Private Player

by Louise Bay

  “You’re both so cute,” Madison said, peering at the picture. She cleared her throat. “I mean, clearly exceptionally athletic.” And then she laughed at herself trying to spare our feelings, and I couldn’t help but grin at the way she was not only funny, but tuned into the push and pull between us all.

  “I still play a lot of sport,” Jacob said. “Football every Tuesday night. When’s the last time you played, Nathan?”

  “I’m too busy to play football,” I said, dismissing him. Madison wasn’t going to be impressed with a weekly football practice. And then it hit me. Was Jacob trying to impress Madison? Invisible hackles raised along my spine.

  “Is Mum really going to get rid of this stuff?” Jacob said, pulling out an old lava lamp that I didn’t ever remember seeing before.

  “I guess,” Dax said from the doorway. “You know she said she has all the downside of us being at home—the mess and the chaos—with none of the upside of our sparkling personalities.”

  “You don’t have a sparkling personality,” Jacob replied. “All you talk about is the hospital. There’s more to life.”

  “All I do is work,” Dax replied. “It’s alright for you—you can swan around being a consultant while the rest of us work until we drop.”

  I stepped back. They loved to fight about who was the cleverest, who had the better position, who was the most hard done by. The four of them lived their lives in competition with each other—their own team within our brotherhood. Despite having more money than them, having more people working for me, and probably working more hours, I was the outsider. My job would simply never warrant one-upmanship.

  “You okay?” Madison said, her voice lowered so the rest of them couldn’t hear us over their bickering.

  “Absolutely,” I said. I turned and flipped open one of the boxes behind me. “Graduation pictures,” I announced.

  “Did all your brothers go to Oxford?” she asked as we picked through the box under the window. Behind us, my brothers bickered gamely.

  I nodded. “It’s where my mum and dad met.”

  “Wow,” was all she said in response.

  “Oh, here’s all the Star Wars stuff,” I said. “No light saber though.”

  This was a perfect time for Madison to question and push. We were all together and clearly at least one of my brothers was trying to impress her. It would have been easy for her to dig up a lot of information. But it was as if she knew some things were off limits—some pieces of me that I needed to keep to myself. As we worked together in companionable silence, it felt as if maybe for once, I had someone on my team too.

  Eighteen

  Nathan

  It was one of those perfect summer evenings that only happened a couple of times a year. Madison had a blanket over her legs and had been sitting talking to whoever was next to her—first Dax, then Jacob. Barring the last few days, we’d spent so much time together over the last weeks that it was strange having to share her with people. But that was the nature of the Cove household. There wasn’t much chance of time to ourselves, but I kinda missed her.

  I took a sip of my wine as I watched Jacob and Madison talk and laugh like they were old friends swapping bad jokes. They were quiet enough for me to catch only the odd word, the crackle of the fire interrupting my eavesdropping. One by one family members had peeled off and gone to bed, leaving just four of us around the fire pit. Madison and Jacob on one side and me and Zach on the other. Madison had slotted right in to our family dynamic. No one had stood on ceremony and everyone had treated her like she was one of the family. And I hadn’t seen any evidence that she’d been in work mode, pestering people with questions about me. It was as if I’d brought a friend home for the weekend. A friend who seemed to fit in with my family as if she’d known them for years. A friend who seemed completely unselfconscious and at ease with the people most important to me. A friend who just happened to be gorgeous—even more so now, with her face lit up in the warm glow of the firelight.

  I was in trouble.

  I’d never brought a woman home before. Being with my family was where I was most at ease, most myself, and it was a place I fiercely protected. Jacob had brought girlfriends home from time to time but none of them seemed to last. And Zach brought someone over a few months ago, although no one had heard of her since. We were a tight circle of history that was hard to penetrate. But Madison seemed to have floated right in.

  “Getting jealous?” Zach asked, lifting his chin toward Madison and Jacob on the other side of the fire pit.

  I chuckled. “Of Jacob? Never.” I wouldn’t admit it, but I wondered if the tight swirl of heat in my belly was jealousy or desire. Either way, it didn’t bode well for the deal Madison and I had made to keep things entirely professional between us.

  “He’s got her eating out of the palm of his hand. He’s a handsome, eligible doctor. If you don’t want him swooping in and taking what’s yours, you better step in there.”

  Jacob was definitely handsome, even if I’d never tell him so. And of course he was a doctor: he was a Cove. But Jacob wouldn’t make a move on Madison, would he? They were just talking. “You think he fancies her?”

  Zach knocked back a mouthful of his beer. “She’s completely gorgeous. Funny. Relaxed. Course he fancies her. I fancy her. Don’t you?”

  There was no doubt Madison was all those things Zach described. “She also doesn’t take no for an answer. If we went head-to-head in a full-on argument, I’m not sure who’d win.”

  “Sounds like maybe you more than fancy her.”

  “We’re working together,” I said. “Our relationship is purely professional.” Kinda. Sorta. Aside from the fact we’d already slept together. And I might have flirted with her. And I might have suggested there could be more between us.

  But we hadn’t crossed any lines, not since the wedding.

  Yet.

  “It’s more than that. I can tell by the way you look at her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Mate, your eyes follow her around the room. It’s like you need some kind of connection with her at all times.”

  “You don’t get it. Hospitals are basically big dating pools from what I can tell. People prioritize flirting over most everything besides saving actual lives. The rest of the world isn’t like that. She’s my guest. I just want to make sure she’s okay.” Lies and more lies, but I’d never say so. Maybe I was different here, surrounded by my family, or perhaps Madison was different outside the high-pressure clutches of London, but the pull I’d felt to her since the first day I’d set eyes on her had gotten stronger somehow. I’d seen Madison through a different lens since we’d arrived. She was more relaxed, happier maybe. And hearing Zach saying he was attracted to her and thought Jacob was too, made me want to scoop her up, put her in the car, and take her home.

  “I don’t understand the big problem if you like her,” Zach continued, completely and rightfully ignoring what I was telling him. “You’ve never been shy about going after a woman.”

  “I’m not shy, you dick.” And Madison wasn’t just some woman. “She’s got a job to do. I’ve got a job to do. We’re both professionals.”

  Zach sighed and took another swig of his beer. “Well, I’m just telling you that I like her. And if I didn’t think you liked her, I would be in there like a pig in a trough.”

  “You’re gross.”

  Zach shrugged. “Because you’re my brother, I’m not going to go there. But someone will. And by the looks of it,” he said, nodding toward Madison and my older brother, “it might be Jacob.”

  Zach set his bottle down on the stone beside his chair and stood. “You should go to bed or you should go get your girl.” Then he left me sitting opposite two people who looked like they were a couple. Or soon would be.

  Is that what Madison wanted? My brother?

  My phone buzzed with a message from Christine. On a Saturday night. Instantly I felt bad about leaving her a voice message earlier. She sho
uld be spending the weekend with her family rather than running around after me. But at the same time, I was grateful she was so dedicated; she’d cancelled the lunch with the cheeky bastard trying to steal Madison’s story just like I’d asked her too.

  Madison’s laughter at something Jacob had said pulled me back to my dilemma. Was I okay with her hooking up with Jacob? Absolutely not. I didn’t mind them talking. But I felt some kind of claim over Madison. She knew me. And despite the fact that it was her always questioning me and pushing me for information, I felt like I knew her. And I liked her. I’d said it before but I felt it even more now. Of course I was physically attracted to her—otherwise I would never have pursued her at the wedding. But she seemed to have gotten more beautiful since then. Her smile, her warmth, the way she tried not to laugh at things she clearly found hilarious—the way I didn’t feel like she was doing a job when she was interviewing me, but like she really wanted to know me. It gave away who she was: Interested. Attentive. Clever. Everything about her drew me in, made me want more.

  I’d tried to deny it. To resist and lock it away, but the truth kept pushing through my defenses. Realization trickled through my veins with the wine. I wanted her. Not just for the night. I wanted more than that. I just wasn’t sure what exactly.

  Faced with the idea that other people—that my brothers—saw the beauty in Madison too, I couldn’t stand it. They didn’t know her like I did. There was an intimacy between Madison and me that I didn’t want to share. I wanted it for myself.

  And I was used to getting what I wanted.

  “Hey, Jacob,” I called, rising to my feet and circling the fire pit.

  He snapped his head up and I just nodded toward the back door, indicating that I wanted him to go.

  “Really?” he said.

  I pressed my lips together and nodded.

  Madison was mine.

  Nineteen

  Nathan

  Madison watched as my brother disappeared into the house.

  “I hope I didn’t break anything up,” I said, taking the seat Jacob had just vacated.

  She frowned a little but didn’t say anything.

  “So, have you gathered all the material you need?” I asked.

  “We weren’t talking about you,” she said as she tapped her watch. “I’m off the clock, so I can talk about something else for a change. Sorry to bruise your ego.”

  I clutched my chest and collapsed against the back of the chair. “I’m devastated. So what were you talking about?”

  She took a sip of her wine. “Nothing in particular—his job. Why are you so interested?”

  Of course they’d be talking about Jacob’s work. People who came from medicine loved to talk about medicine, and women who didn’t have a medical background loved to talk to doctors. “What is it about doctors? Is it the white coat? Or the stethoscope? Or the idea of someone being covered in blood and shit—”

  Madison’s laugh interrupted the beginnings of a rant. “You need to have a bit more wine and chill out. What’s the matter with you? You sound . . . jealous.”

  I took a sip of my wine. Being the only non-medic in a family of doctors had always created separation between me and my family, but I’d never been jealous of their careers. It wasn’t the work that made me envious. I just didn’t like the idea of Madison finding that attractive. I could never compete. “Maybe I am,” I replied.

  “Of your brother?” she asked. “Of his job?”

  “That he had your attention.”

  I held her gaze, ready for her reaction. We were at the crossroads of something. We’d been here before and she’d run. But now? We knew each other better.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she asked eventually.

  “Do you do anything else?” I teased her.

  “Not a journalist question. A Madison question.”

  I was intrigued to know the difference. “Go ahead.”

  “Why did you leave Oxford? I don’t get it.”

  She’d seen the certificates this afternoon all hanging side by side. Of course she would notice. Of course she was going to bring it up. Of course I should have been more prepared, but her question still hit me like a physical punch.

  “I was rusticated,” I said. It was a ridiculous phrase. Typical Oxford.

  “Rusty-what-now?”

  “Sent down. Expelled.”

  “You?” she said, reaching for my hand. “No. What on earth for?”

  I don’t know why but her shock was soothing. “Cheating.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s no way . . .” She shook her head as if she just couldn’t believe what I was saying. Did Madison really know me that well? “Nathan, tell me what on earth happened.”

  I didn’t want to lie. Not anymore. I moved my hand under hers, linked our fingers together, and for the first time in my life, I started to tell someone the truth of what happened. “I was sharing a room with Mark. He was struggling to keep up with the volume of work. His family weren’t well off and he’d managed to get a scholarship.”

  “Mark Alpern?” she asked.

  I nodded, thinking back to that time. “Anyway, he was struggling and in danger of losing his scholarship. And instead of getting his head down and just doing the work, he started drinking and making really bad choices.”

  I remembered how I’d felt so sorry for him. Even now, I wasn’t sure if the pressure of Oxford had forced him down a wrong turn. Maybe his character had been set long before. “He got hold of the exam papers for the end-of-year examinations,” I continued.

  “When you say he got hold of them, you mean he paid someone who had stolen them?”

  “Yeah, so he knew the questions in advance. And the college authorities found the guy who was selling the papers and searched our room and found the ones Mark had bought.”

  “And they blamed you?” She shifted to the edge of her chair. “How? I mean, you wouldn’t have needed the same papers. Mark wasn’t a medic; he said it himself this afternoon.”

  “If Mark had been . . . rusticated, his life would have been over. He had nothing else to fall back on. Oxford was his only way out of the life he’d grown up in. His father was in prison and Mark would have eventually ended up the same way.” How ironic, I thought. His fate had been waiting in the wings a long time. Now it was about to emerge from the shadows and claim him.

  “So, you took the blame,” Madison said, filling in the blanks. “How did you convince them? It wasn’t your exam paper.”

  “Said that I’d got it for Mark but he’d refused to accept it and had urged me to report the guy who sold it to me.”

  “And Mark went along with it?”

  “I guess his survival instinct took over.”

  “What about yours?” she asked.

  “My instinct was to protect him. I knew rustication would be the end of him.”

  “But it was the end of your time at Oxford. Of your medical career.”

  I hadn’t thought too much beyond making sure Mark didn’t get the blame. “I had—and have—a family who loves me. I had somewhere to go, people to rely on. I knew it wouldn’t be the end of me, and it wasn’t.”

  “What did your parents say when you told them what you’d done.”

  My mother had cried. My father hadn’t said a word, but I hated the look of disappointment I’d seen and still saw when he looked at me from time to time. “I didn’t tell them the truth.”

  Madison sat at attention. “What? Are you serious?” She glanced at the house. “Never? We have to tell them now. Your family genes, the instinct to cure and protect that’s so strong in the Cove family, it drove you to take the fall for someone. They should have talked you out of it or at the least should have the opportunity to be proud that you were willing to risk everything to save someone else.”

  “It was a long time ago, Madison.”

  “I saw those certificates on the wall. And I saw your face when you looked at th
em. You have to tell your family what you did.”

  I shook my head. I’d thought about it. “They adore Mark.”

  “So?” she said, settling back into her seat again.

  I had to smile at her protectiveness. At the way she wanted to solve this. She was so certain of my innocence. Of my goodness. Seeing myself through her eyes was like feeling the sun on my face and breathing in an ocean breeze.

  “Madison, it was a long time ago and like I said, I have everything I could ever want.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true.”

  “Of course it is. I’m sitting here with a beautiful woman, having spent the day with the family I know loves me no matter what. What else could I possibly want?” Her. I could want her, more than I’d ever wanted any woman in my life.

  “Nathan—”

  “Seriously, Madison, if you want to talk about this again in a few days when you’ve had time to think about it and we’re not a bottle of wine in, by a fire, under the stars, then fine. But let’s not talk about it anymore for now.”

  She glanced at the fire. “I just . . .” She sighed. “I just care.”

  Fireworks exploded in my chest at her confession. “You remember the wedding?” I asked.

  She pulled her eyebrows together. “I remember.”

  “Remember how we agreed to pretend it never happened and to work together professionally?”

  “I remember,” she repeated.

  My gaze dipped to her mouth as her tongue darted out and wet her lips. After a beat, I looked into her deep brown eyes.

  “I want a time-out from our deal,” I said, stroking my thumb along her wrist.

  She took a breath and exhaled slowly, not discouraging my touch—she could easily have moved away. I could sit here and watch her in the firelight all night. I could sit and speculate about what was running through her head, what she was planning, what she was sad or happy about. But I wanted to do more than just watch her. I wanted to hear about it. I wanted to know what she was thinking. Not about Mark. That was clear. But about everything.