When or if he did feel up to working with her again, and while he figured it was none of his business – no, he knew for sure that it wasn’t any of his business – on some level, Ward was interested to see whether she would address Kendrick answering her phone like that.

But maybe she didn’t care. After all, why should she be embarrassed or concerned about what Ward thought if she and the golfer were together?

She prided herself on being a professional through and through, despite this latest evidence to the contrary, but perhaps he’d read that all wrong too? Maybe she’d got the transfer to the New York office so that there was no longer a conflict of interest, and so she and that dickwad could continue seeing one another.

It was about the only reasonable explanation he could think of. But then that night in the park when she’d said she’d been hurt, how did that tally?

Probably just trying to let him down gently, Ward concluded, cringing at the notion that she was simply taking pity on him. Hannah might well care about him as a person and empathise with his situation, but at the end of the day, all he was to her was a client – nothing more than a pay cheque.

But he’d made a mistake and confused all the attention she was paying him with something else. Unused to people besides Johnny giving a shit about him as a person, Ward had latched onto Hannah like the stupid loser he was.

So until he got a full physio signoff on the knee and was able to get back on the ice and do what he did best, he was going to do the second thing he did best: hole himself up in his place, shut out the world and drink.

And cheer when Kendrick hit another dud shot.

Ward kicked his feet up on his coffee table and sat back, sinking into the sofa. Until his relaxation was interrupted by a knock on the door.

He got up, shuffled listlessly to the entryway, and looking out the peephole, recognized his visitor and groaned. He could just pretend he wasn’t home, but if he did that, she would just keep knocking and wouldn’t leave until he opened up.

‘How’s it going?’ he greeted blearily.

Shelley’s arms were folded across her chest and she tossed her ponytail over one shoulder, eyes dark and glittering.