Sweet Spot E-Book

Lucy Felthouse

• Herausgeber: Lucy Felthouse
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Virginia Miller is an up-and-coming tennis star. She’s gone from a ratty tennis court in a park in south London, England, to the world’s top training facility—Los Carlos Tennis Academy in California. In awe of the talent around her, Virginia is all the more determined to make the most of the opportunity and show that she’s worthy of her place there. Her mentor, Nadia Gorlando, has every faith in her.

But Virginia finds herself distracted—Nadia, as well as being a top-notch tennis player, is seriously sexy, and Virginia’s mind keeps wandering where it shouldn’t. Will her crush get in the way of her career, or can she find a way to push the other woman out of her mind before it’s too late?

Leseprobe

Sweet Spot

By Lucy Felthouse

Text Copyright 2016 © Lucy Felthouse.

All Rights Reserved.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the aforementioned author.This book was created without the use of AI. Scanning by AI for training purposes or derivative works is strictly prohibited.

Warning: The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s written permission.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Cover Art by Posh Gosh.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

If You Enjoyed Sweet Spot…

Sweet Spot

Blurb:

Virginia Miller is an up-and-coming tennis star. She’s gone from a ratty tennis court in a park in south London, England, to the world’s top training facility—Los Carlos Tennis Academy in California. In awe of the talent around her, Virginia is all the more determined to make the most of the opportunity and show that she’s worthy of her place there. Her mentor, Nadia Gorlando, has every faith in her.

But Virginia finds herself distracted—Nadia, as well as being a top-notch tennis player, is seriously sexy, and Virginia’s mind keeps wandering where it shouldn’t. Will her crush get in the way of her career, or can she find a way to push the other woman out of her mind before it’s too late?

Prologue

Nadia Gorlando and I had just gotten off the exercise bikes in the gym when one of the academy’s coaches, Peter Ross, headed over to us, all smiles.

“Hey, Nadia,” he said, his all-American grin widening and his blond hair flopping down over his forehead, “I need a huge favor.”

I flicked my gaze to Nadia. She raised one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows and waited for him to continue. He did.

“I totally lost track of time just now and I have an appointment with Travis Connolly. Would you mind wiping down my machine for me? Or maybe stick a note on it saying it’s out of order? I don’t want to leave it all sweaty for someone else. You’ll be doing me a real solid. I’ll owe you.”

My jaw almost hit the floor.

Now Nadia rolled her eyes, looked over at the offending machine, then back at Peter. “Sure, I understand,” she said, as cool as ice. “The world’s number one can’t wait. Go right ahead—I’ll fix it for you.”

He babbled a load of thanks, then jogged out of the gym.

I gaped at her. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

Nadia chuckled. “Of course not. He may be coaching Travis Connolly and Rufus Lampani for the US Open, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to clean up his mess.” She pointed with her chin over to the machine Peter had just vacated. “Come on, V, I’ll show you how I’m going to deal with this.”

I followed her, grinning. Her tone told me that it was going to be something fun. Well, for us, anyway. Probably not for Peter.

Sure enough, when she returned from the room off the side of the gym, she had a pad of paper and a pen in her hands. Deliberately shielding the pad from my view, she wrote something down, then pulled off the top sheet. Folding it, she then propped it on the sweat-slicked seat so the writing was on view to anyone who happened past.

When I’d read and absorbed the words, I turned to Nadia, impressed. Her smile lit up her face, showing dimples in each cheek, and her brown eyes gleamed with amusement.

It was in that moment that I decided I had the serious hots for Nadia Gorlando.

The sign read,

PLEASE EXCUSE THE STATE OF THIS MACHINE. PETER ROSS, TENNIS COACH SUPREMO, “LOST TRACK OF TIME”.

Chapter One

I remained in my seat for a couple of seconds, utterly stunned, as Travis Connolly’s grand slam victory was announced. He’d done it! In spite of his accident, his hard work had paid off and he was now racing off the court and toward his team—Peter, Marie, Austin, Samuel and a few others. I was a few rows back, which was perfectly understandable given that the only link I had to Connolly was the fact we shared the same training facility. Though looking at him now, he probably didn’t need Los Carlos any more. He was back on form, the world at his feet once more. Hopefully, if I worked hard, I’d be in his position one day. Not winning the men’s title, of course, but I, Virginia Miller, could be another British tennis champion.

I had a long way to go, obviously. I wasn’t even seeded yet, never mind in the upper echelons. But I was determined, if nothing else.

Shaking my aspirations from my thoughts, I carefully pushed my way through the excitable crowd to get down to the group from Los Carlos. I knew I was lucky to be there in the first place. As someone so low down on the sporting career ladder, I should really have been back at the academy, working my arse off, but apparently Austin had been feeling generous and thought I should have first-hand experience of a major tournament. I hadn’t had the heart to tell him I’d been to Wimbledon a couple of times already. It had practically been on my doorstep back in London, and a visit at an early age had sparked my love of the sport in the first place. Plus there was no way I was going to turn down the chance to visit a foreign tournament. Especially since Nadia was playing. And she’d gotten right through to the final.

She hadn’t won, unfortunately, but it had been very exciting to watch the matches she’d played. I hadn’t paid an awful lot of attention to the ball or the rackets or even the other players, though. I’d just let my gaze wander over Nadia’s delectable figure for the duration of her matches. The determined set of her face throughout, the bounce of her glossy brunette ponytail, her muscular yet feminine legs, the slight jig of the breasts that her sports top couldn’t quite keep in check… she was gorgeous. And I really liked her personality too. She’d looked after me so well since I’d been at the academy. Been a mentor of sorts.

When I reached the group they were still exchanging kisses, handshakes and claps on the back with Connolly. I tried to catch his eye, give him the thumbs up or something, but he was too caught up in Marie, the academy’s psychologist. And given the way he’d picked her up and spun her around and was now kissing her, I suspected she was a little more than that to him.

They carried on kissing for a little while, clearly uncaring of the millions of people who were watching them either in person or on the television. Finally Connolly pulled away, took Marie’s hand and dropped to one knee. I gasped—and I wasn’t the only one. Similar sounds echoed around me, and people started to murmur. Was he really going to…?

Yes, it seemed he was. Glad I was close enough to hear what he was saying, I waited, eager to know what would happen next. Would she say yes? Women all over the world would marry him in a heartbeat, I was sure, but perhaps Marie felt differently.

“Marie Sherratt,” Connolly said, clearing his throat, then continuing. “Marie Sherratt, I know we didn’t have the most auspicious of starts, what with me not being into psychobabble and all, but now, months down the line, I don’t care about that. All I care about is that the most caring, giving, intelligent, beautiful and sexy woman on the planet loves me and I love her. And more than anything, I want to make it official. So I have a question to ask. Marie, will you marry me?”

The crowd held its collective breath for a millisecond, then erupted in cheers, screams and wolf whistles. Such was the din that in spite of the short distance, I couldn’t hear her reply, but the beaming grin on her face and her body language indicated that she’d said yes. As did the fact that her now-fiancé picked her up and swung her around again. They were a couple very much in love, and although it was nice to see it also made me feel a little sad and quite a lot jealous.

Instinctively, I looked around for Nadia, whom I hadn’t seen since she’d left the court after her devastating defeat. That had been when I’d headed to the center court to see Connolly play. I’d thought perhaps Nadia would make her way into the crowd to watch the rest of the tournament, but I couldn’t spot her. It didn’t mean she wasn’t there, of course. The stadium held rather a lot of people, and she was just one face among thousands. But she was very important to me.

Before long I was swept up in the excitement of the Los Carlos gang, what with a grand slam win and a marriage proposal, and I didn’t get a chance to continue looking for Nadia. As soon as I heard mention of a celebratory party that evening, though, I found myself hoping I’d bump into her there.

* * * * *

Back at the hotel later that day, I was dithering over my wardrobe. Not the actual thing made of wood, obviously, but the garments inside. I’d known there would be some swanky events taking place in New York City over the course of the US Open, but I didn’t know the venues, or how many. As a result, I’d brought pretty much every posh dress I owned. And as I stood gazing at them all, I couldn’t decide whether it was a blessing or a curse. I was sure to have something that would catch Nadia’s eye, but only if I actually picked something, put it on and got to the damn party.