Once he’d successfully pulled his attention away from the video clip, Ward spent more time tumbling down the online rabbit hole, trying to find out as much as he could. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot outside of that lame stunt Kendrick had pulled on camera. And it wasn’t altogether clear when or why the relationship ended. Or if they were still together even, which really irritated him. Worried him too.

‘I was hurt by someone.’

Hannah also said she was still trying to figure stuff out, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was over and she’d told Ward nothing that even suggested that.

He took to scrolling through Kendrick’s socials then, looking for pictures or mentions of him and Hannah together. But knew that if he found any, he was simply torturing himself even further.

Instead, he pulled up the PGA Tour schedule, feeling his curiosity intensify. Unlike some of his teammates, golf was not a hobby of his in the off-season and he didn’t watch it either. Too damn slow, boring and dweeby. So he had very little awareness of what went on within that sport.

But the moment the schedule loaded on his screen, he felt his suspicions tingle.

This year, the PGA Championship had been held at Bethpage Golf Course on Long Island – a mere hour outside of Manhattan. And Rob Kendrick had been playing in the tournament last month. Round about the time that Hannah had arrived late at that podcast thing, looking dishevelled and distracted, and sexy as hell.

Ward felt himself clenching his fists.

Now he knew why she was late and her make-up all mussed up. Clearly, they’d reconnected while he was in town.

His imagination suddenly ran rampant as he replayed Kendrick and Hannah’s bodies melded together in that video, the familiarity of the intimate moment on national TV plain for all to see.

His torment deepening, Ward had the sudden urge to call her up and ask about it. He wanted to know if she was still with Kendrick. Needed to know. What exactly they were to each other? And more importantly, why had she been so willing to break boundaries for that client and not him? Though he probably wouldn’t have the guts to add that part. But if he was going to continue to trust Hannah, Ward needed to know.

Whatever went down between them that led to Hannah coming here from LA, it was almost certain that they’d reconnected anyway. After all, how many times had he looked up some old fling for a hook-up while travelling for a road game? If there was one cliché true about pro athletes of any stripe, it was that it was all too easy to have a puck bunny in other cities. No-commitment dalliances were par for the course.