Chapter 19
“Brendan! Brendan!” She pounded on the door, more in frustration and anger than hope as she watched his tall form disappear around a corner. She slammed her fists on the door once more for good measure, then pressed her forehead against the glass.
She closed her eyes, tears flowing freely now, breaths coming in gasping sobs. She knew exactly what he planned to do. He would destroy his career to save hers.
“Idiot,” she muttered through clenched teeth, not sure whether she meant him or her. Both, she supposed. Her for getting them into this mess, him for sacrificing himself to get her out of it.
Nothing would happen while she stood there with her face against the door, she decided, straightening and taking two steps back. A wave of nausea suddenly overtook her, and she just managed to gather her hair in a ponytail as she leaned over and dry heaved at the bottom of Brendan’s jasmine trellis.
Her eyes watered, her stomach cramped and her head spun, but the scent of jasmine was an incongruous, clarifying force, snapping her thoughts into brutal focus.
She would fix this.
She navigated around the side of the house in the dark, finally finding the back entrance to the garage. As soon as she opened it she saw that Brendan had raised the door so she could get her car out.
“Asshole thinks of everything,” she grumbled, noting that he’d also placed her bag on the step from the garage to the house. She reversed down his driveway, obstinately gunning the engine.
She drove blindly for a few minutes, not sure where to go or what to do. Eventually, she pulled into the vast, empty parking lot of a home improvement store, where she cut the engine and stared purposefully through the windshield.
She held up her left hand. Reasons to let Brendan take the fall.
Index finger. She wouldn’t lose her job.
Middle finger. Her parents would never find out about her gambling.
Ring finger. His career was over anyway—literally within hours—so he had a lot less to lose.
Pinkie. He also had a lot more money than her and could afford to be unemployed a lot longer.
Thumb. She didn’t know how to stop him, or what she could do to change this.
She exhaled. Right hand. Reasons to take the blame herself.
Index finger. She loved Brendan.
From there her mind drew a blank. She sat in the silence of the car, disturbed only by the swish of vehicles passing on the main road, staring at her hands. Five fingers versus one. A lifetime spent building her first career and then her second, instantly and easily outweighed by one simple fact. One irrefutable emotion. One man.
“Never mind.” She balled her hands, erasing that comparison. There were plenty of self-serving, pragmatic reasons to let Brendan assume responsibility.
And no way she could live with herself if she did.
“Think,” she urged, pressing her fingers over her eyes. The solution was not to have either of their names in the article but to have no article at all. How could she stop Will from publishing anything? He wouldn’t accept money, even if she had enough to compete with his buyers. He thought this would launch his career to the next level, and she couldn’t give him that much exposure. She had nothing he wanted, except…
She sat bolt upright as the answer registered. Then she put her car into gear and squealed out of the parking lot.
* * * *
Credit to her, if Randall’s wife had any suspicions about his young, female coworker turning up unannounced on his doorstep at nine o’clock at night, it didn’t show in her perfectly polite smile. Her composure was so steadfast she even offered Erin a drink as she showed her to Randall’s home office.
Erin thanked her profusely, but her voice evaporated when Randall arrived and his wife left. The CFO’s alarm wasn’t at all concealed, and his brows rose above his glasses as he asked without preamble, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry for disturbing you at home like this. I’ll try to be quick. Can we sit?”
“Of course.” The desk faced the window, but he motioned for her to take the worn armchair in the corner and rolled his desk chair over to face her.
She took a deep, steadying breath, and mentally apologized to everyone she was about to disappoint. Her parents. An entire league of female players. All those girls who watched YouTube clips of her top-ten goals and dreamed of besting her one day.
I’m sorry. There’s no other way.
She told him everything. The weekends in Atlantic City. The sky-high credit card bills. Betting on overseas leagues. The only detail she left out was Brendan—mostly.
“We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks,” she admitted. “It was never supposed to be serious, but I guess it is, given he’s just thrown away his reputation on my behalf. He doesn’t deserve that. It’s my fault, and I should take the blame.”
She glanced at the floor for a second, gathering strength for what she was about to do.
“I’ll resign,” she offered. “Or you can dismiss me. Whatever it’ll take for you to call Will Hart and convince him that I’ve admitted fault, the league is taking the appropriate action and Brendan Young’s name shouldn’t be anywhere near his story.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, as though waiting for a blow. When it didn’t come she reopened them.
Randall peered at her through his thick lenses. They stared at each other in silence for a full minute, the only sound the distant tick of a grandfather clock.
“I have a better idea,” he pronounced finally. “I’ll call Will Hart and tell him if he publishes an article impugning a player or a corporate employee based on illegally acquired data, he’ll lose all access to CSL players, managers, matches, and league executives.”
She blinked. Will only wrote about soccer—that would end his career.
“That sounds good,” she said dumbly, waiting for the other end of the seesaw to hit the ground with a thud.
He inhaled, crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I have a son. Did you know that?”
She shook her head. “I met your daughter, but I didn’t know you had a son.”
“You should’ve. He’s twenty-nine, so he would’ve been your generation. Superstar midfielder in high school. Incredible technical vision, a real cog in the center, able to distribute balls and see opportunities three passes in advance. Won a full scholarship to UCLA and flunked out his freshman year.”
She winced. “Sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I was, trust me.” He smiled bitterly. “He ran out of spending money from his summer job early in the semester, so he started playing poker online. I guess he won a little at first—enough to make him spend hours every night trying to win more. He started sleeping through class, didn’t make it to practice, and threw away his future on a website. Of course, we didn’t find out about any of it until the bailiffs turned up.”
“Bailiffs?” she echoed.
He nodded. “He racked up a load of debt, and used his home address on all the paperwork.”
“What happened?”
“We bailed him out. More than once. It took time, but he learned. He pulled himself together, finished his degree, found a job. Gambling ruined his credit rating but not his whole life. It shouldn’t ruin yours, either.”
Her heart inched into her throat, but she stuffed down the hope welling with it. She didn’t dare believe this might all turn out okay.
“Maybe this is why I pushed the gambling thing so hard for the year-end report.” His smile turned reflective. “My son’s issues were years ago, but they still weigh heavily on my mind, especially when I see a player falling into that trap. I thought the key was to be hard and use punishment as a deterrent. In retrospect—and in fact, it was that piece you presented on Brendan Young that changed my mind—I think second chances can be worth a hell of a lot more.”
“I’ll phone Will Hart,” he concluded, and from the way he sat forward she knew this conversation was almost over. “And I won’t accept your resignation, but I will work with you to end this addiction. As a start, I can recommend a great therapist.”
She bit her lower lip, fighting to hold back the flood of tears that threatened at the corners of her eyes. “Really? I can keep my job?”
“Only if you continue to excel as much as you have since you joined. Beyond that, I see no need to make this private matter public.”
“I will,” she promised, the words spilling out on a rush of breath. “And I’m going to kick this gambling thing, once and for all. I’m already halfway there.”
“Then I’ll help you along the second half of the journey.”
He stood, and so did she. She had a sudden urge to fling her arms around his ruddy neck, but her professionalism kicked in just in time. She extended her hand instead.
“Thank you,” she said more genuinely than ever before in her life.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you came to me. Honesty is always the right decision.”
She managed to hold it together until she said goodbye to Randall’s wife, got into her car and drove around the block. Then she parked along the curb and wept.
She didn’t cry for herself. Although she was grateful, her relief wasn’t selfish—not at all.
Instead, she cried for Brendan. For the man that cared so little for himself and so much for others. For the withdrawal, he’d already put into motion, and the isolation he thought he deserved. For the immense, larger-than-life legacy he would leave behind, and for the extraordinary story that was about to come to an end.
She felt limp and unsteady by the time her sobbing slowed. She’d saved him once tonight. Would he let her save him again?
She’d find out tomorrow. First, she had to do something else, something she should’ve done a long time ago.
She opened her purse and dug around for her tablet. She brought the screen to life and tapped to her email. She exhaled, then started typing.
Hi Daddy. Sorry to do this over email, but I don’t have my phone and this can’t wait another second. I have something to tell you.