It had taken Melissa only three days to uncover a part of Dominic that he'd kept hidden nearly his whole life, to realize that his childhood had been all about responsibility. Without his telling her anything about his shithead stepfather, and the crushing guilt he'd lived with for two decades, somehow Melissa had tapped directly into Dominic's deep, dark core.

He'd always thought that passion was a weakness and had never allowed himself to feel this way about anyone else. But with Melissa, he'd had no choice.

He loved her. Passionately.

Somehow he needed to make up for the callous way he'd treated her. He needed to tell her he loved her again—the right way, without jealousy and possession clouding every word. He was going to admit all his sins.

And then, for once he'd sit the fuck back and listen to what she wanted, rather than what he thought was best for both of them.

He sat upon the massage table and flipped open his cell phone, then made the Hail Mary phone call that was his last chance to win Melissa back.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Monday morning, Melissa walked into the conference room and locked the door. She was still recovering from the barbecue at her parents' house on Sunday. All afternoon, they'd pressed single men on her. Boring, balding, conceited men of all shapes and sizes brought her glasses of wine and told her how pretty she was. But mostly they admired her father's top-of-the-line outdoor grill and kitchen, knowing that if they married her, one day it would all be theirs. She couldn't wait to leave.

The telephone in the center of the conference table stared at her, daring her to call JP and tell him he was nowhere near ready to play for a new team. Because after seeing him play on Saturday, she'd known with utter certainty that she couldn't shop him yet—if ever.

JP was a train wreck: fast when he should have been taking his time, catching the football either a moment too early or a millisecond too late. He had a great physique, but it didn't take much to get him panting.

Sure, she could run him until he dropped, make him start the day with weights and end it doing push-ups and sit-ups until he cried out for mercy. But it was more than conditioning that JP lacked. And frankly, Melissa wasn't at all sure that he had that special something.

The special something that Dominic had in spades.

She shouldn't think about him—it was pointless. She'd always love him beyond words, but she couldn't be with a man who wanted to control her.

Forcing herself to focus, Melissa picked up the phone and dialed JP's house. He wasn't home and didn't answer his cell phone either.

Great. Instead of working his ass off to become the best damn wide receiver in the country, he was probably out spending all the money he didn't have in expectation of a multimillion-dollar deal.

If JP hadn't been her only real client, she'd have fired him so fast his head would have spun.

The rest of the day, she made calls and sent emails to all the wide receivers the agency had ever worked with. She asked them what they thought set a great wide receiver apart from a good one, and the information they gave her was golden.

JP needed to run precise routes, have breakaway speed, and make catches even when he was double teamed. By the end of the day, Melissa had a plan for success. Now all she needed to do was find JP. And shove her plan down his pretty throat.

She had less than one week to transform JP from a crap client to solid gold. Four and a half short days to work a miracle. If she pulled this off, her father would have to kiss her feet.

Although suddenly her father's opinion didn't matter nearly as much as it used to.

The phone rang, and when she picked up, Angie got straight to the point: "Your father needs to see you. Now."

Hadn't she told her father to leave her the hell alone for the next week?

"Fine," she said, ready to give her father a piece of her mind.

Her father pushed back in his seat when she walked in. "I've got some strange news. Bad news."

Her heart thumped. "Mom?"

"No. Your mother is fine. It's about Dominic."

She paused, her heart in her throat, trying to brace herself for her father's revelations. "What? What is it?"

"I just got a call from my friend at Sports Illustrated. One of their writers was doing a piece on the greatest heroes in football, and Dominic's name was on the list." Her father rubbed his hand over his face. "Evidently the writer unearthed some dirt on Dominic. Something from his past."

Dominic had been hiding something from her? From all of them? Her heart ached for him, even as she worked to bury her hurt at not being confided in.

"Did your friend say what it was?"

"No. And given that Dominic's on the verge of retirement, this is the time for him to be thinking about autobiographies, speaking tours, and motivational visits to high-school auditoriums. We all stand to lose big here, but Dominic most of all. You need to find out what the hell he's been hiding, and fast. Then fix it even faster."

Sweat dripped into Dominic's eyes and he pushed it away with the back of his hand. For the past forty-eight hours at seven thousand feet in Lake Tahoe, where the air was a hell of a lot thinner than it was at sea level in San Francisco, he'd pushed his body to the limit.

But he'd pushed JP harder.

JP was squatting on the grass, bent over his knees, dry-heaving. He'd thrown up everything in his system by noon. By late afternoon he was sniveling.

Though to be fair, JP hadn't cried uncle yet. He couldn't—not if he wanted to keep his pride intact.

Dominic grinned. Training JP had been a hell of a lot more fun than he'd expected. He was getting great pleasure from watching JP suffer.

Dominic stood over him, blocking the sunlight. "Let's hit the weight room."

JP groaned. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"No can do, punk. Not until you stop sucking."

"Fuck you."

"If you can still talk, I must not be working you hard enough."

JP pulled himself up with the help of a nearby tree trunk. "One day I'll pay you back for this."

"I have no doubt you will. I'll give you a head start to the weight room."

JP glared at him. "Don't do me any favors."

Dominic shrugged, intent on pushing JP until he showed some goddamn backbone. "Three, two, one."

They shot off down the dirt road toward Dominic's Lake Tahoe house at breakneck speed. For the first time, Dominic had to push himself, rather than hold back so that JP didn't quit out of embarrassment.

Five minutes later, JP's hand made contact with the redwood deck a length ahead of Dominic. Despite himself, Dominic was impressed.

When JP wanted to, he could kick it into overdrive. To be that fast after two exhausting days when Dominic had kept him running from five in the morning until midnight—that was impressive.

JP collapsed in the dirt, gasping, "Thanks."

Dominic leaned against the redwood rail. "Tell it to the bench press," he said, both of them knowing it was code for "you're welcome."

Dominic hadn't told JP why he'd decided to work with him, but he was pretty sure the guy knew he was doing it for Melissa. She deserved great clients. And since he figured his time in the pros was coming to an end, he could pass on some of what he'd learned over the past fifteen years to a young guy like JP.

No matter how hard they had to work, Dominic refused to let JP fail. Not when it meant that Melissa failed, too.

Chapter Twenty-Five