CHAPTER SIX
Dublin
“Come out with us tonight.”
I close my eyes and press my fingers lightly against my temple, phone tucked between my shoulder and ear as I sink deeper into my couch.
“Willa . . .” I emit my best friend’s name as a sigh.
“No. Don’t Willa me,” she says, part teasing, part exasperation. “You’ve been back in town for what? Forty-eight hours? And you’re already hiding in your apartment.”
“I always hide in my apartment,” I say.
“Well . . . true. But come out with me. We’ll sit. We’ll drink. Brian is out of town and I miss you. I mean, you don’t even have to talk. Just . . . be there.”
“I want to. I do. I miss you too and need some balance in my life, but—”
“But you have a hectic date with a hottie, and you’re going to have some wild, reckless sex to relax. Right? Say it. Because that’s the only way I’ll accept you blowing me off.”
I bark out a laugh. “Yes. That’s it. That is what I’m doing.” I glance down at my oversized T-shirt and boy shorts underwear. “One hundred percent accurate.”
“Just once I want you to be telling the truth when you say that.” She sighs. “You really do need a better work-life balance.”
“Not going to argue with you there,” I admit. “But I really can’t tonight. I have a new case I’m just sinking my teeth into and—”
“You always have to work.” The words are more resigned than accusatory. “That’s your default. Always has been.”
“You—” The words stall before I can say them. You’re not going to believe who my new client is.
I almost blurt it out though, because if there is one person who would understand the absurdity, the sheer coincidence of the situation I’m in, it would be Willa.
But I can’t.
Confidentiality in my job isn’t flexible. And while she’s my best friend and I’d trust her with my life, rules are rules and I can’t break them.
Not even for this.
Besides, I already know what she’d say. You mean the kiss to end all kisses guy? He’s your new client?
And yes, she knows Cole Valor is that guy—that’s no secret as she was the first person I told when I recognized him on the TV over four years ago—but she can’t know he’s my newest investigation.
“So? You’re still a no on going out?”
“Next time.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. I can picture her perfectly, standing in her kitchen, a hand on her hip and one eyebrow raised like she’s deciding whether to call me out or let it go.
“I figured, but I had to try.” Thankfully, I can hear a smile in her voice.
“I appreciate the effort. If it weren’t for you, I’d probably never go out.”
“And that’s the problem.” She laughs. “So much so that your mom called me to check on you.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course, she did.”
“Dub,” Willa says and I know a gentle scolding is coming. “You don’t have to run yourself into the ground every time you take a case.”
“I know.”
“Do you though?”
I don’t respond, because if I do, I’ll open the door I’m not in the mood to walk through tonight.
Willa and I have been having versions of this conversation since we were eighteen—freshmen at University Texas-Austin, thrown together as roommates by chance and kept together by everything that followed.
Late-night study sessions that turned into life conversations.
Cheap wine and bad hangovers. Big dreams and bigger failures.
The kind of blissfully easy friendship that doesn’t require maintenance. The kind you find once in a lifetime.
We both stayed in Austin after graduation. We lived together for a while before she found Brian, and I encouraged her to move in with him.
“I’ll come out the next time you ask,” I repeat, this time with a little more weight behind it. Guilt has a way of doing that.
She gives a noncommittal murmur that sounds less than convinced. “I’m holding you to that.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Good. Now go work or pretend to relax.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Yeah. Right.” She laughs. “Call me tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Night.”
“Night.”
The call ends and I let the quiet settle around me, snuggling into it like a warm blanket.
For a moment, I just sit there with my phone still in my hand and allow myself to feel slightly jealous of Willa and her well-balanced life.
The good job. The perfect boyfriend to cuddle up to every night.
The level of adulting I’m nowhere near yet.
Then again, would I even want that?
I purse my lips and honestly don’t know the answer.
Sometimes I do when I come home to an empty house and just want that feeling of being wanted and other times, I’m so damn glad I get to go home to an empty place and not have to deal with anyone’s shit.
The built-in sex that comes with a relationship would definitely be a perk, but at the same time, am I ready to have to be considerate of someone else’s wants and needs at all times?
“No clue,” I mutter and then glance over at my laptop and my current situation. Investigating a guy I tried to hook up with five years ago. Maybe I should take that as a life lesson to keep doing what I’m doing—focusing on my job.
l laugh, because this whole situation is ludicrous.
Cole Valor.
Fucking hell. Because of all the things I expected when he walked into that meeting, being annoyed he didn’t recognize me wasn’t one of them.
And yet it’s a small, persistent irritation I can’t quite shake.
I let my head fall back against the couch cushion and stare at the ceiling.
Am I that egotistical that I expected the star college quarterback and number-one draft pick, a man who no doubt always has women begging for his attention, to remember me of all people? The girl who led him on in her drunken bravado and then . . .
Yeah, well there’s a reason it was forgettable.
But clearly, I am that egotistical.
I exhale slowly.
It was one night. One moment. A version of me who doesn’t exist anymore. And Cole? He was exactly who I thought he was. Confident and charming. A man who doesn’t think twice about something like that.
It’s better this way. Right?
I bark out another laugh. Right. It definitely is. It’ll make this whole situation cleaner. Five years ago, I needed to be someone different because I wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable in my own shoes.
I am now though. I’ve proven myself in ways that actually matter. In my career. In my life.
It’s for the best that he doesn’t remember me.
I push myself upright, setting my phone aside as my laptop pings with incoming emails.
The beginning of a case is always the toughest. Too much information. Too many suppositions. A million floating theories that need to be whittled down to just one.
That’s all it takes to suck me into a case. Details are my thing and man, does this case have a lot of them.
Cole Valor. His name sits at the top of everything. Game stats. Practice reports. Limited medical evaluations due to HIPPA laws. Interviews. Financials. His background. And then there are the bets placed in intervals that shouldn’t mean anything, except they do.
The amount of data is overwhelming.
But one thing stands—the timing of the wagers lines up too neatly with dips in performance. It suggests awareness and hints at some kind of insider knowledge.
None of it is solid proof—not even close—but it’s enough to get flagged. Enough to have GIA send me in to start asking questions.
I reach for my legal pad beside me and tap my pen on it as I scan the list I’ve started building—names of coaches, trainers, teammates, staff. All connections that form a web around the athlete in question. A web that will eventually lead me to more clues or a conclusion.
So far though, the web around Cole doesn’t lead me to any particular conclusion. There’s no click, no quiet sense of alignment that tells me I’m on the right track. Rather there’s just a lot of superfluous noise with too many moving parts that don’t form a clear picture.
I pull my legs up beneath me and try to look at it from a different angle.
A rookie contract for fifty-seven million dollars over four years. Would he really be willing to risk that and his career? And if so, for what?
It’s not normally greed at this level. It’s something else. A favor. A debt. A mistake that spirals into a situation the athlete can’t control.
I’ve seen it before, more times than I care to count, and every time, the reason might be different, but the outcome never is.
Usually the data and my instincts talk to me. It’s early going, but as of now, all I hear is silence.
That tells me this case might take some time to solve. The bonus is I get to be at home while working it.
My gaze drifts to the bookshelves across the room.
Framed photos line it—my parents with their arms wrapped around each other in a way that makes a relationship look simple.
That’s yet to be my experience in the limited number of boyfriends I’ve had.
Another of my sister caught mid-laugh and carefree.
Next to them is a half-finished paint-by-number canvas, the edges still blank where I’d meant to come back to it when I had time.
I haven’t touched it in months.
I probably won’t.
It’ll sit there a while longer before getting shoved in a cupboard to eventually be thrown away like every other half-finished attempt at relaxing ends up.
Next time it’ll be different.
I huff out a quiet laugh because that’s what I said the time before that too.
My phone buzzes beside me. I ignore it.
It buzzes again.
And again.
I let out a groan and reach for it. Marcus. Of course.
MARCUS: Couldn’t get him to talk so you leaked to the public to add pressure?
The humor drains instantly.
DUBLIN: What are you talking about?
But I’m already moving, laptop open, fingers flying across the keys as I pull up sports sites.
MARCUS: It’s public knowledge. Check your email. Or anywhere really.
Oh hell.
Trial by social media is never a good thing.
Because once it’s out there, I can’t control the narrative anymore.