Page 19 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

“Would you really like more water?” Miguel asks, looking up at me with soft eyes that threaten to make mine spill over violently once more. “I’m afraid that I don’t have something stronger, other than energy drinks and protein shakes.”

Hope interjects. “Electrolytes might be a good idea. She’s practically lost half of her weight in waterworks already.”

The guy nods and smacks his thighs. “Right on.”

As he marches back to the kitchen, I mumble, “What I really need is a locksmith and a way to escape an arranged marriage to a creep.”

“A locksmith?”

Marty’s the one who responds, “Her dad changed the lock.”

“I will kill him,” Rose mutters through gritted teeth.

“Okay.” Hope squirms and produces her phone. “At least that part can be solved pretty quick. What do we do about the arranged marriage?”

Crickets. This time with no frogs.

Miguel comes back from the kitchen, circling around the coffee table to kneel back in front of me and offer me a new glass of water. As I’m taking it, his daughter breaks the silence.

“What if you marry my dad?”

My motor skills go to shit and I drop the glass. Cold water splashes like a fountain—yet that’s the least of our concerns.

Even when absolutely every person gets wet, nobody has a single braincell to spend on the accident. We’re all looking at Marty like she’s a unicorn.

“What?” She glances back at all of us in turns. “You were already going to fake being engaged. This is an even better plan. Carpet the diem and such.”

Hope turns to me. “You what?”

“Audrey, are you Spider-Man?” Rose scrunches up her face. “Why do you have so many secret lives?”

I squirm. “It’s complicated.”

“If you say that one more time I’m going to smack you up the head.”

I clamp my mouth shut, knowing that Rose does good on her threats.

“Let’s do it.”

The three words would normally be crystal clear in any other scenario, but when they spill out of Miguel’s lips in a moment like this, they make every thought flee from my head.

He has the gall to shrug.

Shrug!

“What? We’re both single, so this will be believable. And our next away series is in Las Vegas. We could do this as soon as in two days.”

Rose is unable to hold herself up anymore, and she falls back to sit on the coffee table.

“That’s genius. If Logan and I faked being in a relationship to save my career, this is an even more noble deception than that.

It’s to save you from being miserable next to a man that clearly doesn’t care about you and is probably just after your father’s fortune. ”

I stumble upon attempts at speaking, but nothing coherent comes out.

“But they practically just met,” Hope muses, “wouldn’t it make more sense for her to marry someone like Lucky, who is also single and has been around longer? No offense, Miguel.”

“None taken.”

Rose snorts. “Who would believe that the unserious lady’s man that Lucky Rivera is would seriously marry Audrey when they haven’t been seen alone together once?”

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” our roommate agrees.

“Now Miguel…” Rose motions at him. “This is a serious guy—he’s a responsible single dad, for goodness’s sake. And he’s also Miguel freaking Machado. It won’t be hard for Audrey to pretend like she swooned over him very quickly.”

The alluded clears his throat, one hand flying toward it to fiddle with the cross hanging from a chain around his neck.

“Yeah, I can see it.”

I raise a hand. “Stop, you guys. I can’t ask Miguel to do this in the middle of the season. He has enough on his plate in a new town, with the All-Star game coming soon, not to mention a SPORTY campaign and?—”

“You don’t have to ask me,” he states clearly even with a soft voice, silencing me. “I’m volunteering.”

“Why?” I blurt out.

“Because you need help,” he says simply.

“That’s it?” I blink hard, baring my teeth in a cringe. “You’re willing to uproot your whole life to help a virtual stranger?”

“You’re not a stranger, we’re friends, remember?” Miguel shrugs those big shoulders of his once more. “Besides, there’s no uprooting when we literally live next to each other and work at the same place everyday. I don’t think there’s anyone more equipped to help you than me.”

“He’s got a good point.” Rose nudges me with her elbow.

Nonplussed, Hope looks at her phone screen and says, “The locksmith is on the way.”

“You guys are wild.” I shake my head slowly.

“So, are you in?” Rose asks me. “Because I literally don’t see any other way out of this.”

Me neither. That’s the problem.

I don’t have enough funds in my bank account to pack up and move to Australia or Mongolia, or farther if I could. Even if I did, I don’t have enough funds to hide from my father forever. He has powerful contacts everywhere . No matter how long it might take, he will always get away with his.

Unless I ruin his plan before he can officially kick it off.

I allow myself to look into Miguel’s steady eyes. There’s determination in them, like he also understands that this is the literal only way to save my life.

But what’s more important is that Dad won’t lay a finger on Miguel and his family.

After all, he was willing to parade him around his acquaintances like a prize.

Miguel is a baseball franchise on his own, with fans all over the world, and enough zeroes in his paycheck that he can at least lawyer up comfortably.

I know this will be a pain in the ass for him one way or another, but it won’t put him or Marty at real risk. They’re safe. We could do this.

We have to.

Drawing in a deep breath, I say, “Las Vegas wedding, here we go.”