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“I’m wearing heels, Chad . I never wear high heels.

I mean, I do sometimes. But not very often, because they can be really bad for a person’s feet.

” She cleared her throat, telling her nerves to take a hike.

His flirting was not personal. He used it as a universal get-out-of-jail-free card, and she was impervious.

You hear that, uterus and other lady bits? Impervious .

“I’m wearing heels tonight, and I forgot when I got off this stupidly tall stool which is incredibly unstable.” She gave the seat an angry flick and, as though to prove her words, it tipped over, knocking into Daisy-Mae Ray, the team captain’s girlfriend.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Athena scurried to retrieve the seat, cringing as Daisy-Mae eyed Chad, then mouthed to her, “Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly as Chad brushed her side, reaching past her to right the stool with one strong hand. He set it at the bar and gripped Athena’s elbow, ready to help her climb onto her perch again. “Join us?”

She took in the row of men. They’d all turned to see what was happening behind them. Noting they’d gained her attention, they swiveled away, their shoulders angled as though hiding something. She leaned over the bar to peer at the whiskey glasses sitting in front of them.

“Are you all drinking tonight?” Unable to help it, she gasped in outrage. “No wonder you boys can’t grab a win. You’re not following my diet plans at all!”

“Don’t tell Athena,” one of the men down the way muttered. Others chuckled under their breath.

She was a joke. The uptight, no-fun, uncool mother hen.

That hurt more than it should.

Her margarita arrived and she sucked back a mouthful of the lime-green slush, then set the glass down when the sudden cold tightened her temples.

If her team didn’t want to win, why should she care?

Why was she working harder for their goals than they were?

They earned their millions whether they won or lost.

Another drop of Chad’s drink dribbled down her cheek, and Athena licked the side of her mouth. Apple-something for sure. Hard to tell, as it was a bit watered down from the melting ice.

Truly, what did it matter? Chad was boozing it up as if her degree in nutrition and dietetics was a farce.

He offered her a fresh napkin, batting his lashes and, if she didn’t know any better, looking surprisingly chagrinned.

She snatched it and dabbed at her face. “If y’all don’t want to win, then what’s the point of me even trying?”

He shot her that devilish get-out-of-jail-free smile.

She balled up the napkin and tossed it at his chest. “Know what, Chadwick Raul Mullens? Joke’s on you because I quit.”

“Don’t quit.” Mullens snagged Athena’s arm, preventing her from storming off.

Irritation flickered in her hazel eyes as she glanced pointedly at his hand. He released her.

“We’re not worth it,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then why─”

“I do my best to avoid expending energy in exercises of futility.”

“I love it when you use that sexy vocabulary of yours.”

“Chadwick…” Her tone held a warning.

Why did it wreck him every time she used his first name? Nobody called him Chad, and nobody but the government and medical professionals ever referred to him as Chadwick.

And yet hearing her say his name, even when laced with barely constrained hostility, tumbled every carefully constructed boulder that made his public persona and left him there as nothing more than a man with a crush on a really smart woman he wasn’t sure how to relate to.

She had an exterior made of Kevlar and his charms never managed a penetrating hit. And his charms were all he had.

It didn’t help that he’d completely blown the first impression he’d made on her. Blown it like he’d metaphorically handed her a live grenade after lighting fire to everything she held dear.

“Don’t take us seriously. We’re just a bunch of useless jocks,” he said.

Her lips pursed and her spine straightened.

This was the first time he’d seen that the guys flaunting her rules might actually get under her skin. Tonight there was no good-natured eye-rolling or shaking of her head. She was mad. Actually mad.

Mullens glanced back at his teammates, unable to explain why tonight felt so different.

There was something fragile about the players’ spirits.

They’d lost so badly and so repeatedly over the past two months.

That did things to a man, especially when they were on the league’s last-chance team and more losses might threaten their careers.

“We’ve barely won a game all season,” he said quietly. “There’s a lot of steam to be blown off.”

“Maybe if you tried following the diet plan—no sugar, no alcohol— you might have better results.” She raised an eyebrow at the line of men hunched over their drinks, sipping furtively.

Her large, dark eyes lifted to Mullens’ own and he felt caught out.

Busted as the worst offender. The ringleader.

The one whose attitude gave everyone implicit consent to blow her off.

It was all he could do not to look away in shame.

“We need someone busting our chops,” he muttered.

“Then call your moms.”

Unable to help it, he flinched. “Imagine how bad it would be if we didn’t have you.”

“Well, let’s see. I’d be happier. Stress-free.” She lifted her arms, her face softening into a smile as though she was imagining herself on a beach somewhere. “Sounds like a win to me.”

He’d never get back on a real team if she gave up on them. He’d be stuck here until there was nothing left to salvage. Gone and forgotten.

She was the only thing between him and being a failure.

In the split second Mullens had spent mulling over his potential personal losses, Athena had escaped. He put down his empty glass and hustled after the flash of plum-and-black fabric. Past the full dance floor and out the tall ballroom door that was just swinging shut again.

She was moving fast, her sexy gown swishing around her calves.

“Tina!”

She strode faster.

He snagged her elbow before she hit the ladies’ room across from the ballroom, but she did some sort of grip-breaking move that freed her. She vanished through the doorway and he followed.

“Tina.”

She whirled, her mouth dropping open, her voice shaking. “Get out!”

He stepped toward her and she stumbled backward in surprise, hitting the sink counter with her hip before backing against the room’s far wall.

“The team needs you,” he insisted, planting himself in front of her.

“I know .” Her cheeks were pink and her chest heaved as though she’d just finished a sprint.

“So you can’t quit because of me.” He placed one palm on the patterned tile beside her, needing to steady himself against the subtle scent of her cocoa butter lotion, not to mention their intoxicating closeness.

She crossed her arms, ensuring there was space between them. She glared up at him with lips that looked way too kissable. “Give me one good reason not to.”

“We need you to get us back on real teams,” he said without thinking. “Or at least help us turn this one into a winner so we don’t lose everything we’ve spent our lives working toward.”

She scoffed. “Maybe if you followed the diet plan, you’d be a winning team.” She gave him a shove, then darted around him as he regained his equilibrium.

“I wasn’t traded because of my food choices, Tina.”

“Yeah? Then why were you?” She turned, her tone mocking. “Sleep with the wrong woman? Sorry. Women .”

He felt the tendons in his jaw ping as he clamped his teeth together. That had totally been offside. He hadn’t even been on a date—of any kind—in months.

And as for why he’d been traded? He still had no clue. None. He’d thought he’d been doing great, a rising star, and then suddenly here he was on the lowest ranking team, looking at the possible end of the only life he knew.

“Maybe…” she stalked closer, eyes narrowed “…you got traded because of your ego and rotten attitude and inability to follow rules.” She gave his chest a sharp tap.

He placed a hand over the spot where she’d made contact. “No need to be mean about it.”

“I learned from the best—you.”

He grabbed her hand, keeping her near while he considered his next words. His long-overdue apology.

Instead, like a bad habit, he dropped his voice and said, low and sexy, “And yet you haven’t learned the good stuff, such as breaking the rules, letting loose and having a little fun.”

Mullens shot her a playful smile. He knew she could be fun. He’d caught her in rare moments—usually laughing with another player (which ended abruptly as soon as he appeared)—when her face was awash with joy, her spirit so big it filled the room.

She stared at him, her lips moving slightly as though she was choosing which comeback to lob his way.

He cupped her hand in both of his, raising it between them. “Why do you hate me, Tina?”

“How much time do you have?”

He chuckled.

She narrowed her eyes. “Is this all some big joke to you?”

He shrugged.

“Skating around, pulling in millions for knocking into other millionaires? I guess, really…how is that not a joke?” She leaned in, her tone soft, her lips shiny from her gloss.

She’d done something different with her eye shadow, and he found himself caught in her beautiful depths.

“Some of us work really hard to make you and the team look good, and you blow us off like entitled, elitist jerks. And for us mere humans, that hurts.”

When her eyes welled up, his heart sank.

“Please don’t quit.” he told her.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“We need you.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that, because I don’t owe you anything.” She pulled her hand free and walked to the door.

Mullens sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, doubting himself.

She was going to make him say it.

But what was “it,” exactly?

That he actually followed her plan when nobody was looking? That he didn’t know why he’d been traded, but worried that her comment about ego was accurate? That he was secretly panicked that he might be stuck on this losing expansion team for the rest of his now-fizzling career?

He’d never admit to that. Never crack the facade of his carefully cultivated image.

He was a confident man in charge of his own damn castle.

But she was well beyond allowing him that thin edge of forgiveness he thrived upon.

That small caving in that he could leverage into full-blown amnesia where his faults were concerned.

In other words, there was no BS-ing this woman, even though he’d pulled the wool over her eyes with how he fueled his body.

He watched her tug open the door and step through, a sensuous compilation of curves and temptation.

He had to say something.

Anything.

The door closed behind her.