PROLOGUE
JUPITER
I’m not prone to smiling, though you wouldn’t know it from the way my reflection was grinning back at me like I’d just escaped from a 1950s asylum.
Even with my beard thicker than usual, I could still see the redness of my cheek through the whiskers; unsurprising given it was still stinging slightly. In fact, I could almost make out the form of her handprint.
Marnie Matthews had certainly put some force behind that slap.
So why am I beaming from ear to ear, you ask? Because she’shere. In New York. And for the first time since I walked away, since I left her standing there with tears streaming down her face while my own heart was lying bleeding on the porch in front of her, I felt hope that I mightfinallybe able to redeem myself.
That I mightactuallybe able to win her back.
That she would be mine again.
Because if she didn’t care about me, she wouldn’t have moved two thousand miles – or however fucking far it is from Houston to New York – and come to work for my new club.
And if she didn’t care about me, she wouldn’t have packed a punch harder than Anthony Joshua. No, that blow had emotion behind it. Power behind it. And as long as there was a shred, a sliver, the tiniest fragment of feeling, then I still had a chance.
How had I got to this point? The one where I’d traded everything I’d known, at a place I’d spent my entire professional career, so I could come to New York and play for the worst club in the major leagues?
What did I do that set me on this trajectory of my life quicker than any curve ball?
I fell in love, that’s what.
* * *
Fourteen years ago – June
The electronic pinging noise of the doorbell grated against every single one of my nerve endings, because every single one of them was already flooded with the adrenaline which had me shivering in the ninety-degree California heat.
I rarely used the front door; the tree outside her bedroom was my regular form of entry, and I counted twenty-two anxiety-inducing seconds before the door swung open.
“Jupiter.” Noah Matthews’ deep, booming voice always carried a degree of sternness whenever he addressed me. “I hear congratulations are in order. Dodgers, eh? Well done.”
He stuck his hand out for a shake, which I reluctantly took. I wanted this over as quickly as possible. I did not want to be making small talk with my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s father – who didn’t like me anyway.
“Thank you, sir.” I shoved my hands back in my pockets, trying to wipe away the clamminess while we stood in awkward silence.
I’d never been able to read Noah Matthews, never been able to tell whether he was happy or not. He was one of those men who always seemed slightly disapproving, though that was probably everything to do with the fact I was a jock dating his precious only daughter, the one he thought was ruining her life; her future.
I’d disapprove too.
He’d soon get his wish, because what I was about to do would have him sleeping soundly, filled with relief… and definitely hating me.
“Marnie!” he hollered into the house.
It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t invited me in, but this time I didn’t care. There was no place for me in that house anymore.
She appeared like a tornado; a beautiful solar windstorm blowing away everything in its path, flinging herself into my arms with a squeal, her legs wrapping around my waist. The heat of her body that I usually relished set in motion a cold sweat which exacerbated my shaking.
I didn’t notice Noah leave, but when I put her back down on the ground, he was no longer standing there, and the door was closed.
My lips found hers for one last time, tasting the cherry LifeSavers she always crunched on for me. My fingers lanced through her silky, dark chocolate strands until they cupped her cheeks… one last time.
One last time I held her to my chest and deeply inhaled the subtle coconut shampoo she always used.
I peeled her arms from around my neck and stepped back to look at her; soak in how beautiful she was, how her thick lashes always looked like she’d drawn around them with a fine tipped marker, how her cheeks were always the perfect shade of peach until I’d kissed her, when they’d darken to berry pink.