Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 25973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Leaving the kitchen, I headed their way and drawled, “There you two go again, talking about me as though I’m not standing right here.”
My attempt at bringing some humor to the situation fell flat, and both men stopped to stare at me. Prentice was the first to move, rushing toward me to envelop me in a hug. “I’m so damn sorry, baby. I have no idea who leaked those photos of us, but you can be damn sure I’m going to find out and make them pay for hurting you.”
“If anyone is going to pay for this mess, it’s you.” Nixon grabbed the back of Prentice’s shirt and tried to pull him away from me. “You only made the situation worse since you need to stay away from Naomi.”
Prentice glared at him over his shoulder. “No way in hell is that ever gonna happen.”
“It sure as fuck is,” Nixon disagreed, wrapping his fingers around my wrist to yank me away from Prentice when he didn’t budge.
“Be careful. You’ll hurt her,” Prentice warned.
Nixon lifted his hand to jab a finger toward him. “You’re one to talk about hurting her. This fake engagement thing will never work.”
Hearing my brother give voice to my biggest fear felt like a punch to the gut. Pressing my hand to my stomach, I took a step back.
“Fake engagement?” Prentice echoed, his brows drawing together as he turned to look at Nixon.
My brother’s face was red, a sure sign that he was barely holding on to his temper. I needed to stop their argument before it turned into an actual fight. Moving around Prentice, I put my hand on Nixon’s arm. “It’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can handle a fake relationship if that’ll help the media attention die down so you guys can focus on what’s important.”
“Why the hell do you two keep calling this a pretend engagement?” Prentice asked as he grabbed my arm to turn me to face him.
I didn’t understand why he looked so confused. He hadn’t proposed to me—I’d never forget something like that—and my brother had referred to it that way. “Um, because that’s what it is? Right? You guys just came from the stadium, so I figured you already talked about the engagement being fake.”
“I haven’t said jack shit to your brother. I was in too much of a rush to get back here to you.”
I looked at Nixon for confirmation, and he nodded. “I tried to talk to him after the press conference ended, but he just ignored me and drove away.”
“Oh.” My lips formed a perfect circle as I struggled to wrap my head around the most obvious reason why Prentice seemed irritated by us saying that I was his fake fiancée. “Okay, I get that I might’ve wrongly jumped to the conclusion that Nixon called this engagement pretend because you told him it was.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” Prentice corrected, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
“But can you really blame me?” I lifted my hand and wiggled my fingers in the air. “It’s not as though you proposed to me, so the engagement is definitely pretend.”
“Which is why Naomi is coming home with me, and you’re going to stay away from her from now on. You never should’ve started something up with my sister unless you were serious about her,” Nixon accused.
“No fucking way is this fake, and she’s not going anywhere with anyone but me,” Prentice growled, wrapping his hands around my hips to fling me over his shoulder and stomp toward the master suite.
My brother followed us. “I can’t believe that you’re the one out of the entire team that I thought my sister would be safe with. Boy, you had me fooled.”
“If you can’t shut the fuck up, get out of my damn house,” Prentice barked as he gently sat me on the edge of the mattress. Dropping to a knee in front of me, he twisted around to yank open the top drawer of the nightstand. When he pulled out a small, robin’s-egg blue box, Nixon finally stopped yelling.
My eyes filled with tears of joy as Prentice turned back toward me and flipped the top of the jewelry box open with his thumb. “I might’ve jumped the gun when I called you my fiancée to the press, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
I pressed trembling fingers against my lips. “You really want to marry me?”
“More than anything in the world.” He pulled the ring from the box and held it out to me. “I knew you were meant to be mine the day we met, and I bought this a few days ago. I would’ve done it sooner, but between practices, games, and wooing you, I barely had enough free time to sleep.”
“Fuck my life,” Nixon groaned, shoving his hand in his hair as he paced back and forth.