Team Lucas (The Saints Team #1) (13 page)

I wrung my hands as I waited. Outside, everything in the real world seemed so normal; I wondered if the neighbors heard all the fights and dramas. I went to the kitchen while I waited, found a dust pan and broom and cleaned up the glass. I found an old sponge under the sink and some paper towels to wipe up the water.

He was taking a while, which was a relief. Maybe he couldn’t pee under stress. I hoped he would calm down in there and be civil when he came out and not throw it at me. Almost ten minutes later the bathroom door flung open again and he stormed down the hallway. I put down the paper towel roll and he crossed the room to get to me in four fast strides.

“Here, happy now?” He shoved the paper bag with his secure sample inside against my stomach. I stood my ground this time even though the force of him swayed me.

“You can report back to Daddy that I’m behaving, since you work for him.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. He was a Jekyll & Hyde—half-an-hour ago on my run he was charming, even fun to be around. Now he was like a huge wall of hostility with anger radiating off him, burning everything in his path.

I turned and headed towards the stairs and then I felt something hit me in the back. I flinched and turned. On the floor near me was an empty but sealed sample bottle like the one I had in the bag. I don’t know what he was aiming at when he threw it but he hit me between the shoulder blades.

“Take that too.” He gave me a cruel smile. “I see the way you check me out, wanting something from me like everyone else... well there you go. If you get that to your sample company quickly they can freeze it and you can get inseminated. No one will know we didn’t do it; your word against mine and then you can bleed off me with the alimony for the rest of your life too.”

I know my mouth was open as I looked at him in shock. “What?”

“Don’t you want to live somewhere like this forever?” He turned around in a slow circle with his arms out. “I heard you saying that to Alice.”

I looked from him down to the container on the floor. It was revolting; I could see now that it wasn’t empty; it had a milky pale liquid in it. He’d wanked off in the bathroom, that was why he took so long, and then he threw it at me.

I felt the color drain from my face and my eyes must have been huge, staring at it. He heard right; I had said I’d love to live here to Alice, but who wouldn’t love this place? It was girls’ talk. I couldn’t believe that’s what he thought of me—that I would rush to keep this, have a little child who wasn’t wanted by him and bleed him dry with a web of deception. Just when I had let my guard down with him again!

I looked up at him and he continued to stare at me with hard eyes. He began to read my shocked expression and he frowned.

I swallowed and blinked, before speaking; clearing my head of all the hurt he had just thrown at me in that little jar.

“I think that must be the most awful thing anyone has ever done to me,” I said feeling my chest and throat thicken. My eyes welled with tears.

I looked at the specimen on the floor again. I couldn’t believe it. Then I turned and went downstairs and locked the adjoining door between us.

Chapter 19

I put the chain on our shared door and closed all the curtains, blocking out the front of the house and the divine view. Lucas had keys and I didn’t want him barging in. In fact, I didn’t want anything to do with Lucas at the moment. He was right, I wasn’t going to break the record; he just broke me.

I leaned over like an athlete at the end of a race and took some deep breaths. Then I heard him coming down the internal stairs outside our adjoined wall. My heart raced with anxiety. He knocked softly on the door.

“Mia.”

I didn’t answer. At this moment, I hated him and was just that little bit worried about what he was capable of doing. He was the nastiest piece of work I had ever come across. Even my regular clients were never nasty. Sure they railed and got angry and abused me for wanting to take their test, but it was never personal about me, it was just about the situation.

He tapped again, then tried the door.

“Mia, open up.”

I realized I still had his specimen in the bag in my hand. I had to test it. Work came first and I wasn’t going to not finish the job especially given the price I had paid to get this damned pee. I took it to my little laundry area, tested it and he came up clear. I tipped it out, disinfected and cleaned up. All the time, I could hear him outside the door.

Clear is right, I thought. Clear of all compassion and trust. I found my phone and texted the number I had to text with the results.

The thump at the door got heavier as I moved back out to the living area.

“Mia, please let me in. We need to talk. I’m flying out in a few hours.”

I stood rooted to the spot, willing him to go away.

I heard him inhale. “Mia, I know you can hear me, I need to talk with you now... please open the door.”

Fuck you Lucas. Fuck you big time. I hope you get majorly fucked over because you’ve paid back every shitty thing that’s ever happened to you on all your friends and family, the people who least deserve it. And now, me too.

I heard him take the stairs back up to his living area and I breathed a sigh of relief. But moments later he was back and his key fiddled in the door. The chain prevented him from opening it. Lucas muttered some creative swear words. I stayed out of his line of sight as he tried to see me through the gap in the door.

“Mia, please open the door. I don’t want to break it down.”

I stood back against the counter. I wasn’t frightened of him, I just wanted to avoid him forever or until I could face him, which might be forever too.

He pulled the door shut and I heard him exiting the front door. Crap, he was going to let himself in my front entrance. I ran around and put the chain on my separate entrance and just in the nick of time. Moments later he tried his key and opened the door the few inches it would allow.

“For fuck’s sake Mia, take the chain off. I just want to talk with you,” he hissed through the door.

I crept up the stairs, up to my next level. I heard him slam the door down below. He tried the other door one more time but he didn’t kick them in. I locked myself in the bathroom. My Diet Coke sat in a ring of water from condensation, and the bubble bath called me. I glanced at my phone; Lucas had to fly to Seattle for an away game tomorrow and wouldn’t be back for the weekend. He was expected at the club for the airport bus within the hour. It was a blessing in disguise. I had a couple of days to get my gear and be well and truly gone before he returned. His father could start looking for minder number six.

I took a deep breath; I would have my last bath in this gorgeous bathroom—and then I would pack and go. I stripped off my running gear and lowered myself into the tub; it felt divine. I would miss this bathroom. The pad location and beach outside my door would be hard to part with too, but parting with Lucas would be easier if he just dropped me like he dropped the others and moved onto his next minder. If I could hold onto this anger and disgust it would make the separation easier.

Then the text messages began.

“M, please let me in. I have to leave in 15. I need to talk with you. L”

I didn’t even want to text him back. I just wanted to slink away, pretend that Lucas Ainswright had never entered my life and given me some of the most amazing highs and lows of my existence in just two weeks.

I put my phone down and another came through.

“M, please.”

And again a few minutes later. “I need to see you before I go.”

“M, answer my fucking text or open the door!”

Each text was like opening a wound. Stop it, for fuck’s sake, just stop it.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard his car start. I lay back and let the water immerse me. I felt better knowing he was gone and wouldn’t appear down the chimney or enlist some other plan to get his way.

I took a large breath and slid under the bubbles. It was quiet and warm and I loved the feeling of having my head immersed. I’m not sure where that came from... maybe something from the womb. Sigmund Freud would have a field day until he met Lucas and dropped me like a hot cake.

When I came up for air the phone pinged again. Another text from Lucas.

“On my way to the club. Call me.”

Fuck you.

It took Lucas twenty minutes to get to the clubhouse and he texted me again on the shuttle on the way to the airport. Twenty minutes later my phone rang—again a message from Lucas, this time from the airport. Get on the plane already and go! I glanced at the clock on my phone. That had to be it now, it was boarding time and he would be in the air for over two-and-a-half hours. Plus, once he got with the team, he’d be in captain mode, not ride-Mia’s-ass mode.

I was wrong. Fifteen minutes later the phone rang again but it wasn’t Lucas’s number. I gazed at the screen suspiciously and let it go. My phone beeped telling me there was a message. I dialed message bank and heard the physio Andy’s voice.

“Ah hi Mia, I was hoping you could give me a call, thanks.”

I deleted the message. For chrissake, was there nothing Lucas wouldn’t try to get through to me? I soaked for another fifteen minutes, finished my Diet Coke and looked around the room. I tried to talk myself out of it, but deep down, I knew I had to leave—the situation wasn’t going to improve and he would come to hate me more and I would come to despise and desire him in equal amounts while I lost who I was and just became part of Team Lucas.

The reality was that Lucas loved his life. He loved having the models, living the high life, being the life of the party—who wouldn’t? I was just a thorn in his side, there to do a job and the fact that his father paid my salary made me even more disagreeable to him. He couldn’t look at me for seeing his father trying indirectly to control him.

This wasn’t my world; I had a good world that I had liked up until now. I had a great family and friends, I liked my studies and I was good at them. I was going to be a qualified physio in less than three months and Lucas Ainswright would be a memory.

One hell of a memory though. I realized that is probably what my clients feel—being totally up and then hitting the huge lows.

I had been on a drug called Lucas Ainswright and it was time to wean myself off it.

Chapter 20

I got out of the bath, dried off and pulled on my jeans and a pullover. I put my hair into one single braid and packed my bathroom gear. I headed to the bedroom, pulled down my suitcase from the top shelf of the cupboard and opened it.

This was really happening, I thought, getting teary again. I scolded myself.

“Get over it,” I said out loud. “You knew it was only a four week trial and the odds of lasting weren’t good.”

I felt an undercurrent of humiliation too from his words:
“I see the way you check me out, wanting something from me like everyone else”.
I cringed at the sting in his words. I cringed that I had allowed myself to be sucked in—like I’d be the one to save Lucas Ainswright from himself, that he’d love me and his friends would welcome me. It was a good fantasy while it lasted.

I grabbed a bundle of my clothes with the hangers still attached and dropped them into the suitcase. A knock at the front door made me jump. I knew it couldn’t be Lucas, because he was on a plane by now.

I hoped he hadn’t sent an urgent bunch of flowers to pacify the situation or a choir to sing to me. He could pull out the stops when he had to and I wasn’t going to be swayed by his stupid showmanship. I went via the bathroom, grabbed my packed makeup bag—may as well take one finished load downstairs with me and save a trip later. I took the stairs, put the bag down and moved to the window. I looked out the front through a small gap in the curtains.

Fuck!

I opened the door to Jase.

“Hi Mia, can I come in?” he asked, taking up most of the doorway with his huge frame.

I stood aside. I closed the door and looked at Jase in his business suit.

“Tell me Lucas hasn’t called you in the middle of your busy afternoon to run over here for him?” I said.

Jase glanced around, saw my bag and exhaled.

“He said there had been some trouble and he couldn’t get through to you, but if he didn’t you might leave. I figured that was serious enough to warrant a quick trip over.”

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry Jase. How embarrassing, it’s just a tiff. I can’t believe he thinks your career is so much less important than his...”

Jase held up his hand. “It’s okay. Lucas and I have an agreement that we do things for each other if they’re code red.” He smiled and bit his bottom lip. “Ah, this is code red.”

I nodded. “It’s enough now, I’ve had enough.”

Jase put his hands in his trouser pockets. “I get that, I get that more than most. But Mia...” he stepped closer to me, “so far, you’re the only one he’s listened to. He’s never organized tickets or taken the other minders to the game.”

“But they went.” I remember Elizabeth saying she sat next to Mrs. Compton.

“Yeah, his father organized that with Lucas’s manager. Lucas is responding to you,” Jase said.

“He’s not. He’s rude and abusive and—”

“Testing you. He’s trying not to trust you, so he’s testing you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care, Jase. I don’t need this. I’m not his mother, sister, best friend, cousin or lover. I’m the paid help. I don’t have a vested interest in him like you do and frankly while it pays really well and has some great perks, one of which would be Lucas if he wasn’t such a dick, I can’t stand the highs and lows.”

I left out that I had a massive crush on this guy who liked me for two minutes of a twenty-four hour clock and was kind to me for one of those minutes. Aagh, I hated Lucas Ainswright.

Jase looked to my bag in the corner, again. “You’re not going to leave yet are you?”

“Yes, today.”

“Okay, let’s think this through.” He began to pace. His phone rang and he looked at the screen. He held his finger up to indicate one minute to me. “Sorry, I just need to get this.”