"It Had to Be You" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Title: It Had to Be You
Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Final Thought: Pretty Enjoyable
The notorious Phoebe Somerville finds herself back in Chicago and the owner of a pro-football team after the death of her father. But Bert Somerville leaving her his beloved Chicago Stars has nothing to do with love, it's just one last challenge to her from beyond the grave. His will states that she must remain being the owner until at least the end of the season, if they win the AFC Championship she gets to keep the team, if they fail miserably which many suspect will happen, her hateful cousin Reed will become the new owner. Phoebe has no intention of playing Bert's games however and promptly ignores it. Her actions (or make that non-actions) pisses off a lot of people, especially the Stars head coach Dan Calebow. He gets fed up enough to fly to New York and drag his reluctant new boss back to do her duty.
Phoebe is the type of woman Dan used to devour during his football playing days, but times have changed and he wants to find the future mother of his children. Dan isn't exactly Phoebe's type either, although due to a traumatic experience in her teens she's never been able to truly be intimate with a man, despite her sexpot image. She's always enjoyed the platonic company of artistic types and gay men over testosterone-loaded jocks. Annoyed by her attraction to Dan's southern boy charm at first, she soon realizes he may be able to help heal the scars of her terrible past with men. Dan on the other hand is equally annoyed by his attraction towards her. As far as he can tell, she's a brainless bimbo out to ruin his football team. But that bimbo is becoming harder and harder to resist.
I liked this book for the most part, but I wasn't a big fan of the parts involving Dan's kinky ex-wife. Those were kind of uncomfortable to read. I also found Dan's overly-macho attitude to be a little irritating at times.