Free Intercepting Daisy by Julie Brannagh

We’ll have a great time.” He pulled back a little and looked into her eyes. “I promise I’ll figure something out that doesn’t land us both in a body cast.”
    She dug through her purse, extracted her car keys, and hit the button to unlock her car. He made sure she was safely inside. She started her car, opened the driver’s side window, and looked up at him again.
    â€œThursday,” she said.
    He watched the taillights of her car vanish around the corner seconds later.

Chapter Eight
    D AISY WALKED INTO the dimness of her townhouse twenty minutes later. She’d spent the entire trip home attempting to convince herself that this had just been a dinner date. The typical post-date deconstruction with Catherine would have to wait. Judging by the silence, she was already in bed.
    Daisy could text one of her friends. Most women in their early thirties weren’t in bed at ten or so on a Thursday night and were always up for a convo about a date. She felt a little weird about discussing it with anyone else besides Catherine. She’d known most of her friends since she was in elementary school, but she knew the temptation to tell their friends she’d been out with Grant Parker would be insurmountable.
    She and Grant had been in a public place earlier. If anyone recognized him at the restaurant, the chances were good that his being out on a date was already on social media. There was no reason she needed to keep her evening’s activities quiet, other than the usual: she’d been out with a guy she had a thing for, who was going to lose it when he discovered she was the reason he was most likely being tormented on a daily basis by the press and his teammates. Then again, maybe he’d never find out. She didn’t have to tell him. The woman who claimed she’d written Overtime Parking would be happy to take the blame. She wasn’t getting any of the cash.
    She knew she had to tell him. The happiness over their date was tinged with the guilt she felt. She really liked him. He’d kissed her like he liked her too. But she was afraid of what he was going to say when he found out.
    If Daisy was better at lying, she would have asked Grant how he felt about the whole thing at dinner earlier. One of the nationally televised morning shows had contacted Grant’s representatives earlier in the week to ask if he would appear on-air with the “author.” His agent announced a couple of days ago that while Grant was flattered by the author’s attention, he wasn’t interested in a meeting.
    She’d seen something on the news about how a few of Grant’s teammates showed up at the daily Sharks press conference yesterday with a Kindle and proceeded to stage a dramatic reading of a few pages of the (inexpertly censored) book. Thirty seconds of hilarious footage showed up on sports channels from coast to coast and the YouTube video was closing in on half a million hits. Grant seemed to laugh the whole thing off when she saw coverage of his week on the Sharks website, but her conscience was on fire.
    She wanted another date with him, but maybe she should be an adult and tell him. She’d tried to tell herself she wasn’t sure why she’d published the book in the first place. That wasn’t true. She knew why. She loved the reality of seeing something she wrote actually in print. It felt great for about a day, until she glanced at the online sales rankings and almost barfed.
    She knew that Grant was well-known in the Seattle area, but she had never imagined what that kind of fame was like. Everything that happened to him was newsworthy, including a ridiculous erotic fantasy. She could do something embarrassing or silly in her spare time; her family and friends would laugh about it and most likely tease her for it, but it didn’t end up on the news. Even if Grant was not the most famous member of the Sharks, his every move was discussed and