I watch every second of that embrace. Her face when he lifts her off the ground, her laughter, the ease of it. Nothing between Tess and me has ever been easy.
He was a good player. I said that myself. But tonight he saved the game in my place, and thirty thousand people cheered him while I stood there feeling like a man who had started the match and somehow still lost it. Then I see him holding Tess, my Tess, and she’s smiling up at him like she doesn’t know exactly what that does to me.
I find her in the hallway outside the locker room. She doesn’t slow when I fall into step beside her, but I catch the way she worries at her lip.
“Great game,” she says.
“Is that what you said to Reid when he had his hands all over you?”
Her head jerks toward me. “I thanked him for the hug, yes.”
I stop her with a hand around her wrist. “I saw the way he looked at you.”
“He was thanking me. I cleared him to play on a calf knock.”
My throat tightens. “I saw the way you looked at him.”
Her expression hardens. “And what about you? What about the pictures of you with that woman? So it’s fine for you to do whatever you were doing, but I can’t accept a thank-you hug from a player I treated?”
“That was weeks ago,” I snap. “Before you and I—”
“I saw you at Halo.” Her voice goes cold. “The night after I came to your house.”
I stare at her. “I was with the lads. We go for beers all the time.”
“From where I was standing, you had a woman on your arm. Then you went off with her afterward. And you’ve got the gall to stand here and act jealous over three seconds in a football stadium?”
“Why were you watching me at Halo?” I demand.
“I was out with Donovan and Layla,” she says sharply. “I wasn’t stalking you.”
The room seems to tilt. “You were out with him?”
“With him and Layla. As friends.”
That lands like a punch. She steps closer and jabs a finger into my chest, and I let her. “Besides, you have no claim over me. You said mine into a mirror after a quick fuck in the gym and then showed up in the press with some other woman. And you know what? You’re right. We’re nothing, officially, so don’t stand here making me feel guilty for doing my job.”
“Don’t say nothing,” I say.
“What are we then?”
The anger in her face cracks for a second, and there’s fear underneath it. “I’ve been lying to my employer about you. I’ve filed false assessments. I’ve let you into places that were supposed to be professional, and you—”
“I haven’t touched anyone else,” I say. “Not since you.”
That stops her.
“The photos were nothing,” I tell her. “What you saw at Halo was nothing.”
Tears gather at the corners of her eyes. “You told me—”
“And I meant it.”
I cup her cheek. “You’re mine, Tess.”
She shudders when I kiss her. She lets me pull her against the wall, lets me kiss her hard enough to make the hallway disappear. But then she presses a hand to my chest and pushes back, just enough to stop me.
I break away, breathing hard. “I haven’t wanted anyone else. Not once.”
Her jaw tightens. “You’re injured, Rafe. Publicly now. I have to file a real assessment this week, and whatever this is, I can’t let it affect that report.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“It already does,” she says quietly. “Every decision I make about your hip, your minutes, whether you play the Founders’ Cup or Donovan does—it’s all compromised because I have feelings. About both of you. And I can’t fix that, so I need you to give me some room.”
Room. For him, too.
I take a step back. Then another.
“Okay,” I say.
Her face flickers. “Rafe—”
“I heard you.” I keep backing away. “Do your job, Montgomery.”
She turns and walks off, leaving me standing in the corridor with the feeling that I’ve just done the right thing, and somehow lost anyway.
GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT) ends August 27
- 3x ebook copies of His Beautiful Game
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