Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Oh, he knew how to party, but he kept it strictly to the off-season—and even then indulged only rarely. Danny was too committed to his sporting career to risk damaging either his body or his reputation. He certainly wasn’t one to get stumbling drunk in public. Which was why, though she and Danny had an avoid-ignore-or-irritate relationship most of the time, she got up off her chair and headed toward him.
She heard her friends calling after her, turned to say, “I’m checking something out.”
“Someone more like it!” Alina giggled, raising her glass.
The others—including Catie’s best friend, Veni—cheered Catie on.
Most of the girls were a touch tipsy, but Veni would make sure they didn’t overdo it, not with the lot of them booked to take a charter flight home in a couple of hours. Veni didn’t drink and never had—she hated the taste of alcohol—but she was a demon on the dance floor and was only seated now because she abhorred this particular track.
Catie herself had only had a single fruity cocktail for the same reason that Danny controlled his intake: sports and alcohol didn’t mix long-term. Her reflexes were as quick as usual, but the place was packed, making it impossible to avoid all contact.
She didn’t often do the club scene because of exactly this—she hated being jostled by people. While she was a pro on her prostheses by now and most people couldn’t even tell she had two artificial legs if she wanted to play it that way, it was difficult in places like this. The last thing she wanted was for some drunk groper to shove her off-balance.
Speaking of which…
Instead of telling Mr. Gary Groper to get his hand off her, she just twisted his thumb until he went to his knees, whimpering like a baby. Leaving him there for his laughing buddies to collect, she finally reached Danny.
“Hey, hotshot!” she yelled over the beat of the music. “You need to cut off the alcohol! You know the media’s camped outside!”
Danny had, last week, signed a massive sponsorship deal with an international corporation. That particular corporation expected its brand ambassadors to be the perfect athletic role models, including when it came to alcohol and drugs.
It was open knowledge in sporting circles that the “moral turpitude” clause was in their actual contract—and that they weren’t shy about enforcing it.
Danny put one big hand on her hip, a bit too close to her butt.
Catie’s concern spiked. Danny did not hit on her. Ever.
Instead of pushing him off, she slid her arm around his back, over the top of his short-sleeved black shirt with stud detailing, and really looked at him for the first time.
Panic. A lost kind of panic.
That was what she saw in Danny’s brown eyes. His hand fisted on the back of her sparkly, strappy top even as she came to the realization that something was seriously wrong. He was almost twice her size, as sleekly muscled as a hunting cat, and he was clinging to her.
“Catie, I don’t…” His words faded off into confusion, but she’d caught a whiff of his breath when he’d come close to her face and there hadn’t been even a hint of alcohol in it. He smelled only of plain soap and that fresh aftershave he preferred, his hair still damp from the shower he must’ve taken after the game tonight.
Rage boiled through her. “Danny, did someone roofie you?”
The panic in his eyes was increasing by the second, but it would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know him. Though he was somehow managing to keep it together, she could tell he was losing physical coordination from the way he was leaning more heavily on her.
She could also tell that he was fighting it—Danny knew she couldn’t deal with his weight, that it’d take her to the floor. However much they annoyed each other, she’d never worried for her physical safety around him.
He was in serious trouble.
She had to get him out of here, and in a way that didn’t set the media on him. If she didn’t, they’d plaster his face all over the papers and magazines, make him the next “bad boy of sport.” It’d savage his aspirations. More, it’d hurt his family—and Danny loved his aiga. So did Catie.
But she wasn’t going to be able to pull this off on her own.
“Hold on,” she said against his ear, then looked around.
If only Jake had come out with them, but Danny’s brother had flown home straight after tonight’s midweek charity match, and Veni was out of sight beyond the dance floor. That was when she saw Viliame “Vili” Serevi.
While Vili now played for the Harriers’ archrival, the Southern Blizzard, he, Jake, and Danny remained tight—she knew it was at Danny’s place that Vili had crashed when he flew up to Auckland for a wedding. And, regional rivalries aside, all three played together on the national team. The Fijian-Kiwi winger also hated the gossip media and would never betray one of his friends to them.