The Striker (Gods of the Game, #1)

by Ana Huang

To loving every version of yourself, even the ones you want to leave behind.

Moments like this meant I’d made it and proved my critics wrong—which I had, many times over. After all, I was Asher Fucking Donovan.

I didn’t know much about Scarlett DuBois, but given she was related to Vincent, I knew one thing: I wasn’t going to like her. At all.

“However, I have to commend you on achieving something that I thought was impossible.” “What’s that?” “Making me like someone with the last name DuBois.” I rolled my eyes even as I fought an exasperated laugh. “You are an incorrigible flirt.” “Flirt? Yes. Incorrigible? That’s a matter of opinion.”

“Before you say anything else, this…” I gestured between us. “Ends now.” Amusement slid across his infuriatingly perfect face. “What’s this?” “The flirting. It’s unprofessional.” “I’m afraid flirting is part of my nature, darling.”

“I’m just that type of student.” “You mean a teacher’s pet?” “Darling, if you want to call me pet, I won’t stop you.”

“I’m a ballerina. I live by rules.” “That’s too bad.” The light finally turned green, and I broke eye contact to focus on the road. “You’d have more fun without them.”

“I have other things I could do,” he said. “I wouldn’t say they’re better.”

Besides my mother, Teddy was the only person who remembered me as Asher before I became Asher Donovan. Sometimes, I needed that reminder too.

So no, I wasn’t prone to emotion-led decisions. I kept my thoughts as rational as possible. But sometimes, when I was around Asher, I found it hard to think much at all.

If her smile was a burglar, her laugh was a fucking thief because I was pretty sure she just stole a piece of my heart from right out under me.

“I think you’re capable of more than you give yourself credit for,” I said. “But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what you’d regret more—trying and failing, or not trying at all?”

I used to roll my eyes at the clichéd characters who could “never love again” because some asshole broke their heart. Everyone suffered heartbreak at least once in their life, right? Get over it and move on. It wasn’t until I experienced it myself that I understood how they felt. Once you’ve been betrayed by someone you trusted completely, it was hard to let your guard down again.

Look at Eldorra’s royal couple. They overcame a centuries-old law to be together.

Trust her to interrogate us about my love life in a hospital waiting room, hours after my father had a heart attack. No one compartmentalized their feelings better than Pippa Donovan.

“Just because you’re privileged in one way doesn’t mean you can’t struggle in other ways.”

“You can’t control what the world thinks of you,” I said gently. “But you can control your actions,

“This is a pre-date.” Asher’s darkly amused stare crept under my skin, flustering me. “When I take you on our first date, you’ll know.”

Sometimes, I remembered the girl I used to be, and I couldn’t believe she existed in the same lifetime as me. She’d been so bright and shiny, filled with hope and stars in her eyes. Rigid when it came to her career but romantic in every other way. Look where that’d gotten her.

My symptoms were invisible, but they were real.

Prior to Scarlett, I would’ve crawled through a sea of broken glass before I missed a match. Football was the most important thing in my life. It always had been, and I thought it always would be. But I’d finally found something—someone—that I cared about more.

If I died, I had the relief of oblivion. I wouldn’t experience pain or sadness; I would simply be gone. But if someone I loved died, I’d have to live without them forever. The pain of that would eclipse anything else I’d ever felt—especially if that someone was Asher.

“I did, but we can’t stay in the same place forever, even if we love it. We have to grow.”

“It was like you had a death wish and you were punishing yourself for surviving when he didn’t.”

My father looked back at me, his face unreadable. “The team will always be there,” he said. “But I only have one son.”

“It’s proof you’re setting high standards for yourself and that you’re not satisfied with being simply good enough,”

“Does she know what an idiot she’s dating?” “Yes, sir, and she loves me anyway.”