by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
“So, what, you just jump when they snap their fingers?”
“Pretty much.” She was already halfway up the stairs.
He followed her. “Take the day off.”
Theresa didn’t even turn her head. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not the one planning to go into work on my wedding day.” He knew he sounded grumpy, but he’d been looking forward to spending the day with Theresa. She was fun, when she wasn’t constantly challenging him. And even when she was, she was damned sexy while she did it.
She paused at the top of the stairs and patted his cheek. “Poor baby. Will you be lonely?”
Damn her. He knew he sounded pathetic but he had to ask. “When will you be finished? I could pick you up.”
She laughed. “No idea. Not this side of midnight, I shouldn’t think.”
“They can’t expect you to work that late.” There were laws about that sort of thing, weren’t there?
“They can and they do.”
“You mean this has happened before? You should put your foot down.”
She laughed. “It’s part of the job, Emile. Everyone works late when they have to. I wasn’t expecting it tonight, though. The client moved the deadline.”
“But tomorrow you will be free?”
“Hold on a second, I need to call a cab.”
She’d stripped off her top and jeans by the time her call was answered. She issued her instructions clearly and swiftly.
“It’ll be here in five minutes.”
“I can take you.” Which was ridiculous, but he liked the idea of seeing where she worked. He seemed to have an inexhaustible curiosity about this woman. Perhaps because he’d never known someone like her before.
“No need. I’ll claim it on expenses.”
He’d never seen her in work clothes. The dark grey suit was about as conservative as he’d ever seen. The skirt sat a fraction of an inch above her knees and the jacket had the slightest hint of shaping at waist and bust. She wore a pinstriped shirt with cufflinks. Cufflinks, for Christ’s sake. And those shoes. Ugly, square-heeled monstrosities that did nothing for the shape of her calves.
And yet, the outfit suited her. In a strange sort of way, she looked at home in the corporate uniform. Not sexy, nor even attractive, but definitely a force to be reckoned with. Emile shivered. He’d seen just how forceful she could be when she wanted something. He wouldn’t want to be an opposing lawyer in court against Theresa.
She’d picked up her bag and a smart coat. She took ten seconds to glance in the mirror and add a dash of lipstick in an understated color that wasn’t quite red or pink but somewhere in between.
“I’ll let you know when the ring arrives.”
“After work tomorrow?” When had he become the kind of guy who had to pin a woman down to a date and bribe her to watch him play? Or the kind of guy that was trailing a woman downstairs while she waited for a cab to take her to work?
“Oh, I’ll be at the office late every night this week, I expect. Don’t worry about me.”
He shook his head. He wasn’t worried about her, he was frustrated and furious and trying to pretend that he didn’t care. “No wedding night, then?”
A smile lit her face. “I’d say we already anticipated that, wouldn’t you?”
“You bought new underwear.”
“Fair point. But we’ll still have to take a rain check.”
Outside, a car horn beeped. It would be her cab. Emile put his hands on Theresa’s shoulders. “I’ll send you the ticket for Saturday. And after the match, chérie, we will have our wedding night.”
She looked up into his eyes, a wicked gleam in her own. “So should I wear the new lingerie? Or not?”
He groaned. “Wear it. I need to be able to concentrate on the match.”
She laughed. “Fine. And on Sunday, you’ll come and meet my parents. Then that’ll be it. I doubt if we’ll need to see each other again.”
“But if we want to?”
“Then…” She shrugged. “We’re adults. We can do whatever we want.”
“Good.” He kissed her. “I’ll tell you exactly what I want on Saturday night.”
Chapter Five
Five days later, after working into the early hours of the morning every night that week, Theresa wished she’d worked harder to get out of Emile’s football match. She really wanted a day of lounging about the house in her pajamas. Instead, she had to get dressed and head out into the cold to watch grown men playing a pointless game, while the crowd sang crude chants at the top of their voice. Not her idea of fun.
She even texted Emile to suggest that she could just meet him afterwards somewhere. He’d replied instantly.
Not if you want me to come with you tomorrow.
Huh.
That was sort of the point of it all. To take him home to her parents, horrify her mother, and give herself a good few years of freedom before any eligible bachelors were mentioned again.
I’ll be there.
She was directed up to the players’ box with all the other wives and girlfriends. Most of them were wearing so much makeup that she began to wonder whether it had an insulating effect against the cold breeze. More likely they were just desperate to catch the attention of the cameras, with their orange-tan faces and tight tops encrusted with bling. Mariella arrived just before kickoff, sweeping into the box and strutting down to the front row. She was even taller and slimmer in real life than in the photos Theresa had found online. Her face wasn’t beautiful, but it was arresting. There was something about the sculpted curves of her cheekbones and the surprisingly firm just of her nose and chin. She wasn’t a woman who could easily be ignored. The cameras had already found her, relaying her image to the large screens at each corner of the stadium and out onto TV screens around the country.
No one would be looking at Theresa, though the camera had caught her just at the edge of the shot. But she was content to sit unobtrusively in the back row, in her comfiest jeans and a thick sweater to protect her against the cold. She pulled out a book, rested it on her knees, and began to read.
It was hard to concentrate on her novel with sixty thousand football fans alternately cheering and groaning all around her. Theresa glanced down at the smooth green pitch where twenty-two grown men were kicking a ball around as if it mattered. Ten in blue, with their goalkeeper in green.
The program informed her they were the Tottenham Hotspur team and long-term rivals of Woolwich. The other ten wore red for Woolwich, with their keeper in black. Her eyes instantly searched Emile out, and she spotted him jogging backwards towards the goal, focused on the ball. She checked the number on his red shirt so that she could easily identify him: fourteen. Why they didn’t just go from one to eleven, she had no idea. Someone kicked the ball long, over the heads of the men in the middle of the field, and Emile dashed to meet it. But there were half a dozen players from the other team between him and the goal and all he could do was pass it to a teammate behind him.
She watched for a few minutes, until the ball had been sent towards the other goal and the action with it. As she picked up her book, one of the other women shifted her seat so that she was next to Theresa.
“Hello.” Not a natural blonde, but young and pretty enough for it not to matter, the girl smiled shyly.
“Hi.”
“You’re Emile’s wife, aren’t you?”
“I’m Theresa.”
“Kelly. It said in the paper that you’re a lawyer.”
“That’s right.” It was practically the only thing the journalists had got right, since they’d had to make most of the story up out of the tiny fragments of fact they’d been able to find out about her.
“Do you do divorces?”
“No. Corporate law.”
“Oh.” Kelly turned away to look at the men on the field. Theresa followed her gaze.
“Which one is yours?”
“Number seventeen. Keiran O’Donnell.”
“And he’
s the reason you need a divorce lawyer?”
Kelly’s face crumpled. “He told me he wouldn’t see her again.”
Oh, God. This was exactly why she’d never been tempted into family law. How could you make rational choices when everything was tangled into a complicated mess of emotions? The bottom line was that men lied, and women believed them. And vice versa. At least in contract law, you began from the assumption that everyone was out to get what they could, and it was on your own head if you let them. Trust was a luxury that multinational corporations couldn’t afford.
“But you still came to watch him?”
Kelly found a tissue and mopped at her eyes. Impressively, her mascara had stayed put. Maybe they made a special kind for the wives of lying, cheating bastard football players. “He doesn’t know I know.”
“He’s not going to change, Kelly. If he’s lied once, he’ll lie again. Look, I’ll give you the number of a friend who handles divorce cases. He’ll help you.”
“Thanks.” Kelly put the note Theresa passed her into her handbag. She looked out at the pitch again and sighed. “I used to think it didn’t matter, you know, that I had to let him screw around because he was famous and rich. They all have so many women crawling around, trying to get into bed with them. He told me it wasn’t fair to expect him to turn them all down. He said that’s what they all do, and the wives have to put up with it.”
“Being rich and famous doesn’t mean you get to treat your wife like crap.”
Kelly smiled shakily. “I wish I’d known that at the beginning. Like you.”
Theresa shrugged. She wouldn’t stand for that sort of crap from anyone, but it was different with Emile. They’d agreed that it was fine for them to see other people. Discreetly at first, since he was supposed to be staying out of the gossip pages. But when the year was nearly up, it would make their quickie divorce all the more plausible. In a show-marriage like theirs, normal rules didn’t apply. None of those dangerous emotions were involved, so she would be absolutely fine with Emile sleeping around. Absolutely. She just had to get her head around the idea that he wasn’t really hers and she had to learn to share.
By half time, her feet had gone numb with cold, and her mind had gone numb with boredom. No goals had been scored and the most interesting thing that had happened was the ball being kicked into the crowd. The fan who’d caught it had tried to hide it under his seat, and a steward had to go and reclaim it. Theresa stood up and stamped her boots, grateful that she’d thought to put a pair of woolly socks on. Kelly showed her where the buffet was, and she fortified herself with a couple of sandwiches and a cup of hot, strong tea.
Forty minutes to go. She’d get through it, hopefully without losing any of her extremities to frostbite. Though she still wasn’t at all sure why Emile had wanted her to come. It wasn’t like he’d even noticed she was here. He hadn’t looked up in her direction once. She pulled her scarf more closely around her neck and reached for her book again. A gasp from the crowd caused her to glance down at the pitch. One of the players was on the ground, curled up and clutching his leg in agony.
“Emile!” She shot to her feet, heart pounding with sudden fear. What had happened? Why wasn’t anyone helping him? Theresa yelled again. Couldn’t they see he was hurt? The referee was standing a few yards away, talking to a player from the other team. As she watched, one of Emile’s teammates strolled over casually.
“Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” She turned to Kelly, who was eyeing her in amusement. “He’s hurt!”
Kelly shook her head. “He’ll be fine. Look, they’re sending the medic away.”
Theresa hadn’t even noticed the woman wearing dark clothing and carrying a medical bag. But it was true; she was jogging back to the sidelines. Emile was still on the ground, though he had uncurled his body and was sitting up.
“They all do it,” Kelly said. “If there’s a foul, acting injured helps to make the referee take it more seriously. And even if there isn’t, it might make the ref more likely to give a penalty the next time.”
“You mean he’s just pretending?” Theresa sat down again, heart still pumping at twice its usual rate.
Kelly cocked her head. “Not completely. Kieran says they do get winded, sometimes. He’ll probably have a bruise tomorrow. But they do put on a show.”
“Oh.”
Sure enough, he was on his feet again and slowly jogging back into position. Theresa watched closely for a few minutes, until the ball came towards Emile and he sprinted to get it before the opposition. There was nothing wrong with his speed or agility as he skillfully maneuvered the ball between two defenders and took his shot at goal. She began to cheer, then, with thirty thousand other fans, groaned as it hit the post and rebounded into play. But Emile was there, with lightning-fast reflexes that scooped the ball up with the side of his foot and back into the goal before the keeper knew what was happening.
She was on her feet, screaming and yelling, without even thinking about it. It was just a joyful moment of sheer brilliance. On the pitch, his teammates were jumping on top of him in exuberant hugs of congratulation. In the corners of the stadium, the huge screens replayed the goal. Cameras zoomed in on Emile, neatly skipping past the defender and sliding the ball home. The crowd cheered again, almost as if the goal counted twice. Then the chants emerged, as if some invisible conductor had orchestrated the crowd into a choir, “We love you, Woolwich, we do! We love you, Woolwich, we do! Woolwich, we love you!”
As the noise subsided, Theresa dropped back into her seat. At least she was feeling a bit warmer. Crowd psychology was a peculiar thing. She honestly didn’t care whether Woolwich won or lost, and she certainly didn’t love the team. And yet, in the moment, she’d sung as loudly and enthusiastically as the most die-hard supporter. No wonder people got so tribal about it.
Two minutes later, she was on her feet again, yelling at the referee for disallowing another attempted goal. After that, she gave up on her book and watched properly. The teams were evenly matched, as far as she could tell, and the action was constantly changing from one end of the pitch to the other, with both sides getting frequent shots at goal. More than once her heart was in her mouth when it looked like Spurs would score, only to have the ball slip around the side, or over the net, or be caught by the keeper.
She kept an eye on the clock. Ten minutes left. Five. They were going to hang on to the lead. And then, out of nowhere, one of the Spurs players had the ball, and there was no one between him and the goal. Her nails bit into the palms of her hands as she clenched her fists and yelled meaninglessly to try to stop him. He waited until he was within yards of the keeper, feinted to the left, then kicked with unerring accuracy right into the corner of the net. The Spurs fans erupted. Theresa slumped back in her seat and groaned. Three minutes to go and the score was level.
Time ticked away. The count reached zero, but the referee didn’t blow his whistle.
“Injury time,” Kelly said in a tight voice. “Two minutes, maybe three.”
Woolwich had possession again. They moved the ball between them, nearer and nearer to their goal with each pass. Every player, blue and red, was fiercely focused. The intensity, even up in the stands, was almost unbearable. The defense was strong, and the Woolwich players couldn’t find a crack to break through. She held her breath and glanced back at the motionless clock. There was no way to know how long they had. And then, in one glorious move, someone headed the ball so that it sailed straight over the defenders. Emile caught it on his chest, maneuvered it onto his foot, dodged the keeper, and dribbled it over the line just seconds before the whistle blew.
He was incredible.
And sexy.
And married to her.
She was doomed.
Fortunately, it took a while for the players to deal with the press, to change and to be dismissed, by which time, Theresa had just about managed to knock the silly grin off her face. He’d been utterly brilliant, but she wasn’t about to say so. It wa
s just football, after all. Just a game. It wasn’t like it mattered that he was good at it. She still thought it was a waste of time. An exhilarating, joyous, uplifting waste of time, admittedly.
“Chérie.” He greeted her with a kiss on the lips and an arm around her waist. The other players jeered and slapped him on the back.
“Get a room,” one of them shouted.
Emile made a rude gesture and led Theresa to his car.
“So you came.”
She shrugged. “You said I had to.”
His jaw tensed briefly. Apparently, that rankled. “So I did. I will be there tomorrow, Thérèse, to charm your parents.”
“Oh. No, I don’t want you to charm them.”
He frowned. “Then what?”
“I need you to shock them. Especially my mother.”
“Ah. I forgot. I am the fall guy.”
“Right. You know, it would be good if you didn’t shave between now and then.”
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, already dark with stubble.
“You like it rough, chérie?”
Thoughts of just exactly how that roughened skin would feel against hers made her mouth go dry. She swallowed and focused her mind back on the visit to her parents.
“Can you wear a T-shirt or something? I’d like her to see part of your tattoos.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
She turned to look him over, all casual competence as he steered the car through the busy London traffic. “I don’t suppose you’d get your ears pierced?”
He snorted.
“No, well. I expect there’s plenty to upset her without that.”
“She is so different from you, your mother?”
Theresa stared out of the window. She’d wondered often enough how she came to have parents like hers. Nice, well-meaning, generous parents with the values and social mores of the 1950s. Hadn’t they realized that when they sent her to the best school they could afford that she would learn to read and think and challenge their ideas? Hadn’t they known that when she went to university it would change her forever?
