Free Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) by Olivia Lancaster Page A

degree of confidence that this is not a carelessly written contract. If you sign this, you’re being taken advantage of, in my legal opinion.”
     
                  I frowned, leaning forward and clasping my hands on the desk. “I was afraid of that. How so?”
     
                  “Well, for starters,” she said, thumbing through a few pages, “the money you’ll be getting out of the contract is practically nothing compared to the average for players of your caliber. The team owner will be raking in the vast majority of the profits--which is already the case for professional football, I’ll admit, but what I’m looking at here is a gross abuse of manager privileges, among other things.”
     
                  “Like what other things?” I said, slowly becoming more angry and feeling more hurt by what I was hearing. I knew Paul was crooked in some ways, but to hear it coming from a legal advisor was the kind of proof I had been fearing would be out there for a long time.
     
                  “Your rights, mostly,” she said simply. “Some of the stipulations in this contract make it very hard for you to do anything but carry out the contract to the very end, with some very steep penalties for trying to break the contract. It’s already difficult for a player to jump ship to another team,” she restated in layman’s terms, “but it looks like your team owner and manager want you to essentially forfeit the right to even try something like that. In my experience, con artists include things like this in their contracts in order to trap their victims once they realize they’re being conned. Of course,” she added as my eyes widened, “what we’re looking at here is completely legal, I’m afraid.”
     
                  “Shit,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Pardon my French,” I added, and Washington only smiled with a dismissive wave. “Alright, so the next question is a given, as long as I hire you--which I will, at this point,” I noted. “Can you help me write up a counteroffer?”
     
                  She nodded, moving to her computer and typing a few things in. “I’ve worked with sports players in this city many times before, Mr. Michaels. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of abuses people in this city try to pull on their players. But I should warn you,” she said, turning back to me with a frank expression, “if your team owner and manager are trying to pull something this deliberate, and the manager was that incensed when you brought the contract to me, I highly doubt they’ll be willing to agree to a fair counteroffer.”
     
                  “I know,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’ve worked with both of them long enough not to expect them to go down without a fight, if they go down at all. But it’s important to me that we confront them with something fair. I don’t want it to be able to be said that I can’t be reasonable--not while I’m reaching out to the other team managers in town to talk about getting hired on with someone else,” I said, holding up my contacts list, which boasted the personal numbers of some of the more influential managers and owners in Vegas.
     
                  Washington smiled at me, standing up along with me and extending her hand for me to shake. “I like the way you think, Mr. Michaels. I think your administrators underestimated you severely.”
     
                  I took her hand and shook it firmly, giving her a nod in return. “It’ll be a pleasure working with you, Ms. Washington. Looking forward to being in touch.”
     
                  “I’ll give you a call as soon as I have a counteroffer drawn up, and we can get it submitted through my offices. I don’t advise going to see them in person while this is in dispute.”
     
                  “Thanks,” I said, and as she nodded to me, I