Sneak Peek
JORDAN
“You’re drooling, Jordan.”
So? I might not like the guy very much, but he’s fiiiiiine.
I hate how he looks at me. How, without a word, he makes me doubt myself. I’m his boss, but eighteen years his junior, and with one look, he gets me second-guessing every decision I make.
Is he doing it on purpose? No. I truly believe Silas Youngstown just inherently knows how to do these things. How to be like this.
I shouldn’t feel this way. I know the kind of woman I am.
I was raised to be a strong and independent professional.
Yes, I’m a nepo baby. As part of the esteemed Sanderson family, I’ve been around athletes and wealth my entire life.
My grandfather, Martin Sanderson, built our sports dynasty quickly.
His first love has always been baseball, but mine was always football.
I knew, even from an early age, that I was destined to work with the Colorado Coyotes NFL team.
“I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jordan,” my best friend and personal assistant, Kelsey, whispers to me. We’re quietly sitting at the back of the Playful Paws event, the charity that my star quarterback, Jameson Wahlberg, founded.
“Why not?” I ask nonchalantly. Jamie just gave a lovely speech directed toward his girlfriend, Audrey, and now we’ve begun the bachelor auction portion of the evening.
What no one knows is that the auction was my idea.
It’s not a breakthrough idea. It’s been done before.
But rich women — and some men — are all too willing to shell out tons of money for one-on-one time with their favorite athlete.
Fortunately for me, it’s working out better than I’d imagined, because I had a plan for the evening.
“You know why,” Kelsey hisses back at me. She’s the only person who knows my plans and my valid reasons for doing what I’m about to do. “Can’t you get some information before you go embarrass yourself? Worse, before you embarrass the whole Coyotes organization?”
I scoff. “You’re being a tad dramatic. This will not embarrass the whole organization.”
“But you admit it’ll embarrass you,” she replies pointedly.
I mean … it won’t be the first time I’ve been mortified, and it probably won’t be the last. Frankly, I’m one of the only female general managers in professional football.
Hell, I’m one of the only females in all of professional sports.
This is a man’s world. I’ve been lucky that not too many men want to piss off my family, so I know they go easier on me than they could.
But it’s still been a struggle finding my footing.
I knew from an early age that I wanted to be involved with the family business, and I began cultivating a path during high school.
I enrolled at the University of Miami in their sports management program in college, dual-majoring in business, to ensure I took every possible class I could that would benefit me in the long run.
After graduating, I interned with the Miami NFL team for one year, courtesy of my family’s connections.
I took night classes to receive my MBA. Only then did I head back to California, ready to join my family with one of our teams.
My grandfather owns two Southern California baseball teams, an NHL team in New Mexico, and the Coyotes in Denver.
I began working for the San Diego baseball team, shadowing my grandfather, but also followed the coach around.
I watched how management and coaches interacted with the players, how personalities could make or break a team, and participated in every discussion about contract extensions, salary caps, and free agents.
Sure, baseball is different, but the overall expectations of the GM are the same.
I could have stayed in Southern California.
Could have waited until a position opened up for me there, with the support of my entire family, ready to pull me back up if I failed.
But I wanted — no, I needed — to venture out on my own.
And frankly, I’ve always been in love with the sport of football.
On a vacation to Colorado when I was only five or six, I remember venturing out with my family to watch an early morning practice on a Friday in October.
I was mesmerized by every facet, the assault on my senses unlike anything I’d ever experienced on the baseball diamond.
The crisp air wafting against my skin, puffs of condensation leaking out of the player helmets, and the sounds as pads, helmets, and bodies crashed together.
The smell of dew on the grass, with the hint of winter in the air, against the beautiful Colorado blue sky.
The sound of a football whistling through the air as a perfect spiral was thrown.
My grandfather had looked down at me with a mixture of humor and understanding in his eyes.
I’d been bitten by the football bug. While my father was only interested in taking over for my grandfather as the patriarch for the entire Sanderson family, wanting solely to pad his own bank accounts instead of cultivating a thrilling sports experience for fans, I’ve always been so much more invested in the game.
While money is nice, and I don’t complain about my penthouse apartment or multiple vacation homes, I love this team.
They’re my family. I never have a day when I’m hesitant to go to work.
Well, I used to feel that way.
Courtesy of Coach Silas Youngstown, I now have days where I’d prefer to stay huddled up in my apartment, ignoring the world.
It’s not that he’s incredibly nasty to me or disregards me in any way. Rather, he’s borderline apathetic. He doesn’t care if he’s dealing with me or without me. He doesn’t go out of his way to prove me wrong; it just seems to happen naturally. He’s so smart it pisses me off.
By being himself, Silas makes me uncomfortable.
Like the impenetrable armor I confidently wear around everyone seems to crack and disappear in his presence.
He doesn’t do anything consciously. Nothing stands out where he’s clearly been trying to take me down a peg or two. It just happens organically.
I’ll question whether or not a trade is a good idea, and he’s able to whip out stat after stat, telling me his reasoning.
Stats aren’t good? He’ll drone on and on about the guy being a team player, excellent in the locker room, or great at appearances.
Basically, if Coach Youngstown doesn’t want to lose a player, nothing I say is going to change his mind.
On the off-chance that I decide to trade a player after Silas has pleaded his case, I can expect at least a week of nonverbal hostility from the coach whenever we’re near each other.
Which is great, seeing as how we’re both adults and I’m technically his boss.
There’s nothing quite like a fifty-year-old man throwing a temper tantrum.
But there are times when there seems to be a wavelength between us. An invisible tether, slowly pulling me into his orbit, with promises of dark and dirty things he could do to me. Silas has an energy about him that makes me want to submit … something I very rarely get an opportunity to do.
“Don’t do it,” Kelsey whispers again, then groans when I stand up from our table, as the bidding gets started for Silas.
I survey the crowd, watching as a variety of women bid against each other for the date with Silas.
Not surprisingly, the majority of the women bidding for him are close to his age.
I had to look through his employee file, because I thought he was younger than he is.
I swore I’d read reports listing him in his late forties, but Silas is almost fifty-three.
With hardly any lines on his tanned face, the most obvious sign of his age is his salt-and-pepper hair, which, over the last year, has become much more salt than pepper.
His eyes are unnervingly light blue, and when he studies me, I feel like he’s systematically breaking apart my entire subconscious.
Wearing a fitted black ensemble, Silas looks like sex on a stick.
As I watch the women virtually frothing at the mouth at a chance to score some alone time with him, I see him frown out of the corner of my eye.
He’s unimpressed. I’d heard through the grapevine that he was only up for auction because he lost a bet with the NHL coach, Bennett Anderson.
It’s clear he has no desire to be offered up on a platter to the highest bidder, and as his gaze scans the ballroom, he crosses his arms over his massive chest. The puppy being featured alongside Silas is massive, and the emcee for the night, explains the pup is a mastiff and Laborador mix named Winston Furchill.
Silas looks even more infuriated when the emcee describes him as someone who likes long walks on a beach, braiding a woman’s hair, and writing a sonnet or two.
“The fuck I do!” he yells, glaring at Jamie Wahlberg.
“Here goes nothing,” I murmur, mostly to myself, but Kelsey hears me.
“Jord, no. We can think of another way.”
I shake my head, beginning a slow but steady walk up to the front of the ballroom.
There isn’t another way. At least, I don’t think there is.
Every interaction I have with Silas where the topic has strayed even a hair off of football has had him running for the hills like his shoes were on fire. I have to get him alone.
When someone bids fifteen thousand dollars, I raise my hand, my stride not faltering. “One hundred thousand dollars.”
Silas’s gaze snaps to mine as his mouth drops open in shock. An audible gasp reverberates through the ballroom, but no one outbids me.
“Surprised to see me, Silas?” I ask nonchalantly, proud of myself for keeping my voice even-toned. Truth be told, my feet are shaking in my five-inch stilettos, but considering this man has over a foot of height on me, I knew I needed to slap on my best shoes.