Cassidy stood. “Yeah. We’re done. And since you didn’t take notes, I’ll recap. Quit being a diva. Get over yourself. And for God’s sake, quit being such an antisocial loner before you end up lonely.”

With that, Jackson’s boss turned and walked out of the office, not bothering with so much as a backward glance. The door closed with a final click, an audible reminder that Jackson was the only one who kept his office door closed all the time. Jackson knew he should stand and open it—a gesture of goodwill indicating that he’d heard what his boss had said about being a team player and was making an effort.

He just…

He wasn’t ready yet.

Cassidy might understand the pain of saying goodbye to your dream career because your body wasn’t cooperating, but what Cassidy didn’t seem to understand was that Jackson Burke didn’t know how to be anyone other than Jackson Burke, football player.

Even his own parents, God love ’em, had recognized Jackson’s skill on the football field at an early age and nurtured the hell out of it. Family dinners had been 20 percent “How was math class?” and 80 percent “What happened with that interception?”

Same went for his social group back in Houston. His friends were either football players or football fans. If Jackson hadn’t been playing football, he’d been watching football; if he hadn’t been watching football, he’d been talking about it.

Even Madison, although not a football fan at the start of their relationship, had been focused on football, or at least the business aspect: when he was going to sign a new contract, and for how much, and had he decided which brewery he was going to be a spokesperson for, and how much would that pay?

It wasn’t that Jackson didn’t want to make friends with these Oxford guys. If he was totally honest, he was a little sick of his own company. A little bit jealous of the groups that went out for lunch on Fridays, no longer bothering to invite him after nonstop rejections.

What if they only wanted to talk about the accident and the Super Bowl and it was like pouring salt in the wound all over again?

Or, worse, what if they wanted to talk about something else and realized that he had nothing to say? That he was an empty shell of a man whose own wife had been so desperate to escape his company that she’d invented a whole motherlode of lies that had spread through the media like toxic rain?

He closed his eyes, just for a minute, feeling heavy with the pressure of it all.

Jackson knew his life was nothing to be pissy about. He was a millionaire, for God’s sake. He had a penthouse. Could afford to go anywhere he wanted, whenever he wanted, on a fucking private jet. He could have women with the snap of a finger, a toothbrush made out of gold, a whole fleet of the most expensive cars on the market. He could have anything.

Except the one thing he wanted: football.

Unless…

Jackson pulled out his cell phone from the desk drawer and hesitated only a second before making the call.

He got voicemail. Jackson cleared his throat and waited for the beep.

“Yeah, Jerry, hi,” Jackson said, running a hand over the back of his neck as he left a message. “It’s Burke. Just wanted to know if you’ve had a chance to think over that assistant coach proposal. I’d be damn good at it. You know I would. I just…Call me.”

Jackson hung up the phone but didn’t set it down. Held it, staring at the screen, willing the head coach of the Texas Redhawks to call him back.

Although for the first time it occurred to Jackson that if his old life came calling, it would mean saying goodbye to his new life.

A new life that, if he played his cards right, just might involve Mollie.

Chapter 6

“I seriously can’t believe you’re doing this,” Madison whined into the phone.

Maybe you could seriously believe it if you’d bothered to pick up one of my phone calls before now, Mollie wanted to retort.

She tucked her cell between her chin and shoulder as she used both arms to scoop out the contents of her underwear drawer, dropping a smattering of thongs before plunking her undergarments into a moving box.

“I know it’s weird, Mad, but it’s only for a couple of months, until I find something else.”

“You could have asked me.”

“Well, I would have,” Mollie explained patiently, “except the last time I even mentioned Jackson’s name, you got pissed and told me not to say his name to you because it was interfering with your new life.”

A new life that involved Madison’s boyfriend moving into Jackson’s house. That was still a hard one for Mollie to swallow. Bad enough that Maddie had left Jackson for another man. But to bring him into the bedroom she had shared with Jackson just seemed wrong.

Then again, Mollie moving in with her ex-brother-in-law wasn’t exactly right either.

And yet Mollie couldn’t bring herself to regret saying yes. Not only because it was probably the one and only time she’d ever set foot in a penthouse, but because Jackson had somehow seemed so very alone.

Mollie’s best friend stuck her head out of Mollie’s walk-in closet and held up a long billowy dress, lifting her eyebrows in question.

Mollie glanced at it and gave a thumbs-up, and Kim rolled her eyes. “That was a test and you failed,” Kim hissed. “This could fit three of you.” She dropped the dress into the giveaway box.

“Is someone there?” Madison asked.

“Kim’s helping me pack,” Mollie said as she put a sexy black bra into the moving box and at the same time tossed an ancient, torn beige one into the trash pile. Then, on second thought, she fetched the beige one out of the trash bag and added it in with the keepers. Comfort counted for something.