Jocelyn

“I’ll wait here,” Lindsay says as she pulls up in front of Andy’s office building. “I figure you want privacy on this one.”

“Probably best,” I say, climbing out of the car. “Thanks again for the ride. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Me neither,” she says on a laugh. “But I guess you’ve been hiding some things from me.”

“Hiding things?” I frown, turning back to glance through the window. “What do you mean?”

“Here I thought you were all buttoned up and proper, and it turns out you’re macking on hockey stars in their dressing rooms!”

I roll my eyes, standing and waving her off with my free hand.

“Show him who’s boss in there, alright?”

I give her a thumbs up and hike my purse higher onto my arm before striding inside. He’s working on a Sunday—go figure. My phone call with him had been brief, and I’d all but demanded an invitation to wherever he was hiding out.

It wasn’t a far jaunt to reach him. In fact, he’d sounded prepared for my phone call, even though it’d come from Lindsay’s number. Clearly, he’d been coaxing me on, planting the breadcrumbs I’d been eating up every step of the way.

Even as I can’t bring myself to regret a moment of my weekend with Boxer, I feel soft, vulnerable and exposed as I march into Andy’s building. I summon a faux cloud of confidence around me, but it’s weakened; I’m weakened. Because now I have something that’s more important than my job, and that puts me at a disadvantage.

Despite the mask of confidence, I’m aching inside. Hurt by Boxer’s hesitation to confide in me, to give me even the slightest inkling what he was thinking on the matter of an agent. Whether or not he signed with me, it didn’t matter. What hurt worse is that he hadn’t talked to me about his decision at all, not a word. Not even a text to let me know before Rumpert blindsided me with his shiny news that’d be sure to make the rounds by tomorrow morning.

“Ah, lovely seeing you here,” Andy says, as I bypass the lobby and open his office door without knocking. “It’s been so long.”

“What’s going on?” I don’t mince words even as he scans me, head to toe. “Rumpert, eyes on my face.”

His gaze lingers at the hem of my dress, a bit of curiosity there, more than anything. As if wondering what’s underneath, what’s behind the curtain.

The stupid pink curtain.

I shouldn’t have worn pink—this is why I never veer from my standard black uniform. On the one day that I do, I have to face my nemesis down wearing cotton candy colors and flushed cheeks from a night spent thinking about everything but work.

A wave of stupidity rolls over me. All these years of hardening myself, preparing myself for the worst—never letting a crack, a fissure weaken my spine of steel. So what if I’d earned horrid nicknames? At least I’d been consistent. Stable. Reliable.

Now, it feels as if everything I’ve worked for all of these years has faded to nothing. A wave of embarrassment racks over me as I stand before the one man I desire more than anything to beat. To win. I don’t even know the game we’re playing, but I hate that I’m losing.

“Nice color,” Rumpert says. “It looks good on you.”

“What’d you pull on Boxer?”

“Pull? Nothing. We had a lovely chat.”

“When?”

“Oh, he didn’t share?” Rumpert sits back in his chair, arms folded behind his head. “We set up our little meeting on Saturday afternoon. We had a nice breakfast today.”

“What makes you think he’d tell me that?” I shake off the jolt of surprise—it had been pre-planned? I’d been assuming that something had happened behind Boxer’s back, or last minute, or that there is some logical explanation for everything. “We’re acquaintances. He’s allowed to meet with whomever he wants.”

“Don’t play that game with me.”

“I don’t know what game we’re playing here, Andy. I’d love a little clarity.”

“Love, funny word, isn’t it?” Rumpert eases forward and pushes a small stack of papers near me. “Boxer signed with me for a year this morning in New York.”

I blink, staring down at the papers. Sure enough, there’s a signature scribbled on the lines, and the rest of the contract looks to be standard and in order.

I wish I had a smart retort, a comeback of sorts, but I have nothing. My energy is draining slowly, surely through my limbs, seeping out every pore. In seconds, I fear I’ll collapse.

“He loves you, I’ll give him that.” Rumpert raises an eyebrow. “So, if we’re playing the game of love, sure, you win. But the rest of the game, the most important game of all... I win.”

“Your priorities are not in order,” I tell him as he taps Boxer’s name on the signature line. “If you think that’s what’s most important.”

“You wouldn’t be so upset if it didn’t bother you.”

“I’m upset because you’re playing dirty. How did you get him to agree to this?”

“I’m persuasive.” He waves his hand, then returns it behind his head. The room is filled with flashy, showy bits of trophies, plaques, and other paraphernalia blaring his name. “I’m good at my job.”

“Humor me. How’d you do it?”

“Let’s just say I gave Boxer a keepsake of his stay in New York.”

“Keepsake?”

“Don’t worry, I saved one for you.” He reaches into his desk drawer and removes a photograph, then slides it across to me. “This is the last copy. I promised him I’d handed them all over, but I kept this one for you.”

The photograph has a startling effect on me, causing my throat to swell up, my heart to beat faster and faster until my fingers come to rest on the edge of the photo, my legs pressing into the front of his desk as I sway.

“When did you take this?” I shake my head, and rephrase. The photo is of Boxer and I locked in a sensual kiss, his hands on my lower back, my fingers entwined through his hair. “I realize when, but... never mind. It doesn’t matter. You blackmailed him?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I merely showed him these images and explained what it might look like to the rest of the community should these get out and about.”

“You threatened to ruin my reputation,” I say quietly. “And he did whatever you asked of him to spare me the repercussions.”

“Love makes a man do strange things. Though, I really think it will be a great partnership between the two of us. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

I pick up the contract, reading it over. It’s firm, locked in solid, and my heart sinks with each paragraph.

“Looks pretty, doesn’t it?” Andy says.

My throat is too tight to speak. I gaze over the rest of it, my eyes coming to land on his name down below. I stutter, cough, and then cover it up by clasping a hand to my forehead. “I don’t want to see this anymore.”

Andy clucks sympathetically. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart.”

I don’t trust myself not to give everything away, so I forgo a retort on his term of endearment. Before leaving, I swipe the photo from his desk.

“Tell my newest client hello for me, will you?” Andy calls after me.

Once again, I don’t have the willpower to respond.

However, I do find it in me to smile.

As I walk out the front door, I look down at the photo, and I know exactly what I must do. Because on that dotted line there was a signature, but it didn’t read Landon Boxer.

He’d left me a sign, and thank goodness I hadn’t been so blinded that I missed it.

Instead of his own name, he’d signed mine. With one tiny addition—my first name, and his last name.

Jocelyn Boxer, I murmur, trying the name on for size. Not half bad.

Even better, it was a little sign from him that he’d been thinking of me, and a simultaneous message to Rumpert. Nobody is coming between us.

I climb into the car, grinning like a madwoman which spikes Lindsay into overdrive mode. “Where to? Tell me what happened in there, boss.”

“What’s that reporter’s name who keeps calling?”

“Diana, why?”

“Get her on the phone, please. Now.”