‘You think you can do that?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But I can at least try.’
She gave him one more smile before she left his office, closing the door behind her and making her way back out into the main atrium.
‘Did you see where Ryan went?’ she asked Barry behind reception.
He looked up and smiled at her. ‘You look happy, if you don’t mind me saying, Ms. Sullivan.’
‘Yeah,’ Amber smiled back. ‘Yeah. I guess I am happy. Sorry, did you say you knew where Ryan had gone?’
‘I think he went back outside, into the stadium.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Barry.’
She turned around and made her way back through the double doors she’d just come through, heading down the corridor that took her to the exits that led out into the stadium itself.
The freezing cold air hit her as soon as she stepped outside, along with the eerie emptiness that a deserted stadium created, the buzz and excitement the new signing had created now long gone. Looking around she found Ryan sitting halfway up the stand, his hood pulled up over his head, his hands clasped between his open knees. He was staring straight ahead, out across the empty stadium, and for another of those brief seconds Amber felt a wave of feelings for this young man wash over her – feelings she couldn’t explain, but they were still there. She couldn’t switch them off just like that, not after everything that had happened.
She made her way over to the row of seats he was sitting in, sliding down onto the seat next to him. ‘I’m sorry, Ryan.’
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. ‘Sorry for what, Amber? Sorry for the fact we’re not together anymore, or sorry that I had to witness Jim Allen fucking you?’
She sat back, closing her eyes for a second and breathing out slowly. ‘I really am sorry.’
‘He only really came back here for you, didn’t he?’ Ryan said, finally turning to face her, not taking his eyes off her now. ‘That’s the only reason he came to Red Star, wasn’t it?’
Amber slowly shook her head. ‘That’s not fair, Ryan. He came here because this club is very close to his heart…’
‘Whatever.’ Ryan finally broke the gaze and turned back to stare out at the empty stadium in front of him.
‘Ryan, I…’
‘Did you ever love me, Amber?’
‘I… Of course I did.’
He turned to look at her again. ‘Really?’
‘Jesus, what is this, Ryan? When did I suddenly become the bad guy? It wasn’t me caught fucking two women in our bed.’
‘No, but I caught you…’ He looked away, down at the ground. ‘I’m sorry. I guess me seeing you with Jim…’ He looked at her, realisation now flooding his face. ‘I really blew it, didn’t I?’
She smiled slightly, wanting to reach out and take his hand but she was afraid of the signals that would send out. ‘Our whole relationship was a complicated mess, Ryan.’
‘Is that how it really felt to you? A mess?’
She looked away. No. That wasn’t how it had felt. Not all the time, anyway. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘But maybe we were kidding ourselves, Ryan.’ She turned back to face him again. ‘What I felt for you, it was real. I loved you, and…’
‘But you were never really in love with me, were you?’
She wanted to look away again – to hide the guilt she was feeling? Maybe. But he deserved the truth now. ‘Jim, he… he’s been such a huge part of me for so long and… I tried to pretend it was over, Ryan, I really did, because I didn’t want to go back there and leave myself open to that kind of hurt all over again, and I thought that if I could just… I wanted to believe that he wasn’t the only man I could love. I wanted to believe that so much…’
‘And you thought I might be the man that could help you see things differently? Is that it?’
‘When it’s said out loud it makes me sound so selfish,’ Amber said quietly, staring down at her clasped hands again.
‘I think we were both selfish, in our own ways,’ Ryan sighed, sitting back and pushing his hood back off his head. ‘I liked the idea of having this beautiful woman by my side, someone who was always going to be there whenever I needed her, but at the same time I couldn’t let that old life go. And it wasn’t fair on you.’
‘It wasn’t fair on us, Ryan. We never really gave each other a chance, did we?’
‘I thought we were getting there,’ he said. She looked at him again, his handsome face clouding over with a sadness she’d never seen in him before. ‘After the Christmas party, when you went back to Jim, I… I thought you were all I wanted. I thought that losing you was the worst thing that could happen to me and...’
‘Your head was all over the place, Ryan.’
‘I acted like an idiot. Like some spoiled kid who couldn’t have what he wanted and all I could think about was… I thought that if I tried to get your attention, tried to make you see that I couldn’t cope without you…’
‘Ryan… what are you talking about?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No, it does matter. To me.’
‘That night, when Gary and Debbie assumed I’d tried to… tried to harm myself… I wasn’t quite as wasted as everyone thought I was, Amber. I was sober enough to know exactly what I was doing.’
‘And what were you doing? Exactly?’
He turned away, staring straight out ahead again. ‘Like I said before, I thought if I could do something drastic enough to make you come running back to me…’
She narrowed her eyes slightly as she continued to stare at him. ‘Do you mean…? What you did…? That was all deliberate?’
‘I was desperate, Amber. I couldn’t get you out of my head, couldn’t think straight without you and I just thought… I just wanted you to come back to me. And I didn’t care how I had to do that.’ He looked at her. ‘He doesn’t deserve you.’
She laughed, and she hadn’t meant to do that out loud but she really hadn’t been able to help it. ‘Pretending to be so low that you wanted to kill yourself? That’s sick, Ryan. How could you do that? I was so worried about you, so scared; do you have any idea…?’
He continued to stare at her, his dark eyes boring deep into hers. ‘He doesn’t deserve you, Amber.’
‘I think he does,’ she said quietly, still slightly shocked by what he’d just told her. ‘I love him, Ryan. It’s as simple as that. I think I’ve been in love with him for most of my life, and I can’t just push that aside and pretend those feelings don’t exist because they do. They do.’
‘So, you never were in love with me, then?’
‘I didn’t say that. Jesus, I don’t know…’ She turned away for a second, pushing a hand through her hair, sweeping it back off her face. ‘I just don’t know, Ryan.’
‘If he’d never come back here… Amber, look at me, please.’
She slowly turned back to face him.
‘If he hadn’t come back to the North East, do you think we would have stood a chance?’
‘That would have depended very much on you, Ryan.’
It was his turn to look away, his eyes focusing on one of the groundsmen who’d come out to inspect the damage that morning’s activities might have inflicted on his perfect pitch. ‘It really was a mess, wasn’t it?’
Their eyes met again, but this conversation, it wasn’t making anything any easier. For either of them.
‘So, you and Jim…’ Ryan began, his fingers fiddling with a red and blue friendship bracelet he had wrapped around his left wrist. ‘When did you… Was it straight after you found me and…?’
She shook her head, stopping him from asking the question he was trying to ask. ‘No. No, it wasn’t straight after, but… Well, once I knew that you and me were over, I… It was like a bolt of – of realisation, I suppose, if that makes sense. It just hit me. I could either continue to fight what I felt for Jim, or I could just give in to what I’ve always known. That I need him.’
Ryan smi
led at her – a wry smile. ‘You don’t need anyone, surely.’
She smiled back, taking a quick look down at her still-clasped hands. ‘Yeah, you see, I do. I really do. This independence lark, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. Those tough-girl barriers I used to put up, they were only there to help me deal with the fact that I couldn’t have the one thing I really wanted – Jim Allen. And maybe I should have been more truthful to you and more honest with myself from the beginning, but then, I’m not sure either of us really knew what the truth was, did we?’
‘No,’ Ryan whispered. ‘No, we didn’t. So, how long have you…?’
‘Officially? A couple of days. Nobody knows yet. We haven’t made anything public, although the press seem quite happy to draw their own conclusions anyway, regardless of what the truth is.’
‘And what is the truth?’
Her eyes focused on her left hand – a hand that only a week or so ago had worn Ryan’s engagement ring, but now it was naked again, waiting for the man she considered to be the love of her life to put his own on there. And just thinking about that sent another frisson of excitement shooting through her, making her shiver ever-so-slightly. ‘The truth is…’ No. She wasn’t going to tell him that she and Jim were getting married. She wasn’t going to tell him they were seriously thinking of moving to Spain where they could finally make that fresh start they both wanted so badly. It was only fair that her father should be the first to know those little snippets of information, although she was dreading that particular conversation. ‘The truth is, it was time to face the fact that I can’t live without him, Ryan. I can’t do it. I pretend to be this strong, independent woman but all I ever wanted was for him to walk back into my life and tell me that he loved me. I never stopped dreaming about that day.’
‘And what if I can’t live without you, Amber?’
‘Oh, I think we both know that’s not true, though, don’t we? You’re young, you’ve got this incredible career, you can have any woman you want… Your future’s sorted, Ryan. You don’t need me.’
‘Neither does he.’
Amber said nothing for a second, just looked away briefly again, watching the groundsman on the pitch below crouch down to examine a damaged patch of grass, shaking his head as he ran his hand over it. ‘I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in decades,’ she said quietly, turning to face Ryan again. ‘When he walked out of my life a second time, when I told him to stay away from me… it was as though I’d made a decision, right there and then, to close a part of my life off, the part that belonged to him because, despite everything he’d done to me, I knew I would never stop loving him. And I didn’t, I couldn’t. So, to have him back, to really have him back it’s like – it’s like that door I closed almost twenty-one years ago has finally been re-opened. And I feel like I can breathe again.’
Every word she spoke tore into Ryan’s heart like someone ripping a blunt dagger right through it. It was a jagged pain, a gut-wrenching, agonising realisation and it was something he never wanted to experience again, so deep were the feelings it created. So maybe he should take a leaf out of her book and close that door that left him open to this hurt and this pain that no-one deserved to feel. Maybe he should just go back to the shallow and materialistic lifestyle he’d indulged in before. At least that way he wouldn’t have to experience this.
‘I really think we could have made a go of things, Amber,’ Ryan said, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I was ready to… I would have changed for you. I would have changed anything, for you.’
Amber shook her head again, not enjoying the way she was feeling right now, but what else could she say to him? That she thought they could have made a go of things, too? Maybe, in the heat of all the talk of engagements and celebrity weddings and brand-new, purpose-built mansions she’d got caught up in the whole footballer lifestyle. She’d let herself get carried along on that wave of fantasy because these people didn’t live in the real world. She did. And now that she was back in it she could see that, as far as her and Ryan were concerned, they’d never really stood a chance.
‘I still love you, Amber. I want you to know that.’
She said nothing. There wasn’t anything she could say. If he really did still love her – and she wasn’t altogether sure that he did – then it wouldn’t be fair for her to make him think she still had any feelings left for him, even if she did.
‘I care about you, Ryan.’ This time she did reach out and take his hand, squeezing it gently before standing up and leaving him alone. Saying anything more wasn’t going to benefit the situation. She’d said enough.
Ryan watched her leave, not taking his eyes off her until she was back inside, out of sight. When he’d asked her that question – what if he couldn’t live without her? – he hadn’t really meant it, at the time. He wasn’t the kind of person who needed just one woman; he’d proved that point good and proper, hadn’t he? But, as he turned back to look out at the now-empty-again stadium, the eerie quiet echoing around his head like a sudden migraine that wanted to make itself known, he suddenly realised he’d never actually spoken a truer word. Ryan Fisher couldn’t live without Amber Sullivan. That was the truth.
Chapter Thirty
Amber knocked quietly on the door of her dad’s office, slowly pushing it open. She felt sick. The nerves had taken hold on the drive over to his club’s training ground and they showed no signs of abating any time soon, but she had to do this. Before the press got hold of everything and took it into their own hands. The last thing she wanted was for him to find out anything else about her and Jim’s relationship from a newspaper.
‘How are you today?’ Freddie Sullivan asked, not looking up from his computer as Amber walked into the office, closing the door behind her.
‘I’m… fine. Are you okay?’
‘Well,’ He looked up from his laptop, his eyes fixed firmly on Amber, ‘… apart from the fact I’ve just found out my best friend started sleeping with my daughter just days after she turned sixteen, I’m fine. You here for a reason?’
Amber took a deep breath. This really wasn’t going to be easy. ‘Dad, I… I’m sorry. For everything that happened, but it wasn’t entirely Jim’s fault…’
‘No. I know it wasn’t,’ Freddie said, slipping his glasses onto his nose and turning his attention back to his laptop. ‘You were a very grown-up sixteen-year-old, Amber. Possibly a little naive, but I’m sure you knew exactly what you were doing. He was the adult. At the time.’ He looked at Amber again. ‘He should have known better. You were still a child.’
She looked out of the window, at the grey sky and the naked trees that shook slightly in the cold wind. It was a dull and depressing day, yet she didn’t see that. She felt as though every day was a beautiful day now, and that was because she finally got to wake up next to Jim, and stay there. Nobody had to run off or hide away or leave as soon as the sex was over. She could lie in his arms and make those plans she’d always wanted to make but had never had the chance to, until now. She just had to make her father realise that Jim made her happy. He was the only one who could make her happy. She knew that now.
‘I thought we’d been through all of this, Dad…’
‘Yes, we have. But do you have any idea how it feels for me to look at him now and think about what you two... What you and him… You were sixteen-years-old, Amber. You were still my baby girl, do you get that? You were my little girl, and he was having sex with you.’
She winced slightly at her dad’s words, turning away from him as she spoke. ‘We’re getting married, Dad.’ It was the best way to deal with this situation. Just come straight out with it. Skirting around the issue wasn’t going to help matters. Her father was never going to be jumping through hoops at the news so what was the point in trying to make it any easier or drag it out for any longer?
Freddie Sullivan looked up at Amber again, sliding his glasses down to the end of his nose as he did so. ‘Married?’
‘Me
and Jim,’ she sighed, leaning back against the window sill. ‘We’re getting married.’
‘You… I didn’t even know you and him… You’re together?’
She nodded. ‘I love him, Dad.’
Freddie started searching through his drawers for something. Whether he needed that “something” or not Amber couldn’t quite work out. ‘You don’t love him. You just think you do. You were infatuated with him, that’s all.’ He found whatever he’d been looking for and slammed the drawer shut, looking straight at her. ‘It’s time to grow up, Amber. You’re not sixteen anymore.’
‘No, I’m an adult, Dad, and regardless of what you think I know my own mind, okay? And I know that the only man I’ve ever loved is Jim…’
‘I brought that man into my house,’ Freddie interrupted, ‘… over twenty years ago, and what does he do? He takes my teenage daughter to bed, turns her head, and this is what happens! You’re not marrying him, Amber. I won’t allow it.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Amber laughed, folding her arms, unable to believe what she’d just heard. ‘You won’t allow it? I might be missing something here, but, when did we become Amish?’
‘Don’t be flippant, Amber.’
‘You can’t tell me who I can and can’t marry, Dad. And I didn’t come here to ask your permission. I came here to tell you what was going on myself before Jim and I go public.’
‘Go public?’
She nodded, not looking forward to telling him the next bit of news, either. ‘We’re flying out to Spain in a few days. Jim, he’s… he’s been offered the manager’s job at Malaga Athletico…’
‘Whoa, hold on there, rewind a bit.’ Freddie got up from behind his desk and walked out in front, leaning back against it. ‘Malaga Athletico? But, he picked Red Star over them, didn’t he?’
‘Apparently so.’
Freddie stared at his daughter, waiting for her to finish the story.
‘We need a fresh start, Dad. Away from here. Away from the past, from the prying eyes and the press intrusion and… and Ryan.’
Freddie looked down at the ground for a second, scuffing his trainers against the front of his battered old desk. ‘Yeah, you sure can pick ‘em, sweetheart.’ He looked back up at her. ‘Why couldn’t you and Ronnie have worked something out, huh? You two made such a beautiful couple. Why couldn’t you two have stayed together?’
Striker (Book 1 in the 'Striker' Trilogy) Page 49
