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I’m seething as I chat with Nick. I’m trying to steady my emotions, but it’s impossible.

I can’t seem to keep my goddamn hands off her, and then I see her run right to the other kid.

She shouldn’t be with him.

But she can’t be with me.

And that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? I offer a breadcrumb, and she runs with it toward Spongebob Dickface.

This situation is impossible, and it’s only made worse when Troy walks into the weight room. I glance around and see Gabby over by some equipment taking video footage on her phone. At least that’s what I think she’s doing.

“I have a surprise for you, Noah,” Troy says when he sees me, interrupting my conversation with Nick. His grin is wide and honestly it makes me a little nervous.

“What is it?”

“We’re heading to the media suite on the Heart Level. News of your contract broke last night and they were knocking down the door this morning to be the first to get an interview.”

An interview?

Right now?

My heart is still pumping from seeing another dude wrapped around my girl, and now I’m supposed to just walk into the media room with a fucking smile while they film me and my answers to all the questions they’re going to fire at me?

“Let’s go,” I say.

I follow Troy there, practicing breathing exercises as I focus on my palms. Up palm, down palm, time to get calm. Breathe real deep and take the leap.

I can do this.

We walk into the room from the back so we’re entering on a small platform holding a table and two chairs. The Vegas Heat logo repeats to infinity on a backdrop behind us as I slide into one of the chairs in front of a huge group of microphones perched on the other side of the table. I can hardly see over them to the crowd of reporters gathered here.

“I’m pleased to introduce you to our third baseman, Cooper Noah,” Troy begins.

“Good morning, everyone,” I say with a wave and a smile.

It’s like riding a bike, that old skill of acting in front of reporters, and I climb on and grip the handlebars for dear life.

“Jerry Garner, Vegas Times. How did Troy manage to lure you out of retirement?” the first reporter asks.

Images of my mouth on Gabby’s pussy as I wrestled with the idea of moving to Vegas seem to flash before my eyes. I clear my throat as I force them away. Now is not the time, and certainly not when I’m sitting next to her father. “He gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“So it was all about the money?”

“The money’s nice, but the love of the game is ultimately what brought me back. The chance to play for Mr. Bodine after we’ve been friends for years, the chance to build a team, the chance to go for the Commissioner’s trophy with a new expansion team…it all appealed to me.”

“When did you know you were coming to Vegas?”

The moment I slid my cock into Gabriella Grant.

Fuck .

That’s not true. I had a feeling I was going to say yes when I took that ride from Troy’s club back to Caesars Palace, and that was before I met Gabby.

But my weekend with her solidified my feelings that Vegas was the place I wanted to be. I was hopeful it would be with her, but things don’t always work out the way we hope.

I glance over at Troy, who’s showing no emotion on his face. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement when I stepped foot into his club, so I can’t exactly mention that he proposed this idea there.

“He presented the idea to me, and it was in the car on the way home when I knew I couldn’t pass it up,” I say.

Troy pushes my shoulder teasingly. “You made me wait over two weeks for my answer and you knew five minutes after you left?”

I laugh. “I knew three minutes after I left.”

The reporters gathered crack up at that, and the rest of the conference goes as well as it can. They ask me about what I did in my retirement, and I plug SFK. They ask me about my elbow, and I mention my surgeon by name.

But when they ask me about my personal life…that’s when I trip.

“Mr. Noah, is there a special woman in your life making the move to Vegas with you?”

The sports reporters here don’t give a fuck about my personal life, but this is Vegas. I’m not surprised an entertainment reporter is in the mix. Between the Vegas Aces football team and the different rock bands based out of this city plus the fact that it’s Las Vegas, this is a city ripe with entertainment.

No. There’s not a special woman making the move to Vegas with me.

But there is a special woman, and she happens to be the daughter of the man sitting next to me, and I can’t have her and it’s fucking with me so badly that I’m nearly reconsidering the move here at all.

I wouldn’t do that.

I wouldn’t pull out, and I wouldn’t say those things to the reporters.

But imagine if I did. Imagine if I just let the truth out.

It’s not just the nature of the question throwing me for a loop, though.

It’s the fact that less than a minute before this reporter asked this particular question, the door to the media suite swung open, and Gabriella Grant walked in. She took a seat in the back of the room, and despite the spotlights on me and the microphones blocking my view, I still saw her walk in with an angelic glow surrounding her, and I haven’t been able to tear my eyes off her since.

And now I have to answer a question about a special woman when I can’t have the only woman I want.

We’re all keeping secrets, and there are even more we need to keep from the people interviewing me today.

I keep my eyes trained on Gabby, and I can feel their heat on me even from across the room.

After a pause that’s far too long, I finally say, “No. No special woman.”

Gabby closes her eyes as if the words physically plow into her, and I feel it, too.

The wind is knocked out of me at my bald-faced lie to the media, and I watch as she gets up and walks out of the room, taking what’s left of my broken heart with her.