Page 88 of The Play

Which was why he had no intention of actually doing it.

But even the thought of it felt good.

Felt fucking brilliant, in fact.

Or maybe that was just the way Cheryl looked at even the threat of it.

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Grant said dangerously, “I might. You took my personal information and released it to the media. It was completely uncalled for.”

“I didn’t,” she spluttered.

“Right, no, of course not,” Grant said smoothly. Even though everyone in this room knew it had been her.

“It was certainly frustrating that they got ahold of the one piece of potentially questionable information,” Cheryl said. Still not sounding sympathetic.

“Certainly,” Grant echoed. “Which is why I want to know, what are you doing to combat the . . .we’ll say. . .leakiness . . .of your office.”

“Combat?” she asked weakly.

“What are you going to do about it? Launch an investigation? Fire whoever was responsible? I certainly expect all those things to happen.”

“I . . .we hadn’t gotten that far,” Cheryl admitted. Of course she hadn’t even considered it, because she knew exactly who was responsible.

“Well, we certainly expect that as much of a hurry as you were in to get here and remind us of our professional obligations to the NFL, about how dangerous these rumors are, you’d be in just as much of a hurry to root out the corruption and untrustworthiness in your own office,” Darcy said, going in for the kill with a delightfully pleasant smile on her face.

“I suppose,” Cheryl said. She did not look particularly pleasant or in any way delighted.

Ten minutes later she was gone, and Grant leaned against the bank of windows, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well?” he asked, when Darcy came back to the room after showing Cheryl to her car, ready to take her back to the airport.

Darcy shrugged. “We made her sweat, that’s for sure. You sent the message?”

“I did,” Grant said. He might be the newest team owner but the other team owners sure wouldn’t be pleased to hear about how much Cheryl’s office resembled a sieve.

There was too much private, personal information that crossed through it to allow for that sort of continued behavior.

“I’m not sure she’ll actually do anything,” Darcy said.

“I’m actually counting on that,” Grant said.

“You don’t only want to make her pay, you want to professionally discredit her by proving she leaked the email and then didn’t do anything about it,” Darcy said. Grinned. “I love it when you go all killer instinct.”

“You taught me,” Grant said, because it was the truth. Of the two of them, Darcy was so much more vicious than he was. “And it’s her own fault. She tried to make me look bad in front of the whole world. I don’t think I should just let that go.”

“Nicole still recommending no comment?” Darcy asked, taking a seat.

“Yes,” Grant said. And even if she wasn’t, he’d have insisted on it. Giving in to the rumors by addressing them was only giving them oxygen and room to grow.

And he had no intention of doing that.

“Going high is a tactic, for sure,” Darcy agreed, stretching her arms above her head. They still had a long afternoon—and evening—of meetings ahead of them.

“You disagree, then, with no comment?” Grant was surprised because they almost always agreed on everything.

“I think you should be honest. Tell everyone the truth.”

“Darcy, we just started . . .” God, what were they doing even? Besides being ridiculously, deeply in love? Dating? That felt too casual of a term. Grant couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of calling Deacon his boyfriend.

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