Playing It Close (17 page)

“At least it’s an honest living, and I don’t have to deal with twats all day,” she said.
Whoops.
So much for rising above. She gave him a smile she clearly didn’t mean and tried to step around him, but he grabbed her elbow, jerking her hard enough that the kebabs tumbled to the floor.

“Listen to me, you scrawny-arsed bitch. You’ve made all of us look like dicks. Don’t think for one second that we’ll forget that. I still know things...”

“Please, Michael, you didn’t need
me
to make you look like a dick. And we both know you shot your wad when you handed over my email to the lawyers. You have nothing else on me that I need to worry about.”

“Really? We’ll see. I can make life very unpleasant for you, little girl.”

“Oh, I know you can. You did for years, so why should it be any different now?” She pulled her elbow free and calmly refilled her plate with only five kebabs for her dad, since she’d just lost her appetite. Nodding toward the ones on the floor, she said, “I’ll let you tidy those up. I know how at home you are snuffling around in the dirt. Excuse me.”

She returned to her seat and handed the food to her father, then squeezed her clenched hands between her knees to keep him from seeing how they shook. She pretended to focus on the match, but her mind betrayed her, setting up a slideshow of her career lowlights.

Michael had interviewed her when she’d applied for a graduate placement at the investment bank straight after uni. He became what was known in the industry as her rabbi, not technically her boss but someone higher in the corporate food chain and rising fast. He’d seemed eager to bring her up with him, even—she suspected—twisting a few arms when a lucrative new position opened among the traders...a position most women wouldn’t have applied for because they knew their chances were hopeless. She’d been determined to prove herself, not by out-bloking the blokes but by working her arse off and showing that she was just as capable as anyone else.

Michael had been one of the few men she worked with who saved his inappropriate remarks for the pub. Or, at least, she’d thought he had. It was one of the characteristics that had made him grow more attractive to her over the first couple of years they worked together. His confidence came with only a moderate amount of cockiness, and he’d treated her the same as the other traders...until the night they both got too drunk at a colleague’s leaving do and she went home with him.

By Monday lunchtime, she’d begun hearing whisperings and tried to convince herself that the smirks were her imagination. Then she overheard Michael telling her team leader that he’d fucked Titless Tess, and her professional world had collapsed. The nickname stuck. The smirks and smarmy comments never disappeared. Colleagues openly asked if she’d succeeded in making big deals by sucking clients off.
We know it’s not by titty-fucking them
, one had joked in a staff meeting.

On principle, she refused to quit. She’d already started blogging at that point, but now rage infused her writing and some of her posts were picked up by the City’s daily newspaper. Other women wrote in with similar stories, and her one bad decision snowballed until the national media caught wind of scandal and the politicians began making noises about gender equality in the workplace. Someone uncovered her identity, and after that it wasn’t difficult for the papers to expose the real-life characters she’d written about.

If only Tess had confined her writing to her blog. If only she hadn’t fired off that angry, drunken email mocking the pathetic size of his cock and generally proving herself to be little better than he was.

She was sick of being in the public eye. She’d humiliated herself and her family—who’d stuck by her even as the darker side of her character was exposed to the world. The greed. The pettiness. The sexual insults.

With her eyes on the match starting down below, she sought out Liam. She’d understood his desire for privacy in Venezuela, but his public role was so much different to hers. He was beloved by the nation and even exalted by his rivals. He was a golden boy who could do no wrong. She was either a feminist freedom-fighter or a hideous bitter bitch, depending on the cartoon and the newspaper.

She wanted to be anonymous again. The first step to achieving that was to stay away from scandal. The second step was to never, ever let anything compromise her professionalism again—and Charlie was right that that meant avoiding relationships with anyone remotely involved in her work.

Good thing Liam had made his disgust in her clear. Otherwise, she might’ve been tempted to follow him down a path to her own destruction.

Chapter Ten

The morning of Legends’ first home match, Tess took advantage of the quiet roads and sunshine and cycled from Stoke Newington to their stadium in Stratford, East London.

Charlie still hadn’t figured out how best to use the extra tickets Kijani got as part of their match-day sponsorship deal, so when Tess met her father she kept her fingers crossed that he wouldn’t have any opportunities to humiliate her today of all days—her first time walking onto the pitch to give away a trip.

“Hi, Dad.” She kissed him on the cheek and leaned into his brief bear hug.

“Morning, Tessy. Ready for a pie and a pint?”

“Always.” She walked with him to their favorite food van and ordered two steak-and-ale pies while her dad sought out one of the men wandering through the growing crowd with a backpack full of beer from the local Legends brewery. Tess’s chest filled with pride over her team’s traditions. They’d started over eighty years ago, when young men working at Legends brewery had decided to form a team at the weekends. Men’s rugby had only gone professional in the nineties, but for decades before that it was played purely for love of the sport.

After they ate, Tess excused herself to change in the toilets. She’d brought proper clothes in a small backpack, so she stripped off her cycling gear, gave herself a quick wash in the sinks so she felt a bit fresher, and pulled on her brand new shirt, smoothing it down and checking herself out in the mirror. Seeing the name of Charlie’s company printed across her chest made her smile. He had done well for himself, and now she was here to help him do even better.

Even if that meant seeing Liam again.

And Ash Trenton.

Oy.

Ruth met Tess and her father at the stadium entrance and showed them how to use their special electronic passes to buzz themselves through the security doors, then led them up several flights of stairs. The sell-out crowd of fifteen thousand thinned as most supporters found their seats on lower levels. When they’d reached the top floor, Ruth motioned toward another closed door and Tess buzzed them in. They entered a long room containing several buffet tables set up with food, glorious food. And a fully stocked bar.

“I’ll come get you when the game clock says there’s five minutes left before the half,” Ruth explained. “I’ll introduce you to Gerry—he’s the on-pitch announcer—and from that point on you really just have to do what he says. He’s been doing this since before God was born, so you’ll be in excellent hands. Any questions?”

“Just why did I eat that pie?” Tess joked, taking in the assortment of nibbles, curries and mini pork pies that didn’t look as if they’d been microwaved. And a table of healthy salads, which she ignored.

Ruth laughed. “You’ll know better for next time. Now—I have to dash, but here’s my mobile number if you need me for anything, anything at all during the match.” She handed Tess a card. “I’ll see you soon.”

Tess’s father had already disappeared and was chatting with the barman, who was pulling a couple of pints. Tess wandered over. “No more for me, Dad. One was enough. I’m working, remember?”

“You sure you don’t need some Dutch courage?”

“Positive.” Already, the pie and nerves were making her stomach ache, and the last thing she needed was to stumble onto the pitch half-cut and take control of a microphone.

Just like at Twickenham, the room was full of corporate types. They’d dressed down for the occasion, but Tess could still smell them a mile away. Not difficult, since they tended to like bathing in strong cologne. Around the room, men laughed too heartily or talked too loudly on their mobiles. She shuddered. As hard as she’d fought to keep her career, she was through with it now. The money had been fantastic, but it certainly hadn’t been worth it. Not when it meant sacrificing her pride, her self-respect and her ability to be a decent human being. Thank God Charlie had given her this chance, even if it was currently making a mess of her stomach.

She and her dad took their seats, and he buzzed with boyish excitement next to her. “Look at this, Tessy. We’re right over the halfway line.”

Tess let herself get lost in the spectacle surrounding the start of the match. Once, while on a business trip to New York, she’d gone to an American football game. Fighter jets had flown over and members of the special forces had parachuted into the middle of the stadium while fireworks went off and the crowd roared. She’d been astounded—and a little bit frightened. Nothing like that happened at rugger matches. Every Legends match started the same way. Around forty children from local rugby clubs—each wearing a Legends jersey and waving a flag—formed two parallel lines facing each other. A woman tried to corral the children so their lines were fairly straight, and she coached them to raise their flags at her signal. The announcer—Gerry—stood on the pitch and read out happy-birthdays to several kids in attendance. He announced last-minute changes for both sides, then the opposing team ran onto the pitch to polite handclaps and cheers from their section of supporters.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome...your London Legends!” Finally, the big moment. The Legends players jogged out of the tunnel and through the gauntlet of local children, who went crazy with their flags while smoke machines sprayed green and white smoke on either side of them.

Liam led the line of players, setting a leisurely pace because he held the hands of two small children. This was a tradition that choked her up every time. Sometimes they were the kids of season ticket holders or people important to the club. Other times, they were children the team met through local charities they were involved with. Always, they beamed with pride at being the team’s mascot for the day.

“Our mascots today are five-year-old Stephanie and her big brother Lucas from the Smile Children’s Club in Stratford. Please give them a big hand, ladies and gentlemen!”

Tess watched the big screen so she could see their expressions. Little Stephanie had Down’s Syndrome. She and her brother grinned at Liam as he led them to the center of the pitch, crouched down to their height and pointed toward the touchline, probably at their parents or someone from their charity. They waved with such excitement that Tess and her dad laughed. Liam put his arms around their little shoulders and drew them close so a photographer could snap their picture together, then he said one last thing to them before Ruth led them off the pitch. He smiled, but by the time he jogged over to his team, his face was in game mode.

Tess’s dad leaned into her side. “Do you remember when you were the mascot?”

“Vaguely. Mostly I remember being confused about what was going on because Mum had come to the match too, and that never happened. Then you were telling me to hold this giant stranger’s hand and to mind whatever he told me, and that never happened either.”

He laughed. “The look on your face in that photo they took. Priceless. You were so serious, even then.”

“I was trying to figure out if they expected me to play.”

Shaking his head in obvious amusement, her dad said, “I remember that season. They’d have done better if they
had
asked you to play.”

As she’d promised, with five minutes still to play in the half Ruth came for Tess and led her down the stairs to part of the stadium she’d never been to before. Under the stands, they passed the changing rooms and walked through the tunnel Tess had seen the team line up in many times, but only on TV. The crowd’s cheers grew stronger, echoing off the tunnel walls. They met Gerry at the mouth of the tunnel, and Ruth introduced Tess to the man who was just as legendary as any of the players, the man who’d been getting the crowd excited for as long as Tess could remember.

He shook her hand, his brows drawing down in confusion. “I know you, don’t I?”

Oh, shite. Here was something she hadn’t considered. Her face and name had been all over the news for weeks during the inquiry. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized she was about to walk onto a pitch surrounded by thousands of people who would know exactly who she was and everything she’d gone through in the past year. Even if they hadn’t followed the inquiry closely, they would still associate her with it. What if they booed her?

Worse, what if Charlie’s whole plan flopped because his company’s name became associated with her own disgrace? He’d paid a hell of a lot for this promo, and he’d entrusted her to represent him well. Her mottled history could cost him dearly.

She tried to brush off Gerry’s recognition. “You must have an amazing memory. We met about twenty-three years ago when I was a mascot.”

He grinned, obviously knowing that wasn’t where he recognized her from but willing to play along anyway. “Ah, that’s it! You’re taller now, but I definitely see the resemblance.” Lowering his voice, he asked, “You’re not one of the ones who wet themselves before going on, are you?”

“N-no.”

“Thank God for that. We’ll have no problems today, then. Right. Here’s what’ll happen.”

He explained that the teams would run off the pitch in a moment, and then there would be five minutes where kids from local rugby clubs played touch rugby. After that, he would escort Tess out to the center of the pitch, introduce her as one of their sponsors and let her take over. “Any questions?”

“Just one,” she said. “When you introduce me, could you just call me Tess from Kijani Adventures?”

“Of course.” He made a note on his clipboard. “All right, Tess from Kijani Adventures. That was the whistle. Step to the side now. You don’t want to be mown down by this lot of beasts.”