Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (29 page)

Of course, as a young man, I’d enjoyed the prestige that had followed my success. But women had been the least of my worries for years now.

Well, every woman but one.

I leaned back onto the raised headrest of the massage table, closing my eyes and trying my best to drown out Jerry’s rant. Immediately, my brain was assaulted with visions of Emilia. Her muscular legs as she tied her pink running shoes on in the morning, the small pit in the bed as she invited me to come jogging with her, the way she pushed her head back when I feasted on her luscious body every night after work.

I wanted it all back, more than anything else in the world.

If only that were possible.

I groaned, covering my face with my arm and trying not to think about just how miserable
the sexiest bachelor in England
really was.

She rang the doorbell as I was setting myself up for another sleepless night, one of the many gifts from Emilia, I guess. Not that I cared, as long as I still felt like we had a connection. I guess a shitty, painful thread is better than none.

I opened the door, and there she was. Beautiful. Strikingly so. Tall, an hourglass figure that would have driven me crazy a year ago. Blond hair cascading on her shoulders. Funny how that works, when all I wanted was a petite brunette whose tits easily fit in the palms of my hands.

She was smartly dressed, and intelligence sparkled in her eyes as she spoke.

“A hooker for the hooker,” she said with a wink as I stood there like a statue.

Courtesy of the team. Bunch of lovely assholes who worried for me, I guess.
 

I panicked a little and ushered her in, praying for this to not be all over the tabloids the next day. That would be the last thing Emilia needed.

If she still minded at all, that is.

Beer was already on hand on the kitchen counter. American beer, she noticed. I had no explanation for her.

At least not at first.

She tried a bit, rubbed her beautiful ass on my cock a couple of times. Ran her lips on my neck. I can’t say I wouldn’t have taken the release. Maybe it would have chased away the image of Emilia.

Permanently etched in my soul.

But of course, I couldn’t.
 

So we stayed there for hours, standing in the kitchen, drinking American beer. She ditched her heels and I poured my soul like I never had to any counselor.

My dad, my mom, Jake, Argus, Emilia.

Emilia.

Emilia.

And when I was done talking, I talked more.

She listened without saying a word. Of course, this could all end up in the tabloids the next day, with a lump sum on her bank account. But at this point, it all felt too good to stop.

And when I did finally stop, I was ready.

Ready for the World Cup.

Ready to accept.

Ready to be the man I should have always been.

Even if I’d lost Emilia.

“I still think the grey suit would look much better on you,” my mother commented, propping the hotel room’s windows open and pulling a pack of clove cigarettes from her purse. “Especially for a press conference.”

“You know you’re not supposed to smoke inside,” I scolded as I stood in front of the mirror and adjusted the lapels of my leather jacket one last time.

“I opened the window.”

“There’s a strict no-smoking policy, and you could easily set off the smoke detectors.”

“That hasn’t happened yet,” she pointed out.

“So you’re going to keep trying until it does?” I teased.

“Grey really highlights the color of your eyes, you know. The jacket isn’t doing you any favors.”

I took a deep breath and waited until the urge to begin a petty argument had left me before heading back to the bedroom, sitting on the mattress with a muted sigh.

Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough, bringing with it the World Cup Final and an end to this sickeningly sweet mother/son arrangement. Evelyn would fly back home, and I’d finally be left alone to wallow in uninterrupted self-pity.

Home
.

So close to Emilia, Johnnie’s, the rec center, and everything else I’d left behind. With a brisk shake of my hand, I tried to make the envious thought fly away, swatting in front of my face as if it was an annoying bug.

Striking at phantoms didn’t work any better today than it had any other time I’d tried it over the last two months. I’d left her stranded, without a word of explanation, proving once again that I was just a worthless, unreliable punk.

I rummaged through my suitcase and extracted the long, thin velvet jewelry box that had never made it to Emilia’s hand. A small, sad laugh escaped my lips as I opened it carefully, inspecting the delicate feminine watch inside.

“It’s hers, isn’t it?” my mother asked, flicking her cigarette out the window.

“What do you mean?”

“The woman in the park. Bridget’s daughter. It’s her watch, right?”

“Kind of,” I said evasively.

“Why do you have it?”

“Because I never gave it to her.”

“You look at it every day,” she commented, absent-mindedly kneading her fingers together. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to throw it away at first, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. It was supposed to be reassuring. A way to count down how long until we could be with each other again,” I sighed. The symbol of our inevitable reunion had turned into a cruel mockery, a reminder of the time we’d spent apart.

Frustrated, my hand trembled as I faced the urge to smash it against the floor.

Except, once again, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was the last piece of her I had, and the last piece of her I’d ever have.

“Why don’t you give it to her?” Evelyn asked.

I turned, staring at my mother as I struggled to comprehend the question. It was like being asked why water is wet.

“I don’t deserve her,” I finally concluded with a shrug. “I would have hurt her.”

“You certainly would have,” she said, sitting on the bed next to me and grabbing my chin in her hand, turning my face in her direction. “But not as much as you’re hurting her right now, I think.”

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“Yes, I do. You’re afraid that you’re not fit for the task. I understand, I just
disagree
. I also remember the looks she sent you that day at West Field, and I wonder if you didn’t rob her of the chance to decide for herself. Don’t you ever wonder what that decision would have been, Simon?”

I opened my mouth, ready to protest even though I didn’t know what I was going to say.
 

Then a sinking feeling overtook my heart.

Don’t you ever wonder what that decision would have been, Simon?

Before I could find the words, a loud knock on the door interrupted us. I inspected the watch again, my mother’s eyes burning into me as I finally looked back at her. She bore the beautiful smile of a woman who’d made peace, against all odds.

The knocks on the door resonated again in the room and Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up slowly as if they were asking a silent question.

Placing a wordless challenge on her only son.

What if, I too, could make peace?

The knocks intensified and the team’s assistant coach called out my name with urgency in his voice.

I held my mom’s stare for a second and smiled back before breaking eye contact.
 

It was time to go.

And time to make decisions.

I placed Emilia’s watch inside the pocket of my leather jacket and headed for the door.

Being a great coach means more than being an athlete.

You need to be a great man. You need to be able to shake off the panic, to keep your cool even when everything is going horribly wrong.

Maybe that’s why, when I broke the news to my coach five minutes before a press conference, all he did was pat me on the shoulder and shake my hand.

I hope that, one day, I can be a great coach too.

“You’re late,” Shauna shouted, waving in my direction as I poked my head out from my office.

“Hello to you, too, sweetie,” I called back, cutting through the crowded gym on the way to meet Adam. Shauna playfully rolled her eyes at me before swooping back around to continue chatting with her boyfriend Michael. Across from the couple, Theo was beaming a bright smile in my direction, his mere presence here today a testament to the miracles Marjorie Evans had worked throughout the fall.