Page 8 of Play Your Part

At the sound of a deep, accented voice, my eyes jerked open. After the day I had, my interest in a conversation couldn’t be any lower. “I’m fine,” I replied stiffly, not even bothering to turn around.

Apparently, my voice didn’t effectively convey my feelings, because he stepped closer. On instinct, my head spun like whiplash. A light from inside the house slanted across his face, exposing enough for recognition to hit my alcohol-dulled brain.Alexei Volkov. His grin, revealing a dimple on his right cheek, knocked the floor out of my stomach.

“Sure. Cursing alone in the middle of a party isdefinitelythe sign of someone who is fine.”

The dose of sarcasm was infuriating, but dammit it all to hell if the low tenor of his voice underlined by his coarse accent didn’t wash over me. I could easily get lost listening to him.

Alexei’s next step put him squarely under the light, the movement reminding me why Connie practically had a stroke talking about him earlier. Alexei Volkov was the kind of hot that made me momentarily forget why I didn’t like him. My heart sped up as I took in the way his dark suit molded to his body—the jacket crisp across his broad shoulders and the shirt snug against his abdomen. His rolled sleeves put his strong forearms on display, muscles flexing as he moved his hands to his pockets.

The showstopper? That face of his… universally considered handsome thanks to his strong jawline and sharp brown eyes, but all the more interesting by the way it deviated from blandness. Alexei had a white scar under his left eye and a slight bump in the dip of his nose, no doubt from one of his many fights over the years. The dark scruff covering the lower half of his face, below his chin, and onto his neck had my mouth drying out.

“Of course, it’s fuckingyou,” I muttered. A maniacal laugh burst out of me.

The universe was clearly screwing with me. I did not like Alexei Volkov. Despised him, actually. Even before I dated Justin. I saw him play against the Wolves every year. I remembered not only because yes, I had eyes and couldn’tnotreact to an extremely attractive man, but he had a knack for pissing off the home crowd. He taunted us after scoring and shouted at fans near the penalty box as he waited out his punishment for some dirty play.

“You know me?” Alexei gestured to himself with one hand; the wholesomeness of the action made my chest tight.

What he gained from this humble act, I wasn’t sure. He obviously didn’t know who I was. And even if he did, he didn’t need an “in” with my father. Dad had missed drafting Alexei Volkov by only one spot seven years ago, and every time Alexei’s team came to town and beat us, he liked to lament what could have been.

And while Connie hadn’t lied about her dress—it did look divine on me—I couldn’t imagine Alexei Volkov trying to pick up the unhinged girl in his employer’s backyard. He had no lack of other options.

“You can drop the fake modesty.” I spread my arms wide. “There’s no audience.”

Alexei glanced over his shoulder, maybe looking for an out to this conversation.

By all means, I wanted to say.Leave me the fuck alone.

“Go ahead, it’s a big night for you.”

He turned back around, his eyebrows sky-high in confusion.

“The trade. You’ve got the team all to yourself now.”

ALEXEI

When I heard the string of curse words on the other side of the lawn and saw the stunning woman who shouted them, I thought my night had turned around. I might not want a relationship, but my streak of celibacy was getting old. My intense workout schedule the last few months hadn’t left much time for women—or much of anything—but I landed the deal I needed. Didn’t I deserve a little fun?

And damn, this woman. It wasn’t only my dry streak that made me take notice. She looked sexy as hell, that curve-hugging dress dipping low on her chest and flowing to her ankles. There was also something disarmingly adorable about her. Maybe it was the way she wore her dark hair, flowing free to her shoulders. Or how she chewed her bottom lip when she wasn’t speaking. It could have been the way her nose scrunched when she realized who I was.

But then she said something that stopped my fantasies from running wild.The trade. You’ve got the team all to yourself now.

“Whoareyou?”

She rose to her feet, swaying enough, I stepped forward to catch her if she fell. The woman death gripped the side of the deck with one hand to keep herself steady. The other held a nearly empty bottle of champagne. “Not a fan of yours.”

That didn’t narrow things at all. “Join the fucking club. I hear they meet on Thursdays.”

I kept studying her. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Her lips slipped for a moment, looking like the beginning of a smile before snapping back into a thin line. Probably better that way—if she hated me, continuing to admire her seemed pointless. My dry spell would remain intact.Great.

“The trade,” I repeated slowly, fiddling with the dark silver watch on my left wrist. The woman’s gaze traced my movements. “You mean Ward, don’t you?”

“Of courseI mean Justin,” she said.

Every bit of my attraction to her slipped like sand through my fingers. Ward was Justin to her; that could only mean one thing. The useless prick had landed this woman. Even if the idea of touching anyone Justin Ward previously dated didn’t turn my stomach, he’d probably poisoned her mind against me. I should have walked away from this pointless conversation, but I couldn’t make myself turn away from her.

“Maybe you’re the reason he’s gone,” she continued, her voice gaining strength. “If my father didn’t think you were going to come here and be the answer to all of this team’s problems—”

I stopped listening because… what in theactualfuck?Father? The woman standing in front of me, the one I’d wanted to convince to come home with me tonight before finding out she belonged to Ward, was Cale Cole’s daughter?

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