This, then, was the real Will, the one she’d only seen in bed. So calm, so sure, so powerful. Taking the ball again and again, handing it off in an impossibly skillful pass, without even having to look, as he was running. Or heading down the field with it, lowering his head and forcing the English to dispatch two defenders to bring him down, his feet still churning for those few more precious meters. Making the kicks that brought the score so close. So close, and not close enough, because close wasn’t going to count.
Losing wasn’t an option. She knew that much. Will hadn’t been there the week before, and the team had lost on that final kick. He’d felt the responsibility for the loss on his shoulders, she was sure of it. That was how Will was. He took responsibility. He took it quietly, jokingly, without fanfare. But he took it all the same.
When he’d kicked the ball forward in those final minutes, she’d gasped aloud. They were so close, and he was giving it away?
“Oh, no,” she’d groaned. And the next second, had been on her feet with Talia, with all the other tens of thousands, the roar all but shaking the domed stadium, as Will dove and slid across the grass, the ball held out in front of him like an offering.
She’d stayed on her feet along with everyone else, had held her breath for the kick, had willed him to success with everything she had. The crowd had gone nearly silent as he’d stood there, the big screen overhead showing the concentration on his handsome features, the steady purpose and the confidence, too. he’d run forward, had kicked, a beautiful, fluid motion, his leg following through after the ball had left his foot. He’d acknowledged neither the applause nor the relief, had merely tossed the tee to the sideline, pulled his mouthguard from the top of his sock and shoved it back in, and trotted back out to finish it.
It was a game, and it was his job, and it was his passion. It mattered so much. It mattered more than anything.
Then he’d kicked it out again, but that was all right, because it had been the end. The end, and the players had hugged each other even as Faith had hugged Talia, as they’d laughed and cried a little. She’d pulled out a tissue to mop the smears of black paint from the girl’s tear-streaked cheeks.
Because Will had proven himself. Because he was the man for the job. Because the All Blacks had won.
When they were back in the hotel room again, when her pulse rate had settled down a bit from its rocketing gallop, she texted him.
Way to come back. What are a few sexy pictures when you can do that?
A minute more, and her phone was ringing.
“So what did you think?” she heard over the background noise of deep voices and laughter.
She laughed herself. There was nothing else to do, no other outlet for what she felt. “I think you were awesome. Of course I do. There can’t be any other answer.”
“I meant about your first match,” he protested. “Pretty good atmosphere, eh.”
“What atmosphere? What match? I was only watching one thing. But, yeah.” She laughed again, the excitement and happiness fizzing over. “That thing was pretty good, that thing I was watching. That guy I saw out there. Thank goodness you already overcame my resistance, because otherwise, I’m afraid I’d be throwing myself at you, and what would that say about me?”
He was the one laughing now. “That’s what it takes, eh.”
“No. It just took you, and you know it. You’re fairly irresistible all by yourself. But it was…what my mom called it. The cherry on top. But, really. I loved it, and so did Talia. Thanks for giving me the chance to see it for myself.”
“She there? Can you put her on?”
“Sure.” She handed the phone over, then sat on her bed and smiled some more at Talia’s excited discussion of the match with her big brother. Faith didn’t understand half of it, but she understood how much Talia cared, and how much it meant for her to let Will know it.
Then Talia handed the phone back to Faith. “Me again,” she told Will. “So how sore are you, after all that?”
“Aw, baby,” he said, “not sore a bit, not now. Sore is for Sunday. But you may have to be gentle with me tomorrow.”
She melted a little bit more, just because he’d sat in the locker room, in the middle of his teammates, and called her “baby.”
“I can be gentle,” she promised. “I can kiss you everyplace you hurt.” And if that was a little sexy for Talia, too bad. She hadn’t said it for Talia.
“I’ll be holding you to that. Literally,” he said, and she shivered a little and smiled. “I’ll ring off, though. The English boys are coming over in a bit to have a beer. Got to do my duty as a host.”
“Really? You guys have a beer together afterwards? That really happens?”
“Fine old footy tradition. You bash the hell out of each other for eighty minutes, then you have a pint and a laugh and it’s all over. I know it may look a little bit scary out there, but there’s no point playing if you’re not going to give it all you’ve got.”
“Remind me never to actually do that boot camp with you, then. You’d kick my butt.”
“Nah. I wouldn’t kick it. I’ll tell you some more about that tomorrow, though.”
“See you then.” She hung up the phone, still smiling, looked at Talia and sighed. “He’s pretty great, isn’t he?”
“Yeh,” Talia said. “He is. He’s the best. And I’ve never talked to him after a match before,” she added impulsively. “Thanks for that.”
“Really?”
“I’m the youngest. And he’s the oldest, and he’s the—well, he’s Will.” The star, she didn’t have to say. “He talked to me heaps more last week than he ever has.”
“Some of that didn’t go all that well, I know,” Faith said. “But if it helps—I know he cares.”
“I know he does, too,” Talia said. “Now.”
Rumors and Revelations
Will shoved the last of his things into his duffel, moving a little slowly as you always did on the day after the match. When the adrenaline of combat had long since drained away, and with the hurdle of the journey home still to overcome before you could climb into the spa pool or onto the massage table and start getting your strength back for Tuesday, when it would all start again.
Yeh, Sundays were a bugger, but today, he was happy to be sore. There was nothing like playing, and no anesthetic like a win. And this afternoon, he’d be seeing Faith. Another pretty good anesthetic.
The niggle tried to poke its nasty head through the surface at that. The reminder that tomorrow, she was leaving, because, as she’d reminded him over and over, she needed to get back. But they would deal with that. He could go back to the States for a week in October, maybe, during what he devoutly hoped would be his brief break between the Southern Hemisphere Rugby Championship and the Northern Tour to Europe, because he’d be busting a gut to be selected for the All Blacks for both of them. He’d have the offseason as well, all December and January. She could come out here again, maybe. And then they’d…see.
She’d wait for him, he was sure she would. Another niggle at that. Well, almost sure. He should’ve talked to her about it before, he knew that now. But it had all happened so fast. And anyway, they would talk about it today. They’d have this afternoon, and tomorrow as well. Heaps of time to hold her, and kiss her, and remind her why she wanted to wait for him. He hoped.
He heard the chime of his phone and dug into his pack to find it. Ian.
“That may have answered a few of the critics,” he told his agent without waiting for a hello. “Back in business, I hope.”
“I hope so.” Something in Ian’s tone had Will standing up a bit straighter. “But who knows, now. Can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Can’t believe you still don’t get it. I’m this close to dropping you, and that’s the truth.”
“What?” Will sank onto the bed. “What are you on about? I haven’t done a bloody thing.”
“Nothing but not tell me that your pretend-girlfriend is publishing porn about you. When that gets o
ut, everything’s going to hit the fan and no mistake. Not much we can do about this one, not at this point. Public breakup, sure. That may help. Maybe. But if you’d set out to do the most avoidable thing possible to torpedo your career, something there was no way in hell you had to do, I’m not sure you could have managed any better. Addiction, all right, I’ve had that. Anger management issues? All that. But this? Why? There’s no twelve-step program for stupid.”
“Wait.” Will finally got a word in edgewise. “What? What porn?”
He heard the sigh down the phone. “Bloody hell. She didn’t even tell you. You know how to pick them, don’t you?”
“Tell me.” He was up, pacing, because he couldn’t help it. “Shut up about the rest and tell me.”
“She’s got a pen name. Olivia Jayne. And five episodes out of Fierce, with the exciting conclusion coming soon. You’ll recognize them. They’ll be the ones with your photo on the cover, looking dirty as hell. She wasn’t content just to publish on that website, I guess. She had to sell the story—what everybody is going to think is your story, I can guarantee you that—to the whole bloody world. She had to make money off you.”
Will had his phone shoved between ear and shoulder and was pulling his laptop out of his backpack, his breakfast turning sour in his stomach. He chose an online bookstore at random and hit the search button. “What was the name?”
“Olivia Jayne.” Ian spelled it. “Go on, look it up.”
Will did. And sure enough, up came five titles. He clicked on one at random. Its cover showed him, his face in shadow, his white shirt open all the way. He was staring down at Gretchen, on her knees in front of him in a pale bra and undies. All black, gray, and white, except for one splash of color. The red ribbon tying her hands behind her back.
“That’s not…you’re saying those are Faith’s?” he said. “I don’t believe it. She’d have told me. They’re stock photos. For sale everywhere, to anybody. And of course people are writing stories. That was the point, wasn’t it? Somebody told you this Olivia Jayne is her? They’re lying. Trying to make more trouble for me, maybe, or just stirring the pot.”
“Oh, really? What if I told you that the person who told me that got it from the model?”
“Right,” Will managed to say. “Tell me the whole thing. Now.”
Ian’s sigh came down the phone. “Simple chain of events. A reporter calls the photographer to get more of the story. Human interest. Photographer gives him the name of the girl. Reporter calls the girl. Girl tells reporter all about how lovely you were, what a gentleman, what a ‘sweetheart.’ All very heartwarming, all very helpful, and if it had stopped with that, we’d be nothing but good. But it didn’t, did it?”
“I don’t know.” Will was having a hard time getting his breath. “You tell me.”
“No, it didn’t, because then the reporter asks about Faith. About the two of you falling in love and all. And up the girl pops and tells him all about Faith’s wonderful stories, and he calls me for your reaction, and I tell him I’ll get back to him. There we are, and that noise you hear? That’s the sad sound of your image deflating. I doubt this one will keep you from playing, not if we throw her under the bus, which I sincerely hope you’re willing to do. If she really didn’t tell you about this, you’d bloody well be willing to do it. But it isn’t going to do you any good at all, and you can forget about any product endorsements for the next year or two. I don’t think the All Blacks are going to be rapt about you doing condom adverts, and that’s about the only industry that’s going to touch you now.”
Will had heard enough. “I need to talk to her,” he said, “and I need to think. I’ll ring you again when I’m in Auckland.”
“Not soon enough. I need to start damage control now.”
“Well, you’re not going to. You’ll wait until I tell you what to say.”
“That’s not how this works,” Ian said. “I tell you.”
“Not this time. Not anymore. I need to get on the bus in—” Will held the phone away from his ear to check the time. “Twenty minutes. And I need to talk to Faith. If the world’s going to blow up in the next few hours because somebody wrote naughty stories about me, it’s going to have to blow up, because I’m not doing anything else without thinking about it first, and talking to her. Could be this whole thing was a misunderstanding, or even a lie. I’ll ring you when I’m in Auckland, when I’ve got a bit of privacy. I’ll tell you then what I want to do.”
“Mistake,” Ian warned.
“Then it’s my mistake. Because that’s what’s happening.”
He rang off, then thumbed through for Faith’s number. His fingers, he noticed in a detached sort of way, were shaking. He took a couple deep breaths, the same kind he took to steady himself for a tough kick. And then he pushed the button.
Attitude Adjustment
Faith climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Not “her” bedroom, she reminded herself. Will’s bedroom, that she would be leaving today for the last time, because their time together—her job, which was all this was—was over.
She needed an attitude adjustment. She’d been so excited last night, had let herself feel, for just a little while, that Will was really hers, and she was really his. But it wasn’t true, he’d never pretended it was, and if she were going to see him today, if she were going to stay with him tonight, and most of all, if she were going to be able to leave tomorrow without doing or saying something she’d regret, she needed to get her head on straight.
A run around the lake, that was the ticket. A long run, because she didn’t have to leave for the airport for more than two hours, and hanging around here, waiting to go—that was just going to make her feel worse.
She pulled her workout clothes out of the drawer. She’d gotten into her capris and bra, had her shirt in her hand when the phone rang. She tossed the shirt onto the bed and dug her phone out of her bag. It had to be Will. Or her mother. She looked at the screen and couldn’t help a happy little sigh. Will.
“Hey,” she said, feeling unreasonably better just because he’d called, and that he didn’t want to wait until this afternoon to talk to her. That was exactly how foolish her demanding, undisciplined, irresponsible heart was. “I was just thinking about you, big guy. How are you feeling today?”
“I was feeling better before I heard the news.”
Something in his voice sent a chill straight down her back, and she sank onto the bed without even realizing what she was doing. “What? What’s wrong? Did something happen? The team? Your family—”
He cut her off with none of his normal courtesy. “Are you Olivia Jayne?”
No. How could he know? The blood was draining from her head, and she felt a little sick. “Wha—what?”
“You heard me. Have you been writing books about me?”
“Not—not about you. But I’ve been—” She had to stop and get her breath. “Yes. Yes, I have. I’ve written a serial. I wrote episodes for the website, and they were received really well, so I published them. And I’m selling them.” If she were going to have to tell him, it was better to say it all at once.
Silence, for a long moment. “Will?” she asked tentatively. She wanted to explain, wanted to say something to make it better. But she couldn’t think what it would be. And there was still nothing but silence on the other end.
“Right,” he said at last, the word an exhalation. “Right. And you didn’t think this was something you should tell me about.” He wasn’t shouting. It was so much worse than that. He was…defeated. “That you were writing porn about me, and publishing it. When you knew what my life was. You knew what those pictures did to me, and you did this anyway, something that’s going to make it all so much worse, and you didn’t even have the grace to tell me you were doing it so I could protect myself.”
“It isn’t—it isn’t porn,” she tried to explain. “It’s erotic romance. And it’s not about you. It’s about my character. It’s about Hemi. Remember? Hemi.”
“Who looks exactly like me. And who was written by you. By my girlfriend, the woman I’m sleeping with. Do you think anybody is going to believe for a second that that isn’t me, doing…whatever you have him doing to her? That it isn’t some kind of memoir?”
“What?” She actually laughed, she was so startled. “How could anybody think that? He’s a tortured multimillionaire CEO. Nobody who knows you could think you’re him.”
“But the people I’m talking about, they don’t know me. That’s the point. All they see is an image. Haven’t you realized that by now? And do you really not get that my image matters?”
“But I haven’t hurt your image. I haven’t.” She didn’t know how he’d found out, but she needed to make him understand. “Because nobody’s ever going to have a chance to make the connection. Because I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m leaving tomorrow, and anyway, I have a pen name. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Really.” His voice was soft now. Deadly. “Then how do I know?”
“I…I don’t know.” The hand holding the phone was trembling a little, because it was getting the message before her brain did. “How?”
“Gretchen. You told bloody Gretchen. And she told a reporter, and any minute now, he’s going to be telling the rest of New Zealand.”
“Oh, no.” It was a breath, about the last breath she had.
“Oh, yes. And what I want to know is,” he said, his voice finally rising, “was all this just part of a…part of a plan? Were you planning to leak it once you’d got safely back home? Was Gretchen going to do it all along, just maybe sprang it a bit early, or was it going to be you? Was that the real reason for the new hair, the new clothes, the…the new body, so you could go on some chat show and talk about it? And being with me. Was that all just a way to sell more books, too?”
“No!” She pressed her knees together to keep them from shaking. Oh, no. “No. Will, no. You have to believe me. I don’t know why I even told her. I didn’t tell anybody else. I never dreamed—I never imagined it would get out. It was just—” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with a couple of fingers, trying to think. “It was when I first…when the stories were first going up on the site, after the first couple weeks. When I was getting votes, and I logged on and saw I was number one, and I kept looking, all day. I was so excited that somebody was reading what I wrote, that they liked me. And I was having lunch with Gretchen, catching up, and…and I told her. It just…slipped out. She was the one person I could tell, because I was still a little…a little embarrassed, but I knew she wouldn’t judge. And I had to tell somebody. I just…I had to.”
Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8) Page 27