Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (classic literature books .TXT) 📗

she’s testing me with her antics. After all, she’s been in the publicity game for athletes for a long time. She got me some of the endorsement TV spots I’ve done, so she knows her job. I just think she’s taking my plunge into Hollywood a bit too seriously.

“Fine, fine, that’ll be acceptable in the short-term,” Miranda says into her phone, grinning. She’s getting off on this, I swear. “And yes, there are to be two Toblerone chocolates on the kitchen counter. No, not those, one’s supposed to be fruit and nut, the other crunchy salted almond. Well, I suppose you’ll just have to find one, won’t you?”

“Cut them a break, Miranda,” I growl, but she’s going with it. I mean, I get it. Ever since I showed that I’m in that upper one half of a percent of football players, things have been thrown at me. Money. Cars. Contracts. And women? Hell, I’ve never had to ask for one. They always ask for me.

But there’s a difference between being a cocky football player and being a dickhead. Miranda’s pushing that line, and finally, I reach over, taking the phone from her. “This is Gavin Adams. The room’s clean?”

“Why yes, of course it is, Mr. Adams,” says a snobby voice that grates my teeth. “This is Mr. Vandenburgh. I was just telling Ms. Parker that while we have the confectionaries you requested, we were unable to find the specific Toblerone that you—”

“I don’t care about that,” I say, cutting him off. “Just make sure the room’s nice, and we can worry about the rest later. See you soon.”

I hang up the phone and toss it back to Miranda, who’s glaring at me now. “There,” I say. “Problem dealt with.”

Miranda shakes her head as she slips her phone back in her purse. “You know, you’re not letting me do my job, Anaconda,” she says half-jokingly.

“Your job is to make sure I look good in the press, not to bully hotel managers,” I growl. She knows I hate the name Anaconda. Sure, she’s tried to spin it as if it’s a good thing, that I always find a way to ‘snake through the defenses’. But everyone and their fucking grandmother knows why it’s my nickname. It’s been on the internet in 1080p for two years now.

“My job is to make sure you look the part,” Miranda says pointedly. She reaches into her bag, pulling out her iPad and turning it on. “By the way, you made the press again.” She tosses the iPad over into my lap.

I try not to groan as I look at the webpage she’s pulled up, another of those half tabloid, half sports page sites that she likes to track for mentions about me in the offseason.

Anaconda Snakes Another One! the headline blares, showing me walking with a girl. She’s got her knees splayed out and a pained look on her face, the caption reading, Anaconda Adams earns his nickname again with yet another young lady as the star running back and soon-to-be actor leaves a hotel in New York the night after appearing on a radio show.

I read a few more lines and sigh in disgust and turn the tablet off, throwing it back over to Miranda instead of chucking it out the window like I want to. “That site is a fucking disgrace. They’re saying I barebacked her with no lube.”

“You didn’t?” Miranda asks, her smile disappearing when I glare at her. “What, Gavin? You know your reputation says that you’ve got a groupie in all thirty-two cities you’ve played in. And it’s funny. I thought you’d laugh after the rest of the problems you’ve been dealing with.”

“Maybe that had a little truth to it in my rookie year, but that was then,” I grumble, shaking my head. Sure, I went out with the girl, but I didn’t fuck her. I just wasn’t feeling it. I have no fucking clue why she looks in pain in the photo. They probably snapped until they finally got one with a weird-looking expression on her face. Fucking scoundrels is what they are.

“Whatever the case may be, any press is good press,” Miranda says, putting her tablet away. “Just relax.”

“Relax, she says,” I mutter sullenly, watching as the limo hangs a right and a hotel that actually looks like it belongs in a ritzy section of Vegas comes into view down the street. Grand Waterways Hotel. “Relax for what?”

“Because you need to be calm, cool, and collected for your upcoming interviews,” Miranda says as the limo starts to slow down. “You can’t start getting annoyed and chewing out the reporters on camera just because they ask you about your anacon . . . umm, romance life.”

“The hell I can’t,” I growl. “My personal life is no one’s business.”

“These are different times, Gavin,” Miranda says softly. “The days where people only want to hear about your talent are over. They want to hear about what you’re wearing, who you’re dating, who you’re thinking about sleeping with. And considering that there’s a . . .” her words trail off, but I catch her meaning.

The video. It always comes back to that goddamn video.

“It’s bullshit.”

Miranda shrugs. “It’s just what it is.”

I sigh, leaning back and unbuttoning the blazer. “The next time a reporter asks me about my sex life or my dick, I’m walking off. I don’t care if it’s on the red carpet of the fucking Oscars. It’ll be better than giving them another sound bite. At least during football season, they ask about the game first sometimes.”

“You’d better not,” Miranda warns.

I clench my jaw, wanting to reprimand her for scolding me like a child, but I resist the urge.

“Tell me again why they picked this place?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Because it’s a little podunk city,” Miranda says. “Remember, you’re supposed to be this badass who plays around with the main heroine for some of the movie. You two have known each other since you were kids, and they’ve got to