45.

Samantha's POV

The third candidate was a man in his fifties, Coach Harding. Polished, professional, the kind of presence that instantly filled the room.

He had that rigid bearing of someone who’d been in the sport longer than I’d been alive, his silver hair clipped short, tie knotted perfectly at his throat.

I stared at him longer. Yeah, he had been in the game before I even came into existence. The kind of figure people whispered about at competitions, his name carrying weight like a brand.

If I was being sincere, I’d heard his name somewhere, magazines, interviews, maybe even in passing when Graham had rattled off names of “the greats.” Coach Harding.

He was good. That much was undeniable. The fact that he’d made it into Isaac’s carefully carved-out list of candidates for coach was proof enough he was worth something. Isaac didn’t waste time with mediocrity.

Still, part of me didn’t trust the list at all. Because if this was Isaac’s idea of “the best,” then what the hell were the