I woke to a text from Betsy. Ignoring the message, I stretched, the insides of my thighs still ached. Deep inside I felt a change. My night with Jase had transformed me, and while I knew he told me straight that we couldn’t be anything now, under his words there had been an emphasis on the now and I found myself clinging onto it. Life was finally slotting into place—Sammy wasn’t going to be taken away from me and I’d had mind blowing sex with a cricket god who was slowly crawling under my skin. Maybe going to the Red Cats was the best thing I’d ever done.
Remembering Betsy’s text I flicked on the message.
Have you seen this? Just as well your friendship is over.
It was followed by a link that when I clicked took me to one of those cheap sports rags that still had semi-naked women gracing the pages, despite the fact it was the twenty-first century. The headline was obvious enough, 'Dancer tames the beast’. Followed by a sub heading, 'My night with the Lancashire Lion’. Accompanying the headline was a grainy picture of a long-legged man with fair hair sat on a chair as a girl in a matching thong and bra set straddled his lap. His hands were gripping the edge of the chair as his face tilted up to her all too ample cleavage.
A flood of sick rose up my throat. Couldn’t be. Could it? Wasn’t he here, doing indescribable things to me in the shower and taking me apart in my guest room?
This news was bollocks. I knew this because I was the one that had spent the night with him. My palms slicked on my phone as his words of Saturday night flooded back to me. His arms had been tight around my body, his fingers trailing the curve of my waist and his lips had settled into that grim line as he'd said, ‘It's amazing what people would do to make money’.
I stumbled out of bed my heart racing. "Sammy, come on get dressed."
"What, why?" he stumbled to his door, his dark hair ravaged by sleep and his pillow.
"I need to get to work, little guy." Just then I heard Maria's key turn in the lock of the front door. I knew it was her. There was no one else with a key. "Okay, don't worry. Maria can take you at the right time."
"What's going on?" he rubbed at one eye, and it was so damn cute I had to still my panic and take a moment to enjoy it for what it was. A very cute six-year-old still caught in the clutches of slumber. I rubbed his head and dropped a kiss on his nose.
"Don't worry. I'll see you after work. I've got to dash."
Maria was opening the fridge, a frown flickering across her face as she looked at the damage I'd created over the weekend. "Who were you feeding, an elephant?"
I was going to reply that it was just me, and what was she saying about my eating habits when I remembered that it hadn't just been me eating the food. It had been the Lion as well when he was here making love to me instead of some stripper trying to sell a story for a quick buck.
"Maria, I've got to go to work early," I rushed up to her and squeezed her shoulders. My pulse was racing. I didn't even know what I was planning to do when I got to work; I just felt like I had to be there for him. He was an arse, and I knew that. I knew that I came way down his list of priorities. At least I had, until the weekend had changed everything and given this friendship between us a fighting chance, but he couldn't get in trouble with management for something that was a total lie. I blinked into the sunshine streaming through the kitchen patio doors. "Can you get Sammy dressed for school? I will owe you one."
She laughed and pushed me away. "You always owe me one, go on go." I grabbed my keys, shouting out a goodbye to Sammy. "Oh, don't forget you've promised to do a cricket session next week with the school for the end of the term."
I groaned. I had forgotten. But then I'd been distracted by a whole six foot something chunk of golden-haired manliness. "Thanks for the heads up."
"You owe me," she shouted back as I paced down the drive. "Again."
His SUV was in the car park in its regular spot. The rest of the car park was empty apart from Waller's back sedan and a Mercedes that I didn't recognise.
My knees shook as I clambered out of the car. On the way over here my nerves had been a jangling mess, my hands sliding on the steering wheel and my legs knocking together. I didn't know what I planned to do. I didn't know if there was anything I could do. But really in my heart, I knew I wanted to be there for him.
I wasn't naive. I knew we weren't in a relationship, or anything even close to that. I knew he didn't want me in that way. It wasn't his thing. But on Saturday when he'd taken me, pushing me through my boundaries, he'd changed something deep within me. Something that I'd never contemplated before.
The corridors were empty. No players would arrive this early on a Monday, even if it were the quarter-final this week. The Red Cats may be the best team in the league, but hell they were the laziest too. A cleaner was pushing one of those whirling floor cleaners down the corridor. "Watch out, Miss." He called just as I slipped on a wet patch. Gaining my balance, I worked my way to Waller's office where the sound of raised voices filtered through the door. I paused, not wanting to eavesdrop, but then unable to move away.
"It's lies." The Lion's voice filtered through the wood and hearing it made my stomach flip flop. Stood there like a naughty schoolgirl outside the headmaster's office, listening to a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear, I realised one startling fact. I would recognise that voice if it called to me from the moon, from another universe maybe. It did something odd to my bones, made them feel like jelly.
"So you weren't at the club?" This voice was unfamiliar, definitely not Waller’s. It was smarmy and cloying, causing the hair on my arms to stand on end.
"Yes, I was." I could hear the frustration through the door. I could visualise him grasping at his hair and making it stick up at angles. 'But I left."
"With the stripper?" This was Waller. Exhaustion dragged off every vowel he spoke.
"No, not with the stripper, that's not my style, Waller. You know that."
"But you can't tell us what you were doing, so we can help you counter these claims?"
I stiffened for a moment until he said, "No. I was drunk. I went home."
Silence met his response and then the other voice said. "So what do you plan to do, deny the story?"
The sound of a chair scraping across the floor blocked his response.
Then the other voice clipped, "It will go to the board, you know that, right?"
"Yes." Footsteps fell until the door swung open and the tortured face of the Lion found me eavesdropping. "Rivers." He nodded at me and continued to walk on down the hallway. I watched him go. His shoulders were held high, his back ramrod straight and a sense of pride rolled off him, permeating the atmosphere. I took a deep breath of it, hoping to absorb some of that iron resolve that he made his own.
Creeping into the office, I looked at Waller, lifting my hands to my hips. "What's going on?"
Waller's face had taken on a shade of grey these last few weeks that made me genuinely worried for his health. "Seen the news?" He rose an eyebrow.
"Yes, but it's bollocks, right? I mean I know Willis is a jerk of the first order, but he's not a dirtbag." I wanted to rip my tongue out for even talking about him like that.
The stranger in the room watched me with interest. "You should be pleased, Miss Rivers, at least it takes the heat off the rumours of you two having an affair."
I made an explosive snorting noise. "I don't think it's an affair when both parties are single." I glared at both men. "Who the fuck are you anyway?"
With hindsight, I'd realise this wasn't the way to talk to anyone, but I was mad—hopping, string someone up by their gonads, mad.
"I'm the managing director, Parker." He lifted from Waller's seat he was occupying with an ample girth and offered me a clammy hand. I wanted to be sick as I shook it; it was like shaking hands with the devil.
I turned my face away from him, once sweaty courtesies were disposed of. As we were nearing the end of the season and this was the first time I'd met the guy, I knew just what kind of manager he was. "What happens now?"
Waller ran hands through his non-existent hair. "Now, he apologises to the fans for his indiscretions."
"Or?"
Waller’s gaze held mine steady. "Or he's out."
"He's your best player."
Waller shrugged. "Rules are rules, Lyssa, you know that, right?" It felt like he was hinting beneath the surface of his words but I was so over this shit. I stormed out of the room with more force than the man in question had summoned.
He was stood by the wall, his arms folded over his chest, one foot kicked up against the wall.
I'd never in my life wanted to take someone in my arms as I did him then but I knew I wouldn't. This job meant everything to him, and me hugging him in public wasn't going to help the situation any, not at all—in fact, it would make it a hundred times worse. So instead of touching him, which my skin was burning to do, I went and stood in front of him, my face tilted to he'd look at me. "Guess you didn't have a night of passion with a stripper?"
His eyes bore into mine and I wanted to melt right there and then, a warm flutter curled its way to life in my belly. I did a double take when I saw the twitch move the corners of his lips. "Not exactly, no."
"Not exactly...what are you implying, Willis?"
He smiled one of those raw flashes of beauty that he so rarely showed anyone. "That some two-bit stripper was very far from my mind."
"What was on your mind?"
Was I really going to flirt with him now? Was this even what we planned? Wasn't Saturday a one-off thing? Wasn't his whole life imploding around him because of yet another vicious rumour in the gossip fuelled papers.
I shook off the warmth that was spreading through my limbs. "What are you going to do?" My voice lowered, and my body relaxed towards his an inch. I needed to stop that right now. That was a path to destruction for both of us.
"I'm going to do what they asked."
My hands flew into the air. "But why? It's all lies."
"What else can I do?" The speckled eyes caught mine for just a moment.
I gasped a deep breath and blurted, "You could tell them the truth."
His jaw clenched and his handsome face pinched at the prospect. "No, I would never do that."
It stung. He would rather say he'd been with an imaginary stripper than admit he'd been with me, and I knew the sole reason for that was because he didn't want to break his contract. "Fine."
I turned and started to pace away. "Alyssa," he called after me, but I didn't stop to look. I just kept on walking, right into my job, the game.
At four in the afternoon the team and I sat on the side row of the press room, all our polo shirts and chinos perfectly pressed, and watched as the Lion apologised to the media and the public again in a matter of only a few days. Except for this time, I watched. I sat there feeling sick and holding myself together around the middle as his face flashed with sheer defiance as he read the repeated the words written on the card in front of him. When he'd finished the cues, and I knew this because I'd already seen them, he looked out at the sea of pink players, and his eyes landed on me. "I will never," his voice was low, and my heart pounded so loud in my chest I wondered if he could hear it from his seat. "I will never," he repeated, "mar the reputation of my team." His blue gaze burned through me as he stood and a barrage of questions flooded over him. "Who was she? "Did he plan to see her again?" "Did he like to pay for sex?" He held his hand out and strode from the room.