Dare To Play (Dare Nation #3) - Carly Phillips Page 0,10

enough. Bri had already figured the rest out for herself.

“Yeah, I got that from the photo.”

“Jaxon can’t even get privacy at his own home?”

Bri let out a long sigh. “You wouldn’t believe the lengths the paparazzi will go to. I wouldn’t be shocked if one was in a tree to get that shot.”

“Well, this is awkward,” Macy muttered.

“You’re an adult. I’m not judging you. I just wish Jax would learn some discretion. Even he knows anywhere outside isn’t safe.”

“I guess he wasn’t thinking?” Before Bri could jump on that comment, Macy went on. “Is this going to get him in more trouble?”

Bri said something to someone and then replied, “Sorry. I was talking to Austin. I don’t know. He just doesn’t know the meaning of lying low.”

“It seems to me a lot of these incidents aren’t his fault.”

“But they call attention to him anyway. He’s got a list a mile long. And listen to you, all #TeamJaxon,” Bri said, laughing.

At least she wasn’t pissed at Macy. And she hoped Bri wasn’t angry at Jaxon, either.

“Listen, I have another call. Talk later.” Bri disconnected, and Macy returned to the kitchen to find Hannah talking on the phone.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool? The Jaxon Prescott, pitcher for the Miami Eagles,” she said.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Mom,” Hannah said and turned away to continue chatting.

Macy winced and lowered herself into a chair. Hannah had no idea her mother had threatened to go after custody, but if she was serious, Macy had just given her a very wide opening to take Hannah away from her. The last thing she needed was to be portrayed as a groupie or a slut who indulged in one-night stands, getting rid of her sister so she could have sex.

She groaned, putting her head on her arms, wondering what she was going to do now.

* * *

When a man couldn’t even kiss a woman in the privacy of his own driveway, something was really wrong with the world in general. Fucking paps. Social media. People who lived to see what famous people did in their spare time. They all needed to get a life of their own and stop fucking up his. This time they’d captured a nice girl in their clutches, and that pissed Jaxon off even more. Macy hadn’t signed up for his kind of life. Not the way the groupies who followed him from game to game and bar to bar did.

He didn’t have a chance to check on her, and even if he had the time, he didn’t have her number, which meant he was going to have to beg his sister to share it. That was the only good thing about him being summoned to Dare Nation.

He walked into the building and headed straight for Austin’s office, smiling at the main receptionist on his way to his brother’s corner office, where Quinn, Austin’s personal assistant and wife, had a desk right outside.

“Hi, Jaxon,” Quinn said, greeting Jaxon not with her usual happy smile but a pitying grimace.

“I take it they’re waiting for me?” he asked.

She nodded.

“How’s my adorable niece?” he asked about the baby, not only because he cared but because the longer he avoided the firing squad inside that office, the better. His brother Austin had found baby Jenny on his doorstep, moved Quinn in to help him navigate being a dad, and the two had fallen in love. Despite Jaxon’s cynicism on the subject of love, he was happy for his sibling.

Eyes lighting up at the topic, Quinn went on to tell him all the things the six-month-old baby was learning to do. “And she stands up and bounces on her chubby little legs and she’s scooting backwards. Pretty soon she’ll be crawling!”

“Said like a proud mama.” Jaxon folded his arms across his chest and grinned. His brother was a lucky man—if Jaxon were to consider settling down with a wife and a baby lucky. Which he most certainly did not.

“Jaxon, stop stalling and get your ass in here!” Austin bellowed from the open door behind Quinn.

Quinn winced. “Guess you better move it.”

“It’s times like these when it sucks to have family as your agent and publicist.”

Quinn’s laughter followed him as he headed around her and through the door to face his siblings.

Austin stood behind his desk, arms folded, eyes narrowed, wearing a suit that demanded respect. Beside him, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling dark mahogany bookshelf, waited Bri. High-heeled foot tapping, lips pursed, and also dressed up in her finest suit, she met