Someone Like You by Jennifer Gracen Page B

to? She called bullshit. His knee was fine. She’d seen him just that day, lightly keeping the ball in the air, tapping it from his knee to ankle and back again with skill, dexterity, and ease. Later on, she saw him jogging to the parking lot then back to give something to Sofia. He’d jogged easily. And he’d just volunteered to help coach a boys’ soccer team, several times a week. He wouldn’t have done that with a hurt knee, no way. Something in her gut said there was a lot more to the story than what she had read.
    She went back to look at another link, then another . . . and before she knew it, an hour went by. Gossip sites had speculated that he’d gotten involved with a married woman, along with some “behaviour unbecoming to a professional footballer,” and the team’s owner hadn’t been happy about it. It wasn’t rape or anything like that, thank God. But sleeping with a married woman seemed to be what the buzz was about. A woman who’d been married to someone powerful, which may have caused a problem. Something in her gut twisted at that. Was Pierce that careless?
    There were lots of mentions of his football stats, coverage of games, all of that. He wasn’t a top player, but solid. He’d sustained a respectable career for over a decade and been mildly famous in the UK. And there were many, many photos. Most were from football games, sports award shows, charity events, and the like. But there were plenty of photos of him with various beautiful women, out on the town or at posh events. Between his movie-star looks, his good scoring record on the field, and his notoriety off the field, he was the paparazzi’s dream guy.
    Something in her chest squeezed as she concluded her instincts had been right about one thing—Pierce was a player. In all those pictures, he wasn’t with the same woman twice. Some of the more gossipy sites talked about Pierce’s legendary bachelor status and drunken pub crawls. If any of it was even half true, he went through women like she went through pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Yup, he was a very bad boy indeed. Reckless, wild, and like catnip to women. She needed to stay far away from someone like him.
    So why was she spending her precious free time combing the Internet to read about him? Twirling her ponytail restlessly, she had to admit curiosity; he intrigued her. And if they were going to be working together, why not? This was the twenty-first century; most people Googled each other practically as soon as they met.
    Digging deeper, she eventually came across articles about the Harrison family. Four generations of big business, each generation gaining more wealth and power than the one before. They were worth billions. Billions. Their home, the sprawling and ornate Harrison compound in Kingston Point, was worth roughly one hundred million dollars. Abby let out a low, soft whistle. To say Pierce’s family background was a different world than hers was the understatement of the year.
    Not that she needed money like the Harrisons had—God, who needed money like that? Harrison Enterprises was an international powerhouse. Palatial estates; connections to other rich, famous, powerful people; charity foundations; glitzy functions . . . her brain got tired just trying to take it all in.
    Feeling stalkerish, but unable to stop, she found a few posts specifically about Pierce’s past. His growing up in Kingston Point, the fourth child of Charles Harrison II, CEO of Harrison Enterprises, and Laura Dunham Harrison Evans Bainsley, a former B movie actress. Their ugly divorce happened when Pierce was only six years old. Clearly Pierce got his looks and brilliant eyes from his mother, who’d been stunning. He’d gone to a few private schools; Abby would bet her car that he’d been expelled from at least one. He just had that vibe.
    Abby finally sat back against her upholstered headboard, all the stories and