Playing It Close (23 page)

She stooped to pick up her towel and wrapped it around her chest as she chatted with Andre. Liam was right behind her as the photographer got out a piece of paper and wrote down her email address, saying, “I’ll send you your special version as soon as I can.”

“What special version?” Liam asked.

Tess adjusted her towel and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s nothing. I have to go. Thank you again, Andre.”

As she hurried away toward the changing room, he focused on the photographer. “What special version?”

Andre fiddled with his equipment, also not looking at him. “I just meant I’d send her a copy. That’s all.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed at the whiff of shit. He didn’t like secrets. Despised them, in fact—especially when he was the one left in the dark. This was his team, his project, and...and fuck, it really had nothing to do with that. He just hated not knowing what was going on. He could either try to get the answer out of the photographer or Tess, and since he had several other things to say to a certain nymph anyway, he might as well add this to the list.

Tess had hardly been gone a few minutes before she walked out of the changing room in her suit, mobile phone in her hand.

“Tess! Wait for me.”

She waved goodbye without glancing up from her phone. “Can’t. Charlie emailed and asked me to meet with your press team while I’m here, and then I have to drag my bike to the bus and argue with the driver till he lets me on. Gotta go.”

Then she pushed through the door and disappeared. Cursing, he ran after her, giving the receptionist an awkward wave as he shot past her desk in his arse-tight swimming costume. He caught Tess just as she made it to the lift, where she jabbed the call button repeatedly.

“Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to get stuck again.”

She rolled her eyes but kept her lips firmly clamped shut. Clearly the subtle approach wasn’t working for him, so he ran his fingertips down the arm of her suit, wishing he could touch bare skin instead. Her head tilted slightly forward, and he could tell she followed the action from the corner of her vision. “Tess, I’m through fucking around. There’s something between us that’s not going away. We need to talk about it before it becomes a bigger issue than it already is.”

“Do we?”

He skimmed the backs of his fingers down her neck, making her shiver. “You know we do. Not here, though.”

“Where?”

He didn’t have to think hard. She’d been invading his space for weeks now. The season had only just started, and he knew it would be a long time before he got used to running past her when he left the pitch at halftime or accepting the customary champagne bottle from her whenever he was named Man of the Match. He would have to work hard to keep his focus. If she was going to invade his space, then he would invade hers—in any way she let him.

“Your place. Dinner. Tomorrow night.”

“What if I have plans?”

“Then I’ll come over tonight instead.”

“No.” She pushed him back enough to look him in the eyes. Hers were filled with longing and trepidation, making his heart pound with anticipation when he recognized the very same feelings that plagued him now. “Tomorrow works for me. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”

Chapter Thirteen

Tess pulled out all the stops for Liam’s visit. She even braved a visit to the supermarket—a real supermarket, not the convenience store where she usually picked up her milk and white bread on her way home from a takeaway.

Just because she ate like a slob didn’t mean she couldn’t entertain a guest...she hoped. Most of her guests didn’t have food standards, but Liam had seemed particular about what he ate in Venezuela and the raw foods restaurant. Not that she wanted to impress him. Really. He was just coming over to talk, and he was right—for the sake of the partnership, they did need to come to terms with whatever was going on between them.

That didn’t mean she should serve him lamb shish from one of the local Turkish takeaways, though. No, she would do this right. So after stopping off at the supermarket, she bought an apron that had been hanging in the window of a designer boutique on Church Street. It had a print of Rosie the Riveter flexing her biceps and saying, “Cook your own damn dinner.” It was probably meant as a feminist assertion that Mama shouldn’t be expected to put food on the table both financially and physically, but tonight Tess needed the motivation to cook her own damn dinner.

She’d been tempted by the high-end ready meals at the supermarket. Surely she could put an organic-beef lasagna in the oven, serve it without Liam seeing the plastic tray and bluff her way through a description of how she’d prepared the béchamel sauce. Then she realized she wasn’t even sure how to pronounce béchamel, so Liam would doubtless know she’d read it off a label.

Jamie Oliver was good for situations like this one, right? Her sister Gwen had given her one of his cookbooks years ago in an effort to nudge her toward culinary self-sufficiency. Where was that book? Tess perused her bookshelves and cupboards. She finally remembered having found a use for it—propping up a broken sofa leg that she’d always meant to get fixed but had never got around to.

Flipping through it, she discovered a critical oversight on her part. She should’ve chosen her recipe and
then
gone to the supermarket for ingredients. She’d gone about this ass-backward. Instead, she’d bought a load of random things without any clue how she would throw them together into an edible meal, racking up a food bill of over a hundred pounds in the process.

Nice work
,
idiot.

Rosie gave her a stern glare.
Cook your own damn dinner.

I
will
,
you smug witch.

She flipped through the book. Pasta. Anyone could do pasta, right? And Liam was an athlete. Didn’t they live off pasta?

She chose a recipe and dug through her bags of ingredients. Hmm...apparently she only needed four things for the sauce, but she was missing the garlic. It had never occurred to her to buy garlic.

Or pasta.

Damn it. Time to phone a friend. She texted her sister asking her to phone back when she was on a break. Five minutes later, Gwen rang.

“Don’t ask questions,” Tess said, “but I need help.”

“I’m sorry, is this Tessy? You sound like her, but the words coming out of your mouth confuse me.”

“Ha ha. I have a guest coming over and I need to cook for...her.”

Gwen was quiet for a beat. “Her?”

“I told you, no questions.” Tess pressed her palm against the woodpecker pounding away at the inside of her forehead. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll call for delivery.”

“Wait! Don’t do that. I’ll help you. Does your guest have any dietary requirements?”

“Oh, shit. I forgot to ask.”

“Okay, well, let’s assume that
she
would’ve told you.”

Damn sisters.

“I’m guessing you want something easy.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “How do you do it, Holmes?”

“You want my help or not?”

With a sigh, Tess admitted the inevitable. “Yes.”

“All right, then. What do you have in the house?”

She rooted around in her bags. “Uh, a rainbow of vegetables, three...no, four kinds of cheese, a couple kinds of fish, some steaks...”

“Okay, stop. Did you rob a supermarket?”

“No, they robbed me! I can’t believe how expensive steak is. This is why I stick to kebabs.”

“Right. Like you’re hurting for dosh.”

And there was one of the sore points between her and Gwen. While working in the City, Tess had made enough money to buy her own home and take lovely holidays. Gwen had taken a worthier path in life, becoming an underpaid, overworked casualty nurse.

“Okay, did you buy any carbohydrates?”

Tess dumped the contents of one bag onto the counter. “Does couscous count?”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Grab a pen and paper. I’m about to save your sorry arse.”

Tess’s shoulders relaxed. “Cheers, Gwenny.”

“Don’t thank me. The thought of you cooking steak for anyone is terrifying. I’m doing it to save your guest from hugging the porcelain throne all night. I don’t want to see you both in Casualty later.”

“His intestines thank you, I’m sure.”

“I
knew
it! You are spilling your guts to me later, my friend.”

“Damn you,” Tess joked. “Fine, but if you say anything—anything—to Mum or Dad, I won’t tell you a thing.”

“Even better. All the goss, just for me. Now boil some water. You can do that, can’t you?”

Tess flipped her sister the V, even though she wouldn’t be able to see the gesture from three miles away.

“Tessy, put those fingers away and fill your kettle.”

“How did you know?”

“You’re my older little sister. I know everything.”

Tess smiled.
Older little sister.
They’d figured out as children how to confound the nosy adults who couldn’t hide their curiosity and exclaimed
Sisters!
But you look nothing alike!

Of course we don’t
, Tess once replied.
She’s my younger big sister.
The opacity of the comment left people even more confused but it also made them question their own intelligence so they never asked follow-up questions.

“Tessy, I don’t hear that kettle boiling. You do realize I have to hang up as soon as someone comes in bleeding, right?”

“Sorry, hon. Boiling it now.”

“Good. Now, I know you’re more familiar with vegetables when they’re covered in gloop, but can you identify any of the vegetables you bought?”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

* * *

Liam double-checked the address against the one on the slip of paper Tess had given him before she’d beaten a hasty retreat yesterday. Confused, he stepped back and stared up at the elegant Georgian townhouse in the center of a crescent that backed onto a large park. The area was leafy and secluded even though it was just around the corner from a popular street lined with expensive boutiques and niche restaurants. A few minutes away lay a grottier part of Stoke Newington—the part he’d assumed she lived in because he remembered her comments about eating takeaways...and because he couldn’t imagine that she could afford something better. For one thing, who would live off takeaways if they didn’t have to? For another, London was the kind of city where the average person struggled to afford a decent life. Liam had saved for years to afford a down payment on his flat in Limehouse. He’d lived in shitholes until he’d been capped several times for England and had signed a few sponsorship deals.

But Tess’s place looked posher than his. How could she afford this working for a travel agency?

She must have flatmates. Or—Liam’s finger paused over the doorbell as horror hit him—maybe she lived with her parents. It wouldn’t be
that
unusual for Londoners of their generation.

He cringed and pressed the buzzer. He should’ve thought this through. Granted, he’d met her father at Twickenham, but he was
not
ready to meet the parents in any other sense.

The lock clicked on the other side of the door, then it swung open. Tess, rumpled and a little sweaty, collapsed against the wall and blew out a breath. “You’re early.”

“You only told me not to be late. You didn’t say anything about early.”

She rolled her eyes and stepped aside so he could enter.

“Difficult day?” he asked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. I was nearly beaten by an aubergine, but I’ve triumphed.”

“An aubergine? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve cooked something?”

“What did you expect? I invited you over for dinner—”

“Technically I invited myself.”

She waved away his words. “Still. I couldn’t give you a takeaway curry, could I?” She paused. “Could I?”

“No, you couldn’t. But nice try.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her soft, flushed cheek, letting himself linger a moment too long before he held out a bottle. “I brought some champagne.”

Taking it from his hands, she gave it a funny look. “Is this the same champagne I gave you at the match last weekend?”

“Maybe. I have shitloads of the stuff. I can usually only get rid of it at Christmastime or when I’m invited round to friends’ for dinner.”

She smirked. “Must be tough being one of the world’s best rugger buggers.”

“What do you mean ‘one of’?”

“I mean ‘one of.’ Have you forgotten David Finchley? I’m sure you haven’t. He handed you your arse when you toured Australia a couple of years ago. And don’t get me started on the All Blacks.”

Jesus, she knew her rugby. For the first time since he’d figured out she not only recognized him in Venezuela but was actually a fan, the thought didn’t fill him with sickening disappointment. Still, it was unsettling. He hadn’t slept with fans or groupies in years, preferring not to shit where he ate, so to speak. But Tess...she didn’t fall into the groupie category. She just seemed to genuinely love the same sport he did.

If he’d known that from the beginning, things might’ve been different. He wouldn’t have convinced himself that she’d slept with
him
instead of his status. But since she’d started off hiding her passion for the sport, he was left with the nagging doubt that her attraction to him stemmed from being star-struck or, worse, a feeling that she was adding a Legends experience to her collection. Buy season tickets?
Tick.
Get the official shirt?
Tick.
Fuck the captain?
Triple tick.

“Anyway, come in. Dinner’s nearly ready...I think.” She led him down a long, narrow hall past a staircase that went up at least two stories, then past an open door on the right. He glanced in and promptly braced himself in the doorway.

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

“Pardon?”

He shook his head, unable to speak as he walked further into the living room. He ignored the two comfy-looking sofas and the armchairs, focusing instead on the object they faced. “Your TV. It’s massive.”

The flat screen took up most of one wall. Speakers sat on the built-in bookshelves and were mounted in the corners where the walls met the ceiling. One of the bookshelves was entirely dominated by DVDs. This was no living room. It was a home cinema. “You watch a lot of films?”