Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“On your confidence.”
Easy for him to say. I had seen the photos of him as a kid and teenager. He had always been an athlete, and now he was pure male gorgeousness. “Not today,” I said lightly and quickly maneuvered past Xavier and down the stairs, barely avoiding breaking my neck as my foot tangled in the blanket. I caught my fall with a tight grip on the handle. Xavier shot me a look.
Ignoring him, I rushed toward my purse and fumbled for my phone. My heart halted when I saw the time. It was almost 9:40, and the team had a press conference on the pit at ten.
“Oh shit, we’re late!” I hissed. “Xavier, get dressed! And stop the staring!”
He chuckled. “Bossy.” But he moved into his bedroom. I collected my own clothes from the floor in the living room and bedroom, then hurried into the bathroom. There was no time for excessive grooming. If Xavier was late for this press conference, his coach would kill him, and me.
My jeans blouse and chino pants weren’t really the outfit I’d have chosen for a press conference. To make matters worse, my blouse was wrinkled and I couldn’t find my panties. I tried my best to smooth out the wrinkles and brush my hair with my fingers as I headed out of the bathroom. Xavier was dressed in his white training shorts and a red sweatshirt. He didn’t look like he’d had a rough night. Of course, he had years of practice cleaning up after sex, and he had fresh clothes at his disposal.
Xavier chuckled. “You look a bit worse for wear.”
I glanced down at myself. “I don’t have time to go home and change.”
Xavier kissed me. “You’re fine.”
We headed downstairs, where I grabbed my purse before we hurried toward Xavier’s car and raced off. We were lucky we didn’t get pulled over considering all the traffic rules we broke on our way.
We arrived at the training ground five minutes too late. Xavier parked his car smack in the middle of the parking lot, so none of his teammates would be able to get out, and shoved the door open. I followed after him as he stalked toward the gathered team and the press, all the while trying to brief him on the attending journalists. Most of them were sports journalists but there were a few prone to asking compromising questions, and Xavier was prone to compromising answers.
Heads turned our way, eyes latching on to Xavier before they moved on to me, and I almost cringed when I caught Connor’s raised eyebrows and Fiona’s shocked expression. The journalists didn’t look too impressed with me either, and a few seemed amused.
Was it that obvious what had happened between Xavier and me?
I tried to stop myself from blushing, which was a losing battle. The coach narrowed his eyes at Xavier, before he frowned at me.
I moved to the back of the journalists as Xavier joined his team in the front.
“Now that we’re finally complete, we can begin,” Coach said in annoyance.
Fiona tried to catch my eyes from her spot beside the team. As a cheerleader her place was in the front. She would kick my ass the moment we were alone. I had promised her to stay away from Xavier, and now I had slept with him two more times. But things had changed.
Suddenly something dawned on me. Xavier hadn’t held my hand or given any kind of indication that we were together. For everyone around us, it looked like I was one of his playthings.
My stomach tightened. I barely listened to the questions of the sport journalists, but then Maya Nowak spoke up, directing her question at Xavier. She was a journalist Xavier had banged a few weeks back, and who had written a few less favorable articles about him after that. “Some people wonder how you manage to focus on sports considering the nights you spend partying and your other escapades.”
Xavier smirked. “I have an assistant who keeps me in line.” My stomach began to plummet. Then he added, “Who also happens to be my girlfriend, who will stop future escapades.” He looked at me and so did everyone else. The journalists actually twisted their heads around to stare straight at me, and a few of the photographers took photos.
Connor and Fiona looked at Xavier as if he’d grown a second head.
It took me a moment to gather my wits about me and smile.
“That’s all very interesting,” Coach Brennan drawled. “But we are here for rugby, not gossip.”
Xavier winked, and a tiny part of me rejoiced at him making us public, but the other part worried about everyone’s reactions. Maya regarded me like I was a bug she wanted to squash, and she probably wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t be happy that Xavier had chosen someone like me.