Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (28 page)

Booked a flight back to England.

She was the only person to ever make me happy, and I’ll never see her again.

I’m going to spend the next few hours getting very, very drunk with very, very small bottles of alcohol.

Simon’s hotel wasn’t that far from the center, and I ran there as fast as my body could take me. Clearly, there was still a lot I didn’t know about the man, but I still understood exactly how critical this moment really was.

Ironically, I was in a great position to understand Simon’s misery because of the pain he’d inflicted on me so long ago. I knew that it didn’t take much for self-hatred to resurface, that blaming yourself was easier and more satisfying than looking at the reality of the situation.

Arriving at the reception hall, I sprinted to the elevators and waited impatiently for the large, luxurious doors to slide open.

“Ms. Jones?”

I turned around, coming face-to-face with the tall woman who usually supervised the reception counter. Her expression was solemn, and my skin erupted into shivers as a very hollow dread settled in my chest, spreading until I felt small and completely empty.
 

“Yes?” I asked quietly.

“Mr. Ferguson said you’d drop by. I’m afraid he had to check out unexpectedly, but he left me instructions to give this to you,” she explained, her voice sad as she offered me a small white envelope.

My breath was coming in short, ragged gasps, and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I took the letter from her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, hurrying back to her place at the front desk as I stood perfectly still, frigid air blowing from a nearby vent and making my sweaty skin feel cold and alone.

The elevator finally dinged, its door sliding open to a future that no longer belonged to me.

Simon was gone. He’d left without a talk, a kiss, or a promise.

Without a single word.

My heart shattered into a million pieces.

I threw myself against the wall, staring at the ceiling and shivering while I tried to not cry. I don’t know how long I stood there, wishing it was all a bad dream and hoping he’d change his mind and come running back.

Eventually, I ran my finger along the unsealed flap of the envelope, extracting the small index card that had been nestled inside. A tear finally fell, crashing into the bright white paper and splattering into tiny droplets across the writing.

“You deserve better. Take care of yourself.”

I wanted to laugh at his joke, to rush up to his hotel room and run into his arms, telling him that there was no
better
. That he’d redeemed himself a thousand times over, that he was the most generous man I’d ever met.

The best lover.

The most caring boyfriend.

The perfect partner.

But, just like that, he’d fallen back into a despair that I could only just barely comprehend. He hated himself, and he was blind to anything or anyone that loved him.

And most of all, he was gone.
 

Emilia,

I’m sorry I can’t be the man you need.

I’m sorry for the hurt. I wish I could be there for you.

I love you more than I ever thought this sad heart could.

You deserve better. Take care of yourself.

I hoisted myself up on the massage table, leaning back and stretching my bare legs out as far as they’d go.

“Such an amazing semi-final, Simon,” Gerald said, a smile of approval etched across his old face. Affectionately called Little Jerry by the team, Gerald was one of the best athletic physical therapists in the business.

My pre-game jitters had long since faded away, and all the little aches and pains in my body were finally beginning to surface. A couple of muscles had been worked too intensely, and a few stress fractures were looming on the horizon. Nothing that couldn’t be remedied by Little Jerry.

If only my other aches could be so easily cured.

“I loved how you got that ball out the scrum and somehow still managed to run past their defense line with Harry and Lynn a minute later. Such a genius team effort,” Gerald bubbled.

“Thanks, Jerry,” I said with a smile that I had to force onto my face.

It was just a couple of days into the finals of the World Cup tournament, and excitement was high for everyone.

Everyone except for me, that is.

My teammates and I had once again become tabloid fodder, our every action reported and analyzed before the entire nation. While most of the paparazzi had unfortunately subjected the players’ wives and girlfriends to intense scrutiny, a few of us had been hit with an incessant barrage of sexual objectification and speculation.

I, for example, had quickly been branded “the sexiest bachelor in England,” a label that would’ve been hilarious had it not been so sad.

The very last thing I wanted was to be reminded that I was a bachelor, or to have all the country’s single ladies reminded of the same.

Little Jerry’s expert hands had started massaging my left calf in a deep, circular motion, releasing a little of the physical tension I was carrying there.

“I saw your dad on the news the other day, being interviewed with your mom,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s…new. And weird, for sure,” I laughed as he moved to the right calf, rolling out a knot beneath his fingers. “He watched the quarter-finals on TV, got all excited, and called to ask if he could watch the next match live.”

“That’s nice,” Jerry said.

“I’m just relieved he didn’t try to surprise me,” I continued. “Apparently that was his plan originally, but it’s a damn good thing he reconsidered. I mean, we hadn’t even seen each other in thirteen years.”

“I imagine that would’ve been a real surprise.”

“Not to mention my mom was already here. Now
that
would’ve been ugly. Real ugly.”

“So you prepared her in advance, then? How’d she take it?”

“About as well as you’d expect from a woman whose husband abandoned her and their son. Frankly I’m just glad that guns are illegal here,” I commented.

“Never trust a Yank with a weapon,” Jerry said automatically. “No offense intended.”

“My mom is actually British, she was born here,” I explained.

“Oh, well
that’s
a load better then,” Jerry teased dryly, showing his Irish heritage as he placed his hands on my thigh muscles, applying deep pressure to the few areas I’d been complaining about recently.

“So anyway, she yelled and cried, refused to see him on the first day. It was real ugly, especially since they got invited to a few press events and had to sit side by side,” I explained. “But then the weirdest thing happened. A couple days after my dad got here, my mom met his new wife, and they took to a weird…liking, I guess?”

“
Women
,” Jerry complained. He’d been the English national rugby team’s head physical therapist for over two decades now. He was great at his craft, dedicated to players and highly focused on work, but not exactly the most
enlightened
man.

My mother, of course, had every right to hate my father. But she also had every right to strike up a friendship with Bridget. All the blame fell squarely on my dad’s shoulders; he’d been callous and selfish, as far from noble as you could get. And despite uprooting me from the little stability I’d found in England thirteen years ago, or pleading with me now to spend Christmas with him in California, his attempts at reconciliation had been mostly unfruitful.

Much like my attempts with Emilia had been and would always be. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree with my dad, as it turned out, and no matter how hard I tried to act like a gentleman, I’d never quite be able to escape my past. I would always be a thug, a lowlife bully who was just trying too hard now. A
worthless little punk
, as Argus Hunt had so aptly described me.

“Simon?” Little Jerry’s voice said distantly, as if I were in a dream. Focusing these days had been an ordeal. I was supposedly at the peak of my career, just having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and qualifying England for the World Cup semifinals, but yet the peak felt very hollow indeed.

Without her, nothing seemed to matter very much.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“I was asking you how much sleep you’d been getting lately, since you seem so out of it. I mean, you have a damn good presence on the field, but otherwise it feels like you’re just on another world.”

“I’m here,” I said defensively.

As
here
as I’d ever be now.

“Is that why I had to ask you three times why you seem distracted lately? ‘Cause you were paying so much attention?”

“Yeah okay, fair enough. Maybe I’ve lost a little of my verve,” I conceded.

Jerry groaned in frustration. “See? They gone done it again. That
sexy bachelor
cover was pure bullshit, I said all along. They come and lure our players with promises of cash and photo shoots with sexy women, then suddenly everybody wonders why you don’t like playing as much.”

I looked down at Little Jerry’s hands, frantically massaging my thighs, and sighed. I didn’t even know where to begin….

“What is it, Simon? The fame going up to your head? The women going down to your other head?”