Working for your ex’s football team, what could go wrong?

Synopsis

Breaking up with Dominic Wright was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Working with him years later is making me forget why I ever did.

I never thought we’d cross paths again, but I just divorced a man I never loved, and I’m desperate to restart my career. Working for Dom’s team for a season will prove what I’m capable of… and it will test my strength.

He’s at work events. At parties with friends. In very little clothing in the locker room.

We bicker and fight and promise the past is long gone… only to end up back in bed.

Worse, with how Dom holds me, it’s like I’m precious to him again.

But we can’t repeat our mistakes. Career ambitions and distance broke us apart before. When I leave this time, I must do it with my heart intact.

Nothing lasts forever. Especially not the kind of love we had.

My review

After ending her loveless marriage, Mariana returns back home from England to restart her career. The plan is to stay for a while back in the States, to later on return to England. For the moment, she will work for a season for a football team. Nothing wrong with that, weren’t it that not only Mariana will be working alongside her sister, but that one of the team’s players is Dominic Wright. The same Dom Mariana had a romance with while being at college. And while they both knew they story would come with an expiration date, it still ended in heartbreak for the both of them. And now they cross paths again, but for sure it isn’t amicable, even they keep on meeting at work events, parties with friends and yes, even in the locker room… And despite their bickering and fighting over everything, the attraction keeps pulling them together. But mistakes of the past are best not repeated, right? Especially as Mariana is once again only for a limited time in the States…

I have to say, this is the first book of the series that I have read, even if this in fact is Book 4. But I can also say that while perhaps it would have helped reading the other books first, you can perfectly read this as a standalone.

Now, normally at the start of a book, I quickly sympathize with both main characters. However, I have to admit that Mariana came off as a little bit all high and mighty. She came back from England, starts a seasonal job and is perhaps already focused on the new job waiting for her back in England.

But the better I got to know Mariana, the more I realized that in fact she is anything but high and mighty.

Truth to be told, I started to feel sorry for her. Of course she made her own choices in the past, but it is also crystal-clear that she made those choices based on the expectations her own parents had and still have for her. Choices that perhaps she wouldn’t have made if she just would have had the full support of her parents.

As a reader, I was very curious to read how that first meeting between Mariana and Dom would go. Yes you can call me evil 😊. Because it is clear that the both of them are not looking forward at that meeting. And that reluctance makes it clear that something has transpired in the past, making the end of the relationship at the time not that amicable as they both had initially planned.

And clash it did! Not that they were rude in public, but everyone could feel the vibes between them.

Where I found it difficult to immediately connect with Mariana, I did not have the same issue with Dom. I cannot pinpoint exactly why though. Is it because he is a ‘beast’ as a football player? Or is it because of his dedication for the sport? Or could it be that he has the need to keep proving his worth? Or could it be the gentle side we see of him at the moments he allows us to see the real Dom?

Dom doesn’t make a secret of the fact that he was heartbroken when Mariana left. He even attempted to win her back, without success. And that vulnerable side of him made me truly like him.

A vulnerable side we also discover as we see that in the past and even in the present he wants to show his worth, or want people to see him worthy.

The matter that he was truly heartbroken by Mariana leaving, and moving on with her life so quickly (apparently), makes that he cannot hide his anger and perhaps even resentment when Mariana is back, and they keep on meeting, as their worlds are entwined through work and friends in common.

Now, I have to say, I found it nice of both Dom and Mariana that they keep things polite and respectful when there are people around. It would have been so easy for each of them to make things difficult and awkward. But they both have the common sense to not do that.

When they are on their own though, complete different matter! Initially it is with fighting and bickering and someone it shifts in something way more physical. And I LOVED reading how they are just unable to resist each other!

And it was just sweet reading how slowly, with even some restraint, Mariana and Dom are getting closer to each other once again. They are able to put the past behind them and they can rediscover each other all over again.

Years have passed, so both characters have grown, matured. They are now also able to put things in perspective. And while in college their love was already strong, and perhaps something to be envious of, this growth is something they both needed to have a ‘replay’ of that love.

In this book we how people and their expectations can let you go in a direction that you perhaps wouldn’t choose yourself. And how that can cause a break – up of something beautiful you have in your life. But we also see how time will tell, and how growth can let you become stronger, more independent and how it can give you the fire to fight for your own causes.

Dom and Mariana show us that perhaps a great love story needs time to grow, and that perhaps the first time around isn’t just the right time but that a replay is needed.

I absolutely enjoyed reading this story and now I just must read the previous books of the series! 😊