Page 132 of The Thing About My Rival

DREW

I can’t watch that. I can’t.

As soon as the ballroom door closes behind me, I lean against the wall and exhale the breath I’ve been holding since I got out of my seat.

It was like I was suffocating. Like a tank had parked on my chest. Like the only way I’d be able to breathe again was to get out of there as quickly as possible.

It might be unprofessional to walk out, but I can’t let the Fab Four, the players, literally every important person in the League or, dear God, Hugo himself see me like this.

Any credibility I’ve clawed back would be washed away in a heartbeat if they saw me get overwhelmed by the sight of Hugo being recognized for the person he really is—the person I always knew he was.

But worse than any professional impact of the balloon of emotion that’s ready to pop inside my chest, is that it tells me exactly how I still feel about him.

It hasn’t gone away. Not one bit. Not one iota.

But it’s all pointless, because there’s even less of a chance now that Hugo and I could make it work than there ever was before.

I mean, the Fab Four offering me the general manager’s job is a major deal, but how could I take it? I couldn’t be his boss whether we were an item or not.

If we weren’t together, being around him every day and not being able to be with him would be unbearable. And watching him live his life with this, that, and the other woman would be soul destroying.

Not to mention I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to bear me managing him.

And if we were together, there’s no way that Miles, Leo, Chase, and Oliver would ever stand for it—they’d think the general manager dating the head coach was a disaster waiting to happen, particularly with Hugo’s relationship track record.

Anyway, what would happen when he inevitably gets a job at a more glamorous club on a different continent? I’d just be setting myself up for heartbreak all over again.

So, either way, I can’t take their offer of the closest thing to my dream job that I’m ever going to get.

I take a sharp breath to help me get a grip, push off the wall and steady myself.

I need to get my coat, a cab to my hotel, and a flight to Portland as soon as I can. The easiest solution is to put as much distance between me and Hugo as possible, as quickly as possible.

At the coat check there’s no escape. Hugo’s face is on a screen suspended from the ceiling. And the attendant’s hanging on his every word with such rapt concentration I have to cough to get her to notice me.

Look at him, though. It’s so hard not to be drawn tothat face, that English accent, the charm and charisma he oozes even on screen.

The applause dies down from whatever gem he just dropped, and I slide my ticket across the counter to the attendant.

“Sorry,” she says, tipping her head toward the monitor. “I just love him.”

She disappears toward the back to get my coat as Hugo starts to speak again. “But there’s one person without whom I definitely wouldn’t be standing here with this in my hand.” He holds up the trophy. “Wilcox…”

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob flies out of me at the sound of my name falling from his deliciously beautiful lips—lips that have made every inch of my skin tingle.

He scans the room before him. “Wilcox, I don’t know where you’ve gone, but everything I’ve learned that’s put me in this spot tonight, I’ve learned from you.

“I didn’t realize how closed my mind was until you opened it to the possibility of doing things in different ways.

“I didn’t know what a self-centered arsehole I was… Well, maybe I did”—he pauses for the audience’s laughter—“until I saw you put others ahead of yourself over and over and get better results.

“And I didn’t know what true team spirit was until I saw what the Commoners mean to you.”

The attendant returns with my coat. “Isn’t he amazing?”

I take it without looking at her, my eyes transfixed by Hugo’s face, my mind transfixed by his words.

“Yes,” I whisper, just about forcing it past the soccer ball-sized lump in my throat. “He is.”

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