Playing It Close (34 page)

“What’s wrong with that, mate?” Michael’s fists clenched, as if he might actually have a chance in a fight with Liam.

“For starters, your head looks like a testicle.”

Several people surrounding their group, including the reporter, turned to snicker at Michael, and if Tess hadn’t seen her whole life crashing down she might’ve felt bad for him—especially since his shaved ginger hair and wrinkly forehead
did
make him resemble a bollock, one that was turning purple and veiny from lack of air.

Gwen, ever her champion, drew herself up to her full height and glared straight into Liam’s eyes. “You don’t have to shame her for it. Clearly it was a heinous mistake.”

“Hey!” Michael protested.

The journalist’s hand flew over his notepad, and several phone cameras clicked as their owners captured the debacle. Panic shot through her. A few minutes ago, the black cloud that’d hung over her for years had started to drift away. Now it returned with a sharp blast of thunder, a deluge of frigid rain and the chilling realization that her name and sex life would be all over the internet again within seconds—even more prominently this time, since she was sleeping with one of the world’s greatest rugby players.

Worse, so much worse, Charlie’s business would hit the papers for all the wrong reasons. He’d given her a chance to start over. All he’d asked was that she represent him with honor and avoid fucking around with anyone she worked with. And what had she done? She’d let her impetuous nature overrule her rational brain, yet again.

And that didn’t seem to be about to change. Fighting panicky breaths, she tried to make things better by torpedoing everything. “I’m not sleeping with him. With Liam, I mean. I’m not.”

Liam’s brows inched upward. “Tess—”

But adrenaline gripped her now. She was in fight-or-flight mode, and neither would go well for him.

* * *

Tess had gone ghostly pale except for the rosy stain working its way up her neck to her jaw. The white shells stood out in a contrast just as stark as the difference between the mouthy, self-assured Tess he’d fallen for in Venezuela and the panicky one who stood before him now.

Where had that woman gone? The woman who’d known who he was but still ripped the piss out of him. The one who’d felt insecure about her body but hadn’t let that stop her from sharing the most erotic episode of his life.

The one he’d fallen in love with over the past six weeks.

Liam laid his hands on her shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze that their growing audience wouldn’t be able to misinterpret. “Tess, it’s all right. We might as well tell them.”

He was ready. He’d come here today to be her support team, but sitting a few rows behind her had unnerved him, giving him a twitchy discomfort not unlike jock itch. When it spread to the rest of him, he’d realized there was nothing fungal about it. He’d been sitting in the wrong place. He’d needed to sit next to her—close enough to hold her hand, brush his shoulder against hers and whisper his support in her ear, not type it into a text message.

The deal that had allowed them to get to know each other over the past six weeks no longer satisfied him. He was ready to make their relationship public—bugger the consequences. But Tess’s brows drew together until they nearly touched, and her head shook in a jerky denial.

“Tess, come on. It’ll be all right.”

A voice recorder was shoved between them, and a glossy-haired woman asked, “Mr. Callaghan, what’s the nature of your relationship with Ms. Chambers?”

He opened his mouth to make it official, but Tess drew in a quick breath and said, “It’s strictly professional. We both do our jobs, and that’s it.”

It took several long seconds for Liam to hear the echo of the words he’d said on the pitch after the first match of the season, when he’d tried to convince them both that he was only talking to her because he had to. He’d done it partly to hurt her, and fucking hell did it ever burn being on the receiving end.

She couldn’t mean it, not after everything they’d shared. He looked to her body to deny the truth of her words. The corners of her mouth tugged downward and her brow furrowed. The panic had left her face, replaced with an apology.

A muscle in his jaw twitched and pinpricks of numbness shot through his fingers as the blood left them. Not only was she unwilling to make their relationship public, but she was publicly
denying
him? He let his hands drop from her shoulders, flexing and relaxing them to try to bring back feeling. Instead, a more intense coldness settled in.

“We had a deal,” she whispered, as if the crowd hadn’t drawn so close they could hear every breath.

The woman with the recorder shoved it closer to Tess’s mouth. “What deal, Ms. Chambers? Does your deal have to do with the inquest? How long have you and Mr. Callaghan been involved?”

Another voice called out from the back of the crowd. “Did you give him any insider trading tips before you lost your job?”

She cursed and shot a furious glare toward whoever asked. “How dare you!”

“So you don’t deny it?”

Tess exhaled so fiercely her fringe blew up from her forehead before fanning out and settling again. “Liam, I can’t. I can’t do this again. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” He took in the sea of people drinking up every second of his life imploding.
She
was sorry? He’d convinced himself this time was different, this time he could fall for a woman without his celebrity getting in the way. But it still did—only this time instead of being used for his famous face he found himself kicked into touch because of it. “You’re not half as sorry as I am, Countess.”

The red stain spilled over her cheeks, and her eyes went glossy and pink around the edges. Her teeth gouged her bottom lip, and he fought the urge to rescue it before she drew blood. She’d just dumped him in front of a bunch of reporters who’d be desperate for a story now the inquiry was finished. She didn’t deserve his consideration, and she must have figured that out because she spun around and pushed through the throng of people, leaving him surrounded by strangers shouting questions at him.

She’d warned him that she was one bad news story away from losing her job again, along with all the pride and money that went with it. He just hadn’t realized she considered him bad news.

Chapter Twenty-One

Whistleblower Calls Penalty Against Rugby Legend.

Tess had only ducked into the newsagent’s for an emergency chocolate bar, but a wall of tabloids and broadsheets confronted her. After a night when she’d consumed more wine than sleep, her eyeballs ached as if she’d scrubbed them with a scouring pad. She squeezed her lids shut, pressed her thumbs into the corners and released the pressure, hoping the headlines would magically disappear like the tiny black dots floating in her vision. Cautiously, she peeked again.

Callaghan Kicked Into Touch By City Siren.

Obviously she was an idiot to think her luck might’ve changed.

Her mobile trilled with the theme song she’d long ago picked out for Charlie—“This Land Is Your Land”—and she removed the phone from the pocket of her hoodie only long enough to reject the call, sending him to voice mail for the dozenth time since he’d received the first online alert linking the name of his beloved company with the brewing scandal.

Trying to ignore the full-color photos that captured Liam’s shocked expression, Tess reached over the papers and grabbed as many chocolate bars as she could wrap her fist around. The memory of Liam’s voice pushed through her thoughts.
Please sort your diet out.
I
hate to think of you having a heart attack at fifty.

Her heart was killing her all right, but two decades earlier than he’d supposed. It had exploded for all the world to see yesterday, and a few hundred grams of saturated fat wouldn’t matter one bit.

Still, she shelved the sweets and backed out of the tiny, cluttered store. Maybe she could grab some grapes from the organic shop around the corner on her way home. This time she’d stick to grapes of the unfermented variety.

Fifteen minutes later, carrying an old Legends tote bag full of fresh fruit, she trudged through the park to her house, not even bothering to pull her mobile out when it rang with Woody Guthrie’s anthem again. Though she couldn’t put Charlie off forever, hopefully she could shake off her hangover before she handed in her notice. But again, Lady Luck decided to crap all over her. As she rounded the last copse of trees, she saw a man sitting on her front steps, glowering and muttering at the phone in his hand like a complete nutter.

Swallowing as much of the guilt as she could get down her tight throat, she crossed the street and gave him a sad smile when he looked up and noticed her. “Hiya, Charlie.”

He stayed silent as he stood, tugging his skinny jeans up to cover his ass crack before he slipped his phone into his man bag. Her eyes stung all over again as she took in his whisker-roughened chin and flat, product-less hair. He hadn’t groomed himself today. She was in deep steaming shit.

“Come in.” She unlocked the door and motioned for him to enter ahead of her. He made for the kitchen while she closed and locked the door, trying not to notice the tense set of his shoulders. By the time she stepped into the bright kitchen, he’d poured himself a glass of water and was pulling a packet of strawberry-flavored powder out of a cupboard for her.

“That’s all right,” she said. “I take my water neat now.”

Both of his brows shot up. “Really? Any other news you’d like to tell me?”

She cringed. “I’m sorry?”

His nostrils flared as he shook his head in obvious frustration. “Is that a question?”

“No. It’s not. I really am sorry.”

He thrust a glass of water at her, and it sloshed over her hand. “I asked you to do one thing. One simple fucking thing.”

“I know. I messed up.”

“Royally.”

She bit down hard on the corner of her bottom lip. “The thing is, I fell in love with him.”

Charlie collapsed onto one of her barstools, his head dropping back like a flower on a broken stalk as he let out a gusty sigh. “Fucking hell, Tessy, that’s even
worse.
”

“Worse? Why worse?” If she was going to throw away the only job she was likely to get and compromise the reputation of her cousin’s company, why not do it for love instead of lust?

“Because how can you work with him now? How can you go to matches to promote us if it means spending eighty minutes watching him play? How can you be part of the Christmas charity fundraiser we’re sponsoring when he’ll be a key part of it? How can you organize
any
promotional events when he’ll likely show up with whatever brainless cover model he’s shagging at the time?”

Tess’s gut churned, and her throat seized at the vision. For weeks, the one thing she’d tried to fight was the suspicion that she was nothing more than Liam’s flavor of the month. Since yesterday afternoon, she’d had to confront the fear that maybe she’d been much more, and she’d thrown it away like foul-smelling rubbish. Work with him again? She couldn’t even hear his name without feeling sick with regret. She choked out, “I can’t. That’s why I’m handing in my resignation.”

Her grip tightened around the water glass until she feared it might shatter. “I’m so sorry I’ve disappointed you. I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity you gave me, and I can’t apologize enough for dragging Kijani into the mud with me.”

Charlie drew in a deep breath and finally gave her his full, piercing attention. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you’ve been concerned about being linked with the notorious Titless Tess, Scourge of the City, Radical Feminist Freedom-Fighter, or whatever they’re calling me this week. I tried to keep everything a secret so Kijani wouldn’t be affected, but in the end I fucked up anyway. I’m so sorry.”

His eyes rolled. “God, you’re such a muppet. I haven’t looked at the figures today, but I’d be willing to bet our web traffic and online bookings go
up
this weekend. If anything, you’ve given us the kind of publicity money can’t buy. Now that people know you and Callaghan met in Venezuela, I’d be surprised if our solo backpacking trips don’t fly off the virtual shelves. Thanks for that.”

Tess blinked, her brows drawing together over her pounding headache. “And people know I met him in Venezuela how?”

One corner of Charlie’s mouth quirked up. “I’m not a fool, Tessy. When life hands you a golden PR opportunity, you don’t just grab it. You latch on and suck it for all it’s worth.”

Tess tried not to vomit at the mental image. “So, if you’re not worried about Kijani, why do you forbid work relationships?”

“Because I don’t want anyone to get their fucking heart ripped out! Mixing work with pleasure does nothing but ruin good solid business relationships. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work with someone when you get sick with longing every time you look at them?”

No. She didn’t. “I know what it’s like to work with someone when you get sick with revulsion every time you look at them.”

“It’s not the same. It’s approximately five million times worse.”

Yeah, that didn’t surprise her. All night, the mental image of Liam’s face had kept her from falling asleep. Every time she’d closed her eyes, she’d seen the flash of pain that he hadn’t been able to hide from her or the photographers standing around. That expression had been a physical kick to her gut that she’d senselessly tried to drown in wine.

She collapsed onto a stool next to Charlie and dropped her face into her hands. “I hurt him. I can’t believe I put my job and your idiotic contract above his feelings. No offense.”

“None taken. And it’s not idiotic. It makes perfect sense. I was just trying to protect the sponsorship agreement.”

“And I was trying to protect you and me and him, and all I ended up doing was hurting everyone.”

Charlie’s arm wrapped around her shoulder, tugging her sideways against his chest. He pressed a quick kiss against her temple and held her close. “Don’t worry about me, love. And don’t hand in your resignation just yet. I’m certainly not ready to get rid of you, and I want you to decide what you’re going to do next without the dole hanging over your head. If you decide you can’t work with him anymore, I’ll find something else for you. I promise.”