Striker (Book 1 in the 'Striker' Trilogy)

by Michelle Betham

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘Fate. You and me. Everyone knows now, don’t they? We can’t hide it anymore, we can’t lie and say it never happened, so…’

  ‘So, what? Now the truth is out we might as well just get back together, is that it?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it…’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jim…’ Amber laughed, turning her head to look out of the window again. The neighbours were out in their back gardens now, shouting to each other over the fences, no doubt talking about the growing numbers of press gathered outside and the stories in the newspapers that had now made their street a port of call for the gossip-mongers. ‘You make everything sound so easy.’

  ‘Because it is. Or it can be.’ He reached out to gently touch her arm and she swung back round to look at him, his eyes burning into hers as he spoke. ‘No more secrets, Amber. No more hiding from the truth.’

  ‘What that story doesn’t tell the world, though, Jim, is how much you hurt me. All it focuses on is the fact we slept together when I was so young, not the fact that you hurt me so much, I… It doesn’t tell the whole story, does it?’

  ‘We can put all that behind us, baby, can’t we? We can start again, don’t you see?’

  She pushed him aside and walked away from the window, going back to the job she’d been busy doing before – throwing Ryan’s things into a suitcase. ‘All I see is one huge mess that needs to be sorted out before I even begin to think about what’s going to happen next. I mean, Jesus, this is actually as much Ryan’s house as it is mine and yet I’m throwing him out! Maybe I should be the one to leave…’

  ‘Do you love me, Amber?’

  She stopped what she was doing and looked down at the t-shirt she was holding. Ryan’s t-shirt.

  ‘Amber? Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not still in love with me?’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ she whispered, throwing the t-shirt into the case and banging the lid shut. No. Ryan could be the one to leave. For now. Until she could move back into her own house, then he could do what the hell he liked with this place. He still had his city centre apartment so it wasn’t like he was going to be homeless.

  ‘Because I never stopped loving you.’

  ‘Then you should have told me that a lot sooner, Jim.’

  ‘You told me to stay away.’

  ‘Because I thought you were leaving me for a whole new life! Jesus…’ She leaned back against the wall, aware of more raised voices downstairs, of her father’s rising above Ronnie’s, and the guilt and the shame and the anger she still felt over everything suddenly overwhelmed her, bringing her close to tears. But she wasn’t going to cry. Amber Sullivan didn’t cry, she didn’t do that. She was strong, she could deal with this. She could. She could deal with this. ‘I didn’t want you near me if I couldn’t have you, Jim. I couldn’t stand seeing you every day, with somebody else, and knowing I couldn’t have you. But if I’d thought for one second that you felt the same way as me… if I’d known you’d really, honestly wanted me, too…’

  ‘I should have gone with my heart, huh?’

  She looked at him. ‘I guess we messed up big time, didn’t we?’

  He smiled a small smile, walking over to her, and this time she let her heart skip a beat at the sight of him, let her stomach turn those familiar somersaults, felt her skin tingle at the prospect of him touching her. All those things she’d tried to batter down, tried to push aside and forget she’d ever felt at all.

  ‘We should have come clean in the beginning, Amber, I know that now. But I got scared. I let my ego get in the way, I pretended you were nothing more than a fling, someone who’d always be there for me whenever I needed her, but all that did was hurt you. It wasn’t fair, and I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You didn’t deserve any of it.’

  ‘We both made mistakes, Jim. I should have been wise enough not to let you back into my life a second time. I should have walked away, left you alone…’

  ‘But I wouldn’t have let you do that, because I wanted you to come back. I wanted you so much, Amber. I always did. I still do. But I was weak, scared of what people would say. Scared it would hurt my career. I was selfish. I was way, way too selfish.’ He gently touched her cheek with the palm of his hand, his green eyes practically burning into hers. ‘I love you, baby. I always have, and I always will. And there’s not a thing you can do to stop that.’

  This was so not the time for any of this to be happening but she was vulnerable, weak. She was scared of what was going to happen and how the future was going to pan out and what Jim was offering was a familiarity she needed right now. Because she wasn’t sure she could face this all on her own. After all, they were in this together now, weren’t they?

  ‘Jim, I…’ She closed her eyes as his mouth lowered down onto hers, and although she knew the timing couldn’t have been worse, she let it happen because it felt safe. He felt safe. After all those years of knowing it was wrong, of knowing he was wrong, now he finally felt safe. Finally.

  *

  ‘You need to be thanking your lucky fucking stars,’ Max said, pacing the floor of Ryan’s riverside apartment. ‘Because, if it hadn’t been for you and your reckless team-mate blabbing to those women the pair of you saw fit to pick up last night, then you would have been the frigging headlines this morning, instead of featuring as nothing more than the shocked boyfriend who, apparently, knew nothing about his fiancée’s secret past with his boss. But you did know, didn’t you?’

  Ryan nodded. ‘Yeah, I knew. Anyway, none of it matters anymore, does it? Because she’s not my fiancée now, is she?’

  ‘Yes, and whose fault is that, Ryan?’ Max asked, stopping when he reached the dining table Ryan was sitting at, leaning forward to look straight at his high-maintenance, high-profile client, his palms resting face down on the black glass. ‘You, sitting here a single man again was going to happen regardless of all the other crap going down today. You saw to that yourself. What the fuck were you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ryan sighed, sitting back and pushing a hand through his dishevelled hair.

  ‘You don’t know,’ Max repeated, resuming his pacing, ignoring yet another call coming through on his mobile. It had been ringing almost continuously since the news of Amber and Jim Allen’s past had broken, everyone wanting to know Ryan’s reaction to his fiancée and his boss’s secret affair. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing, kiddo, you also want to think yourself lucky those women you took home decided that Amber and Jim were more newsworthy than the fact they’d just slept with one of the country’s top footballers on his fucking Stag Night…’

  ‘You think I’m lucky, do you?’ Ryan interrupted, feeling pissed off and angry now. Lucky was the last thing he considered himself to be.

  ‘Yes, I think you’re lucky,’ Max said, his voice still carrying the agitated tone it had sported since he’d turned up on Ryan’s doorstep just a few minutes ago. ‘You’re lucky that everyone is focusing on your boss right now and not on what a fucking idiot you’ve been – again. That could have been your last chance, Ryan, you do realise that, don’t you? Drink, women, drugs… how fucking stupid are you?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, alright!’ Ryan yelled, getting up and kicking the chair he’d been sitting on across the room. ‘I get it. I’ve been an idiot; you don’t have to keep going on about it.’

  ‘Oh, but I think I do. Because you obviously don’t listen to a word I fucking say! Or we wouldn’t be in this mess now, would we? You had a great woman, a beautiful woman – a whole new future ahead of you, and your football was the best it’s been in a long time and what do you do? You go and piss it all up against a wall just because you can’t let your old life go. A life that dragged you down and almost ruined everything you had and you wanted to go there again? I’ll never understand you, Ryan. I really thought we’d turned that corner, that you were finally settling down. I mean, that’s why you came home, wasn’t it? Why you left London and came back up north? T
o settle down? But you just couldn’t leave it alone.’

  Ryan sat down on his huge, oversized black leather sofa, putting his head in his hands. ‘Quit with the lectures, will you, Max? I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Really. You’ve had enough? Haven’t we all, Ryan.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ryan asked, looking up at his agent.

  Max leaned back against the dining table, folding his arms. ‘It means, I’m not sure I can be bothered with the hassle you create anymore. Do you know where I’m supposed to be today? I’m supposed to be flying out to Barcelona to talk to a big name player out there who’s looking to move to England. He’s talking to three of this country’s biggest clubs right now – including Newcastle Red Star – and he wants me to represent him, but where am I? I’m here, aren’t I? Sorting out another one of your fucking messes.’

  ‘Shit! Max, I’m sorry…’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe sorry isn’t good enough this time, kiddo.’

  ‘Jesus…’ Ryan sighed, throwing himself back against the cushions, closing his eyes. ‘This is the worst yet.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But it could have been. You’re not a major priority at the minute. You got away with it because something bigger and far more interesting superseded your stupidity. Your career’s safe, Ryan. This time. But your nine lives are running out fast, and you’d better get a grip before you really mess up.’

  ‘Are you…?’

  ‘I’m going nowhere, kiddo. I’ve been with you since you started out, since you were nineteen-years-old, do you really think I could walk away from you now? Despite all the shit you create I’m not just your agent, I care about you, okay? God help me.’

  Ryan felt a wave of relief wash over him. Max was like a second dad to him. He didn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t around, to help him out of all the trouble he seemed more than capable of getting himself into. He only knew that, if he hadn’t been his agent, then Christ knows where he’d be now. Washed up and finished before he was thirty, probably. ‘I can’t believe I’ve let this happen,’ he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper. The past few hours were still a blur. His head still wasn’t completely clear, and he had a bad feeling that, once the clarity that would definitely hit him some point soon arrived, he was going to feel a hundred times worse than he did now. And right now he felt as though his whole world was crumbling around him. ‘I’ve really lost her this time, haven’t I?’

  Max looked at his biggest client – a young man he really did care about, someone whose talent was obvious to everyone in the world of football, but whose reputation went before him. And Ryan could have stopped that; he could have let his football do the talking because he had more than enough talent to allow that to happen. People knew who he was because of the way he played the game. The skills he exhibited were there for all to see every time he set foot on a football pitch. People knew who he was because he was an incredible player. But they also knew who he was because of the way he lived his life off the pitch, and that was where the problems lay. He’d been sucked in by the lifestyle, by the money, the women. And whilst that was fine – he was a young man in a dream job, who wouldn’t want to make the most of everything that came with that? Ryan just had no idea when to press the stop button, when to step back and take a look at just what he was doing, and how it was affecting everything and everyone else around him.

  ‘Why don’t you go and stay with your mum and dad for a while?’ Max sighed, walking over to Ryan and sitting down on the arm of the sofa.

  Ryan looked up at him. ‘Have you spoken to them?’

  ‘They’re worried, kiddo. And with every right.’

  ‘I don’t need to go running back to my parents, Max. I’m not a kid anymore.’

  ‘Then you might want to start proving that, Ryan.’

  Ryan put his head in his hands again, sighing heavily, before throwing his head back against the back of the sofa. ‘Maybe I should think about leaving the North East altogether. I mean, coming back here, it didn’t really solve anything, did it? All that’s happened is that I’ve carried on exactly where I left off in London, so what was the point, huh?’

  ‘Well, apart from the astronomic wage packet you earned by joining Red Star, not to mention the chance to play for the team you’ve supported all your life – a huge club with a worldwide reputation that has, quite frankly, turned you into a local hero – you had the chance to turn everything around, Ryan. You had that chance, and you blew it.’

  Ryan stood up, sick of hearing Max’s voice now. It was like having a broken record playing constantly in the background. He was well aware of the fact he’d blown it, he knew only too well what he’d thrown away, he didn’t need somebody banging on in the background on a regular basis reminding him of the fact. ‘All the more reason to make a new start somewhere else, then.’ He looked out of the huge wall of windows that lined one entire side of his apartment, out at the view of a city he loved. Just being able to wake up every morning and see the Tyne Bridge, hear the noise of the city coming to life and feel the atmosphere this place exuded every time he walked around it, he loved that. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it after all those years of living in London until he’d come back home just those six short months ago. And Max was right. He’d had a chance to turn everything around, forget the past, leave those ridiculously hedonistic days behind him and concentrate on a footballing career that was setting him up for a pretty easy life in the future, if he played his cards right, and he could have done all of that with Amber by his side. Amber Sullivan. A woman he’d probably never really understand, but a woman he’d fallen in love with, from the second he’d set eyes on her.

  ‘Well,’ Max sighed, standing up and taking his phone out of his pocket as it rang again, immediately rejecting the call. ‘I can’t lie and say that there haven’t been offers from other clubs for you, despite the fact you have a contract with Red Star. You’re so much in demand that people are quite willing to pay an extortionate amount of money to get you out of that contract and into a new one…’ Max looked at Ryan, wishing that things had been different. He was a good kid, deep down. He just had very little self control, and that could well be his downfall if people didn’t keep a very close eye on him. ‘But, and despite the fact I’m probably kissing goodbye to a shed-load of money here, too, I don’t think you should be going anywhere.’

  Ryan looked up at his agent. ‘You think I should stay here, with all this shit going on?’

  ‘Yes, because running away doesn’t solve anything. Start showing people you’re a grown-up, Ryan, and focus on what really matters right now – your football.’

  He looked out of the window again, traffic streaming across the Tyne Bridge even though rush hour was long gone. But that’s what Ryan loved about living in a city – it never really got quiet. ‘It’s all I’ve got now, isn’t it?’ he said, clarity slowly beginning to creep in, realisation hitting him hard. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘How long does it take for people to move onto the next news story?’ Amber asked, throwing her bag down onto her desk, slightly flustered from trying to battle her way into the News North East building through the crowd of press and photographers still gathered outside. They were probably the same ones who’d been hanging around her street when she’d left for work; they’d just followed her here.

  ‘As long as it takes to get the conclusion they’re after,’ Kevin replied, handing her a mug of coffee.

  She looked at her boss, frowning slightly as she took a sip of much-needed strong coffee. ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’re giving nothing away, Amber.’ Kevin leaned back against her desk, folding his arms. ‘Okay, so, we gave them what they wanted to hear last week when you spoke to us, when you gave us that interview explaining what had gone on – and kudos to you for keeping your relationship with Jim Allen a secret all these years, by the way. That must’ve taken some effort.’

  ‘Not really,’
Amber mumbled, starting up her laptop. ‘For a long time Jim Allen was in the past, where he should have stayed.’

  ‘But then he signed on as Red Star’s manager, didn’t he? And the press would still like to think that’s, in part, because of you. Makes a much better story, don’t you think?’

  She looked at Kevin, taking another slow sip of coffee. ‘I’m not living in some romantic novel, Kevin. Jim used to play for Red Star; it’s a club that’s always been close to his heart. It makes sense that, when he was offered the job of manager, he would take it.’

  ‘So, you’re telling me he didn’t give you a second thought when he accepted the job?’

  ‘I’ve told you everything you need to know.’ She opened up her emails, quickly scanning the list before frowning again, turning back to look at Kevin. ‘And what do you mean, as long as it takes to get the conclusion they’re after? What conclusion, exactly?’

  ‘Well, everything’s still up in the air, isn’t it? Okay, so, your engagement to Ryan Fisher is off… That relationship’s over, am I right?’

  Amber nodded, feeling her stomach dip as Kevin spoke, but she ignored it, returning to her list of emails as Kevin carried on speaking.

  ‘But as far as you and Jim Allen are concerned, everyone’s kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen there. Aren’t they?’

  ‘You including yourself in that?’ Amber sniffed, not taking her eyes off her laptop screen.

  ‘Are you and Jim Allen an item now?’

  She waited a second before swinging round on her chair to look at Kevin, but she didn’t answer his question.

  ‘Is that it?’ Kevin exclaimed as Amber swung back round to face her laptop. ‘Is that all you’re saying?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ Amber said, opening up the most urgent email in her inbox.

  ‘Exactly! And this is why the press are still hanging around, kiddo. They’re waiting for your next move.’

  ‘You make me sound like something out of a David Attenborough documentary.’ She looked at her boss again, smiling slightly at his exasperated expression. ‘They’ll get bored, eventually. Then they’ll go away and look for the next newsworthy piece of gossip.’