Sealing the Deal

Chapter 1

ONE

GRAYSON

The woman behind the bar is a one-person serving machine. She’s simultaneously sliding glasses across polished wood, cracking bottle caps one-handed, shouting orders toward the kitchen without even turning her head, and doing it all with a smile, greeting every person by name.

“Two beers please, Flic.”

“Flic, grab us another bourbon.”

Her full name, according to the plaque by the bar, is Felicity Moore, owner of The Hay Barn sports bar.

She looks like she’s in her late twenties—tall and slender with an easy strength about her, the kind that commands the room.

Long, ice-blonde hair braided into two ropes down her back.

Tight black jeans covering impossibly long legs and a perfect ass I pretend not to notice.

Black cowboy boots, and the kind of don’t-mess-with-me glare that could stop New York traffic in rush hour.

She hasn’t stopped moving since I slipped through the doors an hour ago, which is understandable considering the place is rammed.

It’s wall-to-wall. Like every NFL lover in Denver has pushed through the doors of the Stormhawks fans bar tonight to celebrate the afternoon’s final game of the season and their win against the Las Vegas Desertraptors.

Every few minutes someone shouts “Playoffs!” over the country music blasting from the jukebox and the place erupts in a cheer.

From what I can see between the packed bodies, The Hay Barn is pure old-school charm and dark wood paneling.

Denver license plates, Stormhawks jerseys, and signed photos of players cover the walls.

The air holds a cocktail of victory, sweat, and fried food.

It’s loud, loyal, comfortably rough around the edges, and absolutely not the kind of place I usually haunt.

I prefer a bourbon in my apartment with my sister, Helena, or my best friend, Donny, but if I’m dragged out it’s usually to quiet, dimly lit places with fifty-year-old malts and a wine list the length of a small novel.

I lean against the far end of the bar, nursing a beer I’ve barely touched, wondering how the hell I ended up here—in a city I don’t know, doing a job I have no business doing, in a bar I don’t belong in.

The crowd surges, red Stormhawks jerseys packed shoulder to shoulder.

Someone shouts for beers. Someone else waves a twenty-dollar bill over their head.

I watch Flic exhale through her nose. And that’s what does it.

Because maybe her vibe is one-woman-holding-everything-together more than damsel in distress, but I can’t stand by and watch for another second when she clearly needs help.

I abandon my beer, squeeze through a gap, and cross to her side of the bar.

She doesn’t even look up from where she’s pouring beers. “Hey! Get back.”

“You need help,” I reply.

“No, I don’t.” She grabs two bottles from the fridge with one hand, pouring a bourbon with the other.

“Are you sure about that?”

Her gaze lifts, looking first at the crowd and out to the bar and then at me. Up close, the don’t-mess-with-me glare is even more effective. “I don’t let strangers behind my bar.”

“Fair,” I say easily. “But there’s a lot of thirsty customers waiting for a drink right now.”

“Still no.”

I glance at the waiting wall of bodies. “You’re outnumbered.”

She snorts. “I’ve handled worse.”

I believe her. But the way her shoulders are set tells me she’s running on fumes. I gesture to myself. “I’m harmless.”

She gives me another once-over. I catch my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and barely hide my wince. White button-down, sleeves rolled, dark hair neatly styled, clean-shaven. I look like exactly what I am: a preppy impostor out of place in a fans bar on game day.

Her eyes narrow. “It’s still a no.”

She turns away from me to take a payment, and that’s enough of an opening.

I ignore the voice in my head questioning what the hell I think I’m doing and choose to focus on the fact that this woman needs help, whether she cares to admit it or not.

I take another step, planting myself fully behind the bar.

I’ve always been a jump first, think later type, which is how I landed in this bar in the first place.

“What are you—” she starts, then cuts herself off as a cheer explodes behind her. The crowd seems to grow before us. She grits her teeth and fires off three beers in quick succession.

Voices shout in my direction.

“A beer please!”

“Two over here!”

“Bourbon on the rocks!”

I grab a clean glass and eyeball the beer tap. How hard can it be?

The answer, it turns out, is very. The second I pull the tap, foam erupts over the rim, spilling down my hands, the counter, and probably onto my soul.

The guy waiting barks a laugh. “You lose a bet or something, Wall Street?”

I grimace. “Something like that.”

“Yo, Flic,” he calls out, “where’d you find this guy?”

“Apparently in hell,” she snaps back without missing a beat.

I try again. Slight tilt. Less pressure.

Still foam, but beer, too. Truth is, I’m thirty-four years old and have never worked a bar in my life.

My summers were spent in my father’s skyscraper office, pretending I didn’t see the dark looks thrown my way or hear the muttering about the Ashborne name.

Which, shockingly, feels like a walk in the park compared to my current predicament.

In an instant, Flic is by my side, taking over my woeful attempts to pour a beer, serving three customers at once, and still managing to shoot me a glare. “If you’re going to insist on helping, Rookie, then speed it up.”

“Trying to,” I reply, already fumbling with the bottle opener and knocking a staple gun on the floor in the process. I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but “rookie” has never been one of them.

But five minutes later, I wrangle the beer tap and slide a beer toward a waiting hand, ignoring how much it sloshes over the rim.

I’m suddenly grateful I didn’t tell Donny where I was going tonight.

He’s the only person I know in Denver, and one of only two people in the world who isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m being an idiot.

He’d be losing his mind laughing right now.

“Hey, Flic,” a woman calls over me. “Is it true what you put on the Red Zone about the new owner of the Stormhawks?”

I pause, frozen in place, and stare at the mention of the Stormhawks’ fans page. Flic rolls her eyes in response. “When am I ever wrong?”

“Unbelievable,” the woman replies.

Someone beside her pipes up. “An idiot New York billionaire who won’t even tell us his name. Can’t be good.”

Flic nods. “Tell me about it. And I have it on good authority he knows nothing about football.”

“Why has he bought a football team then?”

“That’s what worries me,” Flic replies, sliding past me, close enough that her braid brushes my arm and the scent of her perfume catches in my senses.

Something warm and spicy, like cinnamon, cutting through the tang of beer foam soaking my shirt.

“But if he thinks he can mess us around then he picked the wrong team and the wrong city.” She throws a glance at me as she grabs a bottle and pops the cap one-handed. “You’re in my way.”

“I’m helping,” I offer, deadpan.

She snorts. “Helping would mean you knew what you were doing.” Then she shoves a tray at my chest. “Collect glasses and empties. We’re running low. The glass washer is in the corner.”

I move away from the bar and spot a beam overhead littered with baseball caps and merch from other NFL teams, each one stapled in place like a warning. So that’s what the staple gun’s for. I guess Denver doesn’t do subtle.

I weave through the crowded bar, picking up glasses and empty bottles, trying not to replay every word about the “idiot New York billionaire,” while wondering how quickly I might find myself stapled to that trophy wall.

The messages Donny sent me earlier dart through my thoughts followed by the next and the next.

DONNY: The news leaked. It’s coming out tomorrow.

DONNY: This is going to be a PR nightmare.

DONNY: Call me back! We’re totally fucked!

An understatement, but not one I have time to think about as country music blares from speakers and the crowd starts to dance. By the time the celebration blurs into last call, I’ve managed to pour more than a few decent beers and worked out the trick to the register when the money tray sticks.

The music’s still loud, the fans are still rowdy, but the taps are closed, and for the first time since I walked into The Hay Barn, Flic stops moving. She leans back against the bar, closing her eyes for a second.

“Where was the rest of your staff tonight?” I ask as I slide clean glasses back onto shelves.

She opens one eye. “They got better offers.”

“You should hire more reliable staff.”

“It’s not their fault. My landlord’s a jerk who keeps raising rent on all the buildings on this street.

High rent means I can’t pay the best wages.

I’ve had to let my regular staff go, and the ones who still work with me have second jobs with a catering company that pays a hell of a lot better than me.

If they get offered a catering gig, they ditch my shift.

It’s annoying, but I can’t really blame them. ”

“That’s brutal,” I say, filing the details away for later.

“Welcome to small business ownership.” She opens the register and pushes a crumpled fifty toward me.

I start to shake my head, already stepping back, but Flic moves the bill closer. “You earned it. I insist.” There’s something in her tone that dares me to argue.

I hide my reluctance and murmur my thanks, reaching out to take the money. Our fingers brush and she looks up, meeting my gaze. She breaks the moment first, already turning away, like maybe the little flash of something I thought I felt was really nothing at all.

I tuck the bill into my pocket, knowing full well this moment is going to come back and bite me in the ass. “Guess this makes me officially employed.”

“Don’t get excited. You’re not on the payroll.”

I grin. “Is that your way of telling me I suck at bartending?”

She gives a quiet laugh. “Yes. But you’re a quick learner, and maybe I needed help. Even terrible help. Thank you.”

“And I was just about to offer to stay and clear up.”

She surveys the bar. “That’s a tomorrow-me problem. Or a later-today-me problem.” She cringes as she glances at her watch. “First, I gotta shove the rest of these party animals out the door.”

“Sullivan?” she yells over the top of a group of fans in glittery pink cowboy hats. “Kill the jukebox for me.”

I look across to where a tank of a man with dark hair is standing with his arm slung around a petite brown-haired woman. His face breaks into a wide grin as he gives a thumbs up. A minute later, the music stops and there’s a collective groan from the dance floor.

“Time to go sleep off your hangovers,” Flic yells, wiping a loose strand of blonde hair out of her face and smiling despite the bone-tired exhaustion she’s obviously feeling. “You too, Rookie,” she adds, nodding to the door.

I give a wave, starting to move away as the tank of a man steps up to Flic. She called him Sullivan, which makes him one of the three famous NFL Sullivan brothers, two of whom still play for the Stormhawks.

“Thanks, Jake,” Flic says.

“Anytime,” he replies as I clock the name. Jake Sullivan. The middle Sullivan brother and current Stormhawks tight end—the best they’ve ever had, according to Donny. “Still on for tomorrow? Pick you up at ten?”

“Great. I’ll be here. I should be done cleaning by then,” she replies, eyes scanning the bar once more.

I follow her gaze to the wreckage of empties and cowboy hats and drunk fans who would burn this city to the ground for their team.

Then I throw a final glance back at Flic before heading out into the ice-cold January night.

This isn’t going to be easy. But if I have a chance in hell of getting the Stormhawks on my side, I’m exactly where I need to be.

Flic doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the key.

She’ll almost definitely hate my guts when she finds out who I am.

But I’ll deal with that later.