RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) Read Online Free

truth?”
    “ Some versions of it, yeah.”
    “ Like the versions people have published already and you’ve had removed from the public domain?”
    “ I’ve got to protect my liberty.”
    “ What about public right of information?”
    “ Are you going to be a hard ass all week?”
    “ You’re the one that invited me here.”
    “ I think I liked you better when you were face down on the ground.”
    “ Why did you choose me?”
    “ Come on, knock it off for a moment. Let’s go inside, I’ll show you which side of the mansion is yours, and then we can have a drink and relax. Over dinner you can grill me.”
    Lucy narrows her eyes at me.
    “ What?”
    “ One thing.”
    “ Go on.”
    “ I’ve followed your rules, I get that you have this weird aversion to being in the public, and you’ve done your best over the years to change the opinion people have developed over the years about you. I know you’ve brought me here for a reason, whatever that is, but I’m going to tell you one thing and we need to be clear on that or I’m out of here, swimming if I have to.”
    “ Shoot.”
    “ I’m writing the truth about you. I’m not here to write some cutesy bullshit story about how Alex Vann Haden lives in a palace in the sea with millions of furry animals and is the best person in the world ever, If I think you are an asshole, which, by the way, I already do, just so you know, and it’s going to take more than those thick arms and turquoise blue eyes and perfect hairline to change that, that’s the story I’m going to write. If you want cutesy, hire someone else. And if you’ve invited me here for anything else, outside of what has been agreed, because you’re lonely or whatever, you can forget about it now.”
    I let her get her breath, my eyes wide at the outburst. “Finished?”
    “ I’ll let you know.”
    “ Travelling makes me cranky too. You must be tired.”
    “ I’m not tired.”
    “ You don’t have to be embarrassed to admit it. I mean, meeting me must be making you nervous, there’s no shame in that. I’ve had girls faint at my feet before.”
    “ You see? That.”
    “ What?”
    “ That right there.”
    “ What?”
    “ It’s that attitude that makes people think you’re an asshole.”
    “ Come on, you’re hurting my feelings now.”
    “ I’m just saying what I’m seeing.”
    “ I brought you here as a reporter not as a therapist.”
    “ Then you’ll let me write the truth.”
    “ Write what you like, just don’t do anything until the end of the week.”
    I turn, knowing that she’ll follow me.
    “ You’re not going to offer to carry my bags?”
    “ Lucy, I already know that you are the kind of girl that will resent me asking you because it will look chauvinistic, but secretly want me to anyway. If I did, you’d refuse, but now that I haven’t you’re upset. Someone will bring them.”
    I walk towards the house and after a moment Lucy comes up alongside me.
    “ You still haven’t told me why I’m here.”
    “ You’re here to write about me. You’re right, everyone thinks I’m an asshole for doing what I’ve done, and I’m sick of it. I ask for a little bit of a private life and I get shunned.”
    “ That’s not the only reason people think you’re an asshole.”
    Now my eyes narrow. “That was a long time ago, and I was a different person back then.”
    “ You’ve never liked us lot, so why now?”
    “ Because I need you to convince me I can have both.”
    “ Both what?”
    “ Football and a private life.”
    “ I don’t know if you can.”
    “ Then if I can’t, I have to choose.”
    “ You are retiring.”
    I sigh. “That depends on you.”
    “ On me? You want to explain what I have to do with your decision to retire?”
    “ I need someone to convince me I shouldn’t.”
    “ If you really are an asshole, retiring isn’t going to change that.”
    “ No, it won’t, but at least people will leave me alone.”
    “ Then you’ll still be an