Page 58 of The Game

I shook off the warmth that was spreading through my limbs. "What are you going to do?" My voice lowered, and my body relaxed towards his an inch. I needed to stop that right now. That was a path to destruction for both of us.

"I'm going to do what they asked."

My hands flew into the air. "But why? It's all lies."

"What else can I do?" The speckled eyes caught mine for just a moment.

I gasped a deep breath and blurted, "You could tell them the truth."

His jaw clenched and his handsome face pinched at the prospect. "No, I would never do that."

It stung. He would rather say he'd been with an imaginary stripper than admit he'd been with me, and I knew the sole reason for that was because he didn't want to break his contract. "Fine."

I turned and started to pace away. "Alyssa," he called after me, but I didn't stop to look. I just kept on walking, right into my job, the game.

At four in the afternoon the team and I sat on the side row of the press room, all our polo shirts and chinos perfectly pressed, and watched as the Lion apologised to the media and the public again in a matter of only a few days. Except for this time, I watched. I sat there feeling sick and holding myself together around the middle as his face flashed with sheer defiance as he read the repeated the words written on the card in front of him. When he'd finished the cues, and I knew this because I'd already seen them, he looked out at the sea of pink players, and his eyes landed on me. "I will never," his voice was low, and my heart pounded so loud in my chest I wondered if he could hear it from his seat. "I will never," he repeated, "mar the reputation of my team." His blue gaze burned through me as he stood and a barrage of questions flooded over him. "Who was she? "Did he plan to see her again?" "Did he like to pay for sex?" He held his hand out and strode from the room.

Sammy and I were cuddled on the couch. He was watching endless cartoons while I skimmed through my phone desperately searching for reactions to the press conference. I didn't care about the news, but I did care about the fans. I was grateful that Sammy was six and had no clue what anyone was talking about. The phone had been ringing all afternoon, I’d stopped answering after mistakenly picking up the first call that asked “How did it feel to have Jase Willis cheat on me with a stripper?” Deep in my heart I wondered what Anthony and Vanessa would think if they knew I'd surrounded their little boy in this much controversy, and all because I was trying to stay in the game that my brother and I loved.

When I'd got home from work, still with a nasty heavy feeling in my chest, I'd found a lasagne on the kitchen counter, my favourite dinner. Figured you might need this, was written on a note, propped against the oven dish. I wondered how much Maria might have guessed. More than I would have wanted I was sure. That woman didn't miss a trick.

"Shall we walk the dog?" I'd asked the little guy. He'd looked at me in shock as he bit into his apple, juice squirting all over his chin, but then he'd nodded. Jasper had his second walk of the day and Sammy and I held hands as we walked around the local duck pond. Jasper told all the ducks exactly what he thought of them. It was nice but it hadn't been the same as when I'd walked hand in hand with the Lion. For the briefest second, for the first time in my life, I had a vision flash through my head - a vision of a future where there wasn't cricket, there was just Sammy and I and a good guy at our side.

But I knew that vision would never have the Lion in it. He wasn't that kind of guy.

That future was never meant to be mine either. It wasn't the life I'd carved out for myself, but then my future had changed when my brother had one beer too many and took a corner too fast. I didn't know what my future was supposed to hold, but the heavy feeling in my heart told me that a job in a team where a man playing cricket was supposed to admit to having sex with someone he hadn't, just to keep his position, wasn't one that I wanted to have.

There was a bad taste in my mouth, and my body felt like it was covered in grime, in a stain that I wasn't sure I would be able to remove.

I groaned when the doorbell rang. The long curved driveway put off most cold callers, but there was always some fucker determined to ruin couch time.

"Seriously, no thank you," I said, swinging the door open and staring straight up into the face of the Lion. A frown flickered on my face, and it was met by a mirroring one on his. "What are you doing here?"

"Why are you hardly dressed?" his gaze worked its way along my bare legs and camisole.

"Cause I'm chilling out under a blanket having cartoon time, and I'm considering a very early night."

Very early, as in I planned to go to bed as soon as Sammy was tucked in because that way the terrible day would be done.

"Get dressed," he snapped.

"No. What are you doing here? I think you are in enough trouble as it is."

His eyes flickered, but he didn't respond. He leant in a little closer, his breath fanning over my face causing me to inhale deeply. "I'd really like to take you somewhere, if you don't mind."

I waved my hand back towards the depths of the house. "I've got Sammy."

His gaze stayed steady on my face. "That's fine, he can come too."

I let him in and told Sammy to go and get changed out of his jimjams. "Stay here." I waved to the lounge and the vicinity I felt it was safe for him to be in.

His eyes clouded, or at least I thought they did, it could have been the light. "Sure."

A few minutes later we were out on the driveway, me pulling my hair into a messy bun and the little guy looking like all his Christmases had come at once. I walked for my car, but his fingers touched me lightly on the elbow. The heat from that one, barely there, touch was impossible to ignore. "My car."

"But Sammy needs a booster," I said.

"I don't," said Sammy.