Accidentally Marrying the Coach (Accidentally Marrying #10)

Chapter 1

JEFF

February

“That’s not going to work,” I mutter under my breath as the scouts at the other end of the table try to out shout each other about whose second baseman prospect is better.

The general manager catches my eye and surreptitiously shakes his head, as if to say, not now.

Yeah, no shit not now. They have nothing.

We have nothing. We won the World Series two years ago, then our star slugger retired—taking my daughter back to his ranch on the other side of the country, the fucker—and we lost our best pitcher to a year-ending surgery, so we traded away some of our best picks to shore up the bullpen.

It didn’t save our next season, and our second baseman just walked into free agency.

We’re all out of magic beans to replace him.

Our baseball club is a mess.

Spring training starts in two weeks.

Fans know we’re a mess, so ticket sales have been sluggish.

We need to shake things up. And not in a tepid, hesitant way. We need a lightning strike of good luck.

My assistant of eight years, a deeply efficient woman named Helen, appears at my elbow with a fresh iced coffee for me. At some point when she realized that I rarely drank it while it was hot, she suggested that I switch to coffee that was meant to be drank cold.

She was right.

She’s always right, which is annoying, because I don’t want to be the type of man who is made better by having staff.

None of the coaches I had while I was a player had a personal assistant.

It’s still not common to this day. But administrative stuff is not my forte at all.

Helen had already been with the team for a number of years, working in the front office, and she fell into working directly for me by being extraordinarily helpful one too many times.

She’s proven herself very useful over the years, even if she does like to lecture me about work-life balance.

Between her and my grown daughter, Sinclaire, it’s like a constant chorus of happily married women tut-tutting me for being chained to the job.

I drain half the cup of coffee, wincing at the headache that’s started to pinch behind my eyes. The caffeine might not be able to touch that.

Helen silently hands me a pain pill as a knock at the door interrupts the scouting meeting.

Everyone else scowls, but I’m happy for the interruption. Or so I think, until the softest-, sweetest-looking temptation walks in the door and I know I’m well and truly fucked.

“Is this a bad time?” A young woman I’ve never see before scans the room, undeterred by the hostility in the air.

She’s tall and stacked, with tits like small melons, hips that are begging to be squeezed, and a little belly that promises to jiggle if she’s bounced just right.

Her long, wavy brown hair flows all the way to her waist, and her full lips are painted in a glossy raspberry lipstick that I immediately, viscerally want to see staining my cock.

I crush the paper cup of coffee in my hand, sloshing icy wet drops everywhere.

She winks at me—winks!—and nods sagely. “Definitely a bad time.”

I cough to cover up … what? My where the fuck did you come from reaction? My complete discombobulation? All of it. Fucking hell. “Who are you?”

“Molly Henderson. Public relations. I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a lot to be done before spring training, and I’ve just started.”

“You’re the new PR director?”

She shrugs. “No?”

“Is that a question?”

She laughs. Laughs! First there was a wink, and now when I bark at her, she laughs!

“I mean, there are a lot of questions about this team’s readiness for the season,” she says lightly.

“But no, I’m not the director. That position remains painfully unfilled.

I am the new … person. Right now, literally, the sole person in the PR department, too junior to actually be named the director.

Which is fine. But I am the only person making decisions—with input, of course. ”

I’m speechless.

So is everyone else in the room.

She seems to like that. Her expression brightens.

“Anyway! Just wanted to introduce myself. I’m going to have some fun and innovative ideas over the next two weeks to get butts in the seats before you all head over to the spring training facility, so we’re going to get to know each other real well.

” She glances my way. “I have a great idea for you, Coach.”

And then she’s gone.

Cold, wet coffee droplets make themselves known on my clenched fist.

Helen eases the mangled cup from my hand and replaces it with a napkin.

“I like her,” my assistant says under her breath.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the scouts mutters. “What the hell was that?”

I stare after her. I try desperately not to think about how perfectly round her ass is or how good it would look painted in my seed.

Because that? Molly Henderson?

She’s almost guaranteed to shake things up.

And I sure as fuck feel like I’ve just been struck by lightning.

So that sweet, lush, tempting snack of a girl is all the way off-limits for the much older manager of the baseball team she now works for.

Not that my cock seems to give a fuck.

Mine, he seems to think as he throbs with a life of his own.

I toss my cup in the garbage and stalk out of the room before he gets to full strength.