Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (30 page)

I backed myself through the double doors, now much easier to open, with a little curtsy to the Phys Ed student who’d agreed to help pick up some of the slack left by Simon’s departure.

“Sorry,” I blurted as I entered Adam’s office, keenly aware of my tardiness.

“It’s fine,” he shrugged. “We’re off-duty in a way today, I guess. Are you ready for the interviews?”

I nodded slowly, hoping Adam didn’t notice the way I was biting my lower lip. I didn’t think I would ever be
ready
to offer Simon’s job to a complete stranger, but it needed to be done. Everyone at the center had gotten used to having a second coach to pick up the slack, and we could afford to hire one thanks to the second donation Simon had sent along with his letter of apology and resignation.

“Just one thing,” I said, sitting in Adam’s large swivel chair and trying to force myself to stop thinking about Simon. It was always an impossible task, but doubly so with the question at hand.

“Are we specifically requiring someone who can coach rugby?” I asked slowly. “It would really be a shame to waste all that new equipment.”

“But?” Adam asked.

“But it’s hard,” I explained quietly. Adam knew just how much Simon’s departure had devastated me. I’d been unable to hide it in the immediate fallout that followed. Adam had done his best to commiserate, handing me tissues, saying he missed him too, inviting me over for dinner with his family…two months later, the pain was still nearly unbearable.

“We’ll see,” Adam said softly.

“Thanks,” I said, my lip coming dangerously close to quivering.

“I also have a question before we get started,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Did you see the World Cup Final?”

I winced, wondering why Adam would ask that. He knew that I was avoiding everything related to Simon, including the Rugby World Cup.

“I’ll assume that means you haven’t,” Adam continued, bending over the desk and tapping his keyboard to shut off the screen saver. “Read the webpage I have pulled up, please.”

“I’d really rather not,” I pleaded, practically leaping from the chair before catching a glimpse of burly men wearing white rugby kits emblazoned with a red rose, the emblem of the English national team.

Adam’s insistence this morning was weird, he’d been very supportive since Simon left. We’d never made things official, but practically everyone had at least noticed how close Simon and I had gotten over the summer. I’d even gotten a few crude questions from the girls’ team, asking if I’d “dumped” Simon.

As if.

“Emilia,” Adam stated with a slight reproach in his voice. Dejected, I sat back down and stared at the new flat-screen monitor that Simon’s money had bought us.

England’s Tragic Loss
, the article was titled.

Okay, so they’d lost. Big deal, I thought as I skimmed the text. It took me a moment to realize that the
tragic loss
wasn’t referring to the World Cup, which they had in fact won thanks to Simon.

The page went on to talk about how fantastic he was, how they never could’ve done it without him, extolling his virtues at length. I glanced over at Adam, throwing shade at him with my eyes, wondering why he was making me read this.

Adam made a circular motion in the air with his hands, telling me to continue.

I scrolled down the page, the breath catching in my throat as the true nature of the article finally clicked. It wasn’t about the World Cup at all, but rather Simon himself. Specifically, how much the English team was going to suffer now that he had unexpectedly retired.

Simon had retired
.

“I’m not giving up on rugby, just competitive play. I want to branch out, exploring other projects, including one that’s very close to my heart,” the article quoted Simon as saying, going on to speculate about what those projects might be.

I couldn’t read another word, my heart pounding away in my chest. I stood up, knees wobbling beneath me.

“I don’t— What is—” For a second, it felt like my brain had simply forgotten how to work. Simon was quitting? He couldn’t be. Rugby was everything to him. Sure, coming back here and confronting his past had clearly unsettled him, but I never believed it had hurt him enough to make him reconsider his career.

Simon was one of the strongest men I knew, not just physically but also emotionally. There was never any doubt in my mind that what happened to him here would stop him from getting what he really wanted.

An absolutely insane, crazy thought settled in my head, and I struggled to silence it.

There was no way in hell, was there?

I told myself I was being naive, but the erratic pounding in my heart refused to calm down.

“I’m not—” I began, but couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. I looked at Adam, tears welling up in my eyes.

“No, you’re not, sweetie” he agreed, opening his arms and giving me a hug. “It’s okay,” he kept repeating as the heartbreak from the past two months suddenly threatened to spill out.
 

But today, I needed a heavy dose of reassurance, one I was unable to ask for. I needed the crazy thought in my head dispelled, and as quickly as possible, before I built a house of cards on top of it.

Slowly, Adam pulled my arms from his waist and brought his hand beneath my chin. The look on his face was so serene that my heart rate felt like it came to a halt before picking back up with the giddiness of a young girl.

“You know what to do,” he said, a peaceful smile etched across his face.

That was all the reassurance I needed.

Simon had come back.

My mind foggy with the adrenaline pumping in my veins, I opened the door with trembling hands and moved down the long hallway, towards the small meeting room we’d set up to interview prospective candidates for the coach position.

Legs shaking beneath me, I took a tentative step forward. My mind was screaming with impatience, my heart bleeding with pain.

On the other side of the corridor, the kids were joyous and rambunctious.

Could I ever reconcile how he left?

I took a few more steps, the door to the meeting room looming at the far end of the hall. The walls were a bright, mint green, the fresh paint a reminder of all the renovation we’d been able to do thanks to Simon.

My heart went into overdrive, its beating erratic and almost painful.

The truth was, I’d already come to terms with his actions. I’d known him back then, seen the pain for myself. Now I knew the source of his struggle, and could forgive him for how much he had fought.

I continued to walk forward, picking up speed until I was running. In no time, I reached the door and flung it open.

Inside, Simon was sitting on a chair, dressed in the most dapper suit I’d ever seen him wear. His forearms were lying across his spread thighs, his bent head shooting up in my direction as I rushed into the room.

I wanted to run into his arms, kiss him, and hit his chest until he hurt as much as I had, but the harrowing look on his face told me a very different story.

The story of a man who was already in pain.

“Emilia,” he whispered, his hands brushing across his face before finally settling into a prayer position beneath his chin. “I’m so sorry.”

I stood frozen in front of him, unwilling to break the moment but yearning for more. It was high time I got answers to the millions of questions that had been plaguing my nights, and my days, for the past two months.

He stood up and took my hand in his, bringing my fingers to his quivering lips.

“I’m so sorry I left, Emilia. I was broken. I was lost. I was so afraid of hurting you again, so worried that I could never change. I convinced myself you were better off without me. I came here to make amends, and maybe help you heal, but all of a sudden I felt like I was fifteen again. I hated myself, and I couldn’t stand the thought of dragging you back into that.”

His fingers were cold, but a tingling heat began spreading from where he touched me. Up my arm, into my chest, suffusing my whole body with golden warmth.

“I never wanted to hurt you, but by trying to avoid that, I ended up doing more damage than I ever would have if I’d stayed,” he said softly.

I nodded, tears welling in my eyes as I scanned the paleness of his face and the dark grey bags under his eyes.

“The self-hatred has to go, Simon,” I croaked, my voice barely above the recently repaired air-conditioning.
 

“What if it doesn’t?” he asked.

“Then we’ll find ways to deal with it,” I reassured him, holding my hands up to his face. His eyes had been avoidant and repentant, but suddenly they locked onto mine with an intensity that reminded me of the old Simon, the one who had challenged me to the sexiest game of streetball ever.

“I love you, Simon. You, the former thug, the ex-bully, the repentant lover, the wonderful coach, the wounded man. I love all of you.”

“Emilia, I love you,” he cried out, his hands reaching for my own face and pulling me into his chest. Before I could breathe, his lips were crashing into mine. I wrapped my arms around his large back, returning the kiss and sealing our fates together with the unspoken promise of reconciliation and a beautiful future.

I think the only way I managed to stay sane in the waiting room was catching up with Shauna. It still wasn’t enough to stop me from thinking about Emilia, but at least I was able to breathe while doing it.

Apparently she, Ella and Theo are all doing great. Word got around about the part they played in getting Argus behind bars, and the community’s so happy to see the geriatric drug lord in prison that they’re practically local heroes. The police check in from time to time, making sure nobody is after revenge, but I don’t think the old geezer had any friends left.

The news just got better from there. She was actually listening when I suggested she look into rugby scholarships, and she rattled off a whole list of colleges that she planned to apply to next year. I promised to write her a letter of endorsement to each place, and her eyes lit up.

She promised not to tip off Emilia that I was here, and asked if I was going to “win her back.”

I was certainly going to try.

Waiting for Emilia in the rec center had been torture, my mind constantly cycling between knowing it was a mistake to leave and worrying that maybe it was a mistake to come back.

When she finally made an appearance, I had barely been able to breathe. I could feel my body screaming with every move I made as a riot of conflicting emotions seized me. All I could do was hope that she would accept my apology and wait to see her reaction.

Sitting in the car next to her today, I once again had a similar feeling. Then, I had been caught between terror and hope. Now, it was between excitement and anxiety, euphoria and awkwardness. I’d wanted to give her a
good
surprise for a change, but I didn’t know how she was going to react.

Mentioning the weekend getaway had put a brilliant light in Emilia’s eyes, but I wanted that to only be the start. I wanted to give her everything she always wanted and then more on top of that. I wanted this to be the start of the rest of our lives together, a cherished memory to hold onto dearly.