“She didn’t know who I was,” he said, smirking. “At least at the moment. It doesn’t matter. Her name is Emma French. She’s an author.”
Mike was typing into the computer quickly. “Got her. Romantic Suspense. She’s got a big-name publisher even though I’ve never heard of her. Not that I read much. Nice. Oh shit.”
“What?” Coach asked.
“That was my first reaction too,” Warren said. “I had no clue.” No way he was admitting her family thought the whole thing was hilarious that he was trying to track her down and hitting on her. Her family pretty much owned and ran the island.
“She descends from the Bond family. One of the very wealthy branches.”
“Impressive,” Coach said. “Must be several generations with a different last name.”
“Her grandfather is Stephen Bond. Her parents are Melissa and Noah French.”
“Noah is a federal judge,” Mike said, his fingers moving over the computer. “Melissa Bond-French does charity work and has interests in many of the family businesses. Emma has a brother, Roark, who is a defense attorney at Bond Law.”
“I hadn’t realized how fast you were gathering information,” he said, frowning.
It reminded him of Emma when she was on her laptop and he expected smoke to be coming from her fingers.
“That just shows you how quickly everyone else will get this information. All of it is good. She’s almost like a dream come true. The Bonds are considered American Royalty around here,” Mike said. “It couldn’t make your image any more squeaky clean. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“I guess,” he said. No reason to say he thought the same thing. Not about his image. He’d never use her or anyone for that.
And that no amount of money in his account would ever give him the respect and class that Emma’s family had.
“You guess,” Coach said. “You can’t make this shit up.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not. We are taking it slow. And she has nothing to do with my image or hers or anything to even think that.”
“I don’t care how fast or slow you take it,” Coach said. “As long as it doesn’t affect your game.”
“It won’t,” he said.
He could hear Emma’s laughter outside the office. She must be on her way back.
It brought a smile to his face. Her joy in life and what she was bringing to his.
“Hey, Warren,” she said, walking into the office with Zoe, who had been showing his girlfriend around. “This place is massive. I had no idea. We stopped at the cafeteria. Don’t worry, it’s mango and strawberry with yogurt. I didn’t need a lecture about having a chocolate milkshake this early in the morning.”
“Emma has no boundaries when it comes to food.”
“I’ve never met someone on such a strict diet,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry if we are interrupting. We can go walk around some more.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Come in and meet my coach and our publicist.”
“Ahh,” she said, moving to shake hands after she wiped her damp palm on her dress from holding her half-finished smoothie. She looked at Mike. “You’re going to be nice to me, right?”
“I wouldn’t dare be mean to you with your family,” Mike said, laughing.
Emma waved her hand. “We don’t bite. Luckily I don’t get that connection too much having a different last name.”
“You and I both know how easily someone can find the connection,” Warren said.
She laughed. “You should have seen his face when we were at The Retreat and he found out. He’d been trying to get my information from my cousin Hunter.”
“Hunter runs The Retreat now,” Warren said. He hadn’t wanted to go into details, but she seemed as if she was fine with it.
“Warren said you met there and he returned for you,” Coach said.
