by Alison Bond
‘Then what?’
‘Then nothing, then come back inside.’
Joe’s eyes widened. He looked down to remind himself what he was wearing. Jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, clean and vaguely trendy. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘You want me to go with you?’ asked his father.
Samantha groaned a little inside when Joe said yes. Not only was Simon trying to oust her as Joe’s agent, but it looked like he was hungry for the limelight too. She would have to keep a careful eye on him. He was the type who’d sell his story and not see how he was doing any harm by talking about family for money. Then he’d wait a month and do it again.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Ready?’
‘Now?’ said Joe.
‘Now.’
It was starting to get dark and the quiet residential street lit up like bonfire night when he stepped outside.
‘Hello,’ he said to the general inquisitive mass. ‘All right?’
They launched at him, spitting a dozen questions all at once.
‘What was your first reaction when you heard the news?’
‘How did you feel?’
‘Tell us what it was like, Josef …’
‘It’s Joe,’ he said.
Sam watched from the doorway. He did pretty well she thought. His quotes would be bland, but bland was good when the alternative was inflammatory or arrogant. Right or wrong, nobody expected much from a footballer’s intellect. He ducked awkward questions instinctively; when asked for his opinions about fellow squad members or the England manager he just repeated what he’d already said about being honoured and pleased and happy, and after five minutes when Samantha said, ‘That’s all, guys. He needs to get his rest – tomorrow’s a school day,’ she got a good-natured laugh.
The reporters all packed up their kit and were gone within fifteen minutes. They were on his side, for now.
The next day the back pages led with England’s newest star. Most of them featured him before the fold too, as well as candid shots of Layla looking bewildered but very pretty. They said she was his girlfriend.
One newspaper christened him JOE WONDER! and Samantha hoped that it would stick. It was a great nickname.
But she knew what Joe perhaps did not. They might love him today, but they could turn in a heartbeat. A missed opportunity, a failed chance, and Joe Wonder would be nobody’s hero. She liked Joe. She was involved. She was determined, no matter what his father thought, no matter what Richard did to tempt him away, to be there behind him should he fall.
29
She arranged to meet Jackson on neutral ground, a basement restaurant on Villiers Street. He’d suggested lunch. She’d lied and said that she was too busy, but she could meet him for dessert and coffee.
‘Since when do you eat dessert?’ he’d said.
‘Just coffee then.’
So they met for coffee after her fictional lunch appointment.
She felt childish for wanting him to think she was rushed. She was trying to prove that he was an idiot for letting her go. He should have stood by her professional reputation rather than watch it slide into the mud, dragged down by a dirty tackle. What was the point of sleeping with the boss if it didn’t even give you job security? Though of course that was never the point for her. She hadn’t needed a reason to get involved with Jackson; she had needed a reason not to.
‘How was your lunch?’ he said, and the arch of his eyebrow made her suspect that her ‘so busy’ deceit may have been a big waste of time. He looked exactly the same and she couldn’t meet his eye without having to acknowledge that neither time apart, nor his betrayal, had diminished their connection.
‘Insubstantial,’ she said, ‘a salad.’ Knowing full well he wasn’t exactly asking what she’d had.
And then she ordered from the dessert menu because she didn’t like the thought of being so predictable. Not even to him.
‘Richard’s got it into his head that I am bound by the non-compete clause in my contract,’ she said. ‘I know technically I resigned, but I need to work, Jackson. I know you don’t want this to go fifteen rounds with the lawyers any more than I do.’
‘How well you know me,’ he said. She saw the twinkle in his eye and she found it simultaneously condescending and sexy. Damn. ‘I won’t be holding you hostage. Go ahead and rule the world.’
‘I’d like you to put that in writing,’ she said, staring firmly down at the cheesecake she didn’t want so as to avoid being snared by his watchful gaze, ‘to prevent any future misunderstanding.’
‘That’s sensible,’ he said, nodding. ‘Do you have something for me to sign?’
No, she didn’t. Jackson could hardly sign a dinner bill without checking with his lawyer first. She hadn’t anticipated that this would be so easy.
‘I’ll get something to you this afternoon,’ she said. ‘The transfer window is just round the corner and I need my business to be fully functioning by then. I don’t want any speed bumps.’
‘No,’ said Jackson. ‘You wouldn’t want that.’
There was a playfulness to his tone that she found impossible to read. ‘Is this amusing to you?’ she said. ‘Does my little business venture seem cute?’
‘No, Sam, but you do.’
‘Cute?’
‘I heard a rumour about you and Aleksandr Lubin,’ he said.
‘I don’t see how that’s any of your business.’
‘Be careful, Sam, that’s all.’
‘I stopped having to take your advice a few months ago,’ she said. ‘It’s actually the best thing about not working for you any more.’
‘And what’s the worst?’
She stared at him, using all her pent-up disaffection to quash the desire that arose unbidden from within. ‘I think you know,’ she said, looking back down at the damn cheesecake and wondering why she felt like crying.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I miss you too, you know. Every day.’
It was no good. She looked back at those eyes again and this time she let down her defences, knowing that he would see in her eyes how much it meant to her. How much he meant. The air between them crackled.
He pulled in a short sharp breath between his teeth and she felt a tug in her loins so hard she had to shuffle in her seat, which only intensified her desire, and she called on every ounce of her self-preservation instinct to stop herself reaching out for him.
He glanced at his watch. ‘I have an hour. We could go to that place in Covent Garden, the one with the slate-grey sheets. See if it’s still the same.’
‘They were heather,’ she said.
‘They were grey,’ he said. ‘And I was kidding.’
‘I know.’
‘But you remember?’
Of course she did. It was the day she was awarded her FIFA licence, the small piece of paper that enabled her to play the game for real, to buy and sell the most talented footballers she could find. To make heroes out of schoolboys.
She had danced on the street, literally danced, and Jackson watched her, knowing beyond any reasonable doubt that he was in love with this woman.
‘How could I forget,’ she said. ‘I became an agent that day.’
Jackson didn’t laugh very often but when he did he did so with his whole body and spirit, his shoulders shaking with guttural mirth that was instantly infectious. ‘And that was the most important thing that happened that day? Becoming an agent?’
She had been truly happy then. She allowed the memory of it to infuse her muddled head with joy. Dancing in the street she had felt free.
‘You’re a good dancer,’ he had said to her, and she had continued to boogie, wanting to jump up and click her heels together, the knowledge that she was the first woman in the country to be able to deal on his level making her more audacious than ever.
‘Dance with me?’ she’d said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Come on, what is it you always say? Anything is possible?’
They stood i
n the middle of the indifferent London crowds and danced, laughing at first and then cheek to cheek. Their breath mingled and they knew, they both knew. Their movements became slower until they were just two people holding each other and she could feel his heart beating against her chest, the frantic pace of it making her realize that he was just as nervous as she was, just as excited. She was his equal now, almost, and so she allowed him to kiss her, their very first kiss, to surrender to the loaded glances and unspoken promises that had been between them for months, for years.
It was a good kiss, a great kiss, and she’d pulled away, scared.
‘It won’t work,’ she’d said. ‘Me and you together. You know that, don’t you?’ And she had been right.
‘Relax, will you?’ he’d replied. ‘I didn’t ask you to marry me.’
He knew a hotel and they practically ran to it. She didn’t notice her surroundings at first, consumed with sensation, her body exploding with pent-up tension, erupting with suppressed desire from the very moment he was inside her.
That first time was frantic and afterwards she fell back on the bed and felt wonderful, and a short while later they had that inane argument about whether the sheets were grey or heather.
They spent two days in bed, trying to exhaust all the sexual attraction in a single bacchanalian frenzy. But it was hopeless, and without meaning to she had almost fallen in love.
Almost.
Now, a few hundred yards from where all that had taken place it felt like a hundred years. Opposite her Jackson’s smile looked like a smirk.
‘Yes,’ she said resolutely. ‘Getting my licence was the most important thing that happened that day.’
She pushed her plate aside, any pretence of appetite over and done with.
‘We’re finished here,’ she said.
That night she called Lubin and told him that she was naked and horny. Only one of these was true.
‘So what can we do about that?’ Lubin said.
‘I thought you might have some ideas?’ she said. ‘Use your imagination.’
Jackson had left her in a state of lustful hunger and she was afraid that if she didn’t do something about it she could easily find herself at his door, yearning for release. Lubin was a distraction.
He worked.
The letter she sent to Jackson for him to sign was returned to her within an hour.
She arranged to fly back to Krakow on the same flight as Joe. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. Richard could be very persuasive – that’s how he made his living. He was insidious. He was the kind of man who would travel a thousand miles and pretend that he was just passing. He wanted Joe and he was used to getting what he wanted. But she would cling on to Joe with everything she had. He was special. And he was hers.
‘You know that things are about to change, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Do you think you can handle it? You could be a few weeks away from being the most famous seventeen-year-old in England.’
‘How do you know something like that?’
‘Famous? Well, if you play, obviously, because you’ll start on the bench,’ said Samantha, ‘then you need to play your best, but attitude is equally important and, I won’t lie, you’re a good-looking kid, which helps. It maybe be superficial, but it helps a great deal.’
‘No,’ said Joe, ‘I meant how do I know if I can handle it?’
She saw the cabin crew whispering when they disembarked. Soon they wouldn’t bother to whisper. With a little luck soon Joe wouldn’t be able to take a step in public without being asked for his autograph.
And Samantha Sharp would be back on track for success.
Leanne had managed admirably in her absence. The deals were stacking up nicely. Nothing official of course, not until the window, but with a little luck there would be plenty to celebrate by the end of January.
‘Can I have Christmas off?’ said Leanne.
Christmas. She would most likely spend Christmas waiting for Liam to call. Watching festive television and resisting the urge to drink. What if that call never came? What if she never heard from him again? ‘Sure,’ she told Leanne. ‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Fab,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘What are your plans?’
‘Get back on the London scene,’ said Leanne. ‘Chinawhite, Volstead, Boutique 60. See who’s available. Holidays are a stressful time you know, lots of break-ups, lots of footballers needing a little Christmas treat, if you know what I mean.’
‘What is it with you and footballers?’
Leanne rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s see. Killer bodies, massive wages, long summer breaks, family values, VIP treatment … should I go on?’
‘Don’t you want more?’
‘More than that? Are you kidding me? You’re just bitter because you know I’ll leave you as soon as I find the one for me.’
There was truth in that, but she also felt that Leanne’s vision of success, to be a footballer’s wife, was myopic. Leanne had great tits, but many other fine qualities too. ‘Where will I find an assistant as good as you?’ she said.
‘You won’t,’ said Leanne, ‘but we’ll find you someone with potential.’
Samantha didn’t doubt it. She was sure that Leanne would leave as neatly and efficiently as she did everything else. Unlike Sam, who had only ever had one real job and managed to leave it through an ugly conspiratorial back door.
I was shoved. By a man who said he loved me.
‘Lubin asked for a meeting,’ added Leanne. ‘You’d think by now he’d call you directly.’
‘He’s being professional,’ she said, but secretly she agreed. What kind of mixed messages was she getting when he took her call from London three days before for some filthy phone sex, but then called her assistant to set up their next date?
He asked her to meet him at the stadium during training. When she got there she found him down in the stands, close enough to the pitch to smell the damp grass. She saw Joe and Gabe, but they didn’t see her. Her lover looked her up and down in a proprietary way that she wished she could find insulting rather than erotic. It looked as if he wanted to be somewhere else with her so that he could have her. And she would let him too.
‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘About Joe. It is very good for him, for you too.’
And White Stars, she added silently. They had never had so much international attention. First the UEFA Cup, now Joe – for a starfucker like Lubin it was the perfect end to the year. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘He deserves it, and he’s coping with the attention well.’
‘And Muswell?’
They both watched Gabe running along the touchline. ‘Disappointed,’ she said. ‘But it was a lot to hope for.’
‘How many seasons do you think he has left in him?’
She decided to tell a half-lie. He was lucky to have had even one, but to say so would be a terrible betrayal. ‘I don’t know,’ she said instead. ‘He is fit, healthy. He needs to get his hunger back I think.’
‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said. ‘For Gabe.’
He outlined the details of an approach from a team in Russia, explaining first why they had not contacted Samantha or White Stars directly. ‘I am known to them,’ he said. ‘You are not. They know you only by reputation.’ The team, a mid-table outfit with relatively little money, were looking to raise their international profile and needed a cheap striker with name recognition. ‘There are not many around.’
She nodded, wondering why this all felt so peculiar. Her sixth sense was dubious. True, name strikers who came cheap were not common, but Gabe would be incredibly lucky at this point to play another year of professional football with any club. And yet Lubin seemed cautionary.
‘It sounds like a remarkable opportunity,’ she said.
‘It is. And as such there would be certain … costs involved. There are a number of parties who would be interested in the opportunity.’
She looked him directly in the eye. This was not a language barri
er, a mistranslation: he was asking her to consider something underhand.
Her sense of fair play told her to cut him down right now, have no further part in this conversation. And yet she sat and listened to what he had to say. Here it was, the shady side of football that she had avoided entirely ineffectively. Even with her many years of a tough moral stance, resisting temptation wherever she smelt it, she would for ever be connected with scandal anyway, thanks to the unexplained funds out there in the Cayman Islands.
So this time she listened.
It was a complex negotiation. The club needed to spend enough money on a striker to make a story out of it, but they didn’t have the money themselves, which is where Lubin would come in. He would essentially be paying the club to sign Gabe Muswell, and recouping the money out of the subsequent transfer fee and signing bonus once the deal was approved by the club board. It was utterly fraudulent and discovery of such would surely mean the end of her career.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What’s in it for you?’
‘There is an overlap of interests,’ he said. ‘My father needs some of these people to support me in a trade dispute.’
‘You told me that your father was the last honest billionaire in Russia.’
‘He has me to tread the edges. To divert.’
Her mind was cartwheeling between what was right and what was possible. ‘I could get into a lot of trouble,’ she said.
‘You are already in trouble, no? Back in England. Is that not why you left?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘I listen to people, Samantha. You must guess what they say about you.’
‘What who says about me?’
‘The people I talk to on your behalf. Owners, managers, even players. They think you left England because it is too strict. They think that you want to work out here because we are not so … precise. It is a playground for those with the right attitude. Surely you considered this? Why do you think doors have been opened to you?’
She moved her business out here because she wanted to sign Joe, the best young player she’d ever seen. That this region was renowned for being the underbelly of shady football deals had nothing to do with it. Was that really what people thought? It made sense. It had been tough, but not quite as tough as she had anticipated. How could she have been so naive?
