CHAPTER 1 Liam Bradley #2
“Asking for continuances, which delays hearings by weeks or months. He contests every request I make. And when they’re at his house, my boys spend all their time with a nanny because he’s always working.” She puts air quotes around working.
“Working?”
“That’s always what he told me he was doing when he was out late, but the viral video that still haunts my life showed how he was actually entertaining female clients at basketball games and who knows what else.”
“While you were home with the kids?” I clarify.
She nods. “I love my kids with my whole heart. But when I had them, I was under the impression we’d parent them together.”
“Not the case?”
She picks up her glass of wine and swirls it around.
“No. He expected me to do everything during our marriage, so it shouldn’t surprise me.
The kids had a day off? It meant I took the day off, too.
One of them was home sick? That meant I didn’t go into work.
Like what he did was more important than what I did because he made more money.
But then I find out what he was actually doing all that time, and I just…
ugh!” Her cheeks flush, and she slams back the rest of her glass of wine.
“Jesus, Pen. I had no idea it was so bad.”
She shakes her head and sets her glass down. “How would you?”
She’s right. We’re not close. I know her through my sister, but suddenly, I feel like I want to do something.
“What can I do to help?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder and shakes her head. “Nothing.” She blows out a breath. “Enough about all that. What are you thinking about San Diego?”
I shake my head. “No, Pen. Not enough about all that. Where are you living?”
“The same house we shared. I can’t afford to buy him out, and he isn’t bending.”
“I can buy him out,” I blurt, and she laughs.
“You’re just like your sister. She said the same thing.
Truthfully, I hate living with him. We built our life there.
Our family. And he burned it all to the ground.
He can have it. But I don’t have anywhere to go.
I can’t afford to buy in the area, and it’s almost the end of the school year, so I’m sort of sticking it out for now. ”
“Is he living there, too?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah. It’s been…awful, honestly. Especially since my lawyer has advised me not to talk to him. I stay at my mom’s house every other weekend when he has the kids.”
“Where are you located?”
“Lincoln Park. About a mile and a half from here.”
I have no idea why the next words blurt out of my mouth, but I’ve always been the kind of guy who wants to help out where I can. I never know how to say no. It’s why I’m the one always dealing with my dad. Why I’m the one who was running on fumes from Pittsburgh to Chicago when my mom was sick.
And this seems to be a place I can help. “Move in with me.”
She gasps. “What? No, Liam. I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” I counter.
“I have two kids, for one thing.”
“So? I have a four-bedroom place. We could get you out of that house.” I don’t mention that two of my three extra bedrooms are currently not set up as bedrooms. I have one guest room that’s storage for all the shit I took home from Pittsburgh, and my sister Ivy is supposed to be moving into it when she graduates next week.
Another is a room with some training equipment in it, and the other is an office. But all that’s fixable enough.
She laughs. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with kids?”
“I grew up with six siblings. I have some idea.”
“Sure, but, like…it’s different when it’s your siblings. They’re my babies, but they’re also messy and loud and basically totally out of control. They know their dad and I are having problems, and they’re scared about what that means for them.”
“You know what’s best for your kids. But eventually you’ll move out, right? They’ll adapt. They’ll adjust. I have to imagine it’s better than living in a house with all that tension.”
She sighs. “It’s sweet of you, Liam, really. I absolutely couldn’t impose, though. Everleigh offered up her place here in the city, too, but it’s so far from the kids’ school. With traffic, it would be an hour each way plus the commute to my office.”
“Which is why my place just works. Come on, Pen. Let me help you out. I’ll be traveling anyway. I’ve got this San Diego visit, and maybe more lined up after that. It’s honestly not imposing.”
She gives me a look like I’m nuts. Maybe I am. But this is Everleigh’s best friend, and she’s in a bind. I have space. Why not let her and her kids hang here temporarily—until her divorce is final and she can figure out her next move?
Izzy brings over Penny’s new glass of wine and our sliders, breaking up the moment.
I don’t get a chance to mention how lonely it’s been since my season ended.
I don’t get a chance to tell her that maybe I want this a little for me, too.
To have someone to talk to. To have some noise in my place.
I went from the total chaos of my dad being indicted and my mother dying mid-season to…
silence. My father is awaiting trial, laying low at Madden’s place in the city.
My mother is gone. My siblings all scattered back to their lives.
I was let go from my team.
It’s awfully lonely on this side of things, and maybe this is the kind of change I need in my life, too.
* * *
Start the brADLEY LEGACY at the beginning with MAD RIVALS!
A steamy Pro Football, Business Rivals, Enemies to Lovers Romance from Top Ten Bestselling author Lisa Suzanne.
Pro football legend Madden Bradley was never supposed to be anything but my enemy. With one season left on his contract, he’s set to take over his family’s empire, and I’m his business rival. Forced into a partnership we both resent, the last place I should be is tangled in his sheets.
Now we’re stuck working together, and the more we clash, the more explosive the tension becomes…until it finally detonates.
He’s maddening, charming, and completely addictive. And when he murmurs exactly what he’s going to do to me, I forget that he’s supposed to be the enemy.
Our forbidden romance has to stay between us. Our families can’t find out. Our companies can’t know. The truth could destroy everything we’ve worked for.
But when we discover a buried secret together, Madden faces an impossible choice:
The legacy he was born to lead… or the woman he was never supposed to fall for.
* * *
All caught up with the Bradley family? Start my Vegas Aces world at the beginning with HOME GAME!
Getting fired and dumped in the same thirty seconds makes for a pretty bad Tuesday. But by Thursday, I’ll be in Vegas celebrating my brother’s wedding. Since I could use a fresh start, he offers me a place to stay with a buddy of his.
At the bachelorette party, a raunchy game results in a quest to find me a one-night stand. When a hunk with dark blue eyes and perfect bone structure hits me with a silly line at the bar, my mission is complete.
I vow to move on from our steamy night as I head to the rehearsal dinner, certain one of my brother’s hot pro football player groomsmen will be my Prince Charming.
Then the best man turns around. Dark blue eyes. Perfect bone structure. A body I won’t soon forget.
And apparently my new roommate.