by Amy Daws
I’ve spent my entire life using my head to handle things and look where that’s gotten me. Perhaps now it’s time to say “fuck it” and use my heart for once. My heart is not submissive, though. It will not surrender.
It will fight back.
I’M SHAKING WHEN I FINALLY get Sophia to bed. Positively trembling with rage, adrenaline, fear. All of the above. Not only am I upset with Callum for putting Sophia into a soccer session without consulting me, but he actually picked her up from school on my week! He wouldn’t give me two hours on Thanksgiving, but he thought it was fine to put Sophia’s health at risk on a day that is mine? How dare he!
Normally, she goes to an after school club for the hour or two I need to finish my day out. I wouldn’t have even known Sophia left if her teacher hadn’t emailed to let me know that she forgot her art assignment on her desk that needs to be done for tomorrow. When I called Callum to find out where Sophia was, he gave me some bullshit response that he was going to drop her back before I arrived. Oh, and he said it was for a good cause, like he’s ever been generous a day in his life!
When I saw my daughter on that field, I saw red. The wrench in this insanely mucked-up mix was Gareth. I didn’t see him until I was already halfway out on the field, so deep in mama bear mode that there was no way to stop myself from blowing up my whole life.
I knew the moment I took hold of Sophia’s hand I lost something that wasn’t even completely mine to lose. Gareth will never forgive me for blatantly lying to him.
Now that the dust has settled—now that Sophia is safe and back under my roof—the realisation of everything I’ve lost is finally sinking in.
No more Astbury. No more escape. Empowerment. Freedom. Sexual discovery…
No more Gareth.
My dark days when Sophia is gone will return, and I must own the fact that keeping Sophia a secret was probably the biggest mistake of my life. An even bigger one than marrying Callum Coleridge.
That heavy notion hits me like a ton of bricks as I hurry down the steps and yank open my front door. Manchester winters have nothing on Chicago, but the cool December night air is exactly what I need as I come to terms with everything.
I exhale slowly and watch the cloud of air form by my lips when a set of headlights come to a stop on the side of the road in front of my house. It’s an unfamiliar vehicle, so I squint to see who’s in the driver’s seat.
My heart completely stops when I see Gareth unfold his giant frame out of the car. He slams the door shut in a huff and looks straight at me as I stand beneath the dim yellow lighting on my porch. I pull my cardigan tightly around my body as he makes his way toward my short cast iron fence.
Instead of walking down to the gate opening near my driveway, he grips the fence and hauls himself over the railing in one swift, athletic move. He cuts through the grass in my direction. Once his dark figure is illuminated by the light, I see with great clarity that Gareth is pissed.
I swallow.
His nostrils flare.
I swallow again.
His jaw grinds from side-to-side.
I drag in a deep breath as he exhales a long, heavy sigh, forming his own puff of cold air.
“H—how did you find where I live?” I stammer, finally breaking the silence.
His hazel eyes narrow. “Your ex.”
My hands fly up to cover my face. This day couldn’t get any worse. “Where did you see my ex?” I mumble against my palms, barely able to look at Gareth knowing that he’s actually spoken to Callum.
“His house.”
Oh my God, he’s been to Callum’s house! I think I might be sick. I peek through the slits between my fingers. “How did you find him?”
Gareth’s face relaxes slightly. “We had his information at The Cliff as a potential sponsor. He wasn’t hard to find.” He steps closer to me, looming his angry presence over me. “He’s a real fucking dick, you know that?”
My hands fall as I stare up at him. “What did you tell him about us?”
Gareth’s eyes flash with anger. “I deserve a bit more credit than that, Sloan.”
A knot forms in my throat. “I didn’t mean—”
“I told him I had to pick up an order and only had your old address. It took everything in me not to punch the smug fucking look off his face when he told me how embarrassed he was by your behaviour today.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to shake off the effect Gareth’s close proximity has on me.
“How the fuck could you ever marry a pompous prick like him?”
Is Gareth jealous? I want to laugh at the notion. Or cry. Probably both. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me,” he grinds through clenched teeth.
“I got pregnant, of course!” I swirl away from him, taking a couple of necessary steps back so I can breathe again.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” His voice is clipped with an emotion I can’t quite place.
“Yes…No…I don’t know,” I reply, feeling like a total puke. I cross my arms to brace myself for his reaction.
“Why, Sloan?” His eyes are sad on mine. He’s hurt. He’s hurt that I hid such a large part of my life from him.
“It wasn’t what we were about,” I reply with a shrug. “You said it yourself not that long ago. We were just about sex.”
He rears back like I slapped him, his hands balling up into tight fists at his sides. “Got it. Message received. I didn’t realise I had been demoted from friends with benefits to a casual fuck.”
“Gareth!”
“Fuck this,” he growls and turns to walk away.
I rush over to him and grab his tensed arm, using all my strength to haul him back toward me. “Just…listen to me!”
“You listen to me!” he exclaims, twirling on his heel and grabbing me by the arms. In one swift move, he has me pressed against the cool bricks of my house, his hands on either side of my face. “In the beginning, we were just fucking, but you know damn well that changed.”
“It did?” I croak, my stomach doing flips inside itself as his familiar scent wafts over me.
“Yes!” he growls, veins protruding on his neck as he crouches to eye level with me. “We’ve changed. We’re not just one thing anymore. We’re more, Sloan.”
“Treacle,” I correct, my voice wavering.
“Sloan,” he retorts. “In my mind, you are my Sloan and my Treacle. You’re not just one thing to me. And the fact that you didn’t tell me you’re a mother fucking kills me. What are you afraid of?”
“That you’ll see me differently!” I cry, my eyes watery with annoying tears. “That what we have will stop. You have been my saving grace since I got divorced, Gareth. This half custody thing with my ex was tearing me apart from the inside out. But when I’m with you, I’m in control, and I feel strong, and I remember who I am. Who I want to be! I don’t want to lose that. Why do we have to change?”
“Because I can’t continue as we were,” he answers, glancing down at my trembling hands that ache to touch him. His voice is softer when he adds, “And it’s not because you have a kid. I don’t care that you’re a mother, Sloan. It doesn’t change things for me. Your ex was embarrassed by you on the pitch today, but I was fucking proud. Even when I was stark-raving-mad at you for hiding something so monumental from me, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Bloody hell, she’s the most fearsome mother I’ve ever laid eyes on!’”
A sob erupts from my throat, and I cover my mouth to try to get hold of my senses. I don’t know why his words affect me so much, but they do. I finally don’t feel alone and terrified that I’m doing this motherhood thing all wrong. Someone supports me. Someone believes in me. Someone whose opinion I value more than I realised.
But Gareth says the words I’m most afraid of next. “I want more, Sloan.”
My knee-jerk response isn’t what he wants to hear. “I am at capacity, Gareth. I’m doing everything I can to be a strong, working mom. To be better than I’ve been. If I give anyo
ne any more, I will lose myself completely, and Sophia needs me too much for that to happen. I can’t give her any less of me because, if I do, she could turn into Cal, or his mother, or any of those soul-sucking vultures they associate with. I only get her fifty percent of my life. I need to be in complete control to ensure she has all of me.”
“And you think I’d take that away from you,” he says knowingly.
I shrug. “We have a good thing going. Why can’t we stay as we are?”
He pulls back and slides his hands through his hair, gripping the back of his neck. “Because it’s not enough for me anymore.”
My shoulders sag in defeat as I stare down at the space between us. We’re so close, yet so far away. He’s asking for something I’m not sure I have inside of me to give, and I know that means he’s going to walk away.
My heart begins breaking. Suddenly, his warmth is pressed against me. I look up as he roughly shoves my back against the wall. His hands reach down and are vice-grips around my wrists as he pins them above my head so high, my feet nearly lift off the ground.
I cry out in shock as his lips crash down on mine in the most feral, possessive, intensely passionate kiss of my entire life. Like a savage, he parts my lips with his tongue and sucks mine into his mouth, a deep growl vibrating from him as he devours me to his fill.
My eyes squeeze together, willing my concentration to stay deeply focused because I know I’m experiencing something I’ve never felt before. I have to take it all in. I can’t miss a single tiny detail of what’s happening between us.
He sinks his teeth onto my lower lip, sucking it between his lips so hard, it’s like he’s draining every last part of me. All those bits I’ve been holding back. All those feelings I’ve denied for weeks, for days, for minutes, for seconds. I’ve kept this part of me away from him because I knew deep down what would happen if I didn’t.
This.
This would happen.
Gareth Harris would claim me.
His lips continue pillaging, sucking, tasting, grazing, teasing my entire mouth into such a frenzy, I can’t help but participate. His tongue massages mine, and he kisses me like he was born to do so. Like I’ve never been kissed before.
My back arches into his firmness, my feet dancing on the ground as I yearn for more and less at the same time. My body and mind at war with each other as he takes the gift I gave him.
A kiss.
Just a kiss, but also so much more.
When he breaks away, I moan from the loss of his pressure on me. My hands feel pasted to the bricks above me as he steps back with a fire in his eyes, like he’s ripped an organ straight from my body and is holding it hostage in front of me.
“We’re not all one thing, Sloan,” he repeats, his voice guttural and his face haunted as he looks me up and down in a possessive sweep.
He’s proud of the work he’s done.
Then he leaves.
He walks away…
…and he doesn’t look back.
I watch him drive away and admit with an earth-shattering thud of my heart that we are more than one thing. But am I strong enough to not lose myself beneath him?
I SMOOTH DOWN THE LAPELS of my suit as I sit in the backseat of a stretch limo that’s just pulled up to the red carpet of the National Football Museum. Photographers, fans, and fellow attendees swarm the grand entrance as celebrities and footballers make their way inside for the FPA Awards Gala. The same gala where I’ll be named Player of the Year.
How crazy is that?
What’s even crazier is that all I can focus on is the nauseous feeling this suit is giving me. The suit Sloan made me.
The texture of the material wasn’t an issue before. Come to think of it, nothing was an issue when I was with her. As we grew closer, she became the only woman who could touch me any way she liked and not send chills down my spine. My texture sensitivity had been magically cured. She was like my own personal anxiety medication that soothed away the unusual strain that a lifetime of painful memories had inflicted on me.
Now, everything aches. It’s like I can feel the stitches closing in on me with every breath, tightening around me like a noose.
My mobile vibrates in my hand. I glance down to check it, sickeningly hoping to see Sloan’s name on the screen.
Dad: I’m very proud of you, Gareth. Wish I could be there.
My traitorous heart splinters down the middle from the tone of his text. Part of me wants to text back and ask him what it would take for him to put me first for once in his bloody life. Even when he asked me to move back to London, I knew he was only thinking of himself. But there’s this new part of my heart—a part that never existed before—that understands a tiny fraction of the pain he feels on a daily basis.
It’s been over a week and still no word from Sloan. I thought for sure she’d be in touch for tonight because this is clearly a big moment for me. But nothing. It seems that the second I stopped chasing Sloan, she stopped turning around. And every day since I left her house, the memory of her lips on mine becomes fainter and fainter, like a melting ice cube evaporating before my eyes.
If she was just some random bird, I wouldn’t give a toss. I’d move on, grateful that I don’t have to worry about how little she knows about me. But Sloan isn’t random. She isn’t casual. She knows things. And the second I saw her with her daughter, something inside of me shifted. The wall between us has been knocked down, and she has been humanised to me outside of our sexual relationship. It wasn’t until I was staring down my pushy brothers that I realised what that truly meant to me.
I was seeing Sloan with my heart instead of my head.
But it was all for nothing because she’s not here. Now I have to go in front of all these people tonight and pretend like the last couple of months didn’t change everything I thought I knew about myself. Everything I thought I knew about Sloan.
I can do this…
…because control is something I’m far too familiar with.
My heart leaps into my throat when Gareth’s large frame climbs out of a black stretch limo. I’ve been standing here for ages in my enormous black ball-gown, waving at multiple clients whom I styled for the big night as they make their way inside. I was able to score a ticket to the event from one of them, and I took that as a sign that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be this evening. However, I didn’t know what time Gareth was due to arrive. Now I’m regretting this whole, grand gesture notion as I stand here like an idiot.
I positioned myself in front of the security officers that are holding fans back, and they all shoot me sympathetic smiles like I’m a girl getting stood up on prom night. But when I see Gareth’s stunning frame wearing the sleek navy suit I designed for him, I realise that I’d endure a lot worse for this sight of him. This moment is why I knew I had to style myself tonight as well.
Gareth freaking Harris.
I run my hands down the fitted bodice of the Alexander McQueen, long sleeve dress that Freya and I carefully selected for me this evening. It’s understated elegance—the perfect dress for a stylist to wear to an event because the very last thing one would ever want to do is outshine their clients.
It has a full sweeping skirt with pockets and an off-the-shoulder neckline that shows off my collarbone. My brunette curls are tucked back into a low, chignon hairstyle, and I chose a deep red lipstick to give me a sense of drama that I need in order to be brave enough to stand alongside the honouree tonight.
And standing beside Gareth is exactly what I intend to do.
Aside from the stress of work, he is all I’ve thought about for the past week. That kiss. Those hands. His words.
He said a lot, but what broke me—what changed me in my core—were his remarks about being proud of me for protecting Sophia. Gareth understood me more in the two minutes he witnessed me as a mother than Callum ever did in the six years we were married. As that realisation settled in over the week, I knew it wasn’t our arrangement that made me strong.
It was Gareth.
I also knew it would take a big moment for me to truly show him that I’m ready to dive in. I’m ready to change and stop running. To take charge of my life…together.
With a nod of determination, I move to head over to Gareth but pause mid-step as a stunning blonde in a gorgeous red dress climbs out behind him. He reaches down to offer his hand as she wobbles in her strappy silver sandals, and the affectionate exchange between them has my stomach dropping.
Just as Gareth’s hand moves to the small of her back, his eyes pass over me but immediately snap back with a confused, shocked expression.
Completely mortified, I turn away from him and begin pushing my way past the security team that’s evidently decided they aren’t just keeping people out. They are holding people in, too.
“Please excuse me,” I croak desperately. My need to flee is strong, but not stronger than eight grown ass men.
Why did I think showing up unexpectedly was a good idea? Why do I keep forgetting that he’s Gareth Harris—a famous soccer player who can get any woman he wants with the snap of a finger? Of course he wouldn’t sit idle for an entire week. I’m such an idiot!
A calloused hand wraps around my arm and slowly spins me in my black stiletto heels. “Sloan.” Gareth’s voice is so familiar and wonderful, I have to close my eyes to prepare myself for the sight of him up close.
My lids flutter open and I take in his masculine, strong beauty. The sexy scruff on his jaw. His smoky, hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes. The perfect bend of his nose.
“Gareth,” I reply uncomfortably.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his eyes searching my entire face for answers I’m embarrassed to admit.
I look over his shoulder at the blonde. “I should have called.”
“Called for what?” he asks, redirecting my gaze back to him.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re…here with somebody. I should have assumed.”