Law #3: Don't Fall for the Athlete: Sweet Second Chance Romance (Laws of Love) by Agnes Canestri (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📕

Her jaw softens, and she exhales. “Ah, okay. Well, I’m going on a date with Bill on Sunday, as you know.”

The reminder of her dinner with the handsome doctor makes me wince. “Right, your colleague.”

Ellie crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Don’t you dare lecture me on the appropriateness of my decision, please. Bill and I don’t even work in the same unit.”

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t criticize him.” At least not out loud. 

“You’d better not.” Ellie’s voice gains a defensive edge. “Bill is a nice man and clever. We’ve elected him as the most popular physician in our establishment for three years in a row.” She clicks her tongue then adds, “Sorry for my snappy tone. I’m probably a bit defensive because Hope and Cora already shared their opinions with me regarding Bill.”

“Aren’t they happy you’re going to go out with him?” I hope Ellie can’t trace the eagerness in my voice.

I can’t hold anything against the doctor. And I can’t justify my badmouthing of him with the cramps I get when I think about him and Ellie sitting together at a candlelit table.

If I’m honest, Bill seemed like an excellent match—good looks (even if too many sparkling teeth for my taste), courteous manners (even if borderline cloying), and a stable, financially rewarding career with enough free time to care for a woman as special as Ellie.

But if Ellie’s roomies were against Bill, then…

Ellie shakes her head. “Cora approves fully. Hope…” She furrows her brows. “She’d probably like Bill more if he were more elusive…that’s her type.”

“But not yours. You want a man who puts you in first place,” I murmur.

She meets my gaze. “Yes, I do.”

I’m not sure what comes over me. It might be those charming freckles of hers, or maybe it’s the still-hot evening air that messes with my brain. All I know is that an unexpected confession bubbles up from my throat. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be that man.”

Her mouth opens. She sucks in a breath, then swallows. “Your apology is accepted.”

“And long overdue,” I add because now that I opened the gates to my remorse about the past, I can’t seem to stop, “I thought that performing well in the league was the most important thing in my life. I feared that having you far away and thinking of you constantly would lower my concentration and weaken my chances of succeeding at the game.”

Her eyes widen. “What are you saying?”

“I took the cowardly road and ended things on the phone because what we had meant too much. Not because it meant too little.”

Ellie shifts from one foot to the other and drops her gaze.

“Ellie…” I pronounce her name slowly, and her gaze snaps to my face.

As we stare at each other, it’s like those moments on the gridiron where everything slows down and gets quiet, and I know I’ve decided my next move.

Like on the field, I hand the baton to my cells, which hum with the certainty of how to proceed, instead of asking my conscious mind for help.

My upper body drifts forward.

Her lips open ever so slightly, and her breath catches.

I lift a hand and trace her jawline. The touch of her soft skin awakens so many memories, and also countless new sensations.

They whirl and throb in my arm.

Ellie doesn’t recoil, but her eyes widen. “What are you doing?”

Her words are but a soft whisper, and they compel me to tell her the truth. “I don’t know, Ellie. I seriously don’t know. Do you want me to stop?”

She bites her lip, but before she can answer, a cheerful exclaim sounds from behind.

“Ellie, Wyatt, what a surprise!”

Chapter 19

(Ellie)

Laia’s cheery voice jars me from the trance I’ve fallen into.

“What are you doing here?” I turn to watch my future sister-in-law’s approaching figure. I have no idea how Laia suddenly appeared on this dark boulevard, but her presence might’ve just saved me from a colossal mistake.

Wyatt takes a step back from me, so we almost look like two casual acquaintances who stopped for a chat.

And not like two people about to…

Would I have really kissed him if Laia hadn’t interrupted us?

The yearning gnawing in my throat is a sobering answer.

“I told Devon it was you, but he didn’t believe me.” Laia grins as she gets closer.

I force my lips to curl upward. “Where is he? Isn’t he with you?” My smirk is likely asymmetrical, but I hope it still camouflages my embarrassment.

Laia nods. “Yep. Dev’s just parking the car, but I jumped out because I wanted to check if I was right.” She throws me an inquiring glance, then her eyes, which now more than ever resemble a curious Siamese cat’s, move to Wyatt’s face. “So you…”

Before she can ask her question, Wyatt and I launch into blabbering at the same time.

“We just bumped into each other,” I mumble.

“We met by chance,” he mutters.

Laia snorts amusedly and holds up her hands. “Hey, relax. I’m not the police. You’re allowed to do whatever you want, with whomever you please. But if you want Devon to believe you just ran into each other, relax your jaws and shake your shoulders a bit. You look like two kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.” She tops her cheeky phrase with a foxy smile that tells me she’s making some wild conjectures about what Wyatt and I were doing.

My stomach quivers, and I can’t bear to glance at Wyatt. He doesn’t know that I’ve confessed to Laia and Cora about our past.

Wyatt immediately eases his posture and shifts his weight backward. “Speaking of Dev…weren’t you and my friend supposed to have dinner with your cousin?”

“Yeah,” I chime in. “You told me this afternoon that Eva and Nathan were flying in. Where are they?”

I throw a quick, slanted glance at Wyatt to show him how much I appreciate his promptness in redirecting the conversation. Wyatt responds with an imperceptible wink.

His conspiratorial gesture