Audrey stood in the kitchen, staring at the big blue pill in her hand. Plan B, or the morning after pill.

Because she wasn’t quite sure that she’d got her birth control right. She kept counting her pills, but…

Better safe than sorry, right?

She took a big sip of water, then washed the pill down.

She hated it, the reality of it. Real life invading her fantasy world. She and Liam had made it five weeks without coming down from the clouds.

Five incredible, heart-pounding, lust-driven weeks. She could smell Liam on her skin still, though he’d left for an early game hours ago.

Maybe she was asking for too much.

No, scratch that. She was definitely asking for too much.

She picked up the newspaper she’d snagged at the grocery store. A photo of Liam in last week’s game was splashed across the front page. He was sprinting toward the goal, a look of pure determination on his face.

She was working on getting a nice copy of it to frame and hang in the house, a surprise for Liam. Still, she thought he’d appreciate seeing it.

Especially since the headline read, BAD BOY BRIT DOMINATES ATLANTA UNIFIED.

She headed for his bedroom, where she’d essentially moved herself in over the last couple of weeks.

No Liam there, or in the shower. No Liam in the back yard, where he’d taken to spending his moments of solitude. No Liam anywhere in the house, actually.

Finally she noticed that the front door was open a crack. She headed outside and saw him standing by his Range Rover, phone pressed to his ear.

“—have to think about it. It would be a big decision,” he was saying. “Yes, Stuart, I understand that it’s a lot of money. I know, it’s what I’ve asked for.”

He turned and spotted Audrey, then gave her a hesitant smile. “Stuart, I’m going to call you back.”

“Hey,” she said, giving Liam a long look. “Come back inside, it’s hot as hell out here.”

“Right you are,” Liam said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Straight back to bed for the both of us.”

“Look what I found,” she said, presenting him with the paper.

“Ah, apparently you’re not the only one who gets a taste of my dominance, love,” he teased, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

Audrey rolled her eyes and giggled, the phone call forgotten when Liam scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way to the bed.

Liam’s conversation with his agent popped back into her head in the wee hours of the morning. She was already a little restless, having drank too much coffee the evening before.

Now, she couldn’t stop replaying his words. A lot of money. A big decision.

Checking to make sure Liam was dead asleep, Audrey got out of bed and put on her robe. She headed for the living room, where a huge stack of mail awaited her.

Liam seemed uninterested in signing any more deals, so this week she hadn’t even opened any of the fat manila envelopes that arrived daily.

Now, she was curious. Clearly Liam’s agent wanted him to sign some lucrative deal, thought it was pretty important.

But which one?

Hefting the stack, she walked to the couch and began opening envelopes.

The first few were endorsement deals.

Gatorade. Armani. Crocs shoes, which was fairly funny.

She sifted through them, then picked up an envelope marked URGENT. It mostly caught her eye because of the British stamps on the front.

The return address was labeled England National Football Team, with a tiny logo next to it. The logo was plenty well-known to Audrey.

After all, Liam had a much larger version of it tattooed on his chest and torso. Blue lions and small red flowers, set into a blue crest.

Suddenly Audrey felt a little tense. She turned the thick packet over and opened it, pulling free a thick sheaf of papers.

Words started jumping out at her — club contract, three years, exclusive.

This was a serious job offer, for the team Liam worshipped.

Audrey blew out a breath when she flipped through far enough to find out how much England National was offering Liam. It blew Atlanta Unified out of the water, that was for certain.

This is it, she realized. My fantasy life is over, and I need to be prepared. Any day now, Liam’s going to leave.

Audrey and Jack would be fired from their jobs, not that Audrey was even doing hers these days. Liam would vanish back to England, and it would basically be like the whole thing never even happened.

Like she and Liam never met.

All that would be left were memories. She’d known it all along, but…

It still hurt, badly.

She shoved the contract back in the envelope, then stuffed the whole stack under a couch cushion. She’d deal with them later. No need for Liam to know that she knew about the offer.

After all, it seemed that the only rule between them was that they never, ever talk about their relationship. About the future.

Audrey respected that, in a weird way. She’d wanted Liam, wanted to spend time with him, and she’d gotten that.

She stood and walked back to the bedroom, crawling under the covers and snuggling up to Liam.

His eyes opened for a moment, and he wrapped a big arm around her to pull her close.

“Okay, love?” he asked, already drifting back to sleep.

No, Audrey wasn’t okay. Far from it, in fact.

Still, she wasn’t going to let her last days with Liam be ruined. She rolled over and let him spoon her, comfort her, even as a solitary tear rolled down her cheek.

No need to let Liam see her cry, no matter how hard this became in the coming days.