Off Limts Rival

He’s the one athlete I swore I’d never fall for. Now I have to fake-date him in front of the entire world.

Carter Reinhardt is Atlanta Forge’s golden boy. On every billboard. The sunshine to my storm. So charming and dangerously delicious, he should carry a government health warning. Exactly the kind of athlete who wrecked me once before.

I should’ve run. Instead, both clubs force us into a fake cross-rivalry romance to own the World Cup summer — and I’m the one running the campaign. Every photo-op. Every headline. Every fake kiss.

Then Carter ruins everything by being real. He laughs at my jokes. The late-night calls stop being about the campaign. The fake kisses last longer and longer. And the golden boy nobody sees past? He falls first — hard, and loud enough that I’m the last to know.

I tell myself it’s a performance, but all I can think about is his lips on mine and touching that perfect body beneath the jersey.

Then the photos drop. Long-lens. Timestamped. The campaign was never selling a fake romance — someone built a real one to destroy on schedule.

And every piece of proof leads back to me.

If the man I love thinks I set him up, I lose him for good.