Page 21 of The Player

Cindy’s financial safety net? Gone.

She’d been screwed over by some smarmy financial adviser whose balls she’d crush in a vice if she ever laid eyes on him again. As if that were likely.

Her financial ruin meant she was back to square one, but no way could she don designer outfits and start prancing around on some egotistical sportsman’s arm again.

Mentally, she couldn’t take it any more. Physically, late twenties was getting old for a WAG and she was done with the paparazzi scrutiny.

Which left her plum out of options.

‘Want to tell me what happened out there?’

‘Not really.’ She topped up the glass from a water pitcher, grateful her hand didn’t shake.

‘I don’t think my offer was that repugnant so it had to be something else?’

‘It was your offer.’

The lie tripped off her tongue. Better for him to think that than know the truth. That she’d lost her life savings and had no way out of this disastrous situation.

‘You’re not a very good liar.’

‘How would you know?’

He raised an eyebrow at her acerbic tone. ‘Because contrary to what you believe, I actually spent time paying attention to you last night and I reckon you’ve got one of the most guileless faces I’ve seen when you let your guard down.’

Damn, how did he do that, undermine her with insight when he shouldn’t know her at all?

‘I can’t talk about it.’ She shook her head, tugging on the end of her ponytail and twisting it around her finger. ‘Besides, it’s my problem. There’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘Sure?’ He braced his elbows on his knees. ‘Don’t forget, if you’re ever in a bind all you have to do is accept my offer and you’d be set for life.’

As his words sank in, Liza’s hand stilled and she flicked her ponytail back over her shoulder.

No. She couldn’t.

But what other option did she have?

Agreeing to a revealing biography would replenish her lost savings and ensure Cindy’s security. Relating a few stories to a ghost writer had to be less painful than going down the fake tan/lash extensions/hair foils route again. She wanted to pursue a career in marketing and accepting this book deal would allow that.

The only catch was Cindy.

Liza didn’t want the world knowing her private business and she wanted to protect Cindy at all costs. She’d done a good job of it so far, keeping her public persona completely separate from the reality of her home life.

Any publicity shots and interviews with Jimmy had been done at his palatial apartment; same with Henri. It had been important to her, deliberately misleading the press to think she lived with the sport stars so they wouldn’t hound her or, worse, follow her.

Not that she was ashamed of the modest Californian bungalow she shared with Cindy, but her goal to ultimately protect Cindy at all costs meant she wanted their real home and the life they shared to be off-limits to the public.

The guys had never mentioned Cindy in interviews either, though she knew that had more to do with them not wanting to be tainted—even by association—with a disability they couldn’t handle or had no knowledge of rather than her request.

Jimmy and Henri were too egotistical to want to field questions about their girlfriend’s disabled sister so they’d pretended Cindy hadn’t existed. While their apparent disregard had hurt, it had been exactly as Liza wanted it.

Her protecting Cindy over the years had worked, but how could she sustain that in a biography? Then again, she’d invented a physical façade for years, playing up to the image of the perfect WAG.

What if she invented a story to go with it?

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before when she’d been interviewed. She’d give a few scant details, an embellishment here, a truth stretched there. No one would be wiser if she did the same in her biography.

She could lay out the basics of her upbringing and focus on the interesting stuff, like her relationships with Jimmy and Henri. That was what people were really interested in anyway, the whole ‘what’s it like dating a famous sports star?’ angle.

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