Striker (61 page)

She pushed the door shut behind her and flicked the latch, locking it. He was home. Good. She was glad. After everything that had gone on she just wanted to cuddle up in bed with him and think about nothing but that brand new future that lay ahead.
 

Taking her own coat off and throwing it over the banister, she started to make her way upstairs, but within seconds her breath had caught in her throat and her stomach had tightened, bringing with it the return of the nausea and the nerves. Those shoes – two beautiful, glamorous, high-heeled shoes lay discarded on the landing, next to them a short, chiffon dress just covering the shirt Ryan had been wearing when he’d left the house earlier that evening.

And the giggles. They were coming from their bedroom. Giggles and moans and somebody cheering… What the hell…?

She stood outside the bedroom she shared with her footballer fiancé and rested her forehead against the door as a sickening realisation swept over her, cancelling out everything she’d ever felt over the past six months – everything. Before she’d even set foot inside the room she felt numb, empty. She felt stupid. But she knew that was nothing compared to what she was going to feel when she finally opened that door…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She slammed the door in his face. Childish, maybe, but what else was she supposed to do? He could say sorry until those proverbial cows came home but she’d never forgive him. Not this time.

She swung round at the sound of a key in the lock and as he tried to push his way in she fought back, desperately trying to stop him from getting inside before she realised just how pathetic this really was. She was starting to sink to his level now.

‘Will you just listen to me? Please?’ Ryan pleaded, leaning back against the now-closed front door, his breathing heavy and laboured. She could put up one hell of a fight, that was for sure. She’d almost won, there.

‘I really can’t do this, Ryan. Not right now,’ she said, looking right at him, her eyes expressionless, cold. They reminded him of how she’d seemed when he’d first met her just six months ago – that wall had come right back up and it was nobody’s fault but his.

‘Amber…’

‘I need you to go.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Because I’m really not in the mood to stand here and listen to any more lies.’

‘Amber…’

He started to walk towards her but she backed away from him, her arms folded against her, keeping that barrier between them. ‘Please, Ryan, just go, will you? It’s over. Us, the engagement, any plans we may have had for a future together, it’s over.’

‘Look, I’m not going to stand here and say let me explain, because I can’t. Well, I can, but… it would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?’

She continued to stare at him, but she said nothing. There was nothing
to
say. Like she’d said, it was over.

‘I just want you to know that I love you, with all of my fucking heart, Amber, I love you, and… and what I did last night, it was – Shit!’ He pushed a hand through his hair and turned away for a second, because her staring at him the way she was doing, it was tearing him apart.

‘I trusted you,’ she whispered, quite pleased with herself for keeping the tears at bay, but then, she’d probably cried them all last night, after she’d kicked him out, along with Gary and whoever the two slappers were that had been fucking her fiancé. ‘You make me sick.’

‘Shit!’ He really couldn’t see a way out of this. He felt like a cornered rat, banged to rights with nowhere to go but to face the music. The saddest song he was ever likely to hear.

‘I knew when I opened that bedroom door that I was going to find you in bed with another woman,’ Amber went on, her fingers gripping the thin material of the t-shirt she was wearing. ‘But I can’t even begin to tell you how I felt when I faced what was
really
going on in there. Finding you with
one
woman would have been bad enough, Ryan, but to see what I saw… to see what they were doing to you, what
you
were doing to
them
… Have you any idea how that made me feel? Huh? Have you?’

‘Baby…’

He reached out to take her hand but she pulled it away, backing off further, towards the kitchen. ‘You can’t possibly know,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘You can’t. I came home, after a night of wondering whether I was doing the right thing in being with you in the first place, but… but I loved you, y’know? I loved you, so of course I knew I was doing the right thing, I mean, we all have those doubts, don’t we? We all go through those topsy-turvy emotions, it’s only natural. What isn’t natural is making love to me, telling me we’re going to start planning our wedding as soon as possible, and then bringing two…’
 
She stopped talking, turning away from him, pushing a hand through her hair. ‘What isn’t natural is then, just hours later, sleeping with two women, in our bed –
our
bed, Ryan – while your team-mate films it. Jesus, how sick is that?’

In the cold light of day, after the effects of too much booze and Christ knows what else had worn off, he couldn’t help but agree with her. It
was
sick. It was wrong, and once again he’d let his ridiculous need for a life that wasn’t even real take over, and destroy everything.
 

‘I love you, Amber…’

‘I don’t care,’ she said quietly, looking at him once more with eyes that were still trying to show no emotion, and they were just about managing it. ‘I really don’t care anymore, Ryan. I can’t, because every time I do something happens, don’t you see? Every time I become involved…’ She walked away from him, into the kitchen, folding her arms tight against her chest again. ‘But not anymore.’

‘Look, I know what you saw was…’

She swung round, fixing him with a stare that told him in no uncertain terms that she was in no mood to forgive. And she wasn’t. As far as final straws went that one had been the perfect example. She’d already given him far more chances than he’d deserved. ‘I really would like you to leave now, Ryan.’

He was about to try again, with another round of pointless explaining, but a loud banging on the front door stopped him from getting even one word out.

‘What the…?’

Amber pushed past him as if he wasn’t even there, going straight out into the hall and flinging the door open, not really having any idea what or who she expected to find outside. She was just irritated by the manner in which they’d made their presence known.

‘Ronnie…?’

‘You’d better let me in,’ he said, an expression on his face that Amber couldn’t really read. ‘The shit is about to hit the fan, big time.’

‘Huh? Ronnie? What’s happened?’ She followed him into the kitchen, where Ryan was now leaning back against the centre island, his arms folded. ‘Are you still here?’ she asked, not caring that she probably sounded a touch petulant now. She just wanted him out of her sight.

Ronnie looked slightly confused for a second, unaware of the goings-on of last night and the sudden shift in Ryan and Amber’s relationship. But the tension in the room was quite obviously palpable. ‘It’s probably best he stays, for a while, anyway,’ Ronnie said, pushing the confusion to the back of his mind, eyeing Ryan suspiciously as he threw a copy of a popular tabloid newspaper onto the counter. ‘He might have some explaining to do.’

Amber was more confused than ever now as she walked over to the counter, picking up the newspaper Ronnie had just thrown down. And the second she looked at it her heart almost stopped dead, her breath catching in her throat as she read the headline:
‘RED STAR BOSS AND HIS PLAYER’S FIANCEE IN SECRET RELATIONSHIP PAST – Newcastle Red Star manager Jim Allen and News North East sports reporter Amber Sullivan – daughter of former Red Star player Freddie Sullivan and fiancée of bad-boy footballer Ryan Fisher – had a secret relationship that began when Amber was just sixteen-years-old and Jim was a player at the club, alongside Amber’s father…’

‘How…? I don’t…’ Amber looked at Ronnie, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing written down in front of her. It had to be a joke, surely. Didn’t it? Because this couldn’t be happening. Not like this.

‘Somebody’s obviously blabbed to the press,’ Ronnie said, taking the paper from Amber and placing it back down on the counter. ‘So, who else knows?’

‘I… I told Debbie. Last night…’

‘Jesus, Amber, why?’ Ronnie sighed. ‘I thought you of all people would have been the one to stay discreet.’

‘I had no choice,’ Amber went on, leaning back against the counter. ‘She saw Jim and me… She caught him kissing me, last night.’

‘What the fuck?’ Ryan gasped. ‘What the hell were you doing with him last night, for fuck’s sake? It was your frigging Hen Night?’

‘Oh, and you fucking two slags in
our
bed on your
Stag
Night was acceptable behaviour, was it?’

‘What the hell’s been going on here?’ Ronnie asked. But at least he now knew why there was an atmosphere in the room that could only be cut with a very sharp knife.

‘Nothing,’ Amber replied, shifting her gaze from Ryan and looking down at the floor.

‘Nothing,’ Ronnie repeated. ‘Okay, so, something’s obviously kicked off between you two but, thankfully, that’s not making the headlines right now, is it? This is.’ He looked at Amber. ‘Do you think it was Debbie who went to the press?’

‘No. I don’t think it was her. She promised me she wouldn’t tell anyone, not even
Gary
…’ She stopped talking and looked over at Ryan, who was now shifting from foot-to-foot, staring out of the French windows opposite. ‘Ryan… you didn’t…?’

‘He guessed, a while back,’ he said quietly. ‘I couldn’t deny it, could I?’

‘You could have fucking tried.’ Amber pushed both hands through her hair as panic started to set in. What if her dad had seen this? How was she supposed to explain it all to him when she still had this shit with Ryan to sort out?

‘Do you think it was him?’ Ronnie asked, almost absent-mindedly putting a hand on Amber’s waist, stroking it gently, trying to keep her calm. ‘
Gary
? Was it him who blabbed to the press?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ryan sighed, dropping down to his haunches, hanging his head. ‘He promised he wouldn’t say anything…’

‘Yeah, well, we all know what promises from the likes of you can mean.’ Ronnie took a quick look at Amber as she chewed nervously on a nail, staring out of the window in front of her. ‘Could he have said something to anyone last night?’ Ronnie went on. ‘You were all quite obviously drunk, and we all know that can make mouths looser than usual.’

Ryan sighed again, standing up and throwing his head back. ‘Last night, it was a fucking blur, man. I can’t remember what I was saying half the time, or who I was saying it
to
, things were just so… I don’t know. I don’t know whether he said anything or not, but… I don’t know.’

‘You idiot,’ Amber hissed, turning to face him. ‘You bloody idiot!’

‘Jesus, come on! I said I can’t remember what happened last night, and anyway, how can you be so fucking sure it wasn’t your new best friend who blabbed, huh?’

‘Because she actually wants me to be happy, Ryan.’

Ryan’s phone ringing stopped the argument from going any further and he answered the call immediately, his expression changing as whoever it was on the other end of the line spoke.

‘What is it?’ Amber asked, because it was obvious something was wrong.

‘Shit!’ Ryan said, throwing his phone down onto the counter behind him.

‘Care to divulge what that was all about?’ Ronnie asked, folding his arms and arching his eyebrows.

‘
Gary
says he thinks we might have mentioned something to either Emmie or Jenna – the girls we were…’ He stopped talking for a second, well aware that Amber would be able to put two and two together and work out just who Emmie and Jenna were. ‘He can’t remember what, exactly, but he remembers all of us talking about the boss, and… and apparently I said something about Amber and him having some kind of relationship when she was a teenager… It was probably one of them who…’ Ryan sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, okay? Last night – shit! I can’t even remember half of it, I really can’t…’

‘Well, that makes it alright then, doesn’t it?’ Amber said, her tone carrying more than a hint of sarcasm. She felt sick. Her stomach was turning to the point where she felt physically ill. Those two women – women who’d quite happily fucked her fiancé without a second thought to anyone else – they knew about her past? They knew about her and Jim? And they’d used it as a vehicle to make money to fund their pathetic, sordid little lifestyles.
 

She turned and ran out of the kitchen, only making it to the downstairs loo just in time to throw up a breakfast she hadn’t even eaten.
 

‘Amber?’ Ronnie’s voice filtered through the gap in the door, barely audible above the sound of the phone ringing.
 

‘I’m okay,’ she said, sitting back against the wall, wiping her mouth with a fistful of toilet paper.

‘Yeah. You sound it.’

The phone’s continuous ringing only served to make her more on edge, wondering who it was going to be on the other end – her father wanting to know why she’d lied to him all these years, more press wanting to hear her side of the story. She didn’t know if she could cope with any of it today. It just didn’t feel real, and if she was going to handle any of it with the dignity required to get through this then it needed to feel real.