Read Online For the Love of the Game by Rhonda Laurel - Free Book Online Page A

Blake?” Jason said Seth’s name with such wonder in his voice she wasn’t sure exactly which gambit of emotions he was processing at the moment. He kind of sounded like he wanted an autograph.
    “No. Actually you left me. And we’re both better off. Maybe we can both find the happiness we obviously weren’t getting from each other.”
    “Seth Blake or not, I’m gonna kick your ass.” Jason lunged closer, but Morgan took a few steps and kneed him in the groin. Jason went down with a loud groan and fell upon his knees. Seth went to intervene, but her father said, “Seth, she got it.” Not one of her brothers moved.
    “Jason!” Charisma yelled and bent down beside him. “You bitch!”
    “Seth, I think the party is over,” she said as she took his hand in hers.
    “You okay?” He kissed her hand.
    She nodded. Morgan kneeled down and spoke softly to Jason. “Jason, do everyone a favor and stay down. I didn’t see the Super Bowl, but the man didn’t win MVP for nothing. And you have four very angry men behind him. Do the smart thing for once in your life.”
    * * *
     
    Seth was on the phone talking to his publicist. Even though he was pacing up and down the corridor of the private plane, she could hear his responses. He said he was in charge of his personal life. He finished the call and sank down in the white leather chair opposite hers.
    “So how bad is it?” she asked.
    “Not bad at all. Certainly not anything I wasn’t already expecting,” he said, smiling at her. “Someone called my publicist and asked for confirmation that I broke up your engagement to Jason and stole you from him.”
    “Engagement?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It was probably—”
    “No matter who said what, it was going to become public knowledge anyway, Morgan. I don’t want to evade questions any more. I want everyone to know we are married.”
    “Won’t this hurt your career?”
    “I like to call moments like these media speed bumps.” He laughed.
    She smiled in response. “Not that I don’t appreciate it when you said you wanted to cheer me up after that fiasco of a barbecue, but where are we going?”
    All she’d been able to see was the plane ascending from the private airport and was now headed in some unknown direction.
    “We are going to my ranch in Texas.”
    Morgan’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “Don’t you have to shoot a commercial in a few days?”
    “Yes. We will be here three days max, and then we go back.”
    “I can’t take off like this, the bookstore…” She huffed.
    “I called Michelle and asked if she would do me a super huge favor in return for tickets in my box this season.”
    “You are slick, Seth Blake.”
    “I prefer the words crafty, spontaneous, and good under pressure.”
    “No, slick aptly describes what you did.”
    “If you say so, Morgan Blake,” he said as he gazed into her eyes. “That name growing on you yet?”
    “I’m warming up to it.”
    “Good.” Seth leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth.
    * * *
     
    The Twelve Horseshoes ranch was a huge piece of land. Morgan fell in love immediately with the house and the stables. The staff welcomed her and, to her surprise, she didn’t get one strange look. She got a few howdy ma’ams and the house staff addressed her as Mrs. Blake. Again she was in the center of contrasts. His Philadelphia penthouse life was nothing like his ranch life. She wandered around as Seth made phone calls. He seemed busy so she found her way down to the stables on her own.
    She walked through the barn, acclimating herself to the smells. This was Seth’s world. Not playing football in some city no matter how much they paid him. She felt his soul resonating on the ranch.
    As she walked through the stables, she saw a short, older woman coming her way with a horse. She was dressed in dusty jeans, a red long-sleeved shirt, and had a cowboy hat pulled closely over her eyes. She appeared to be one of the ranch hands. The woman stopped in front