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“Oh good, you two have met,” my dad says, his voice shocking me from my frozen state of seeing Cooper standing in my kitchen. What the hell is going on? “Cooper, this is my daughter, Gabriella.”

My eyes feel like they’re going to fall out of their sockets, they’re bugged out so wide.

“Cooper’s the guy who’s staying with us for the next few weeks until his house is ready,” my dad explains. “He’s going to be playing third base for the Heat.”

He…he’s what ?

He’s going to be playing third base for the Heat.

Of course he is.

I blow out a breath. “Nice to meet you,” I say, pressing my lips together and hoping he plays along. I dig my fingernails into my palms, hoping I don’t feel the pain so I can wake up from this nightmare.

But nope…the pain slices fresh.

Shit.

So that’s the new job that brought him from San Diego to Vegas.

He’s going back to the game, and my dad is going to be his manager .

That’s a pretty big detail to leave out of the story, but he’s still never told me he played baseball. Or plays baseball, as in present tense. And on the exact same hand, I’ve never told him I’m the daughter of a baseball legend.

My dad isn’t going to react well to Cooper and me. We need to talk. We need to touch base and figure out how to best handle this.

Troy Bodine is a passionate man to begin with, but a flip switched in him when he met me and when the two of us started getting close. He’s protective of me—maybe more protective than most fathers would be over their twenty-one-year-old daughters since he missed out on the first eighteen years of my life. It’s like he’s making up for lost time now, and there’s no way he’s going to take kindly to the fact that one of his players is fucking his daughter.

Particularly not one who’s twelve years her senior.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Cooper says, his brows pinched together like he’s trying to piece all this together, too.

Is our breakfast still on?

Where do we even go from here?

“I was just heading out to meet a friend for breakfast,” I say, going for nonchalance but epically failing as my voice comes out all high-pitched and weird.

“Have a great time, sweetheart,” my dad says, clearly missing my total internal battle, and my cheeks flame as I pass by Cooper to head upstairs and grab my purse.

I hear my dad behind me as I pass by. “She’s a good kid. Great head on her shoulders.”

“She seems lovely,” Cooper says softly, and tears pinch behind my eyes as I think about what this is going to mean for us.

I never in a million years imagined he was the new player my dad invited to stay at our house. My dad’s been gone so much lately that most of our communication has happened over text message. Between school starting and falling for Cooper, I haven’t been around much myself.

I thought he retired. I thought he had an injury that took him out of the game.

I guess I thought a lot of things I was wrong about.

Oh God.

He told me the buddy who invited him here to play owns a sex club.

Is his buddy my father ?

Is that where dear old Dad is always running off to?

I think I’m going to be sick.

I grab my keys and purse before I head out to the truck my very rich father purchased me for my birthday, where I draw in a deep breath and take a moment to regroup. This all seemed so easy yesterday, so natural, and now…it’s not.

I arrive at the restaurant first, and I ask for a private table in the back. I face the door so I can watch for him to walk in and so he as the celebrity here can face the wall, my heart thundering in my chest as I wait.

I chug down an entire glass of water in about six seconds flat.

It feels like a lifetime passes before he finally walks in. He glances around the room, and when his eyes land on mine, they don’t warm over like they have in the past.

I can’t quite read what’s there, but it’s hard to tell anyway with the bill of his black baseball hat pulled down low over his eyes.

Nerves rattle me, but this is Cooper. This is us . Whatever happens, we’ll make it through. What we’ve built in a short amount of time is solid.

Or maybe that’s just my naivety showing again.

He slides into the booth across from me, his eyes down on the table.

“Hi,” I begin tentatively.

His eyes finally flick up to mine, and his are positively tormented. “Hey.”

“So, uh…you play baseball?”

He offers a sad, wry smile. “So, uh…you’re the daughter of Troy Bodine?”

I nod. “Just found out a few years ago.”

He presses his lips together. “I played in the majors for the Dodgers for seven years and retired early after an injury.” He holds up his elbow. “Surgery pieced me back together, and then Troy—uh, your father…” he trails off and clears his throat. “He called me with an offer to come back to the game, to be the face of the new Vegas Heat expansion team.” He blows out a breath.

“I knew you played for the Dodgers. My friends looked you up the night we hooked up, but I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” I say.

His brows draw together. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me who your father was knowing I used to play?”

“I had no idea you knew him,” I say, defensiveness jumping into my tone even though I have nothing to be defensive over. “I don’t like telling people who my dad is, particularly people who might benefit from that knowledge.” My words feel like heavy weights leaving my mouth.

He glances away from me and out the window. “I get it. I really liked how I could just be Cooper, the guy who works for a kids’ fitness organization, around you. I liked not being Cooper Noah, All-Star MVP. I liked that we built something based on the me deep down rather than the me everyone sees in the media.”

Tears continue to burn behind my eyes as he uses past tense in his speech.

“We both had our reasons for keeping things close to the vest, I guess,” I say softly.

“Can I get y’all something to drink?” a perky waitress asks as she appears at our table.

“Coffee and orange juice, please,” I say, forcing a smile for her benefit.

“Same,” Cooper says, not looking up from the spot where he’s staring at the table.

“Do y’all need more time to decide what you want to eat?” she asks.

I glance at him, and he doesn’t look up or reply. “Sure, that’d be great,” I tell her. I stare at the bill of his hat, my eyes memorizing the UA on it as I wonder whether I’ll ever get to see it in an intimate setting again or if this is all going to disappear as quickly as it began.

I don’t know what to say.

I’ve never been at a loss for words around Cooper, but right now…I’ve got nothing but a wish and a prayer.

He doesn’t say anything, either.

“Talk to me,” I finally say softly.

He blows out a breath, and when his eyes meet mine, that same torture is there, only it seems worse than before.

“This changes everything,” he says.

He’s right. He’s a megastar baseball player, and I’m his coach’s daughter.

But I don’t want it to change a thing.

“It doesn’t have to,” I protest. We can do this—we can hide it from my dad if we have to, but this can’t be the end.

It can’t be.

“It does. It’s straight up disrespecting one of my best friends—my boss . The man who pulled a lot of fucking strings to get me here. We can’t be together, Gabby. I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks as he says the words. “I need to get out of here.”

He gets up and strides out of the restaurant, and I’m left with the two glasses of orange juice and two cups of coffee the waitress delivers along with a whole host of questions…and worst of all, a broken heart.