A microphone was thrust at his face, the TV interviewer fawning her congratulations over him. He only looked at her. There was none of the usual playing to the cameras. She’d seen him interviewed countless times in her former life as mere tennis fan and he wasn’t above kissing interviewers on the cheek or climbing over crowds to the player’s box to celebrate a win with his team. Lobbing shirts into the crowd was par for the course. But this time there was no cheeky smile on his face, and no flirt in the brown eyes.
He thanked people for their support in the deep American drawl that she constantly tried to block from her mind. Now he was graciously praising his opponent. And then his face blurred and she blinked furiously and reached for the off button.
Thanks, Lucy. Trying to expunge him from my mind and you present me with that.
‘And I’d like to dedicate this win to someone very special to me…’
His face disappeared into blackness as she failed to stop her finger hitting the switch.
‘Fuck!’
A single dazed moment as she realised what she’d done and then she attacked the remote control. And from there ensued an enormous scramble as she turned the thing back on and waited for it to bloody well warm up only to find that the sports bulletin had moved on to sodding golf. And from there five crazy endless minutes while her heart pounded and her mind spun and she waited for her laptop to boot up so she could find the piece online, and during which she convinced herself that the someone very special to him would be his sister, or an aunt or…and finally, there it was.
‘…Layla Jones. This is for you. I’ll see you soon.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘You saw my interview, after the win in Paris?’
He perched on the edge of the two-seater sofa in Lucy’s flat, mug of coffee in hand, having had his telephone offer to fly her out to Paris rejected. Even now she continued to surprise him. This was the first time he’d seen her wearing anything other than her staid hotel uniform, and in her pink T-shirt and boyfriend jeans with her hair in loose waves instead of the sleek professional style she favoured at work, there was an unspoilt quality about her that made his stomach heat up.
Shame about the icy expression on her face. Clearly if he’d thought declaring she was special to the world at large would be enough to make up for his, admittedly crass, quick exit a month or so earlier, he’d seriously underestimated her resolve.
No sign of any support from him when her life had imploded and she’d had to turn her phone off to stop the endless stream of journalist calls, but now he wanted to see her again! She’d had no intention of lifting a finger to go to him. She’d had enough of having her hopes lifted only to be dashed the moment she took her eye off the ball. If he wanted to make amends that badly, he could damn well come to her.
Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to join him at the touted five star luxury hotel. But principles were principles.
‘I saw it,’ she said dismissively, as if she hadn’t rewound it fifty times and downloaded it to her phone. ‘And if you think that’s enough to make up for your behaviour, you are so wrong.’
Her stomach still melted at the sight of him. Broad, tanned, tall, same tousle to his hair, same brown eyes. He wasn’t smiling, which was a good thing. If he’d swanned back in here as if he’d done nothing wrong she might have been tempted to lob her coffee cup at his head.
He ran a hand through his hair and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Course you are. It’s just taken you nigh on a month to get round to saying it.’ She looked down at her mug, anything to avoid looking at the tortured expression on his face. It was so much easier to keep channelling the upper hand by picturing him smugly checking out of the hotel without saying goodbye. ‘I lost my job, Matt. I’ve been evicted. Do you know what that means? Can’t imagine you do since you probably own a house on every continent.’
The widening of his eyes told her he had no idea how things had gone for her after he’d left. She was at her lowest point, jobless and sofa surfing at her friend’s house, and he’d clearly jetted out of the country without a second thought to what might happen to her.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, relishing his horrified expression. ‘Just when I’d got my head round the revelation that what happened between us really was just a seedy fling, despite all the things you said to me, I’m dragged through the press, I lose my job and on the back of that I lose the flat.’
‘It wasn’t seedy. Please don’t say that.’
‘Are you sure about that? Because it didn’t warrant any kind of explanation before you just took off, did it? What happened to things being different with me? It was all just sweet talk after all, to get what you wanted from me for the week.’
His face twisted as he shook his head.
‘That’s not true.’
She threw an exasperated hand up.
‘Did you or did you not leave without saying goodbye?’
He cast his eyes downwards.
‘It seemed the best thing.’
She gave a bitter laugh which he totally ignored.
‘I want us to be together,’ he said. ‘You and me. What do you say?’
Her heart gave a skippy jolt but she kept a hold on it. She’d been hurt too badly to just wave a hand and let things slide.
‘It can never work,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got plans,’ she evaded.
‘You’re living on your mate’s sofa with no job,’ he pointed out.
‘This is just a stop-gap,’ she said, ignoring the plummet in her stomach that happened every time she thought of her current situation. ‘I’ve decided to go travelling, just throw caution to the wind. I’ve got a little bit of money stashed from my last pay cheque – not much, but enough to give me a start, and then I figure I might try and work my way around Europe.’ At least about that she was sure.
After the phone call with her mother, she’d seized the idea and run with it. ‘I’ve spent years working hard and trying to have a normal life and it’s got me nowhere.’
Winging it and living for the moment now seemed to have an appeal that it never had before. Within reason of course. She wouldn’t be jumping into bed with anyone else at a moments’ notice.
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Want company?’
Did he know how ludicrous that sounded?
‘When I said I was going travelling, I didn’t mean the insane kind of hero-worship travelling that my mother does,’ she said. ‘I’m not about to traipse around the world following you, if that’s what you think, even if your career allowed for a fat sabbatical to go backpacking. You’d be mobbed everywhere you went.’
He closed his eyes briefly. Her determination to shoot down his every suggestion in flames was infuriating.
‘I’m not an idiot. I know my tennis stands in the way of a lot of normal stuff. I know there will need to be compromises, but at least I’m trying to find some middle ground here.’
She was watching him, a vaguely sceptical expression on her face, but at least she’d stopped firing negatives at him.
‘Travel with me,’ he said. ‘I want to be with you, Layla. Properly. Not just the occasional get-together when either of us has time or happens to be in the same place.’
The blue eyes widened.
‘What about your celebrity love-in? You chose that over me once before. What’s changed? What’s so different now that I should believe you’re not just going to get bored with me after five minutes?’ She shook her head at him. ‘Leaving me like that after what we had, what I thought we had…it had an air of inevitability about it, Matt. I don’t even really blame you. Why would I? It’s happened before. I might be an OK distraction for a while but when you put me up against fame and excitement I can’t possibly compete. My father managed five years, drifting in and out of my life in between gigs, before he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. My mother turns up every few months, and every time
I fool myself into thinking she might stay put this time, start living a normal functioning life instead of some insane nomadic festival-obsessed existence. I’ve got it wrong every single time so far. I think it has novelty value for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, the idea of actually being a mother, but after that she starts to get itchy feet and then before I know it she’s off again.’
The defeated expression in her eyes made his heart twist in his chest.
‘Why would I expect anything different from you? After all, for you the fame and the celebrity is real. All my parents ever did was ride on its coat tails.’
He grabbed her hand, frustration rising that he couldn’t make her understand.
‘You still don’t get it do you?’ he said urgently. ‘The playboy image, the womanising. All of that is what people see in me. I don’t let anyone know me beyond it because I know what would happen.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Behind all of it I don’t measure up. I never have, not for anyone, not in any way that matters. I was scared that if you saw me for long enough for the gilt to rub off you’d lose interest. That’s why I left, I thought I was doing you a favour, sparing us both a load of grief. The fame, the public persona, it’s the only way I know to make myself count. But then when I walked away it just wasn’t that simple. I just couldn’t move on. I didn’t want to move on, not without you.’
He held her blue gaze in his, knowing he needed to prove he was sincere.
‘I told you a bit about my background before. You know I was adopted. I’ve always felt like a spare wheel in my family, however much they might love me. There’s always been this feeling that someone gave me up. Someone rejected me once, for whatever reason. I look back at my behaviour and I’ve spent so much time over the years trying to make myself count, latching on to anything that made me feel worthwhile. The fans were all a part of that.’
‘The truth is, I’ve lived this way for so long that without all the in-your-face public persona I’m not sure anymore who the hell I really am. And I was afraid that if I stripped away all of those things the person left wouldn’t be worth an awful lot. And that…well, that wouldn’t be good enough for you. You deserve so much more.’
Layla felt her resolve loosen as she took in the anguish in his eyes. It was just so hard to believe that someone with his success could feel anything but super-adequate in every corner of their life.
‘But you’re assuming that the reason you were put up for adoption had something to do with you,’ she said. ‘How could it be when you were just a baby? It was about circumstance. Haven’t you ever tried to trace your real parents, look into it?’
Maybe that might have brought him some peace of mind.
He gave her a rueful smile.
‘No. But a couple of years ago my birth mother found me.’
She stared at him in surprise, forgetting she was meant to be channelling cool and aloof.
‘She did?’
‘Only when I’d become famous. She never bothered before. I was only worth finding once I’d made it big.’ He shook his head. ‘As soon as I realised she’d only reappeared because she thought there might be a quick buck involved I cut all contact. I’ve never followed it up again since.’
There was bitterness and regret in his voice, and her heart went out to him for the terrible disappointment that must have been. She could see now that he was at his heart insecure, that his playboy behaviour had come not from any selfish drive but from his own feelings of inadequacy, and tears came pricklingly to her eyes because one thing she knew about was not feeling good enough or loveable enough.
‘So what exactly are you suggesting?’ she said doubtfully, and just the fact she showed some interest in any suggestion he might make felt like a victory. Hope kicked in, making his heart rate gather pace.
‘If we keep seeing each other, where does your persona fit in to that? Are you planning on passing me off as a platonic friend? How exactly is that all going to work? Because you know the worst thing of all about this whole…’ she paused briefly ‘…affair was that I can understand my mother’s behaviour better now than I ever have. I can totally see how she could be sucked in by it year on year, going back to normality for a month or two before she gets itchy feet and necks off to some music festival or gig or other.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Because I feel like that about you. Part of me thinks I could put up with anything as long as I can keep you. I want to kid myself that I can do that, that I’ll happily take whatever crumbs of your life are leftover once the matches and the partying and the socialising are over with. Because I want the lovely feeling to stay on that I have when I’m with you.’
His heart tried to soar at her words and yet the defeat on her face held him in check.
‘I think I preferred it when I could take the moral high ground. When I didn’t have that understanding and I could criticise her quite happily from my own safe standpoint of normality, with my career aspirations and my folders of interior decorating ideas and my mailing lists of houses. Suddenly that feels like the most mundane, most miserable existence in the universe. But I won’t swop it for some half-life just because it means you’ll be thrown in.’
He was on his knees at her feet, her small hands clasped in his, her blue eyes meeting his.
‘Not some half-life. No partying, no crazy socialising, no groupies. I want to be with you. Properly. Not as some groupie or hanger-on. You travel with me, share my life, come to every game if you like. I’ll reinvent myself as clean-living, no more posing in magazines or courting paparazzi.’
She looked into the melting brown eyes. He was ready to do all he could to be with her. And of course there was still risk involved, but still, how could she possibly come off worse than she already had? She’d already lost her job, her home and her heart. Stepping out of her comfort zone had never looked so attractive. What really did she have to lose?
Her mother’s voice suddenly popped into her head.
Sometimes the best things in life are things you do on impulse.
‘OK,’ she said and then before she could elaborate she was in his arms, laughing with him, his hands everywhere, his mouth finding hers, desire bubbling through her and taking her breath away.
And it turned out sofas were good for something after all.
THE END
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Did Someone Order Room Service?: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance Novella (Do Not Disturb, Book 2) Page 10