Tackling Her Heart (2 page)

“
I have every right to be
in this locker room. Sports reporting isn’t only a man’s world
anymore,” Sofia spat.

That wasn’t what Marc had implied.
He’d meant she was in over her head and she’d gotten into the
locker room before the press was allowed in, but if she wanted to
add Neanderthal to his list, whatever. Marc had no desire to
impress Sofia.

Tell that to my
dick.

It kept getting harder the longer he
watched her, his observation taking in her supple curves. Sofia was
only a few inches shorter than Marc’s six foot five in those heels
of hers. Her long, graceful legs were on show under her short
skirt. His gaze traveled from her graceful ankles up to the edge of
that skirt. When he looked up, he saw her glaring at him.
Apparently she’d noticed his attention to her form. Or maybe that
was for him being the chauvinist pig she assumed he was.

The wounded look he glimpsed in her
gaze a moment later made the smile wither from his face. He’d
tormented her enough. “Just get out,” Marc said, his voice
low.

The doors burst open, and a flock of
media hounds descended on Marc. At least three dozen reporters,
cameramen, and photographers jockeyed for attention as Marc did his
best to pull a towel over his midsection.

“
Marc! Marc! What happened
out there?”

“
Marc! Does this have
something to do with your sister?”

“
Marc! What was Harbaugh’s
reaction?”

Marc closed his eyes from a moment and
gripped the towel at his waist, before reopening them and staring
them down. “No comment.” He listened to the cacophony grow even
louder at his denial of information as he searched the crowd for
Sofia. She was nowhere to be found.

Probably for the best she got out of
there.

He spun on his heel, leaving the mass
of reporters and heading for the showers where he could think in
near peace. As soon as the hot water hit him, something nagged at
the back of his brain. Sofia wasn’t known for just letting a story
drop. She could be a dog with a bone. Relentless. Why did she back
away so quickly and easily without drilling him for
more?

But then he wasn’t the only one in on
the story, now was he?

Marc quickly washed himself, knowing
he needed to intercede before Sofia caused more
problems.

Chapter Two

Sofia stalked out of the locker room,
anger rippling through her. Marc Anders was an asshole, that was
common knowledge, but to know he was also a chauvinist was news.
Not when he invaded every single one of her wet dreams and had done
so for years. Learning that the man she’d had an immoral crush on
for years was thirty years behind the times dampened some of her
lusts.

Some.

The fact she still yearned for him
after that audacious show in the locker room only meant she needed
to get her head on straight. He was bad news.

But he was newsworthy, bad or
not.

Seeing that scene all over again in
her head made her body throb. Marc was masculine perfection. His
cock hadn’t even been hard and it had hung there long and proud,
her gaze immediately drawn to it and the thick nest of light brown
curls surrounding it. Those curls had thinned as they’d drifted up
his stomach and fanned out over his large pecs.

His handsome face had been a mask of
indifference. Marc had stared at her with his cool gray eyes, which
sparked with gold in them when he argued with her. He never argued
with any of the other reporters, only her, as far as she could
tell. Marc didn’t respect her, and it showed.

Sofia sighed, wishing she’d never
taken this job in the first place. It had seemed better than being
leered at half naked as she’d walked down a runway, but it had come
with its own set of problems. Now she interviewed half naked men
while trying to keep her eyes on theirs and never below the
belt.

Or there were times like tonight when
an asshole caveman felt the need to flash her just to throw her off
guard.

No one in the business took her
seriously, and she was fairly certain the magazine had hired her as
a publicity stunt. In her desire to prove herself capable, she’d
gone after the juiciest gossip she’d first come across—the same
story she’d hurt Marc’s brother with. Her own credibility had
suffered as well, as Maddox had been guiltless.

Luckily the other men involved had
been guilty as sin. That had been the only reason she’d kept her
job and hadn’t been laughed out of the business, but then would
losing it have truly been a bad thing?

Being a cutthroat wasn’t
in her wheelhouse. She was often expected to nearly kill herself
for the story, to outscoop the competition. Sofia had flirted,
lied, and cheated to get the story and doing those things was
starting to weigh on her shoulders. Sofia wasn’t that person and
the job was changing her, not for the better. She’d modeled to make
her mother happy. She’d taken this job to make her father happy.
Perhaps it was time to sit down and reevaluate her life and decide
what would truly make
her
happy.

Until then, Sofia had a job to do. She
needed to get the deets on what had happened on the field. If Marc
wasn’t talking, she’d find someone who would. Brian Brooks wouldn’t
talk, and if he did, it would be a line of egotistical bullshit
because he’d been taken down. Jennings Ashby? Maybe. He’d have a
circus of reporters around him already, and she’d have to scream to
be heard over the crush. The best target was probably Marc’s
sister, Maggie Anders. She was at the heart of the issue, and Sofia
could possibly get the woman to talk before any of the
guys.

Maggie Anders just so happened to work
for the opposing team, alongside her new boyfriend Jennings. If
Sofia could get the woman aside, maybe she had a shot. Of course,
that was, if Maggie didn’t recognize who Sofia was. After her
mistake with Maddox, none of the Anders clan liked her too much and
probably had a picture of her on a dartboard somewhere. But then
Sofia wouldn’t like herself too much if she were in their
shoes.

It was a risk worth taking. Maggie was
the focus. Maggie had dated Brian Brooks, Brooks had cheated, and
then Jennings Ashby had picked up the pieces. And she’d be the only
thing to make the man with ice in his veins react like that on the
field. The Anders tribe was known for their familial support, that
was for certain.

Sofia wormed her way through the
twisted underground corridors of the stadium, hoping she didn’t get
lost in the labyrinth. Her heels clicked on the hard concrete
floors, the sound echoing around her as her mind ran down the facts
and she mulled over the best approach to broach the
topic.

She rounded a corner and saw the
throng of people outside the opposing team’s locker room. Grabbing
her press pass to forge her way through, she finally squeezed
through and into the space. It wasn’t quite as finely appointed,
but then they were the away team, so the visitors only got the
bells, not the whistles. A crowd surrounded Jennings Ashby, just as
she’d expected. Good thing she thought like a woman and knew where
the real dirt would be.

Sofia scanned the room, checking for
female employees. When she saw one looking lovestruck in Jennings’
general area, she figured she’d hit paydirt. Approaching
cautiously, she edged up to the woman as she tucked in her press
pass. No reason to offer up her name too easily, and that’s if
Maggie would even recognize it.

Maggie supposedly worked with the
Texas team as a physical therapist. Quick on the draw, Sofia
slipped off one heel and limped the rest of the way
over.

“
Do you work on the
medical staff?” Sofia asked.

The woman spun around and then offered
Sofia a hand. “Hey, what happened to you?”

“
One of the guys wasn’t
paying attention to where he was going, and I think I’ve hurt my
ankle,” Sofia said, feeling terrible for lying.

“
Let’s get you off your
feet,” the woman said.

Sofia allowed the woman to
usher her to an open seat and sat. The woman knelt before Sofia and
began gently probing Sofia’s ankle. Scanning the woman’s badge, she
saw Maggie Anders emblazoned along the bottom.
Score!

“
These guys are such bulls
in china cabinets. I hate working in a male-dominated world
sometimes. You’d think they could be more considerate at times,”
Sofia babbled on, trying to strike up a conversation.

Maggie chuckled and gazed up with the
same gray eyes as her brother’s. “I hear ya, but sometimes you have
to be faster on your feet than them so you don’t get trampled
on.”

Wasn’t that the truth? “Well, those
guys taste blood after that little incident on the field
tonight.”

Maggie’s body stiffened a little.
“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“
I mean, how many
teammates take one of their own down in order to save someone on
the other side?”

“
Not many, I’d think,”
Maggie said lowly, twisting Sofia’s ankle this way and
that.

“
Makes one wonder if
Jennings is really ready for the NFL if he needs Marc Anders to
take down his opposition,” Sofia said, knowing she was baiting
Maggie. Jennings was an NFL sensation, coming back from a terrible
knee injury in college to make it onto the pre-season roster just
shy of his thirtieth birthday.

Maggie stopped what she was doing and
glared up at Sofia. “Jennings had six catches, an interception, and
three touchdowns tonight. Just what about that performance makes
him not ready for the NFL?”

“
If Brian had been on the
field, would Jennings have looked so good?”

Maggie put Sofia’s foot down and
stood. “I think you’re just fine.” Maggie turned and started to
walk away.

“
Brian was your boyfriend,
right?” Sofia continued on. “Was Marc getting a little revenge for
what Brian did to you, or was he saving your new boyfriend’s
ass?”

Maggie spun around.
“My
new boyfriend
doesn’t need my brother to save his ass. And what Marc
chooses to do on the field is his business, not yours.”

“
But people are going to
want to know, Maggie.”

Maggie crossed her arms over her
chest. “I can’t speak for Marc. But I can’t say I’m sorry Brian got
rolled off the field on a cart.”

Sofia smiled. “Did you ask your
brother to hurt Brian tonight?”

Maggie looked thunderstruck. “No! I
would never ask him to do that.”

“
Okay,” Sofia answered.
“But there might be those who think it. Maybe you should tell me
what really happened. Clear the air and make sure the story is told
correctly.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed as
she stared at Sofia. “Who
are
you?”

“
That would be Sofia
Figueroa, the woman who destroyed Maddox’s reputation.”

Sofia twisted to see Marc standing
behind them. His hair was still wet and his dress shirt unbuttoned,
and if Sofia wasn’t wrong, he was slightly out of breath. He’d run
here to stop her, being the pain in the ass he was.

“
Ms. Figueroa, I have
nothing to say to you except to leave me and my family alone,”
Maggie spat and walked away.

Sofia turned to Marc, who glared at
her the same exact way Maggie had. It must be a family trait. Sofia
stared Marc down and lifted her chin. “You wouldn’t tell me the
story, so I have every right to dig for it elsewhere.”

“
Fine. You want the
story?”

Sofia reached for her recorder and
clicked it on. “Of course.”

“
Not now. Tonight. Meet me
in Magnussen Hotel’s bar at ten.”

What was he up to? “Okay, I’ll meet
you there.”

Marc nodded and walked away, her gaze
drawn to his perfectly formed ass. Once he was gone, she headed
into the throng to get some sound bites from golden boy Jennings.
Too bad her mind was still on Marc Anders.

Chapter Three

Marc sat at the dinner table, his
fingers absently tapping on the top. His parents, sister, Jennings,
his sister’s best friend Kelsie, and he sat finishing their coffee
after dinner, a dinner Marc struggled to get through. He was
supposed to be there to officially meet Maggie’s new boyfriend, but
that introduction had already happened on the field when Marc had
taken Brian down.

Kelsie smiled at everyone around the
table, her gaze finally landing on Marc before she turned to his
parents. “I’m so glad you asked me to join you here in Baltimore.
It’s a beautiful city.” Her gaze rounded back to Marc, and her face
flushed as she smiled coyly at him.

Kelsie had been Maggie’s best friend
for as long as Marc could remember. She’d spent more time in the
Anders home than her own growing up, and his parents had
practically adopted her along the way. Kelsie had also had a
long-standing crush on Marc, one he did everything in his power to
squash over the years. There was no attraction on his part. After
all the years, he did have a slight brotherly sensation while in
her company, but that was all she riled in him. Kelsie wasn’t the
kind of woman he needed in his life; she was much too
sedate.