Page 90 of Gloves Off

“You sure?”

The girl gives her the thumbs-up.

“Sometimes she forgets she’s injured and goes too hard,” Georgia says quietly, still watching Isabel.

Within a few minutes, one girl steals the ball and kicks it at the net. It sails past the goaltender.

“Yes!” Georgia shouts, clapping hard, smiling like she never smiles at me. “There we go. That was beautiful. It’s okay, Beth,”she calls to the goaltender. “That was a tricky shot. You’ll get it next time. Thank you for not diving.”

The goaltender blows a raspberry, and Georgia laughs.

Speechless, I watch her. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The game continues, the girls scramble for the ball, taking shots at either net. They’re laughing. They’re having fun. They love her.

She’s a great coach. I’ve never seen her so at ease, so determined and enthusiastic. She never shows me this side.

Thisis the version of her from the photo at the benefit. This is the person Darcy, Owens, and Jordan are friends with.

It hits me. The inheritance the doctor needs so badly? It has something to do with this.

Half an hour later, after the soccer equipment has been locked away in the storage room and the girls have all been picked up, Georgia and I walk to the car.

“What?” She gives me a strange look, and I realize I’m staring.

I clear my throat and look away. “Nothing.”

Frustration tightens in my shoulders. So I was wrong about her. We’re complete opposites. She said I was a lost cause.

When we get to the car, I have the urge to open her door for her, but that would be weird. She’d think it was weird.

I do it anyway, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

See? Weird.

I start the car and glance over at her just as she’s reaching for her seatbelt. “Put your seatbelt on,” I say, because I feel like playing with her.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

The corner of my mouth twitches. Such a fucking brat. “Don’t tell me you’d go without a seatbelt just to piss me off, Doctor.” I rev the engine once in warning.

“I don’t know. I really love getting on your nerves.”

“You’re good at it, too.”

That pretty mouth curves before she clicks her seatbelt into place.

We pull onto the road. Something about the way she was with the soccer team keeps snagging my thoughts. Across the front seat, she’s staring out the window, playing with her necklace.

She wrenches around and reaches into her bag in the backseat, pulling out one of those protein bars she’s always eating.

“Do you ever eat real food?”

She arches an eyebrow at me before her eyes narrow. “Yes.”

“Because all I ever see you eat are those protein bars.” I’m picking a fight, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “You need to eat a balanced diet.”

“You know I went to medical school, right? I don’t need you to lecture me on how to eat.”

Our gazes hold, tension snapping in the air, and I’m back in the library with my tongue on her nipple, listening to her shallow breathing. Frustration rages inside me. She’s just so—I can’t even—god-fucking-damnit, the doctor gets under my skin. She’s doing this just to piss me off.

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