International Player

by Louise Bay

  INTERNATIONAL PLAYER

  LOUISE BAY

  Published by Louise Bay 2019

  Copyright © 2019 Louise Bay. All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  ISBN – 978-1-910747-56-8

  CONTENTS

  Books by Louise Bay

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Louise Bay

  Keep in touch!

  Acknowledgments

  BOOKS BY LOUISE BAY

  International Player

  The Wrong Gentleman

  The Earl of London

  The Ruthless Gentleman

  The British Knight

  Duke of Manhattan

  Park Avenue Prince

  King of Wall Street

  Hollywood Scandal

  Love Unexpected

  Indigo Nights

  Promised Nights

  Parisian Nights

  The Empire State Series

  Hopeful

  Faithful

  Sign up to the Louise Bay mailing list

  www.louisebay.com/newsletter

  Read more at www.louisebay.com

  ONE

  Truly

  If getting a kick from solving spreadsheet errors was wrong, I didn’t want to be right. I lived for this stuff. My fingers didn’t work as quickly as I wanted them to, and the numbers on my screen seemed to appear in slow motion. Clicking back to the original cell on my spreadsheet, the totals now balanced. A simple blunder made by one of my junior team members had just taken me an hour to fix. And I’d loved every minute of it—the challenge of turning disorder into order and then the neat numbers that now lined up. “Thank you,” I said to myself, raising my hands in the air as if taking in applause from a crowd.

  “You know you’re a total geek, right?” my twin sister, Abi, asked from the doorway of my office.

  I dropped my hands. “Jesus, how long have you been standing there watching me like a complete weirdo-stalker?”

  “Actually, I said your name several times but you were in some geeky trance.” Abigail kicked my office door closed behind her then stalked toward my desk, sliding one of the two salad boxes she was holding toward me. “I brought you lunch. I figured we could eat together.”

  I saved my now-accurate spreadsheet. “Since when are you free for lunch? Don’t you have some donor to schmooze?” While I was all numbers and back-office stuff, Abigail was in charge of bringing in the money to the charitable foundation that my mother founded nearly forty years ago. I called her Chief Schmoozer or Director of Arse Kissing. She preferred CEO. Whatever.

  “Not today, little sister.” Abigail had been born six and a half minutes ahead of me and she never let me forget it. “Today, I get to have lunch with you.” She plonked herself down on the chair in front of my desk, and from her handbag, she pulled out two drinks, her phone, and cutlery wrapped in napkins, then set them between us.

  “Are you moving in?” I sighed. Lunch with Abigail was a complete time suck. I had a thousand things to do. “I’m really busy. I’m way behind getting the monthly reporting finished off and—”

  “Thirty minutes, Truly.” She emptied a pot of dressing onto her salad and began to stir. “You have to eat, and it will do you good to have a break. I keep telling you that you need more balance.”

  I groaned and grabbed the salad. I clearly wasn’t getting rid of her. “Should you be having dressing on your salad?” I asked as I emptied my pot onto the chicken, herb, and cucumber bowl she’d brought me.

  “Don’t you start too. Rob has already turned into the food police. And the exercise police. And the breathing-in-and-out police.”

  I winced. “Well, it’s understandable—it’s your first baby. It’s nice that he’s being protective.”

  “As if I’m likely to be reckless. It’s not like he wants this kid more than I do. I swear, it’s like he’s expecting me to announce that I’m going to sign up for a bungee jump or something.”

  “You should leave some brochures around the house, just to mess with him.”

  “If it wasn’t likely to bring on a stroke, I might. Speaking of extreme sports, I have some interesting news.”

  I poked my fork into my salad. “About extreme sports?” The Harbury Foundation often had people fundraising throughout the UK by participating in sponsored sky dives or abseiling or other crazy stuff people were prepared to donate to.

  “Kinda. Rob spoke to Noah last night.”

  Noah. Blood pounded in my ears, and I was sure if I glanced down, I’d see my heart beating out of my chest. I kept my chewing constant, as if the sound of his name had no effect on me whatsoever.

  Abigail paused to finish her mouthful of food. I willed her to get on with it. To tell me whatever it was she didn’t want to say about her husband’s best friend.

  “He’s moving back.”

  I swallowed before my throat closed up and I choked to death on salad.

  “Rob told him he can stay with us for a few weeks while he finds a flat—the last thing I need is a houseguest when I’m as big as a whale and working twenty hours a day trying to get things ready for when I go on maternity leave.”

  I closed the lid on my lunch, my appetite dead, and dumped it into the bin beside me. “That’s not very considerate of him. Did you tell him no?”

  “He knows I’m not happy. He didn’t get any last night.”

  I hadn’t seen Noah Jensen for four years, two months, and three weeks—not that I was counting.

  “You used to be good friends with him, right?” Abi asked.

  Good friends. Yeah. That’s what we’d been. I’d been closer to him than any man I’d ever known, despite never having slept with him. I’d never told Abi about my crush on him. It felt silly and childish to long for someone so hopelessly out of my reach. I knew she suspected—she’d made a few comments about the time we spent together and the fact that we were both single. But I’d always just ignored her. “I doubt he even remembers my name, and I’ve forgotten what he looks like.” That wasn’t entirely true. Or even a little bit true. Noah was the best-looking man I’d ever laid eyes on. A six-foot-four Nordic god with a square jaw and eyes as blue as the ocean.

  He looked like he belonged with my sister.

  Despite being twins, Abigail and I were complete opposites. She worked hard
but made it look easy. Was always perfectly put together but never seemed like she tried. With shiny, golden-blonde locks, she took after our mother, while I’d inherited my unruly dark hair from my father. It wasn’t straight enough to be sleek or curly enough to be interesting. Abigail’s pale skin and blue eyes gave her a captivating, regal air. My amber eyes and unremarkable coloring helped me melt into the background. She was married. I was terminally single. But despite our differences, we’d always been close. The one thing we had in common apart from DNA was our shared commitment to the foundation.

  “Well, you’ll get to catch up at lunch on Sunday.”

  Bloody hell, I’d forgotten about lunch. I hadn’t seen Noah since . . . since the night before he went to New York. Since we almost kissed. Had we though? Was my memory playing tricks on me? I just knew that when he’d left, I’d missed him more than I should have, and I didn’t want to put myself back into a position where I was pining after a man so obviously out of my league. I’d fallen into that trap once already. “I’ll see about lunch. I’m really busy.”

  “Busy doing what? Anything that’s work related can wait until Monday. And it’s not like you actually have a social life or anything.”

  “Give me a break. I enjoy my work. And I’m good at it. And I enjoy being good at it. It’s not like I’m just filling the pockets of corporate Britain. As you say so often in your speeches, the foundation makes a real difference.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, it’s just that . . . work can’t be the only thing in your life. I worry about you—I want you to be happy.”

  I rolled my eyes and prepared for the increasingly regular lecture I got about my lack of socializing. “I am happy and don’t try to make out like I’m the only workaholic Harbury sister. Are you sure you can make lunch on Sunday? Don’t you have index cards to fill out or something?”

  Abigail kept details of everyone she met on small white cards. She had thousands of them listing everything from the ages and genders of donor’s children to what they liked to eat and the places they liked to holiday most. Before she went to an event or a meeting, she’d remind herself of everything she learned about a person. Then when she spoke with them, she’d appear invested and thoughtful, and that person would feel special that such a beautiful woman remembered their previous conversations so clearly.

  “Index cards. Funny. At least I’m having sex.”

  My sister was way too invested in my love life. Or lack of it.

  “I don’t want to hear about you banging Rob.”

  “When’s the last time you went on a date even?”

  I dated. Not successfully and not for a while, but it happened from time to time. “Mr. Muscle, probably.”

  “The fact that you call him by the nickname my husband gave him makes me think that maybe you weren’t that serious about him.”

  “You said date. You didn’t mention being serious.”

  She sat back. “I just worry. Speaking of which, I need to figure out what we’re going to do when this kid decides to join us. You don’t have any more hours in the day.” The question of who was going to cover Abigail’s maternity leave had been hanging in the air since before she and Rob had even gotten pregnant. There was no one who could do what Abi did. No one who could command a room, give a speech, or tell the compelling stories of the children we helped like she could. Fundraising would stall while she was off, which meant the longer she was off, the fewer people we could help. The foundation wouldn’t survive longer than a few weeks without her.

  “You know you can’t call him or her ‘this kid’ forever, right?”

  She shrugged and I made a mental note to start a list of possible baby names in case she didn’t. I got the list-making gene when they were dividing them up in the womb. “Rob is going to take three months off, and honestly, I’m good with that. I want to be back at my desk in six weeks. I love this job.”

  “I need you back as soon as possible. Six hours will be bad enough.” I was being selfish. I should try to talk her into taking more time off. Six weeks didn’t sound like a long time, but Abigail knew the foundation would falter without her. If I was having a baby, which was as likely as snow falling in July, they could replace me in a heartbeat. But Abigail was the heart of this place.

  She was the beautiful, charming twin. The one who could sell ice to Icelanders. She was used to persuading middle-aged men, enamored by her witty conversation and easy charm, to part with their cash.

  Thankfully, she wasn’t due to go on maternity leave until mid-December. That meant she’d still be here for the busiest time of year. “Six weeks is manageable in January and the first week of February, since the New Year is always slow. Fundraising will fall through the floor while you’re off, but at least you’ll be around for the lead-up to the end of the year and the winter ball.” What was it about dark, winter nights that made people want to give up their money?

  “Yeah, I want to exceed our targets over the next five months. Then I’ll feel better about taking those six weeks off. Especially with the children’s rehab center in the picture.”

  The Harbury Foundation researched and picked the recipients of its support carefully. This year, I’d visited a local pediatric spinal injury unit and witnessed what hopelessness looked like. It had been horrifying. What little equipment they had was for adults or broken. The children had no chance, and the expressions on their faces seemed to suggest they knew that and had given up. With our help, it could be transformed from the place dreams go to die into the leading European center for the treatment of pediatric spinal cord injuries. “Twenty-five million is an aggressive goal, but it means we’re going to make a difference to these kids for the rest of their lives. It will be one of the most rewarding things we’ve ever done.” We both grinned like dummies at each other. We might be polar opposites in so many ways, but the foundation united us.

  She leaned forward and held up her palm, and I pressed mine against hers in a half high five, half reassuring hand hold. She held my gaze.

  “By the time I push this kid out, we’ll have the spinal cord center nailed, but I want you to promise me something.” She adopted her older-by-six-and-a-half-minutes sister tone. “Don’t make the center an excuse for not making an effort to have some kind of social life.”

  I groaned. “I’m perfectly happy.”

  “Alone and knee-deep in spreadsheets. You need . . . breadth. A hobby. A boyfriend. Maybe accompany me to a function every now and then.”

  “That’s work, Abi. Or had you forgotten?” I was way out of my depth at those functions. I always felt so awkward wearing tight dresses, high heels, and red lipstick. It was like I was playing dress up in my mother’s clothes while never knowing what to say. And if I was uncomfortable, I made everyone around me uncomfortable, and uncomfortable people didn’t write big checks. I’d always been happy to have Abigail take the limelight while I sloped off into the corner with a book. It was why we rarely argued. We didn’t fight for attention, we respected each other’s strengths, and although I envied my sister in some ways, it didn’t extend into jealousy. I understood I was happier when I stuck to what I was good at. But there was still a little niggling feeling in the back of my mind that if I was better at fundraising, at schmoozing, at delivering speeches, or just more charming, then maybe Abi would be able to take more time off. I pushed it to the side of my brain. No, she’d never be happy with that. She enjoyed what she did. We worked well together because our strengths didn’t overlap, and I had enough to do.

  “But at least you’d be meeting new people. At the moment, you only interact with employees of the foundation and your dry cleaner.”

  “I leave my dry cleaning with my porter, and he collects it while I’m at work.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. “Now you’re just making my point for me. You’re twenty-eight, not eighty. Maybe you should take up bungee jumping.”

  I was no more likely to bungee jump than I was to have a baby. My version of extr
eme sports was hunting down a first edition of a favorite book. “Your thirty minutes are up. What do I have to do to get your pregnant arse out of my office?”

  “Say you’ll come to lunch on Sunday. That way my conscience can rest easy that you’re getting out enough.”

  “Fine. Stay here. I’ll work from the conference room.”

  Abigail laughed but stood. “No excuses. You’ve got to eat. And even if you don’t give a shit about socializing, it will be nice for Noah to feel like he has friends back in London.”

  If Noah was back in London, that meant I’d be running into him a lot. Maybe it was better to rip the plaster off and get seeing him for the first time over with. Perhaps the crush I’d had on him will have faded. Maybe he’d changed. Perhaps he’d have some explanation of why he’d not made any effort to keep in touch after he’d left for New York. Seeing him might stop me occasionally, on a Friday night when I was alone with a bottle of pinot noir, listening to the vinyl copy of The Unforgettable Fire that he’d brought around that night in September. Stop me from remembering how he’d insisted we sit in silence and listen to it from start to finish, then almost kissed me.

  I’d wanted to forget about Noah Jensen. When he was in New York, it had been easy. But now that he was back in London, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t wind up back where I’d been four years ago—longing for a man who saw me only as a friend.

  “I’ll think about lunch on Sunday. But if I come, I want roast potatoes. None of that boiled stuff Rob came up with last weekend.”

  She lingered, her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll tell Rob. And think about what I said. Breadth. A hobby. A night out at the cinema occasionally.”

  “Whatever.” I turned back to my computer screen, itching to get back to work. And silently vowing to throw out that turntable Noah had bought. It had been taking up room in my flat for far too long.

  TWO

  Truly

  I was an early riser but five thirty was pushing it, even for me. Crouching on the floor and using a pencil, I stabbed through the brown tape sealing the package that had been delivered yesterday. Jesus. Threaded tape? Who did that? Psychopaths, apparently. I’d need scissors.