Authors: Michelle Betham
‘You said you loved her like you’d never loved anyone before.’
Jim looked at Brandon, picking up his glass of whisky and taking a sip. ‘I did. I do. But sometimes that isn’t enough, when other things get in the way.’
‘What things?’ Brandon asked, following his father into the living room.
‘Things that you don’t need to know about, Brandon.’ He sat down on the arm of the sofa, finishing his drink in one mouthful. ‘I love her, yes, okay. I love her. And she probably still loves me, but that doesn’t mean we should be together.’
Brandon leaned back against the wall, confused by everything his father was telling him. He didn’t understand any of it. Surely, if you loved someone, and you knew they loved you, too, you’d do anything to make it work. Even if mistakes had been made. Surely, if the love was still there, then there was no mistake that couldn’t be rectified, somehow. In time.
‘It’s not like you to quit anything, Dad.’
Jim got up and walked over to the sideboard, pouring himself another drink. ‘I’ve got my career to think of, Brandon. I’ve got a club to run and a title to defend.’ He turned around, sipping his fresh whisky. ‘And I need to have my wits about me in order to do all of that. I’ve got people relying on me.’
‘So you’d rather put your career ahead of the woman you love?’
‘She slept with Ryan Fisher. Now he’s on his way to Spain, and she’s got her own career to keep her busy, meaning I can finally concentrate on what needs to be done here.’
Brandon narrowed his eyes as he stared at his father. Did he really mean everything he was saying? His expression was almost stoic, so it was difficult to tell. Jim Allen had always been a man who never really showed his feelings, if he could help it, so knowing whether everything he was telling him was the truth or not was difficult to work out.
‘You’re really not even going to
try
and fight? Really?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Brandon.’ Jim walked over to the fireplace, taking a long sip of whisky as he looked at a photograph of him and Amber, taken in the back garden not long after their whirlwind wedding. ‘It’s over. It’s time to move on. Amber and I had some good times, but that’s all they should have stayed – good times. It should never have turned into marriage.’
‘And what if doing this – if you refusing to fight for your marriage, what if that sends her running straight back to Ryan Fisher? What if that happens, huh? What if his plan to leave Newcastle Red Star actually backfires and instead of it being like some kind of therapy for him in order to forget what he thinks he can’t have; what if, instead, it turns out to be the one thing that actually pushes him and Amber back together? What happens then?’
Jim took another sip of whisky, his eyes on Brandon’s all the time, never wavering, never flinching. ‘Then Ryan Fisher will never play football in the U.K. again, Brandon. That’s what happens.’
Amber closed the front door behind her, leaning back against it and closing her eyes, taking a long, deep breath. It had been a tiring day, and in hindsight she wished she hadn’t let Ronnie talk her into going for that drink after work. She should have just come straight home, ran herself a bath and gone to bed early with a hot drink and the movie channels. Maybe then she could’ve avoided Ryan – who was
she
kidding? He would have tracked her down somehow. She knew him too well. When Ryan Fisher wanted something, he usually found a way to get it.
She threw her bag down on the chair next to the door and walked into the kitchen, filling the kettle. For the past couple of weeks she’d felt as though she was operating on some kind of autopilot – she was going through the motions but not always feeling everything that was happening. And all of a sudden it was a feeling she didn’t like, one she didn’t want to feel anymore. She wanted some control back in her life. But the only way she could do that was to do the one thing she’d avoided doing up until now.
Grabbing the phone, she tapped in a number, hoping the person she was calling would answer before she had time to change her mind and hang up. They answered after just three rings, and as soon as Amber heard his voice she felt her stomach dip, as if someone had just pushed her over the top of the biggest roller coaster there was.
‘Amber?’
Just the sound of his voice caused tears to well up and she blinked rapidly to try and stop them from falling. ‘We need to talk, Jim. Please. What’s happening here, it isn’t fair…’
‘You sleeping around behind my back wasn’t fair, Amber.’
Could he really be that cold? His voice certainly didn’t sound as though it had any warmth to it. ‘We… we just didn’t handle things properly, Jim. We didn’t… we didn’t talk about anything, and we should have done, we should have talked to each other but instead we…’
‘It’s too late.’
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, not wanting this conversation to be happening, but, at the same time, knowing it had to. She had to do this, to know where she stood with a man who had never really made her feel safe or settled – but he was a man she loved so much. Too much. She always had, and she always would. No matter what. He was under her skin, embedded there like a permanent tattoo, and there was nothing she could do about that. Nothing. ‘You really believe that?’ she asked, her voice quiet, shaking slightly, those tears now streaming down her face so fast her cheeks were soaked within seconds.
She kept her eyes closed as he stayed silent, her question hanging in the air, and she couldn’t stop a fleeting glimmer of hope bubble up inside her. Maybe he didn’t believe it. Maybe it had taken her calling him to realise that what they were doing was stupid, throwing everything they could still have together away just because they’d let things get out of control for a while.
‘I do, Amber. I believe that. It’s too late.’
She took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes tight shut as though doing that would change his answer, make this whole situation miraculously better. ‘I… I know I didn’t handle things well, Jim. I know that. But finding out about Brandon, finding out I couldn’t have a baby, it… it all happened at once, it all hit me too hard, all in one go, and I know I didn’t handle it well…’
‘Neither of us handled anything well, honey. We’re both to blame. We both did things we shouldn’t have done, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…’
She didn’t want to beg, but she could feel him slowly slipping from her grasp, like the cruellest case of history repeating itself, and she felt powerless to do anything about it. Was this just the way things were always meant to be between her and Jim Allen? Together for such short periods, each of them filled with emotions so intense it was draining, only for it to end in heartbreak all over again?
‘I wanted too much,’ she whispered, keeping her eyes closed, placing a hand on her stomach and clenching it into a tight fist. ‘When all I really wanted was you.’
‘Amber… Baby, don’t do this. Please. Don’t do this.’
‘I love you, Jim. I love you so much.’
‘And I love you, too. Believe me, I love you, too…’
‘Then why are you doing this? Why? I don’t understand…’
‘I have to, Amber. I just… I have to. It isn’t fair on either of us to carry on the way we have been doing. It’s too destructive, too tiring.’
She finally opened her eyes, wiping away tears that were still falling in a steady stream down her damp cheeks.
‘You survived without me before, baby.’ His voice was quieter now, more gentle, the coldness replaced by a warmth that only made Amber cry even more. ‘You can do it again. Your life will be so much better without me in it, believe me.’
What if she didn’t want to believe him? What if she was quite willing to take her chances? She could cope with anything now, she was sure of it, given what they’d already been through.
‘Shouldn’t what’s happened have made us stronger, Jim?’ She was trying desperately to stop the emotion she was feeling from spilling over into her voice, but it was hard. It was so hard.
‘Amber, honey, please don’t cry. Please. Don’t cry. Baby, I know this is hard, I know it is. And I didn’t take this decision lightly, I really need you to know that. But we can’t keep doing this to ourselves. Years and years of wanting each other, loving each other, hurting each other… I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. I can’t do it anymore.’
She threw her head back, staring at the ceiling, those tears she’d been crying falling back into her eyes, stinging them, but she didn’t care. Nothing could be more painful than what was happening now.
‘Amber?’
Taking one last deep breath she tried to compose herself, tried to claw some clarity back. But still nothing felt right. None of it felt right. ‘I… I’ll need to come back to the house. There are still some things I need to collect.’
‘You don’t have to ask my permission, Amber. You can come round any time to pick up your stuff. I’m at work most days, so… You’ve got your key, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ Her voice was almost a whisper now, the enormity of what this whole conversation meant overwhelming her. ‘I’ve got my key.’
There was a pause for a few, heart-breaking seconds, nothing between them but a painful silence and an air of finality that was almost gut-wrenching.
‘You’re gonna be okay, Amber.’
She closed her eyes again as he spoke those same words to her that he’d spoken twice before – each time heralding the end of their relationship. The end of her dream. And this was no different.
‘Yeah.’ She kept her eyes closed, gripping the phone tight as she felt her stomach lurch so heavily she felt physically sick. ‘Yeah. I know I will.’
She had no other choice.
Jim slowly replaced the phone in its cradle and sat forward, his head falling into his hands as hot, uninvited tears began to trickle slowly down his face. Nobody had said it would be easy, saying goodbye to her a third time, especially given the line of work they were both in – it was obvious they were going to constantly be around each other more than either of them needed to be. But he knew it was the right thing to do. Their relationship was too intense, too destructive to survive. There was so much they wanted, and most of it was out of reach, so how could they ever have made this marriage work?
Sighing heavily, he sat up, slamming his head back against the cushions of the sofa, pushing both hands through his hair. He was never going to stop loving her – that was a given. Amber was a part of him, a permanent fixture; she was the love of his life. But now it was time to move on. Time to break those ties and forge ahead with everything he hoped would take his mind off what his life had become.
Jim Allen was alone again – and that was the way it had to be.
The doorbell ringing saved Amber from sinking into a well of self-pity and she almost ran out into the hall, knowing it would be Ronnie, and for once she was glad of his almost psychic tendencies to know just when she needed him.
But flinging open the door gave her a surprise she wasn’t ready for, but one she should have expected, if that phone call to Jim hadn’t distracted her so much.
‘You all right?’ Ryan asked, standing on the doorstep, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
She shook her head, standing aside to let him through. She didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore, not tonight, anyway.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Amber closed the door behind her, pushing a hand through her hair, sighing rather a touch heavier than she’d intended, but all of a sudden she was exhausted. ‘No, Ryan. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m tired of talking about it.’
He wasn’t Ronnie, and she didn’t feel like going over everything again, least of all with him. That just seemed like a really bad idea.
‘You sure?’
She threw him a look and he stepped back, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Okay, okay. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it.’
‘What are you doing here?’ She pushed past him and walked back into the kitchen.
‘What do you think I’m doing here? Look, it’s my last night here in the U.K. for a while, and I just want to…’
She leaned back against the counter, folding her arms and fixing him with a questioning look. ‘You just want to, what?’
He looked slightly nervous, and for a fleeting second Amber actually felt sorry for him. There were times when this cocky, arrogant man could actually appear quite vulnerable, although those times were few and far between. But she knew they existed.
‘I just want to be with you, Amber. Is that such a bad thing?’
‘When things are this crazy and fucked up, yes. It is.’ She sighed, again rather heavier than intended, throwing her head back and letting out a frustrated cry. ‘Shit!’ Shaking her hair out in the hope that would help rid her of any lingering frustration, she looked at Ryan, cocking her head. ‘You tired?’
‘Who?
Me
? Tired?’
‘Yeah, you. It’s getting late, and I know you’ve got a flight first thing in the morning, but… I’ve had a really crap night, Ryan. I mean,
really
crap. And if tomorrow
does
have to be the first day of the rest of my life – even if I’d rather it wasn’t – then I might as well say goodbye to it all in style.’
Ryan frowned as he stared back at her. Something had obviously happened between leaving her at the Cloud Sports studios and him turning up here, and he suspected it had everything to do with Jim. But if she needed a little bit of respite, some kind of brief escape, who was he to argue? He was saying goodbye to a few things himself tonight, and even though he’d rather not be saying goodbye at all, maybe she was right. Things were way too complicated to begin anything they might regret, but there was nothing stopping them from giving all the crap in their lives a send-off to remember. Or to forget. Depending on the way the night went. And there was only one way Ryan intended it to go.
Amber watched Ryan as he flirted outrageously at the bar with a group of young women dressed in short skirts and the highest of heels, their long hair extensions hanging loose down their tanned backs, their faces fixed in expressions of star-struck awe as this famous footballer paid them the attention they’d been looking for all night. There’d once been a time in her life, not all that long ago, when this kind of behaviour from Ryan would have filled her with a stomach-churning sense of dread. But now all it did was make her smile. This was who he was, what he needed to be. It still wasn’t out of his system, no matter how much he protested it was. Deep down inside he was still that slightly arrogant, overpaid footballer with the expensive clothes and the sexy smile who could make women fall at his feet with just one flash of that cocky grin. And even though it had taken quite a bit more than that for Amber to succumb to him, there had been times when his smile had floored her, when she’d been unable to keep her hands off him.