Her Lucky Volley (Love on the Sand #1)

Chapter One

B y the time the quarterback’s mistress posted the hotel-room selfie, Hailey Greenwood had already been awake for nineteen hours.

Hailey muted herself, closed her eyes, and took one slow breath.

One.

Just one.

That was all she allowed herself before she unmuted and became the person everyone paid Gentry PR Firm an offensive amount of money to provide: calm, precise, strategic, and utterly unshakable.

“Here is what we are not going to do,” she said, her voice smooth enough to make lies sound like weather reports.

“We are not going to deny what can be proven. We are not going to attack the woman in the photo. We are not going to use the phrase private family matter until we know whether his wife is about to post something of her own. And Derek, for the love of every endorsement deal you have left, you are not going to touch your phone.”

On the other end of the call, Derek made a sound like a man whose soul had briefly left his body.

Hailey kept typing.

Statement draft one. Statement draft two. Holding line for media. Internal note for sponsors. Separate message for the wife’s publicist, whom Hailey had met twice and unfortunately respected.

The city outside her apartment window was still dark, the glass reflecting the cool glow of her laptop screen and the woman sitting in front of it.

Twenty-nine years old. Vice President of Public Relations at one of the most aggressive firms in New York.

Dirty-blond hair that had not seen a salon chair in too many months.

Big green eyes made sharper by exhaustion.

A face that could charm a boardroom when necessary and intimidate a roomful of athletes into silence when charm failed.

On paper, Hailey Greenwood was winning.

In practice, she could not remember the last time she had slept through the night.

Her phone buzzed again.

Amanda Long’s name flashed across the screen.

Hailey glanced at it and answered on speaker while still typing. “If you are calling to tell me the selfie has made it to ESPN, I already know.”

Amanda’s bright laugh burst through the room. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.”

“It is not morning. Morning requires sleep to have happened first.”

“Fair. Also, it has made ESPN.”

Hailey swore under her breath.

“And two morning shows are requesting comment.”

“Tell them we’ll have a statement within the hour.”

“I already did.”

That made Hailey pause. Amanda Long might have been the most extroverted person Hailey had ever met—blonde, blue-eyed, impossibly tall, friendly to the point of being dangerous at networking events—but she was also good.

Very good. The party-girl persona had fooled plenty of clients into underestimating her.

Hailey knew better.

“Thank you,” Hailey said.

“You’re welcome. Also, I’m coming over with coffee.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Amanda, I don’t have time.”

“You haven’t had time since October.”

Hailey’s fingers stopped over the keyboard.

Since October.

That was when the first scandal had landed.

Then another. Then a championship assault allegation that required three legal teams, a retired judge, and a media strategy so delicate Hailey still got tension headaches thinking about it.

Then a married hockey player with a gambling problem.

Then a famous tennis star caught screaming at a ball kid. Then Derek and his hotel selfie.

Since the fall, Hailey had been cleaning up the messes of men who made millions of dollars to play games and somehow still could not manage to behave like adults when no one was watching.

“I’m fine,” Hailey said automatically.

Amanda was silent for half a beat. “You answered your dry cleaning ticket like it was a press inquiry yesterday.”

“That was one time.”

“You told the woman at the counter, and I quote, ‘We’re not prepared to comment on the blue silk blouse at this time.’”

Hailey pinched the bridge of her nose.

Amanda softened. “You need a break.”

“I need this client not to implode before his shoe campaign launches.”

“No. You need sunlight. And sleep. And food that isn’t eaten over your keyboard. And possibly a man who doesn’t have a crisis manager on speed dial.”

“Amanda.”

“What?”

“I am not going on vacation to find a man.”

“Excellent. Then go on vacation to find yourself. The man can be an optional accessory.”

Despite herself, Hailey laughed. It came out rusty, unfamiliar.

The sound faded too quickly.

On her screen, another email arrived. Urgent. Another subject line in all caps. Another person demanding that she spin disaster into something survivable.

Hailey stared at it, and for one terrifying second, she felt nothing.

Not pressure. Not adrenaline. Not even irritation.

Just a blank, airless exhaustion so complete it made the room seem very far away.

Amanda’s voice came gently through the phone. “Hails?”

Hailey swallowed.

“I’m here.”

“No,” Amanda said. “You’re not.”

Hailey looked around her apartment. It was beautiful in the curated way New York apartments became beautiful when the person living in them was never home long enough to make a mess.

Cream sofa. Glass coffee table. Framed black-and-white photography.

A vase of flowers Meagan Stirling had brought over two weeks ago, now wilted beyond saving.

Her best friend had stood in that same apartment with her brown hair swinging around her shoulders, big brown eyes narrowed with concern, and told Hailey she looked like a ghost with a briefcase.

Hailey had laughed it off then too.

She was getting very good at laughing things off.

Her laptop pinged again.

Hailey did not move.

Amanda said, “I’m serious. Take a week.”

“A week?”

“Seven days. Very traditional measurement of time.”

“I can’t disappear for a week.”

“You are Vice President, not the last functioning adult on Earth.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I can cover anything that catches fire. Meagan will threaten you if I ask her. And before you say you don’t know where to go, I already sent you three options.”

Hailey picked up her phone and saw the texts.

A spa in Sedona.

A cabin in the Catskills.

A beach bungalow in Santa Monica.

The third photo stopped her.

White exterior. Blue shutters. A small deck facing a strip of sand and endless Pacific blue. It was smaller than her apartment, probably older than it looked, and absolutely not the kind of place she usually stayed when work sent her to Los Angeles.

It looked quiet.

That was what got her.

Not luxurious. Not impressive. Quiet.

“Santa Monica?” she murmured.

“There she is,” Amanda said, satisfaction warming every syllable. “That’s the one.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You used your interested voice.”

“I do not have an interested voice.”

“You absolutely do. You also have a terrifying I’m-about-to-destroy-your-career voice, but this wasn’t that.”

Hailey clicked through the listing.

One bedroom. Ocean view. Steps from the beach. Available starting Saturday because of a last-minute cancellation.

It was summer in Santa Monica. The price should have been obscene, but the discount made it merely irresponsible.

Her chest tightened.

She imagined sleeping until her body woke on its own. Sitting on a beach with a book. Drinking something cold and fruity with no need to check her email every forty seconds. Letting the sun touch skin that had been deprived of it by fluorescent conference rooms and crisis meetings.

For one week, no scandals.

No athletes.

No public statements.

No men with seven-figure contracts and zero impulse control.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

Amanda heard the crack in it. “You can.”

The call went quiet.

Hailey stared at the beach bungalow, at the pale sand and blue water and little deck waiting beneath the California sun.

Something inside her, something overworked and underfed and ignored for too long, leaned toward it.

“Fine,” she said, so softly she barely heard herself.

Amanda gasped. “Was that a yes?”

“It was a fine.”

“A fine from you is basically a blood oath.”

“I still have to clear it with Paul.”

“Paul owes you his firstborn after the hockey thing.”

“I don’t want his firstborn. I want him to approve my vacation request.”

“He will.” Amanda’s voice brightened. “Oh my God, you’re going to Santa Monica.”

Hailey’s stomach dipped in a way that felt almost like fear.

Or excitement.

She could not tell the difference anymore.

“I’m going to Santa Monica,” she said.

For the first time in months, the sentence did not sound like a strategy.

It sounded like an escape.