Page 43 of Love Game

He sneered a little at her holier-than-thou tone. “Fine, not every school, but most. And you know that nine times out of ten, the NCAA looks the other way.”

She shot him an arch look but grasped for a way to lighten the conversation. “Are you calling yourself a ten?”

He didn’t bite. Instead, he ran his hand through his rumpled hair. “There were other complications. I was already having issues with the AD and the administration, and I hadn’t exactly scored a lot of friends in the community. But as long as I kept winning, they couldn’t really get rid of me, could they?”

“No.”

“I was an asshole, but not a complete asshole.” He swallowed hard but fixed her with a direct gaze. “And then there was LeAnn.”

She flinched when he spoke the young woman’s name aloud. A part of her resented him for making that sordid bit of the story real when she stood there in her kitchen with him, exposed in more ways than one. “The student,” she said stiffly.

He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “You make it sound like I was parking outside the high school, hoping some girl would pick me to be her prom date. She was a graduate student. I was thirty-five, and she was twenty-six.”

“Kudos.”

“There’s a much bigger age gap between Ty Ransom and his child bride.” When she didn’t fire back, he let his grip on her arm fall slack. “Think whatever you want to think. Everyone else does.”

The creak of old aches tinged the bravado in his tone, making her feel about two inches tall. He hadn’t only been humiliated and humbled in this debacle. He’d been hurt too. And badly. An inexplicable surge of jealousy choked off the smart-assed remark she had locked and loaded. The beautiful redhead she’d seen all over the sports networks in the weeks following Danny’s firing was more than just an ego trip for a guy high on himself.

“When it became clear that I was going to be the poster boy for all that was wrong with college football, I did everything I could to keep her name out of things.” His lips thinned into a tight line. “But she didn’t really want to be kept out of the spotlight.”

“She was young.” It was a simple statement of fact, not a judgment or an excuse. Somehow, saying the words aloud made her feel even more naked. She was decades older than the girl they were discussing, and in that moment, she felt every minute.

“She was,” he agreed. “And pretty and smart.” His mouth pursed as he searched for one more word. “Ambitious.” He pulled two bottles of beer from the carrier, twisted off the caps, and handed one to her. His mouth curled into a smirk so bitter, it made her chest hurt. “Also turns out she had no interest in dating a guy on the unemployment line.”

He toyed with one of the bottle caps, running the pad of his thumb over the ridged edge, then pressing it into his flesh. “You know what the funny thing was?”

He paused, but she knew a rhetorical question when she heard one, so she kept silent.

“No one ever asked me how I felt about her. They just assumed I was a lecherous creep getting his rocks off with some young girl.” He dropped the cap on the counter and rubbed his thumb against the side of his forefinger, soothing the lingering effect of his self-abuse. “No one even asked. The press, my so-called friends…my mother…my brother.”

The resentment in his tone took her by surprise. Turning to face him head-on, she asked the question he’d waited so long to answer. “Did you love her?”

An endless minute passed, but he didn’t look away. “I thought I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

She whispered the words of sympathy by reflex, surprised to find she meant them. Neither of them were fresh young things. They’d both loved, lost, and lived to tell the tale. At last, he turned away, lifting the bottle to his lips and taking a deep pull. His mouth was damp and shiny when he lowered it.

“Do you want me to leave?”

The bluntness of his question shocked her out of immobility. She slammed her untouched bottle of beer onto the counter. “What? No!”

He met her eyes again. This time, his luscious lips twisted into a self-deprecating smirk. “I’d understand if you did.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Easy to be gallant when you’ve already got what you wanted.”

Those blue eyes flashed. “Why do you sell yourself so cheap?” She opened her mouth to retort, but he pressed his finger to her lips. When she obediently closed them, his hand fell to his side. “If I wanted to leave, I’d have been gone by now.”

His assertion was too cocky by half, but a grin still threatened her. Kate squelched it as best she could as she pulled a round pizza pan from a cabinet. Lifting the lid on the carryout box, she shot him a glance from under her eyelashes. “Well, there’s pizza.” That was as close as she’d get to asking him to stay.

“Yes, there is.”

She pursed her lips, weighing the wisdom of laying her own cards on the table. But he’d shown her his, and if there was ever a good time to give a little of her own, maybe this was it. After all, they were both experienced enough to know the risk of playing games. “My husband left me because I was better than him.”

“At what?”

She shrugged. “Just about everything.”

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