He grabbed a bottle of water from his bag and took a long drink.
Anna had taught him that looking confident went a long way to feeling confident. She’d explained how the body could trick the mind and how he could use those techniques.
Thinking of her teaching ideas started to stir up deeper thoughts, ones he’d worked hard to suppress. And he knew the location of her London office—she was less than 13 miles away across the city.
He wished he didn’t care.
Shaking the thought away, Nick stepped up to the entrance, knowing that this day, this moment could change the rest of his life.
Pushing open the door, he walked inside.
He was met by one of the assistant coaches, given a brief tour of the ground and facilities, then ushered into the training room, where the newly appointed head coach, Sim Andrews, was waiting for him.
“Good to meet you, Nick,” he said, shaking hands. “Now, let’s see you smash this fitness test.”
As Nick changed into his workout clothes, he sent up a small prayer that everything would go well. It should do, he knew he was fit, but there was that small niggle of doubt. He shoved the thought away.
Taking a deep breath, he followed the coach into the training room.
One chance. I have one chance to nail this.
Nick’s determination was a living thing, pushing him on, needing success. He would do this: no fear.
Think it.
See it.
Believe it.
Do it.
The club’s doctor took him through his paces, checking his weight, heart, blood pressure, lungs and basic flexibility. Then he was bundled into a taxi and sent to a private clinic for yet another MRI scan.
Three hours later, Nick was back at the club staring at the sheet of paper, his eyebrows drawing together in a deep frown.
He studied the statistics that the Phoenixes’ assistant coach had given him. In black and white, it described the minimum fitness standard he had to achieve to get through the front door.
Test for Inside/Outside Backs
Body fat sum of 7 Skinfolds (mm)
<56
Vertical Jump (cm)
65
Sprint 10m (sec) on grass
1.6
Spring 40m (sec) on grass
5.25
Max Bench Press (Kg lifted/Kg of body weight)
1.3
Max Squat (Kg/Kg.bw)
1.3
Repeat Spring Ability (m) on grass
780
Bleep Test (Level)
13.5
3 Km run (min/sec) on track
11.15
It wasn’t anything unexpected, but it wasn’t going to be easy either.
“This is today’s target,” explained the coach. “In six weeks, you’ll need to have improved your scores, and again six weeks after that. We want to see you training hard.”
He stuck out his hand, a big grin on his face.
“Welcome to Finchley Phoenixes!”
Anna finished the call with a satisfied smile. Business was going well and she’d just picked up another new client. Moving to London had been the right decision.
Her smile dimmed slightly as she thought of the man she’d left behind.
No, London was definitely the best place for her. Nick was too damn tempting. She knew that their one night together had been a mistake, but it had also been a wonderful night. The best she’d ever experienced.
Guilt tugged at her. Running out on him had been an act of cowardice. She knew it. He knew it.
He’d emailed her once, asking if she was okay. She’d sent a short response. He hadn’t replied.
Never mix business and pleasure. There was a reason people said that.
Smug assholes.
She sighed. Months later, and she could still remember the way he tasted, the way his eyes darkened when he touched her, the way he moved inside her.
Those memories were her own special hell, and now she was living with the consequences. Again.
The night was still so vivid in her memory, memories that haunted her.
She closed her eyes, the images rushing and tumbling through her mind.
They’d made love, beautifully, powerfully, erotically, and for a few minutes, Anna lay peacefully, but as Nick’s body relaxed into sleep, she sat up slowly, staring down at him as the horror of what she’d done woke her more thoroughly.
Primum non nocere—First do no harm.
It was a basic tenet of all medical training. And she’d violated that. She knew with every female instinct, every minute of medical training that sleeping with Nick was wrong. He’d been her client; with her he’d shared his secrets, his hopes and dreams; an intimate relationship was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sickened at her loss of control, Anna had crept from the room, gathering her clothes in shameful silence even as her thighs clenched at the memory of Nick moving inside her.
It had felt so right and been so wrong.
If it ever got out that she’d had a liaison with a former client, she’d be screwed. And not in a good way where you were given breakfast in the morning.
And in the highly competitive world of sports psychology—a male-dominated world, particularly when it came to rugby—she’d be finished, her reputation ruined.
She’d decided that it would be better to end it with Nick before it started . . . or before they took it any further.
Even knowing all this, regret was a shadow that never left her side.
In her bedroom, she’d washed herself quickly, afraid that using the shower would wake him, then dressed in warm clothes, her suitcase already packed and ready. Leaving like a thief in the night, she could catch the late train.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, her arms had strained so her suitcase wouldn’t bang against the narrow, wooden newels.
Standing at the kitchen table, she’d hesitated, but in the end left a brief note, scrawling that short message. Then, shivering slightly, she’d risked making a quick cup of coffee, leaving another for Nick, certain that he’d wake soon. But when she’d peeked into the living room, he was still deeply asleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, a lock of hair curling across his forehead.
As emotion tightened her chest, she picked up the blanket from the sofa and draped it over him tenderly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
And with guilt prickling her skin, she stole from the house.
And now, all this time later, in her dreams they were together again, and each night she dreamed of making a different decision, one where she didn’t walk away.
But then, anything is possible in dreams.
What was it about this man that had made her forget all her ethics training, her professionalism, even her own ghastly history with Jonathan? Was she doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over?
Yes, coming to London was definitely the right thing to do.
Slamming the door on a quiet voice of emotion, she concentrated on her work. There were contracts to draw up, training sessions to be scheduled and client files to be reviewed.
She stood up and stretched, walking next door to her new assistant’s office. She missed Belinda, but Brendan was turning out to be another lucky choice. He was late-twenties, exceptionally efficient, and very good-looking in a skinny, nerdish sort of way. He wore thick-rimmed black glasses and a Hoxton quiff that was sculpted with liberal amounts of hair gel every morning and, in his own words, he was as camp as a row of tents.
He looked up from the computer, his eyes slightly enlarged behind the thick lenses.
“Ooh, someone looks happy! Either you’ve been bonking in your lunchbreak or we have another new client. Sex and money—both put a smile on my face too, honey.”
Brendan had waltzed across the employer-employee line on his first day and hadn’t stopped since. He seemed fascinated by Anna’s love life, or lack of it.
She shook her head, smiling.
“New client.”
“Pity. You’re totally babelicious—for someone who dresses like a nun on a day trip to Skegness. You could do with someone revving your engine before it seizes up.”
“I’m ignoring you, Brendan. Yes, we have a new client. A rugby club in North London.”
“Yum! Buxom men with brawny thighs. My favourite.”
“Can men be buxom?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Have you seen the size of their pecs? That’s where it’s at, Annie. No pecs, no sex.”
She raised an eyebrow, glancing at his narrow shoulders and boyishly slim frame.
“Unless you’re as gorgeous as me, of course,” he grinned at her.
“Of course. What was I thinking? Okay, so I need you to work a three-hour session into my schedule for six weeks from August 1st, and prepare the usual paperwork. The contracts will be emailed to you today. Print them out and I’ll sign them later.”
“Gotcha. And the name of our new pay cheque is?”
“Finchley Phoenixes.”
“Catchy.”
“And I’ll need a preliminary appointment with the manager and head coach to find out exactly what they need from me.”
“On it like fleas on a dog’s scrotum.”
He turned back to the computer and started typing furiously.
August 2015
BRENDAN HANDED ANNA her schedule for the week, along with a file on her new clients, Finchley Phoenixes. Her mind half on her emails, she scanned through it, then choked on her drink, spitting a mouthful of hot lemon over her keyboard.
Her eyes watered and her face turned red as she fought to clear her airways. Brendan thumped her on the back and attempted to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, but Anna waved him away, standing to catch her breath.
When he was certain she wasn’t about to expire, Brendan flopped down into the chair opposite her and pressed a hand to his chest.
“You know, boss,” he said thoughtfully when she sat down again cautiously, “I like to think of myself as pretty low rent—mostly on Friday nights at Heaven—but sometimes you really make me look classy.”
Anna pulled a sour face, and Brendan laughed hysterically with relief and delayed shock.
“So what caused that little vom? Your eyes bulged and then . . . bleurgh!”
“My drink went down the wrong way, that’s all. I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
“If you say so,” he tossed over his shoulder as he stood up and walked away. “I’ll get the truth out of you.”
That’s what Anna was afraid of.
Her choking fit had been caused by reading through the Phoenixes’ file and coming across the names of four new team members. Nick Renshaw was listed as the new Fullback, wearing the number 17 shirt.
“How did I not know this?” she groaned shaking her head. “Why is this my life? Of all the clubs in all the world, you had to walk into mine. Ugh!”
Anna knew that every Thursday afternoon for the next six weeks, maybe longer, she’d be seeing the man she fucked and dumped. Nope, not even a little bit awkward. Just hugely, enormously, cosmically awkward.
“I am a professional. I can do this!” Anna put her head in her hands. “I can’t do this!”
The thought of seeing him across the team meeting room every week knowing what he looked like naked, knowing what he felt like naked—no, it was too awful to contemplate. But even if she could cancel the contract—which she wouldn’t—this was her business. Pulling out now would not help her to build her client base.
So she decided to face it head on. Well, slightly head on. Head on as in completely not facing him while she did it.
She logged into her email and sent a message.
3rd August 2015, 8.45AM
Dear Nick,
So, it’s been a while. I hear that you’ll be wearing the number 17 shirt with Finchley Phoenixes this season. I’m really happy for you. I always knew that you’d get a club.
By now, you’ll probably also know that I’ve been hired by your team to work with the players over the next few weeks before the new season kicks off. I want you to know that I’ll be totally professional and do my best to help you all have a really good season.
I also know that I owe you an apology for the way I behaved in April. It was rude and cowardly and I’m really sorry. I could have dealt with the situation much better. I should have. And I’m sorry that I didn’t.
But what I said then still stands—even more so now we’ll be working together again. I know that we can both be professional, but I hope that we can be friendly, too. Despite how I behaved, I have the greatest respect for you and what you’ve achieved.
Warm regards,
Anna Scott.
Then she scowled at the screen, realising that admitting she’d crossed a line, putting her guilt into writing wasn’t smart. Sighing, she hit delete and started again.
3rd August 2015, 8.52AM
Dear Nick,
So, it’s been a while. I hear that you’ll be wearing the number 17 shirt with Finchley Phoenixes this season. I’m really happy for you. I always knew that you’d get a club.
By now, you’ll probably also know that I’ve been hired by your team to work with the players over the next few weeks before the new season kicks off. I want you to know that I’ll do my best to help you all have a really good season.
I have the greatest respect for you and what you’ve achieved.
Warm regards,
Anna Scott.
She re-read it four times, hesitated, then pressed send and waited. And waited. And waited.
Then she sighed, and went to make herself a fresh cup of hot lemon, since her last one had cooled—what was left after she’d spat most it over her keyboard.
But when she returned to her desk, Nick had replied.
3rd August 2015, 9.16AM
Dear Anna,
It won’t be a problem.
Nick
When Anna read his terse reply, she winced. He obviously wasn’t happy with her. Maybe she shouldn’t have put that bit about being friends. It probably sounded . . . hell, she had no idea how it sounded. Like a brush off? Like it had just been a meaningless fuck to her?
The problem was she’d liked it too much. Far too much to be seeing the man every week. It hadn’t been meaningless.
She rested her head in her hands. What a clusterfuck.
“I’ve just got to get through the next six weeks,” she muttered to herself. “How the hell do I do that?”
It was all very polite.
Very British, Anna decided.
When Sim Andrews introduced her to the team, Nick nodded, shook her hand and said, “Nice to see you again, Dr. Scott.”
Nice. Nice? Suddenly, she didn’t like the word anymore.
Surreptitiously, she studied his face, but nothing in his stoic expression revealed what he was thinking.
Nick looked good—really well, fit, broader in the shoulders than he had been, tanned, and his thick thighs seemed more muscled, his sweatpants clinging to his legs as he moved. But his eyes were harder and colder than before.
He’d cut his hair and shaved his beard, too, and she’d bet her last dime that he’d waxed his chest, as well. For half a second, she had to close her eyes as the memories of that chiselled chest pressing over her leapt to the front of her mind.
She caught the faintest scent of soap and his cologne as he walked past. Why was this the most evocative of the five senses. Five? She felt that at least a dozen had woken, simply from being in the same room with Nick.
But other than greeting her politely, he hadn’t acknowledged her again.
Once, maybe twice, she thought she detected something in his eyes, a flash of emotion, but it was gone so quickly, it could well have been wishful thinking.
Was he still angry with her? Maybe even hurt? She couldn’t get a read on him. Or was it just wounded pride that he’d been humped and dumped?
Sim Andrews walked to the front of the room and began his pre
-season motivational pep talk.
“Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I’m Sim Andrews, Head Coach. Most of my playing career was with Bath and Bristol. I’ve been a Cup winner seven times and been capped for England twelve times. I was assistant coach with the Saracens for nine years. This season, I want to take the Phoenixes back to the top of the league table, where we belong.
“Joining us we have Giovanni Simone from ASR Milano playing Fly-Half, Bernard Dubois from the Stade Toulousain playing Scrum-Half, Fetuao Tui from Apia West in Samoa as our new Tighthead Prop, and Nick Renshaw from Manchester Minotaurs playing Fullback.
“I hope you’ve all had a good rest over the summer and have come back fit, because we’ll be training hard from now on. We’ve got our work cut out for us, and I want to see the Phoenixes back on top, where we belong!
“I’m going to talk about our goals for this season and about the values we have here at Hangar Lane. I know some of you have heard this before, but it’s worth repeating. We play hard, we play fair and we don’t give in. Ever. How you conduct yourselves off the field is as important as on it. I don’t want anyone here getting in the newspapers other than for playing bloody well.”
He looked around him, making sure he met the eyes of every player. Over the summer, two England football players had been caught paying prostitutes, and one had been taking cocaine at the time. For a few days, it was a big scandal—there’d been heavy fines and suspensions; there was talk that they’d all be dropped from the national team.
Once Sim was satisfied that he’d made his point, he turned to introduce Anna.
“Part of our new team is Anna Scott. Dr. Scott is an experienced sports psychologist and it’ll pay you to listen to what she has to say. She’ll be working with you in groups this afternoon.
“We’ll be going over specific goals in a few minutes, but you know what I’m going to ask of you: let’s keep those missed tackles to less than ten per cent, and mistakes or tries conceded to two or three a game or we’ll fall behind quickly.
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