My (Mostly) Fake Wedding - Penelope Bloom Page 0,25

it got my entire focus.

Okay, sometimes it might’ve been more like ninety, and today I might’ve been rocking more of an eighty or seventy. But I couldn’t help it. I’d gotten a glorious view of Belle’s white-panty clad ass when I broke into her apartment.

Magnificent.

I felt my cock stiffen at the memory, which led me to thinking of our encounter in the airplane bathroom for about the hundredth time since it happened.

I was packing up my stuff to leave after the meeting when one of coach’s assistants stopped me. “Hey, Coach wants a word in his office.”

Dammit. I had somewhere to be, but I knew I was on thin enough ice as it was. I grudgingly headed to his office.

Coach Mackie was sitting behind his desk, completely decked out in the black and red team colors. He looked like a bulldog who snuck into a Golden Corral after hours that hadn’t been found for about a week.

“Sit.” Coach Mackie pointed at the chair across from his desk.

I obliged, slinging my bag to the ground beside me. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to make something crystal clear to you. I don’t like you. I don’t like the bullshit you get into. I don’t like looking at your stupid pretty boy face. And I’m only tolerating your ass on my team because of the numbers you put up.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Thank you?”

“No. I’m telling you that if you don’t play out of your mind for the rest of the season, you’re done here. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure every other team in the league knows what a pain in my ass you were.”

“Honest question. How long has it been since my last incident?”

“Get out of my office.”

I shrugged, then stood. “Coach. It was really sweet of you to call me pretty, though. That means a lot.”

“Out!” Coach Mackie pounded his fists on the table.

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

Oh, actually I guess he did. But I was more than willing to go, because Belle was probably waiting for me with those diamond-cutter nipples of hers all perked up and excited.

It really was cute how much she liked me.

15

Belle

I wasn’t sure if Chris was serious about coming to my apartment, but I also didn’t want to look like an idiot if he’d been joking. That meant I didn’t send him a text warning him I was heading out instead of staying to look up venues like I’d planned.

Lance had flown to New York, and he wanted to meet me at a coffee shop near my place.

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t massive flocks of butterflies in my stomach at the prospect. Except now I wasn’t sure how I actually felt. I’d always had a crush on Lance growing up. Planning his wedding had been devastating, too. But little by little, I’d let him go along the way. The irony was that I’d just about moved on when all hell broke loose and I got accused of trying to steal him and sabotage the wedding.

Now I was dreaming about someone else every night. I had Chris Rose and his stupid pickle on my mind.

I tortured myself trying to imagine how the conversation with Lance was going to go. Had he brought Shelby? Was she going to lay into me again? Were they going to drag me out back and mug me?

I really had no idea, but I needed closure enough that I risked showing up.

Lance was wearing a navy-blue sweater and with a checkered dress shirt under it. He had thick, dark hair that he kept pushed away from his forehead and glasses that always made me think he looked a little like Superman in disguise.

Lance was that guy. The one who had everything going for him. I’d grown up in his shadow—the girl he always wanted around, but never really saw. I might as well have been a guy as far as he’d been concerned.

He smiled when he saw me, which was a relief. I ruled out a few of my more violent theories about how this was going to go.

I sat down at the little table in the corner with him. “Hi,” I said. “If you’re here to murder me, can you please just make it quick and painless?”

“I’m here to apologize.”

“Oh.” In all the endless things I’d imagined this could be, I hadn’t even considered that one.

“I eventually got the truth out of Shelby. She felt threatened by you. She made everything up to chase