‘She got pregnant with me there. My grandfather was furious. She’d just finished school. With his connections, my mother would have had the world at her feet.’
He lifted his eyes to hers.
‘He made it clear that she couldn’t come back here. Not when she was unmarried and pregnant.’
She nodded, making him see she was familiar with the inflexible values of past generations.
‘My mother decided to get married to spare my grandfather the embarrassment. It wasn’t too bad for her, considering how much she loved my father. He just didn’t love her.’
Anger still heated his blood at the thought.
‘But he loved her money. There’s no proof that he planned the whole thing, but I know he did.’
He could almost taste the bitterness on his tongue.
‘We moved back to SA and my grandfather died a few years later. My mom had just fallen pregnant with Nathan, but my father’s lack of interest in us become clear when my grandfather was no longer around. He didn’t have to pretend to be a family man any more. My mother had inherited most of the money—the rest was in a trust fund for us—but since they were married her money was his, too.’
He shook his head when he realised he was saying too much.
‘You didn’t ask to know all this.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But since you’ve told me there must be a reason.’
He nodded, and tried to build up his nerve to tell her the rest.
‘I watched my father treat my mother—and us—poorly for most of my life. I tried to get her to leave him, but she was clinging so hard to the memory of the man he had been when he was wooing her—when he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t—that she wouldn’t. Until she found out he’d been lying to her about the money he was spending. She could take his uninterest and harsh words, but lying about money was too much for her.’
He shook his head, still not quite believing that that had been more important to her than her children’s well-being.
‘I got her to consider making him leave, and on the night of the championship we packed his bags. We were kicking him out. But when he found out it didn’t take long for his charm to soften my mother’s defences. A few words, compliments, promises, and she took him back. Not even my begging was enough to make her reconsider.’
He felt Lily’s hand over his, and looked down to see it was covering his clenched fist. He forced himself to uncurl it and took a deep breath. He wasn’t done yet.
‘He turned on me that night. Said things I don’t want to remember but can’t forget. No matter how much I try.’
He took another breath as the memories flew through his mind.
Failure. Disappointment. Useless.
‘I wasn’t fighting the opposing team that night, Lily...’
There was a beat of silence before she said what he couldn’t bring himself to.
‘You were fighting your father.’
* * *
Lily’s heart broke when he nodded, and she entwined her fingers with his, squeezing. But the moment was interrupted when the waiter brought their food, and she pulled her hand away, grateful for the break in the tension.
A small wave of guilt flowed through her when she looked at the burger in front of her, but since it was accompanied by a salad—and she hadn’t eaten since lunch—she figured it was okay.
‘Why did you never go back?’
‘It was too late. I got suspended for three years—the maximum for what I did. Even if a team had wanted me, being out the game that long meant I wouldn’t have had the same skills.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’
‘But it does,’ she said, wondering why he was pretending it didn’t after everything he’d told her. ‘Isn’t that why you’re doing this? Because of how much it means to you?’
She could see he was considering it, so she gave him time and dug into her meal. The burger was juicy, soft, and for the first time in a long time she found that she was enjoying a meal without feeling guilty.
‘It does matter,’ he said as she bit into a piece of lettuce. ‘Because that loss—my red card—set the Shadows back years. In the past seven years they haven’t made it to another championship. They lost their chance at playing in an international league because of me. If I buy the club I can change that. I will change that.’
‘Yes, you will,’ she said, seeing the determination in his eyes.
But it made her worry about what her part in his plan would cost her.
‘Knowing what you know about my past...’ She cleared her throat. Reached for her wine when the action didn’t do anything to help the sudden dryness that was there. ‘About my...insecurities, would you have still called me on to live TV today?’
A mixture of emotions played over his face. ‘I... I don’t know.’
There was a long pause.
‘Why not?’
‘Because there’s a part of me that wants to protect you. But there’s another part...’
‘That wants this so badly you can’t afford to protect me.’
It wasn’t a question, but disappointment still soaked through her heart when there was another pause.
‘I’ve wanted to prove myself for as long as I can remember. I’ve been working seven years for it.’ He took a breath. ‘I’ll do everything I can to make sure you don’t get hurt during this, Lily.’
She nodded, but couldn’t reply.
‘Lily, please.’ Regret filled his voice. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ she answered, once the ache in her chest had subsided. ‘You’ve been honest about your intentions. At least you have been this evening.’ She exhaled shakily. ‘I know this is important to you. And since you’ve been working so many years for it, it seems selfish to expect you to sacrifice it when you’ve only known me two days.’
‘That’s not...’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Lily. Except that it feels a hell of a lot longer than two days.’
He was struggling, she realised. It sent a shiver of hope through her. But then her mind offered her a look into the future.
She’d continue the charade with Jacques, convincing herself that he had feelings for her—developing feelings for him—deeper and more intense than anything she’d felt for Kyle. And then Jacques would get his club and he’d no longer need her.
And she would have to nurse the pain of the worst heartbreak of her life.
No, she thought, her heart aching even at the prospect of it. It was better to stop that hope from developing into something more dangerous now.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said into the silence. ‘I can look after myself.’
She could—and she would.
‘You...you still want to do this? Even though—?’
‘Yes,’ she interrupted him. ‘I’ll still help you, Jacques.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s time I faced my fears. And...because you need me to.’
She said nothing about reminding herself that there could be no hope for them.
‘Have I told you how amazing you are?’
It was a line, she knew, but when she looked into his eyes she could almost believe it was true.
‘Now, darling, there’s no need for flattery. We’re already dating, aren’t we?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AND SO THEY WERE.
For a month Lily dated Jacques Brookes. She went to charity events. Corporate events. She was wined and dined in Cape Town’s most expensive restaurants. Showered with public displays of affection. Treated like royalty.
It was so similar to what she’d experienced with Kyle that she knew she should have pulled back. And if she’d felt anything similar to w
hat she had when she’d been with Kyle maybe she would have.
But she didn’t. Because there was one significant difference: Jacques.
The conversation they’d had the night they’d had dinner at the beach had clarified things. Lily knew what Jacques expected of her—knew why—and that made it easier to focus on their professional agreement. To lock away all those strange feelings that had been stirred the first two days they’d known each other.
She also couldn’t deny that the attention their relationship got contributed to her focus. The pictures of them kissing on Jacques’s balcony had been in the papers the day after they’d been taken. The photo of their ‘intimate’ dinner had been shared more than a hundred thousand times on social media after the waiter had posted it. Their interview snippet now had over a million views.
Their relationship had been sealed in public.
She didn’t have time to think about personal feelings when she was dealing with all the interest in her. Customers now wanted pictures, signatures—though heaven only knew why they wanted them from her. She was just the girlfriend, not the actual celebrity.
When it became too much she reminded herself that she was facing her fears. She reminded herself that growth was never without pain. And she repeated that to herself when people began to poke into her past. When people who had never been her friends came forward to testify about how wonderful she’d been to them.
And, worst of all, when they discovered that she’d once been engaged to another of Cape Town’s most eligible bachelors. The media had hounded her on that one, and more than one outlet had questioned the sincerity of her interest in Jacques.
Since that wasn’t the kind of attention Jacques was hoping for, she’d expected him to step back. To tell her that he couldn’t afford to be with someone who gave him negative press.
But he hadn’t.
Instead he’d had his PR firm release a statement defending their relationship. He shut down any questions about her past when they were together, and held her tightly against him as he did so. As if he knew that she needed the comfort, the reassurance. And each time he would check that she was okay, Lily found that she was. Because although she would be shaking, Jacques would be holding her hand. Protecting her.
He’d said he would, and he’d kept his word.
And that was the real reason she was okay.
Jacques had even asked Jade from his PR firm to coach Lily when she could. So Lily knew what she shouldn’t say in public—anything about Kyle except that they’d once been engaged and it hadn’t worked out—and she knew what she should post on social media.
Those posts were strictly about Lily’s, though, since Jade handled anything regarding Jacques and Lily’s personal lives and their relationship. Still, Lily had seen an influx of ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ on the store’s different accounts, and she knew that she would have to utilise them to keep momentum after her and Jacques’s fake relationship ended.
That thought had caused a strange twinge in her heart lately, but she told herself it was because of the friendship she and Jacques had settled into. They’d got to know each other better over the dinners they’d shared, and Lily had got to see different sides of Jacques at different events. And sometimes after the events, Lily would watch his old games, his old interviews, and realise just how much he’d given up when his career had ended.
And then there were his business skills. Her respect for those grew whenever she saw him in action, and skyrocketed with everything he taught her about her own business. He’d taken her accounts, her business plan, and each time she saw him he gave her notes and guidelines. He pointed out where she had been going wrong—sometimes shockingly so.
It embarrassed her, and told her she shouldn’t have opened a store before she had known all that, but never once did he make her feel like a failure. Even when her own thoughts mocked her—even when she would have fully understood if he called her that—he didn’t. He just patiently told her where she should adjust, and how she should do so.
With those adjustments, and the increased traffic the store was getting, things were going surprisingly well. Despite the attention her relationship with Kyle had got, and despite those who called their relationship fake for the sake of Jacques’s interest in the Shadows—those who saw through them—Lily was okay. Going out with Jacques was a little less intimidating every time she did it, and the clothes Jade would send her for events didn’t scandalise her quite as much any more. Lily even found herself amused that for every one of those who doubted their relationship, ten others praised her for taming Bad-Boy Brookes.
So she ignored her worries. She ignored how, every time she spoke to her parents, she was reminded of the backlash she needed to anticipate when things with Jacques ended. How, every time she spoke to Caitlyn, she had to repeat that she didn’t feel anything for Jacques other than friendship.
Because she didn’t.
The niggle left behind after each of those conversations didn’t mean anything.
And friends did sometimes pitch up at their friend’s flats at five-thirty in the morning, Lily told herself as she did just that.
She hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and she suspected it was because she and Jacques would be attending one last event together that night, before Jacques made his bid for the club.
It had made her anxious—more than it should have—because she didn’t want to lose her friend, she assured herself. So she’d got up at four, got ready for the day, and grabbed two coffees on her way to Jacques’s flat. If she couldn’t sleep, she could at least enjoy the sunrise. With a friend. Who happened to have the perfect view to do that from...
She used the key he’d given her when he’d told her she could stay at his place on the nights she was working late. Between that and the events they were attending she was sometimes too exhausted to make the twenty-minute trip home. And, since Jacques’s was less than half that time away, she’d found herself taking him up on his offer. But only the nights she knew he wouldn’t be there. Lily wasn’t sure she could handle staying in the same flat with him yet.
Yet?
She shook her head, forcing the thought away as she walked down the passage to Jacques’s room. He was hosting the charity event that evening—for a Shadows-affiliated charity—at a venue in Big Bay, and had been staying at his Blouberg flat for the past week to see to the final arrangements.
When she got to his room, she pushed the door open softly.
And her heart just melted, pushing thoughts of friendship far away.
He lay on his back, one hand cushioning his head, the other on his bare chest. Though she appreciated the strength of his body—the defined chest, the chiselled abs, the full biceps—the unarmed expression on his face undid her. There was no guarded expression now, no worry lines, no indication that he was thinking about a million other things while he spoke to her.
Now he was just a man who slept. It made her realise, not for the first time, how much his plan required from him. And, while she understood the importance, she worried that it was going to break him in the process.
When she felt her chest tighten and her heart burn—when she felt that neat little box she’d put her un-friend-like feelings about Jacques into tearing open—she took a shaky breath and walked towards him. She took no more than two steps before he shifted, turning his head in her direction. And though she stilled completely at the movement he opened his eyes, the sides of them crinkling with his smile when he saw her, as though her appearance was perfectly normal.
‘Hi,’ he said huskily, and her skin turned to gooseflesh.
‘Hi,’ she responded, and heard the hoarseness of her own voice—felt the intensity of her attraction for him edged with something more—and cleared her throat.
‘I’m sorry I woke you, but I want to show you something.’
Now he frowned, and turned his head to the clock next to him.
‘Lil, are you kidding me? It’s not even six a.m. yet.’
Warmth spread through her body at his use of the nickname.
‘No, I’m serious. Come to the living room.’
She turned to leave, eager to escape the tension that was rife in her body. It subsided—but only slightly—when she stood on his balcony, with the sight of the waves crashing on the shore and the salty air filling her lungs.
She handed him a coffee when she felt him next to her, saw that he had pulled on the shirt she assumed he’d worn the night before but hadn’t closed it all the way, and cleared her throat again.
Forcing herself to focus on why she was there, she nodded her head in the direction of the sun. They didn’t speak as they watched the sun slowly rise.
Lily wished she could spend more time appreciating the beauty of where she lived instead of worrying. Instead of feeling the constant fear of failure. She watched as the yellow and orange colours spread over the ocean, bringing light and warmth. And when the sun rose high enough that a ray lit over them she sighed, heard Jacques sigh, too.
She felt him move closer to her and she turned, tilting her head back to look up at him.
If she thought her heart had melted when she’d seen him asleep, she had no words to describe what was happening to it now.
‘Is it wrong for me to want to kiss you?’ he asked, taking the coffee from her hand and setting it on the table he’d added after her suggestion.
One of many things he’d done for her that made her heart melt a little more each time.
‘Are there cameras around?’ she replied softly, forcing herself to think of what was real.
‘No.’
‘Then why do you want to kiss me?’
He took her face in his hands gently, and it began to feel very real.
‘Because you’re beautiful. You’re kind. You’re just...you’re amazing.’
She opened her mouth to deny it, but his lips were on hers before she could.
And then she was lost in the romance of kissing a man entirely too handsome to be interested in her.
The Millionaire's Redemption Page 11
