Pippa's Fantasy by Donna Gallagher Read Free Book Online

really did want this job, and just hoped Rook would get over her little charade. After all, she had survived his rejection before.

Chapter Eight
     
     
     
    Rook was still shaking when he got home. He threw his keys at the wall as he entered his apartment, in a futile attempt to dissipate some of the anger that was overwhelming him. Even though it was still early afternoon, Rook grabbed a beer from the fridge, cracked the top, and took a long pull of the bitter-tasting amber liquid. He didn’t usually drink during the week, and never when the sun was still up.
    “But desperate times call for desperate measures. Cheers to you, Rook!” he said to himself as he tipped the bottle up again, draining the remaining fluid. He grabbed another bottle, opening it and flicking the lid at the closed waste bin before heading over to flop down on a black leather chair, still trying to work it all out in his head.
    “Is this some sort of ploy to get back at me for knocking her back five years ago?” he wondered aloud. “That’s why she seemed so familiar, that electric feeling… Yep, it was always her.” Rook remembered how hard it had been to push those hands away from his body all those years ago.
    “What choice did I have?” he groaned. He had been told by both Coach Rodgers and his then assistant, Brodie James, that Pipsqueak was totally off limits to him. They had threatened him, saying his contract would be ripped up if he took advantage of her attraction to him, calling it just a crush! A young girl’s fantasy!
    No one had ever asked him what his feelings were towards the attractive, fun-loving girl.
    “No, that’s right. Bloody footy player not good enough for the coach’s daughter,” Rook grumbled, his anger not diminishing any as he recalled the night she had attempted to seduce him.
    Pipsqueak—he’d never liked that nickname. It belittled her. Rook had never understood how others had not seen that she’d hated the title. She had been Phillipa to him, at least in his mind, and he had thought of her often, but she had been far too young for him. She had probably been just shy of eighteen the night she had followed him outside.
    Rook had been at a party for the team thrown by the coach, her father. He had spent the night watching Phillipa, watching the dutiful daughter as she’d helped her mother play host to the rowdy group of burly men. She had carried trays of food back and forth and refilled drink glasses, all the while laughing and smiling at Rook’s fellow teammates. He had been screaming inside, not wanting her to look that way at anyone else but him. Annoyed that she had intentionally not come near him at all.
    Rook had wondered if maybe she had lost interest in him, her ‘crush’, as Brodie had called it, just a childish memory for her. She was, in Rook’s eyes, certainly not a child anymore. He had gone outside into the backyard to get some fresh air, to get away from her smiling face—smiling at everyone but him.
    He hadn’t heard her follow him, had been surprised when she’d appeared almost out of thin air. The memory of her, so nervous, yet bold in her attempt at seducing him, was one Rook could not forget, right alongside the guilt and regret he still felt for the way he had treated her that night. She had removed her top and stood bare-breasted in front of him. It had been the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. When her hands had connected with his skin, the jolts of desire had seemed to burn a path over his body and straight to his heart. He’d truly liked the girl, had for a long time, and it wasn’t the threats to his career that had made Rook walk away. No—it was that he’d known that he was unworthy of her.
    She’d deserved more.
    Rook had tried to avoid being alone in her company, more to protect her from him really—not that he had always achieved that goal. He remembered one night in particular, the night of Trevor Hughes’ fundraiser. He had sat with her long into the