Page 261 of Vegas Heat

HARDBALL

VEGAS HEAT: THE EXPANSION TEAM

BOOK FIVE

CHAPTER 1: COOPER

“There’s always a choice,” she says. Her voice is soft velvet, and this feels like the last time I’ll hear it in an intimate setting.

I shake my head. There just isn’t one this time.

I could give it all up. A tiny voice sneaks into the back of my mind. I could walk away from the game, break my contract, break my commitment.

I want to do those things. I want to choose Gabby. My heartischoosing Gabby.

It’s not how I was raised. It’s not who I am. I don’t break promises I’ve made…but I made promises to Gabby, too. I promised not to hurt her. I promised everything would be okay.

It’s all happening too fast. I leave in the morning, and I have to make a decision tonight.

So I’m doing what I think is the right thing for everybody, even if it means I have to suffer right now.

Nobody wins here, but I can’t just walk away from the Heat. I want it to be that simple, but it’s just not.

And there’s a lot more at play here than my commitment to the team.

There’s Gabby’s relationship with her father, and I can’t help but think about my relationship with my own father.

I care about her more than I care about the team. I’d give it all up for her in a heartbeat. But my brain keeps circling back to Troy’s words.

You’re taking advantage of her.

It’s wrong.

It’s disgusting.

You signed a contract.

You made commitments.

You may have fucked up our friendship, but you will not fuck up our team.

There was nothing wrong or disgusting about the two of us together. It was right. It was perfect. It was everlasting. But he’s her father. He’ll never see it that way.

And others won’t see it that way, either. I didn’t have to worry about that so much when we were together in secret. However, it’s not something I’m willing to subject Gabby to. She always deserved better than me, but it’s not justmeshe deserves more than. It’s the media frenzy that will attack her for being with me. It’s what people will say…and whileIdon’t give a fuck about what anyone else thinks, I know Gabby does. I know she’ll be hurt.

I know this because I knowher.

I’ve gotten to know her better than I know myself in the time we’ve been together. I know all her biggest fears in life, and one of them is simply falling short—of being a failure. It’s why she has such a strong drive to succeed, something that’s worked in her favor when it comes to the potential to secure a job after she graduates, but the media won’t see it that way.

They’ll see what they want to see. They’ll create a story out of nothing. They’ll capitalize on the twenty-one-year-old little girl sniffing around the eternal bachelor twelve years her senior. They’ll see nepotism when the truth is she earned everything she has, much like some of the interns saw even though it wasn’t true. She’ll be hurt by those things. She’ll feel like a failure. Like a joke. She’ll feel taken advantage of. She’ll be punished for things out of her control. These are all things she’s been terrified of her entire life.

And so I have to protect her in whatever way I can.

The only problem is that in protecting her from all those things, I have to be the one who causes her the most painby delivering on the two biggest fears she has courtesy of her mother: rejection and abandonment.

I have to end things with her. Boom: rejection.

I have to leave for Arizona in the morning without her. Boom: abandonment.

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