Page 34 of Look What You Made Me Do

What the hell had she been thinking?

“Of course, if you want to sleep with me…” His deep, lazily amused voice rumbled around her. “I could always make Cameron team captain.”

Ella rolled her eyes. Very funny. Garnering a strength she did not feel, Ella pushed away, walking to her desk on legs that weren’t quite steady.

“I’m not going to sleep with you, Jake.”

“What? Ever?”

She smiled at his mocking tone. “Now you’re getting it.”

“That’s a long time.”

Ella shrugged. “It’s called self-control. Maybe you should try it some time.”

He walked toward her desk, planting his fists on the edge. “You weren’t big on self-control a couple of years ago.”

Ella swallowed as the mention of that day rattled her further. Goddamn it! This was her office. Her dominion. He might have invaded it but it was still her turf and she wouldn’t let him drag her into the past. Not when she’d worked so hard to leave it all behind.

“I’m not going backward, Jake.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m backward?”

“You’re Trently, Jake. I left there a long time ago and I’m not going back.”

“It felt like you wanted to go back when you stuck your tongue in my mouth just now.”

A rush of heat threatened to swamp her at the memory but she beat it back. “You do know that abstinence doesn’t kill people, right?”

God knew she’d have been dead a long time ago.

“It sure makes them mighty pissed though.”

Right. Like The Prince knew about that. “And this you would know how?”

He grinned, pushing off the desk and picking up his clipboard. “See you at the field.”

Ella watched Cameron’s face as Pete read out the names. A lump rose in her throat at the play of his emotions. First stunned disbelief, then a slow dawning as a tentative smile grew into a grin as big as Lake Michigan.

The lump swelled to life-threatening proportions as his eyes sought hers and she saw tears shining in his tough-kid gaze. She gave him the thumbs up and he actually returned them.

Every kid whose name was called out stood an extra inch higher and Ella couldn’t remember ever feeling such a charge of optimism in all her years at Deluca. A transformation was happening before her eyes. Kids who’d never had any expectations from life suddenly looked bulletproof.

Maybe this could actually work?

8

Jake turned to the shaggy-haired, inexperienced crew before him and wondered how the hell he was ever going to pull this off. Sure, there was some good raw talent, but he had to create in one season what other teams in the comp would have built up over years and years of playing and competing – unity, synergy, trust.

He glanced at Ella and then at Miranda, so like Trish, who was waving at him from the sidelines. He’d offered to pay for her to go to Fernbridge or St Erasmus or any of the uppity girls’ schools in Inverboro but, no – Trish had wanted her daughter to stay grounded.

So now he not only had to do this for Ella but there was no way he could sit back and let anyone shut down Miranda’s school.

“Okay, listen up,” he called above the back slapping and high-fiving that was going on among the successful students. “There are a few ground rules before we begin. You want to be on the team, there are three non-negotiables.”

He watched as smiles faded a little. “Pete?”

Pete dug around in his backpack and came out with a pair of hair clippers. He held them up and switched them on. They buzzed low and sure.

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