Page 57 of The Game

"So you weren't at the club?" This voice was unfamiliar, definitely not Waller’s. It was smarmy and cloying, causing the hair on my arms to stand on end.

"Yes, I was." I could hear the frustration through the door. I could visualise him grasping at his hair and making it stick up at angles. 'But I left."

"With the stripper?" This was Waller. Exhaustion dragged off every vowel he spoke.

"No, not with the stripper, that's not my style, Waller. You know that."

"But you can't tell us what you were doing, so we can help you counter these claims?"

I stiffened for a moment until he said, "No. I was drunk. I went home."

Silence met his response and then the other voice said. "So what do you plan to do, deny the story?"

The sound of a chair scraping across the floor blocked his response.

Then the other voice clipped, "It will go to the board, you know that, right?"

"Yes." Footsteps fell until the door swung open and the tortured face of the Lion found me eavesdropping. "Rivers." He nodded at me and continued to walk on down the hallway. I watched him go. His shoulders were held high, his back ramrod straight and a sense of pride rolled off him, permeating the atmosphere. I took a deep breath of it, hoping to absorb some of that iron resolve that he made his own.

Creeping into the office, I looked at Waller, lifting my hands to my hips. "What's going on?"

Waller's face had taken on a shade of grey these last few weeks that made me genuinely worried for his health. "Seen the news?" He rose an eyebrow.

"Yes, but it's bollocks, right? I mean I know Willis is a jerk of the first order, but he's not a dirtbag." I wanted to rip my tongue out for even talking about him like that.

The stranger in the room watched me with interest. "You should be pleased, Miss Rivers, at least it takes the heat off the rumours of you two having an affair."

I made an explosive snorting noise. "I don't think it's an affair when both parties are single." I glared at both men. "Who the fuck are you anyway?"

With hindsight, I'd realise this wasn't the way to talk to anyone, but I was mad—hopping, string someone up by their gonads, mad.

"I'm the managing director, Parker." He lifted from Waller's seat he was occupying with an ample girth and offered me a clammy hand. I wanted to be sick as I shook it; it was like shaking hands with the devil.

I turned my face away from him, once sweaty courtesies were disposed of. As we were nearing the end of the season and this was the first time I'd met the guy, I knew just what kind of manager he was. "What happens now?"

Waller ran hands through his non-existent hair. "Now, he apologises to the fans for his indiscretions."

"Or?"

Waller’s gaze held mine steady. "Or he's out."

"He's your best player."

Waller shrugged. "Rules are rules, Lyssa, you know that, right?" It felt like he was hinting beneath the surface of his words but I was so over this shit. I stormed out of the room with more force than the man in question had summoned.

He was stood by the wall, his arms folded over his chest, one foot kicked up against the wall.

I'd never in my life wanted to take someone in my arms as I did him then but I knew I wouldn't. This job meant everything to him, and me hugging him in public wasn't going to help the situation any, not at all—in fact, it would make it a hundred times worse. So instead of touching him, which my skin was burning to do, I went and stood in front of him, my face tilted to he'd look at me. "Guess you didn't have a night of passion with a stripper?"

His eyes bore into mine and I wanted to melt right there and then, a warm flutter curled its way to life in my belly. I did a double take when I saw the twitch move the corners of his lips. "Not exactly, no."

"Not exactly...what are you implying, Willis?"

He smiled one of those raw flashes of beauty that he so rarely showed anyone. "That some two-bit stripper was very far from my mind."

"What was on your mind?"

Was I really going to flirt with him now? Was this even what we planned? Wasn't Saturday a one-off thing? Wasn't his whole life imploding around him because of yet another vicious rumour in the gossip fuelled papers.