Play of Love: The Gladiator Players Box Set

by Gray, Khardine

  I felt like I had everything when I was with her. We had fun together and I was unimaginably happy, but there was still something inside me lurking within the anxiety of my mind that made me fear her leaving one day.

  I had done everything I could in my power to show her how important she was to me, but I knew she still didn’t trust me. It made me crazy and I didn’t know what I could do to make her see that she didn’t have to worry about me feeling any other way than how I did.

  I loved her.

  I loved everything about her and loved everything she was.

  I wanted to tell her, but wanted to find the right time. It was a big deal for me and I wanted to find that special moment she’d always remember.

  Planning to tell her was all that filled my thoughts during our travels, and the Saturday after we came back from Europe I spent the day in the kitchen flicking through brochures. I thought I’d arrange another getaway to somewhere like Hawaii. Amy had gone shopping with Hilda and Gabriella early in the morning so it was perfect timing for me.

  The doorbell rang and I rushed to answer it, thinking it was Amy. She had a habit of buying too much and attempting to carry all her bags inside the house in one go. Then she’d get stuck when she approached the door while she tried to find her keys.

  I was ready to make a wisecrack about her shopping habits, but my face fell when I opened the door and saw Allegra standing before me. Immediately, I cursed myself for not looking through the peep hole first.

  When last I’d heard, Victoria’s Secret had signed her. Not that I’d been keeping tabs. It was just that I never anticipated running into her again.

  “Hello stranger,” She cooed, coming in, walking straight past me and into the house. I followed her into the living room where she twirled around and zoned in on a picture of Amy and I taken on the beach in the Bahamas.

  “Well I’ll be damned.” She shook her head at the picture and looked back at me.

  “Allegra, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” I really didn’t want to be rude, but would be if I had to.

  “Why’s that? I’m in town and I thought I’d swing by for some fun.”

  “No. We don’t do that anymore.” I shook my head at her. “I’m in a serious relationship.”

  “With your little assistant? Really?” She narrowed her eyes at me and gave a wicked laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. You have to leave now.”

  Amy had been gone for hours and it was likely that she’d be back anytime soon. The last thing I wanted was for her to come home and catch Allegra here.

  “Remember the games we used to play?” She smiled, coming over to me. She rested her finger on my chest. “We used to have such wild sex and you always wanted more.”

  “Get out, now.” Anxiety was making me nasty. If she were a guy I would have pushed her out the door.

  Instead of listening to me she started undoing the buttons on her shirt.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. “Allegra, get out. I’m serious. Leave.”

  No, I should have known her better than that. She slipped her top down her arms, revealing her bare naked breasts.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

  That was it, I’d had enough of niceties and being pleasant. I grabbed her arm, ready to show her the door, but in that moment Amy walked in and stood in the corridor.

  “I bought too much again, so don’t tell me off,” Amy said, but she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw me holding Allegra’s arm and looked from me to Allegra.

  Her eyes landed on me, a question in her gaze and sadness surrounding them.

  I dropped Allegra’s arm. “It’s not what you think,” I said once I could find my voice.

  “Or maybe it is,” Allegra stated with menace.

  “No,” I cried. I moved towards Amy but she shook her head at me and stepped back.

  “Leave her, let’s just go already.” I couldn’t believe Allegra could sink so low.

  Amy dropped her bags and rushed away through the door. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  I ran after her and caught up with her on the beach.

  “Amy, stop. Please.” I grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t touch me,” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free.

  “Please listen to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Amy, I would never cheat on you.”

  She shook her head as she cried. She looked so hurt and distressed I didn’t know what to do. What could I say to fix this?

  “Just let me go, Josh. Just let me go.”

  “No.”

  “You have to. This is my fault. I should have known it would be a mistake being with you. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what you were like. My mother loved a man who could never be hers. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.”

  “Amy, that will not happen to you. I am yours. Allegra came to the house and was probably there for five minutes. She took off her clothes and I told her to leave.” It was like talking to a wall, because Amy looked at me without understanding.

  “Damn it, Amy, can’t you just look at me and see that I’m telling the truth?”

  I’d seen people do it. I had seen it happen where people could distinguish between a lie and the truth. They would be able to defend each other to the death if need be because they knew the other person so well that they knew truth when they saw it.

  I guessed, though, that that wouldn’t happen here. It took trust, deep trust, for that to work, and she didn’t trust me.

  I could see that I’d lost her but I had one last card up my sleeve. “Amy, I love you. I love you, and I would never hurt you.”

  That had to work. I’d never told anybody besides my family that I loved them before. It shouldn’t have taken this disaster for me to tell her. It should have been something that I told her every day. Me, who was so open with my feelings.

  But I was saving it for a better time, that special moment. Now I’d wasted it on my only chance.

  And it did nothing and meant even less than that. All it did was make her cry even more.

  “Please, just let go of me, Josh.” That was all she said.

  I stared in disbelief, chills running down my spine. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t believe me, but worse than that, she wanted me to let her go.

  As I released her I felt like my world had just been ripped away from me. I’d only experienced this feeling once before, and that was when I’d gotten the news that Mom and Clarissa had been killed. That news destroyed me and tore me apart.

  * * *

  Amy

  * * *

  I walked to Gabriella’s house. I couldn’t stop the tears that poured out of my weeping, tortured soul.

  Once again I had that feeling of being in an abstract painting, trying to feel my way around the twists and turns so I could find a straight path of sense.

  My biggest fear had leapt out of my head and presented itself before me like a display.

  Gabriella took me in and took care of me. I was inconsolable by the time I got there and even after the days that passed. It felt like years, like several years had gone by, and still I cried.

  I always knew I would never be enough for him and that he would get bored of me at some point.

  That was what my mind told me. But yet, my heart still yearned for him. It told me to believe him.

  Josh didn’t stop calling me, and every time my phone rang I had to force myself to ignore it. I had to force myself to reckon with truth.

  It didn’t escape me that the only man to tell me that he loved me was the one I just walked away from, and the only one I ever wanted. But that didn’t matter.

  It was a cruel joke on my life.

  That weekend as I looked for apartments Mom called. At first I thought it was Josh, so I let the phone ring out, but then it rang again and I answered it when I saw it was her.

  “Hey sweet girl.”

  I just managed to say h
ello. After that another round of tears took over and I couldn’t stop crying. Mom tried to calm me but it didn’t work.

  It took a while for me to compose myself enough to tell her what had happened.

  “I can’t believe I was so stupid.” I dabbed my eyes with a Kleenex.

  “Amy, calm down, sweetheart. You aren’t stupid. There’s no harm in being cautious.”

  “I saw how Dad affected you and I allowed myself to fall into the same trap.”

  “Amy, listen to me, sweet girl. You are not me. You are not me.” I didn’t think I’d ever heard her sound so firm. “Now tell me again, clear this up for me. Josh said he would never cheat on you, told you he loves you, and you honestly don’t believe him?” When she put it that way it sounded terrible.

  “Mama, he was with that Allegra. You don’t understand. That was the woman he was with when I first met him. They were always together. The minute I saw her I remembered what it used to be like and it made me sick. And she was naked. What else should I think? What else should I believe?”

  “Sweetie, I understand what you’re saying. I do, but I want you to be sure that what you saw was indeed what happened. If it’s as you said then no, you definitely can’t be with him, but it doesn’t make sense to me that he’d chase after you if he didn’t love you.”

  I clutched the phone to the side of my face as I listened. I knew Josh, and knew he didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.

  Mom pulled in a breath before she continued. “My love, it’s best to be sure with these things, because if there is any question in your mind, honey, if you think even just a little bit that he might be telling the truth, you’ll live to regret leaving him.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath and stilled my shaking hands. She always had a way of speaking directly to my mind.

  “I don’t know anymore.” I shook my head.

  “Sweet girl, you know, you just can’t see past what happened and you’re scared you’ll become like me. I wish that I could have been a stronger woman and shown you that real love is hard to come by and you should cherish it when you have it. I was foolish and too wrapped up in wishing that your father would come back. What I should have done is move on. You need to ask yourself if you can trust Josh.” She sighed. “And if you can, then you should believe him. It doesn’t matter if what you saw looked like he was cheating on you with that woman. If you trust him and he said he didn’t, then told you he loved you, then you should believe him.”

  I closed my eyes as another wave of tears hit me. In my mind’s eye I traced back all the events that had happened over the last year. A whole year and some months had passed since I’d known Josh. I remembered the first time he kissed me, the time he told me needed me, the time he saved me from those awful men in that disgusting downtown apartment. I remembered how he handled them and got my stuff back, how he said he’d take care of me . Then he made it possible for me to make my dress, gave me somewhere safe to live, saved my mother from sure death, asked me to be his, and…told me he loved me.

  All Josh had ever done was show me his heart.

  As I opened my eyes I remembered how he pleaded with me to believe him. He thought I should be able to look at him and know if he was telling the truth. I should have, and I knew right then as it all sunk in that he was telling me the truth.

  “Mama, I’m going to sort this out. You’re right. You’re so right.”

  “Good luck, sweet girl.”

  As soon as I hung up, I rushed down the stairs. I ran straight past Gabriella and Riley and out into the street.

  The night air hit me, clearing my head even more as I ran.

  I ran home.

  * * *

  Josh

  * * *

  I stared at the phone in my hands and set it on the kitchen counter. Once again there was no answer. It was clear that Amy wasn’t coming back, but I didn’t know if I could give up and accept that. I didn’t know if I could accept that she was gone from my life and never coming back.

  I thought I’d played all my cards when I told her I loved her. But I still had one more to play. One more to play that might not be worth it but I had to try. Maybe my persistence would make her see the truth.

  I picked the phone up again and called Corey. Corey had been a massive strength to me when these sorts of things happened.

  “Hey man,” Corey answered after the second ring. I noticed that since this recent saga with Amy, Corey was within my grasp the minute I needed him. Probably because he was worried I would turn back to alcohol. I had no intention of falling back into old bad habits. “You okay?”

  Okay? No, I was so far from it. “I’m hanging in there.”

  “Do you want me to come around? Or we could go shoot some pool at the bar.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I was thinking I’d go to Gabriella’s and try my luck.” I knew Amy was staying there. It was Hilda who told me.

  “I won’t say no. All you can do is try.”

  “I just wish she would talk to me and that I could convince her that I’m telling the truth, but she doesn’t trust me.” I wished that Allegra hadn’t come to my house and destroyed my relationship. I leaned against the counter and gazed through the window at the palm trees blowing out against the wind. “Corey, if this is it and I’ve lost her, then I really would have lost everything.”

  My voice shook and took on a frail edge I didn’t recognize.

  “Just keep trying. That’s all you can do. I’m sure once she cools off she’ll start listening.”

  Cools off? Five days had already passed and Amy was still mad at me. Add her distrust to the equation and I didn’t really see any hope. But…I would try. I’d try forever if I needed to.

  “I’ll keep trying.”

  “Let me know what happens,” Corey said. At least he sounded like I had hope.

  I clicked the phone off and continued to gaze through the window. It was seven o’clock. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too late to go to Gabriella’s. I didn’t want to impose and look like the crazy boyfriend trying to win my girl back. Even though technically I was heading that way fast.

  I just wished it never happened. And while I had no fault in this occurrence, I was to blame. That was what happened when you were with women like Allegra. At the time when I hooked up with her I never imagined that I’d meet Amy, or more significantly that I would ever feel this way about anyone. Like my life would have no meaning if they weren’t around.

  Well, here goes. Another attempt for forgiveness.

  I turned around to go but stopped when I saw her. Right there, standing before me in the kitchen looking like she’d been plucked from my mind.

  It occurred to me that this could have been one of those times when my brain conjured her up and made me see what it wanted to help me get by. But this was no hallucination, this was the real Amy. I could always tell the difference between the real and fantasy Amy.

  I looked at her, dressed in a pink t-shirt and denim shorts. I loved when she wore anything like that. The pink against her bronze skin and light blonde hair always made me want to stare. And her long, sculpted legs on show in those shorts was any man’s idea of a dream.

  She looked back at me with intensity and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then an awful feeling of dread filled me as I realized why she was here.

  It was to get her things. She came to get her things. I brought my hand up to my face and winced.

  “Amy.” Emotion weighed so heavily on me that I didn’t know what to say first. So I started with the most pressing thing. “Please no, don’t tell me you’re here to get your things. You have to believe that I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  She brought her hands together and held them to her chest. She nodded, but I still didn’t know what she was thinking.

  “I know. You never would, and you never have,” she breathed, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  I straightened up and gazed at her. Now I could see. Now I could see that she believed me. “
You believe me?”

  “Yes.” She pushed a wayward golden strand behind her ear.

  “How come?” I knew I should thank my lucky stars that she believed me and not press with questions as to why. However, I wanted to know what had changed her mind. Did she speak to Allegra? Did someone else convince her of the truth? I wanted to know.

  “I love you.” A tear ran down her cheek as she spoke. “I love you so much and I trust you. I trust you, Josh, and I know that you were telling the truth.”

  The fifty-ton weight that had rested on me since this whole thing happened lifted off my shoulders.

  As I took her words in, my lungs expanded, relieving the constriction I felt from fear and I could breathe again.

  “Amy…”

  It was the first time any woman, except my mother and Clarissa, had ever told me that they loved me. I’d never even been lied to because all the women I’d been with weren’t looking for love. Neither was I.

  Until her, until Amy. I found love with her.

  “I’m sorry. Please forgive me for not believing you straightaway when I should have.” She covered her mouth as she started to cry. I rushed over to her and pulled her in, holding her close to my heart. In that moment, I promised myself I would never let her go.

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” I said against her hair, absorbing the sweet fragrance of her and savoring the feel of having my girl back in my arms. “I love you so much, and I want to tell you that every day.”

  She pulled away so she could look up at me. “Josh, I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” I looked down into her beautiful eyes wondering what she could want to say.

  “I’ve loved you for a long time.”

  I thought of the times when I hoped that she could love me and it warmed my heart to know that she did. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I breathed, stroking the soft skin along her jawline.