Striker (55 page)

She reached out to touch his cheek, leaning forward to gently kiss his slightly open mouth and Ryan felt his stomach leap around like it was on some kind of springboard. It had taken him twenty-six years to experience these feelings and now they were here he was in no hurry to send them packing. Not now he had the chance to keep them forever. ‘I love
you
, Ryan Fisher. God help me, I love
you
.’

*

‘Ryan,’ Freddie Sullivan smiled – a slightly forced smile, Amber thought – as they walked into the hall of her father’s house. ‘Good to see you, son.’

Amber watched as Ryan shook her father’s hand, giving him the bottle of Tesco’s finest sparkling wine they’d grabbed on the way over.

‘It’s… it’s good of you to invite me, Mr…’

‘Freddie, please. Come on, Ryan. You’re going to be family soon; we might as well start as we mean to go on.’

Amber didn’t know whether to feel relieved that her father was at least trying to accept Ryan as her future husband, or nervous that he was just putting it all on and some time after lunch he was going to drag him into the kitchen for a private word about looking after her or having
him
to answer to. She felt like a teenager bringing her first boyfriend home.

Ryan smiled at Freddie, and Amber couldn’t help noticing his shoulders sag slightly with relief. She threw him a reassuring smile and squeezed his hand before kissing her father quickly on the cheek. ‘Something smells fantastic, Dad. What’s for lunch?’

‘Roast lamb with a rosemary and thyme gravy, roast parsnips and potatoes and a selection of four fresh vegetables.’

‘Whoa! That sounds amazing!’ Ryan laughed, then he looked at Amber. ‘Have you inherited any of your dad’s culinary skills?’

‘Ryan, sweetheart, if you’re marrying me for my cooking then you might as well call this engagement off right now.’

‘Oh, there’s a lot more to Amber than just her cooking skills,’ Jim smiled, appearing in the doorway of the living room, looking casual and relaxed in jeans and a dark-grey shirt as he leaned against the doorpost.

Amber looked at him sharply, sending him a message with her eyes that told him to lay off the smart remarks. He just threw her a small smile back and took a sip from the wine glass he was holding.

‘Anyway,’ Amber said, quickly changing the subject, ‘… I could do with a glass of something white and sparkling.’ She turned to Ryan. ‘Do you want to go and open that bottle we brought in with us, baby? Dad’ll show you where we keep the corkscrew, won’t you, Dad?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course I will.’

Ryan looked at Amber with an expression verging on panic.

‘He won’t bite,’ Amber smiled, kissing him quickly and letting go of his hand. ‘And just refuse to comment if he starts asking any tricky questions. Go on,’ she winked at him, making him laugh. ‘And make that a large glass. It’s Sunday, I want to relax.’

Ryan threw Jim a quick look before following Freddie into the kitchen.

‘I hope that remark wasn’t a sign that you’re going to make this difficult,’ Amber said to Jim as she walked into the living room.

Jim laid a hand on her hip as she pushed past him, causing her to swing round and stare at him. ‘The engagement’s still on, then?’

She looked down at his hand resting on her hip, waiting until he removed it before her eyes met his again. ‘This isn’t happening, Jim.’

‘He’s just a boy, Amber. A kid.’

‘I love him…’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jim sighed, throwing his head back. ‘You’re deluded if you think he’s actually going to go through with this wedding. He’ll get bored, fed up of having just the one woman to play with. Kids like that need variety, honey. They need choice, they want to play games with lots of friends, and you’ll see that, one day. Or you could walk away now and save yourself the pain.’

She shook her head. ‘What? And come back to you?’

‘You were already with me not so long ago, baby. You were already there, talking about a future together, a life that we’d always dreamed of…’

‘No, I’ll stop you there, Jim. We’ve been over this before and I’m tired of saying it now – that life was a life only
I’d
dreamed of. Not you. You were too busy playing those games you talk about with all those “friends” of yours.’

He followed her into the room, closing the door behind them. ‘How many times do I have to say I’m sorry, huh?’

She swung round to face him, knowing for sure that this had been a bad idea now. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Jim. It wasn’t
your
fault I was naive enough to fall for you more times than I should have done. I should have learnt my lesson while I was still a teenager. But I didn’t, did I? And that’s
my
fault, not yours.’

He walked over to her, putting his drink down before resting his hand on her cheek, looking deep into her eyes. ‘This will
never
go away, Amber. Not for me. I was an idiot, okay, I’ll admit that. I knew you’d always be there and I took advantage of that, but don’t think I didn’t ever care about you because I did. And when I finally grew up, when all that crap was out of my system and all I wanted to do was find the right girl and settle down… The right girl had always been there, Amber. Right there, beside me, and I just couldn’t see it. Not back then. But I see it now. Ryan, he… he hasn’t got it out of his system yet, honey. Jesus, I hate to say it, but he reminds me of me, which is why I
know
he isn’t right for you. Not yet. He hasn’t had that time to grow up, to realise what he actually has and he
will
hurt you, Amber. He will, I can almost guarantee that…’

‘You know nothing,’ she whispered, wishing her heart wasn’t beating at what felt like a million beats a second, wishing her head wasn’t spinning and her stomach wasn’t turning those somersaults it shouldn’t be turning for him. It shouldn’t be doing that. Not for Jim. ‘You don’t know Ryan like I do.’

‘You don’t know him at all,’ Jim said, moving his mouth closer to hers, so close his breath was warm on her cheek, making her head spin more and her heart beat even faster until, in an action Amber just couldn’t seem to stop, it was as if her whole body had frozen, rendering any movement impossible, his lips brushed against hers. It was a quick, gentle kiss at first, so brief it was hard to realise it had actually happened, until his mouth lowered back down onto hers in a deeper kiss, a longer kiss, a kiss that Amber couldn’t break away from, she couldn’t do it. It felt as though he’d cast some kind of spell over her and it would only break when
he
allowed it to. Or was that just some convenient excuse she was telling herself to account for the fact she’d wanted this to happen?

‘No,’ Amber spluttered, finally pulling away, backing off from Jim,
shaking
her head. ‘No. This is
not
going to happen,’ she hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Me and you, it’s over. It’s done, finished. You’re part of a life I just can’t go back to and you need to realise that, you need to understand… You have to give me the space I need to move on because this – this isn’t fair. On either of us. Jesus, Jim, you could have any woman you want…’

‘I only want you.’

‘Well, you can’t have her.’

Amber swung round to see Ryan standing in the doorway and her heart practically stopped dead, her breath catching in her throat. ‘Ryan…’

He walked over to Jim, waiting until he was right up in his face before speaking. ‘I’ll give you that one, okay? I’ll give you that because you’re quite obviously one hell of a persuasive bloke and I don’t expect her to forget about you just like that. I’m not that naive. But you touch her again, and believe me, I won’t be quite so calm about it.’

Amber looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink back tears that were threatening to fall, which was the last thing she needed. How the hell did she explain
that
to her father?
 

‘I think you forget who holds the ace cards in all of this,’ Jim said, a tone verging on the menacing in his voice.

Ryan let out a small, cynical laugh. ‘You really want to play that kind of game, boss? You really want to put your own – not to mention the club’s – reputation on the line by threatening me with blackmail?’

‘I’m not blackmailing anyone, son.’

‘It sounds pretty close to blackmail from where
I’m
standing.’

‘You’re punching way above your weight here, Fisher.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I
know
.’

‘So, you’re quite prepared for the possibility of Amber getting hurt, then? If you decide to carry out whatever threat you’re making? And what
do
you intend to do, huh? Exactly how do you intend to use those ace cards of yours?’

‘I could end your career like that. In an instant.’

‘Then go ahead. I’m calling your bluff – boss.’

‘Ryan…’ Amber pleaded, desperate for this to end before her dad came back into the room.

‘You can’t have her,’ Ryan said, stepping away from Jim, his hand sliding into Amber’s, pulling her close to him. ‘You can’t fucking have her. And I guess you’re just going to have to deal with that in whatever way you can.’

*

‘Are you still mad at me for facing up to him?’ Ryan asked, closing the car door, the sound of it slamming echoing around the underground car park.

‘I’m not mad at you, no,’ Amber replied, falling into step beside him as they headed for the doors that led from the car park into the main body of the MetroCentre, a large, out-of-town shopping and leisure complex on the outskirts of Newcastle. ‘What you said to him… maybe it needed to be said. I just panicked that my dad might have overheard something, that’s all.’

Ryan slipped his hand into hers, squeezing it tight. ‘He didn’t overhear anything, babe. He was out the back, chatting to one of the neighbours, that’s the only reason I did what I did. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Not there, anyway.’

Amber said nothing. She was just glad lunch was over. It had been a strained affair at best although, thankfully, her father hadn’t seemed to notice the slight tension between Jim and Ryan. But she hadn’t been willing to stick around for any longer than they had to, making up some excuse about meeting Gary and Debbie for a drink, just so’s they could escape. And somehow they’d ended up here, at the MetroCentre, which was fine with her. She felt like a bit of retail therapy, maybe some dinner later. She didn’t really want to go home just yet.

‘You
are
still mad, aren’t you?’ Ryan asked, standing still and pulling her into his arms, kissing her quickly.

‘Ryan, baby, I’m not mad, okay? I’m just… I’m just sorry I let him get to me. I didn’t mean to…’

He shut her up with a kiss, just a quick one but enough to make her stop talking. ‘It’s okay. Jesus, Amber, you said yourself this isn’t an ideal situation. And maybe we all just have to find a way to deal with it in the best way we can.’

They started walking again, Ryan’s arm sliding around her shoulders as she snuggled in against him. ‘What he said to you, though…’

‘He won’t carry any of that out, babe. They were just empty threats.’

‘You think? You know that for sure, do you?’

‘No, but, he’d be stupid to try, wouldn’t he? I mean, everyone knows I can be an arsehole at times so him spreading shit about me isn’t really gonna surprise anyone. Which means that the biggest threat he has is one that exposes what you and him had together, and that doesn’t really affect me, does it? It hurts
you
, and I don’t think he’s willing to do that.’

‘I hope you’re right.’ She stopped walking again, turning to face him. ‘You could ask for a transfer. I mean, the window’s open now, isn’t it? For a few more days. Even if it’s just on loan somewhere, away from here… it would give us some time…’

‘Amber, baby, come on. That’s not gonna work, is it?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for starters, the amount of money Red Star paid for me, no way are they gonna loan me out to another club when they’re well on the way to being a real title contender. Jesus, I’ve only been there five minutes! No, it doesn’t matter how pissed off Jim Allen is with me, he won’t jeopardise the club. He’s way too professional to do that. The stick he got when he dropped me for that one game was enough, but if he tells the board he wants to loan me out… Can you imagine the questions he’d have to answer? And you
know
all of that, Amber. You’ve been around this game for too long, you know how it works. And what about
your
job, huh? You’d be willing to give that up just to avoid Jim Allen?’

It wasn’t something she’d have been willing to do just a few short months ago. But the way things had panned out since then, if it meant she and Ryan could get some peace, away from Jim’s – hopefully – empty threats; if they could just have some time together to work things out, well, she’d be willing to give up anything. ‘Maybe we
need
to get away, Ryan.’

‘And it’s impossible at the minute, kiddo. It just can’t happen right now, come on, you know that.’ He tilted up her chin, making her look right at him. ‘We’ve got to face this head on, okay? He’ll get the message, eventually. And, yes, maybe it’s gonna be a little uncomfortable for a while, and maybe he’ll do his best to get the odd dig in, but he’ll get the message, Amber. I’ll make sure of that.’