he have that you don’t?”

I begrudgingly considered her question.

“His record is weaker… but he’s a maverick on the field… he’s a defiant upstart, a wildcard, but a highly-calculating–”

“You’re looking at the wrong details,” she coerced me. “Think about his stability.”

“What are you getting at?” I demanded, whirling around to stare at her. “Do you have a plan, or not?”

Jess smiled at me softly, the way one would at an adorable pet. I didn’t like it. “Pritch has a wife,” she responded. “A wife and a kid. He’s got a solid family, and that carries through to his reputation off the field. None of these playboy scandals of yours… he’s clean. Squeaky clean.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Everyone knows you’re the better player Lex, but he’s a safe bet,” Jess commented.

“And that’s what Brett Barker wants,” I growled, driving a fist into the wall. I could feel it slightly give way beneath my pressure. “He wants a safe bet. No scandals, no fuck-ups.”

“That’s right. He’s going to choose Pritch over you because you’re the loose cannon football star.” Jess threw her hands up as she spoke. “Sure, you have the prestigious record, the respect, and the wins under your belt… even if the National Team hasn’t won the World Cup beneath your leadership.”

“The National Team hasn’t won a World Cup since 1966,” I clarified.

“Oh, I’m not saying you aren’t a capable leader, by any means,” she backtracked. “But you haven’t given him that hole-in-one. You’ve been National for, what, three years now? If you’d led the team to international domination, that’d be one thing…”

“Not everyone on the team is as good as me.”

Jess caught the primal, irritated tone beneath my voice. “Be that as it may… we’d be having a very different conversation right now if they were. Instead, the Head of Public Relations needs to make the wiser choice for corporate sponsorship.

“Sounds like both of his highly-qualified options are: the popular, arrogant playboy, practically a force of destruction both on the field and off… and the defiant but grounded, beloved subordinate, who is still a pop culture icon and a member of the National Team.

“Who’s he logically going to pick?”

I grit my teeth.

“Unless you show him something else.”

“Something like Riley.”

“That’s right,” Jess schemed. “No more of these ridiculous one-night stands, public intoxication feats, and making my job a living nightmare,” she told me. “You’ve got to settle down. Find yourself a nice girl. An American could work… it’s an interesting but believable choice for you. Someone who challenges you… someone who can keep you in line.”

“And I have to marry her?”

“Of course not!” Jess laughed. “But getting a girlfriend out of her is a step in the right direction, wouldn’t you think?”

I dwelled on this a little longer.

“You think it’s her?”

“From the way you went all googly eyes when we were talking about her?” Jess asked, standing up from the chair and straightening out her outfit. “She’s a girl you sound like you actually respect. I think she’s a probably a good start.”

Chapter 5

Riley

Unsurprisingly, the English guy had turned out to be an arrogant prick.

And the sex had been phenomenal…

Isn’t that how it always worked?

It wasn’t all bad… It’s just a shame that I didn’t have a chance to cut my proverbial tether and bolt before the woman showed up.

I wasn’t sure who she was.

A wife?

A girlfriend?

It didn’t really matter. I’d gathered up my things and just pushed my way out the door and the asshole didn’t even try to stop me.

It wasn’t hard to navigate down to the ground floor and out the door. He was staying at one of the halfway-decent hotels in the area, and within a couple of minutes I was already on my way back home to my apartment.

Oh well, I thought to myself. At least I got myself a great fuck in there before the sky came crashing down.

The further away from the hotel I walked, the more that I considered the night. It had been more than just sex. Lex had pushed me to my very limits. The Englishman knew just how to excite me in the best ways, ramping up my passion before letting me dangle precariously at that precipice… letting me drift back… and then pushing me again and again, teasing me, until I finally begged for release.

When the release came, it crushed me.

I didn’t reveal the fact, but I experienced my first multiple orgasm that night. Most guys hadn’t really been particularly useful in the orgasm department, either finishing too quickly or not at all… but it was rare that I got to ride the climax myself.

With Lex, I’d lost count of the amount of times he’d thrown me over the cliff.

He was so brutishly rugged, and then there was that English charm of his. Every breath of his accent excited me, forcing me to hang upon his every last syllable. When he asked me to come for him, I couldn’t help but oblige… and my fingernails had dug into his skin, riding out the intense heat between us.

And then he came inside me. It was the most incredible feeling in the world…

“Oh fuck,” I thought aloud.

I came to an actual stop on the sidewalk and considered the implications. What if he had been lying? I thought to myself. He told me that he was clean, and that he’d had a vasectomy… I had completely believed him without question.

What the fuck, Riley?

So maybe I wasn’t the first girl who made a mistake like that… I was better than this! I’d just cross my fingers and get myself tested. How did I let this happen?

I continued strolling back towards my apartment. After twenty more minutes of walking, I was ascending the stairs up to my humble abode and clicking the key through the keyhole.

It was time to see if my little taste of England had worked for my creative side… For the rest of the day, I decided to try painting. I needed something special if I wanted any chance of earning the attention from the one woman in the world who’s opinion really mattered…

Gloria Van Lark.

Van Lark was a legend in the museum world. As the head curator for the Spinnoc museum in San Diego, she was known for her tall, hawkish appearance and her fiercely volatile temper.

This was a woman who was not to be trifled with, and who took her time very seriously. Just obtaining enough of her attention for an audience got you accepted into a number of distinguished museums around the country.

Then, there was the significant hurdle of actually impressing her.

Gloria Van Lark didn’t care for resumes and histories. The fact that I had been gifted with an artistic scholarship to Finland, allowing me to take a full year to pursue an isolated artist’s retreat, would mean precisely nothing to her.

Neither would the gamut of smaller museums that already carried some of my work, or the fact that I’

d been fully supporting myself through my painting since I was a young teenager.

All that Van Lark cared about was the final product. After all, that was all that her clients and customers would see. It was probable that none of them would know these pieces of trivia about me, not unless I wound up with an exhibit, somehow…

But that was wishful thinking too high for even my lofty dreams. Exhibits were mostly reserved for dead artists… And I was still very much alive.

I found it hard to concentrate on the painting with my thoughts wrapped up in my irritation with Lex, and my fears that Gloria would never consider my work…