Only Work, No Play Read online Cora Reilly (Tough Games #1)

Categories Genre: Romance, Sports Tags Authors: Series: Tough Games Series by Cora Reilly
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Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
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He was.

Xavier stepped out of the bedroom, in his white Calvin Kleins, looking like a wet dream come true. “Listen—“

She interrupted him. “What’s my name?”

He grimaced.

He rubbed his head, eyes finding me. I had no clue who she was. She wasn’t someone I knew from the tabloids, so he couldn’t hope for my help in this case. I smiled at him over the rim of my cup as I took a leisurely sip of my coffee.

One corner of his mouth tipped up. He didn’t even care that he didn’t remember the woman’s name.

“You don’t remember, right?” she hissed. “I can deal with that, but calling me by a different woman’s name? Really? You are a dickhead.” The woman stormed down the remaining steps. Xavier followed without hurry. I lifted the lever of the espresso unit and the dark liquid poured into Xavier’s cup. I added one cube of sugar how he liked it. It was pretty much the only sugar he allowed in his meal plan.

The woman’s eyes landed on me, recognition flashing in her eyes. It was difficult to stay in the background as Xavier’s assistant. Her gaze darted from Xavier to me. “Let me guess, you are Evie?”

I frowned. “Yes. I’m Xavier’s assistant.”

She shook her head, then she left without another word.

“What was that?” I asked, handing Xavier the cup.

He took it. “The usual,” he said, then added quickly, “What’s on today?”

I paused. Xavier never asked about his appointments on his own accord. He needed ass-kicking and reminding twenty-four-seven. “Training in thirty-five minutes so you need to get your ass moving, and something you marked down as W.S. but I don’t know what it is. You never told me.”

Xavier downed his coffee and looked almost uncomfortable when he said, “It’s short for women’s shelter.”

“Oh,” I murmured. I hadn’t expected that. “What do you want there?”

“They asked me to pay them a visit.”

“Okay. Who of the press will be there?” I asked, taking out my phone to jot down the names and gather information on them. I needed to make sure Xavier didn’t say something politically incorrect. I was actually surprised he’d come up with the idea to improve his image by visiting such a facility. It wasn’t his usual style.

“No press,” Xavier muttered. He put down the cup without another word and headed back upstairs to get ready, I supposed. He emerged ten minutes later in his training attire. His expression was closed off, so I didn’t bug him about the women’s shelter despite my curiosity. Maybe he was still pissed because of the incident with his conquest, though usually that never got to him.

Once we were in Xavier’s car, I asked, “Will you go alone to the shelter?”

Xavier shook his head slowly as he steered the car onto the street. “I want you to come with me.”

“Okay,” I said. Somehow this was a big deal for him.

We made it to training with five minutes to spare. Coach Brennan came toward me and gave me a high five like he’d done every day for the last couple of weeks. “Seven weeks on time. That’s a new record. You deserve a prize, young lady.”

“She’s allowed to see my pretty face every day. That’s a prize if there ever was one,” Xavier drawled as he threw the rugby ball from one hand to the other.

I rolled my eyes at him, then smiled at the coach. “I deserve accolades from the queen, if you ask me.”

Brennan laughed. “I love her.”

Xavier regarded me with slightly narrowed eyes, still playing with the ball. Then Connor bumped into him, and the two of them began shoving each other in jest.

Xavier was oddly quiet on our way to the women’s shelter in the afternoon. These strange silences had become more frequent, and not just since the kiss.

“Why isn’t the press invited to this?” I asked. “If you’d let me know in advance, I could have arranged something. You could really use that kind of positive publicity Xavier.”

“It’s nobody’s business what I do in my spare time.”

I huffed. “Xavier, you flout pretty much every aspect of your life for everyone to see. People know about your women, your party escapades, your morning, training and evening routines.”

He parked the car in a narrow side street in Yennora, a suburb of Sydney where I’d never been, apparently one of the poorest neighborhoods in the region. Many of the houses were run down, and Xavier’s car drew unnecessary attention toward us. “That’s business.”

I tilted my head. His family had never been in the press. He hadn’t even mentioned them in interviews except for very general references. “How are your sexcapades business?”

Xavier grinned cockily. “They keep me on everyone’s lips.”

The way he said it held more than a little innuendo.

Of course he couldn’t leave it at that. “And in everyone’s mouth.”



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