Chapter 1

Natalie

Dominant in the field. A fiend with the spirals. Unstoppable.

The words glow on my laptop screen, stark against a high-resolution photo of Jaxon Wolfgang. I should be focusing on the next article, the one hyping him as the greatest comeback story in the league at the age of nineteen, but my gaze is locked on his face.

Specifically on those blue-grey eyes that still make my heart ache and my hands tremble.

“Natalie? You’ve read the articles?” Paul’s voice, thick with the effects of his smoking days catching up to him, filters over the phone.

My boss is a good man.

He started off as a paper boy in the seventies without a single cent to his name. He had built his own sports network, Network Sports Today, known as NSN. I respected the hell out of Paul Bradford.

When it comes to being obsessed with players, he’s a maniac.

“I’ve read them all, Paul. I’m on my fourth article this morning, believe it or not.”

I add a chuckle for good measure, but underneath it, memories of the past dig against my skin.

“I trust you, Natty. When you made that request to cover the Dallas Titans’ championship run, there was no one on the team I would have trusted with the job except you,” Paul goes on, and I nod, even though a smidgen of guilt flames in my chest.

I could have taken on any team and covered their story but I decided to choose the one team headed by the man who broke me five years ago.

“I know.”

“Good. Now we can get to the serious part. The Dallas Titans have been the talk of the town in the NFL, but you and I both know, everyone is interested in one man in particular. Jaxon Wolfgang. He’s known to be evasive, but you are gonna have to work hard to break through his shell and get us where we need to be."

The irony isn’t lost on me that I have to work hard to get the quarterback of the Dallas Titans to spare a minute of his time for me. Again

I can’t gloss over the word “intimate” either, because if anyone knew anything intimate about Jaxon Wolfgang, it’s me. But now? I’m not so sure I even knew him at all.

“I won’t let you down, Paul,” I say with determination.

“I know you won’t. Good luck, kiddo. Give NSN the win we need.”

After Paul hangs up, the brimming need to sneak a look at my laptop’s screen wraps around my neck like a noose, and I find myself looking at the picture again.

Jaxon Wolfgang is standing there in his Dallas Titans uniform. His jersey number is twelve, and the word TITANS is stretched across his massive chest.

At thirty-nine, he looks every inch the legendary NFL quarterback the media claims him to be. His dark hair is slicked back from his rugged features, and his intense blue-grey eyes are fixed on the camera with that same authoritative focus he uses to dominate the field.

“Mommy!”

I’m cut off from my thoughts by the tiny shrieking voice from across the patio calling me.

Glancing past the slider door to the little boy waving a painted rock at me, I can’t resist the smile that stretches across my face.

“Mommy, see.” Harry waves, holding his small rock against the glass to make sure I can see it clearly,

“This is Mommy, Aunt Freda, and this is me.”

Seeing the glee on his face, the smile he gives me, and the way he jumps up and down to make sure he has all my attention has my heart swelling and caving in at the same time.

This is the reason why I don’t view Jaxon Wolfgang as the shining star people like to worship him as.

“That’s beautiful, baby. Can you paint Mommy some more? And be careful.”

“Okay, Mommy!” Harry replies, running back to his little garden to paint more of the tiny rocks we keep placing on the kitchen counter.

My son is the reason I took this assignment in the first place.

Why?

Sports analysts may call Jaxon a natural-born leader, someone who commands absolute respect both on and off the field. They may call him the quarterback who holds team records for passing yards and the most touchdowns.

But they have no idea the same man destroyed me completely.

I close my eyes and let myself remember five years ago, when I was twenty-one and working my first major sports assignment as an intern. I'd been so eager to prove myself in a field dominated by men. So much so, in fact, that when a man like Jaxon showed me attention, I’d folded like a pretzel.

He’d called me the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.

He’d kissed me like no man ever had.

He’d cupped my chin in his hand– rough from years of hurling balls across the field– then with the other hand, his thumb had traced my freckles.

He had whispered “freckles” in that low, reverent voice that made me feel like something precious he wanted to shelter from the world.

Then, one weekend, he’d taken my virginity in a night full of passion and whispered compliments. I'd fallen hook, line, and sinker, only for him to ghost me a week later.

No goodbye. No explanation. He hadn’t returned my calls and texts.

I’d taken him cutting me off on the chin, only to discover I was pregnant three weeks later.

I was twenty-one and just an intern. Panic had made me try to reach out to Jaxon.

I called his team headquarters, showed up at the stadium, even tried reaching him through his management company— a fortress-like building with security that made the White House look like a casual office building.

The intimidating guards and multiple checkpoints made me feel like I was trying to breach some sort of classified operation, and each attempt was met with the same hostile responses.

"Ms. Anderson, Mr. Wolfgang has made it clear he has no interest in any contact with you," his head of security had told me during my final humiliating attempt. "If you continue this stalking behavior, we'll have no choice but to involve our legal team. A cease-and-desist order will be filed, and any further harassment will result in serious legal consequences."

The humiliation had crushed me.

There I was, carrying his child, being treated like some obsessed fan who couldn't take a hint.

The lawyers' letters arrived a week later, and they made me feel like some sort of criminal for trying to tell a man he was going to be a father.

I had never tried to reach out again.