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  The stupid thing was, I knew New York United would happily pay that amount. They wouldn’t pay for me to sit first class on the train, or even put me into a nice hotel in a foreign country, but they wouldn’t bat an eyelid about paying an athlete $150,000 a week.

  I sucked at doing mental arithmetic, but a quick and dirty calculation in my head quickly told me that Jaxon was currently earning in the region of $5 million a year, and was hoping to push up to $7.5 million dollars a year. Not bad for a twenty-four year-old. And here I was still recovering from a morning spent sweating on the train. Jaxon probably never used public transport.

  “So,” Jaxon said smiling. “Are you going to take me around the city. Perhaps you should help me find somewhere to live?”

  “What would be the point? You’re not moving here. Just go and look around on your own; you don’t need me.”

  I hadn’t seen Jaxon in his soccer kit since he’d started playing professionally. I hated to admit it, but his legs were remarkable. I’d never been a leg person. I had a weakness for firm pecs on the chest and strong arms, but I rarely looked at men’s legs.

  When Jaxon had thrown his feet up on my desk, I’d been about to tell him off, but the muscles on his toned calves and thighs had captured my attention. My thoughts immediately turned to him using those legs to support my weight while he took me up against the wall. That couldn’t be a healthy place for my mind to go, could it? Why would I immediately think of that?

  “We need to be seen together,” Jaxon said. “Besides, don’t you want to spend time alone in empty apartments with me?”

  “No,” I replied. I really didn’t. If we were left in an apartment alone together I had a horrible feeling I knew what would happen. “Besides, there would be an estate agent with us. We wouldn’t be alone.”

  “I can make them disappear for a bit. You’d be amazed what money can do. It sounds to me like you’re interested in the idea.”

  “Not in the slightest. If you’re just here to attempt to seduce me again then you might as well leave. I have work to do.”

  “I am your work,” Jaxon replied. “That means the only thing you have to do is me. Have you broken in your desk yet? Everyone who has an office has sex on the desk. It’s tradition.”

  “Don’t worry, I intend to have sex on my desk. Just not with you.”

  “Are you going to pretend you have another man on the go? You can do that if you like, but we both know it’s not true.”

  “You don’t know anything about my personal life,” I snapped. He did though. He might just be guessing, but he’d been spot on so far. “I have a date later this week.”

  Aaron would do me a favor. I’d pretended to be his girlfriend once when he’d been trying to make Millie jealous and they were coming up on their third anniversary together. Now it was Aaron’s turn to pretend to be my boyfriend for an evening.

  “You don’t have to make me jealous,” Jaxon said. “I’ve already admitted that I want you. I’ll take you right here if you like.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, that not everyone’s life revolves around you?” Mine did. Not only had I spent the last four years trying to get on with my life without Jaxon in it, I even had a job where my specific goal centered around Jaxon’s happiness. My life literally did revolve around him, I just hoped to God he didn’t realize that.

  “I’m just saying, that if you’re going on this date just because you haven’t had sex in a while, then I am happy to help you out. I never leave women unsatisfied; I can get you a reference if you like, but I think you know it’s the truth.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll just ask Daisy if I need to know what you’re like in bed.”

  Jaxon’s smile widened into that cocky, arrogant grin of his. I shouldn’t have mentioned Daisy, but she’d struck a nerve with me more than any of his normal airheads had done. I could dismiss the bimbos easily enough, but Daisy was intelligent and an important part of his life. Basically, she had a lot in common with me, but she was confident and determined enough to stake a claim with him, whereas I just dwelled on the past.

  “You don’t need to be jealous of Daisy. She’s always like that with me. To be honest, I can’t stand to be around her for more than an hour at a time.”

  “Then why is she your agent?” I asked.

  “Because no one else can stand to be around her for very long either. I think that’s why she always gets a good deal for me. People just want her to go away, so they give her what she wants. You’re not competing with her, don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” I replied, with a little too much aggression. “Look, I don’t want you moving here and you don’t want to move here, so let’s just think of a way to get through this with the minimal amount of hassle.”

  “Spending time with me is a hassle now, is it?”

  “No,” I replied quickly. He actually looked a little hurt at my comment, and not for the first time I wished I could read him better. One second he would act like some glorified frat boy trying to hook up at a party, and the next he seemed to actually have feelings. Sometimes I thought the arrogance was an act, but I was probably just seeing what I wanted to see.

  The air conditioning continued pumping into the office, and yet my body temperature was beginning to rise again. I wanted to open a button on my blouse, but I could hardly do that in front of Jaxon without him taking it as some kind of invitation to gorge on my breasts. Not that I would mind.

  At this point, I could hardly deny that I was attracted to him. I wanted him to take me. I’d spent four years thinking about it. But I couldn’t just act on instinct. I wasn’t some mindless animal. Jaxon had everything he wanted in life, and that was great for him, but I still had a long way to go before I had achieved my goals, and they didn’t include hooking up with a soccer player. Even one as stunning as Jaxon.

  “Let’s go outside and get coffee,” Jaxon said.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a job to do. I can’t just leave at the drop of a hat. Your mom went to a lot of effort to get me this job. I can’t let her down.” Besides, I still hadn’t cooled down from my experience this morning. The last thing I wanted right now was to go outside into the humidity again.

  “Having coffee with me is doing your job. And don’t worry about my mom. She acts in her own best interests, so if she got you this job it was for her benefit, not yours. You don’t owe her anything.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about her like that,” I said. I didn’t like Carrie, but I also didn’t like to hear Jaxon criticize his own mom. “She just wants you to come home. It’s not easy for her, having you the other side of the ocean.”

  “She doesn’t care where I live,” Jaxon said. “She’s doing this to curry favor with a client. She wants you to feel like you’re in her debt, but if anything it’s the other way round. You’re doing her the favor. My mom is good at manipulating people. She used to do it with my father all the time until he came to his senses and left.”

  Carrie never talked about her former husband, but Jaxon used to talk about him all the time. When his parents had split up, Jaxon had wanted to live with his dad, but his dad had insisted he stay with his mom for the time being.

  “Have you seen your father since you came to New York?” I asked.

  “No,” Jaxon replied. “He lives in California now, so I’ll see him when the tour moves to the West Coast in a few weeks.”

  “What does he do these days?” I asked.

  “He makes most of his money talking at conferences now. He worked in international affairs for the World Bank for a few years, but is now semi-retired. He gets offered consulting and teaching gigs all the time, and accepts the ones that pay the best. There was a trade conference the other day where he got paid so much for an hour long speech that he was earning more than me for a short period.”

  “Not as fun as earning millions of dollars a year playing soccer though,” I said. I still couldn’t get my head round the numbers. I had worked hard all
my life, and graduated from Harvard University. My reward was a job that paid less in a year than what Jaxon earned in a week. Okay, so he wouldn’t earn that money forever, and my salary would go up with time, but it still seemed unfair.

  Jaxon laughed. “I guess not. But I have him to thank for where I am now. He was the one who used to drive me around the state, and sometimes even the country, so that I could play as much soccer as possible. Mom had nothing to do with it. She just reaps the glory. So, shall we go for coffee?”

  I hesitated, but then nodded and stood up from my desk, careful not to walk in front of Jaxon in case he saw my blouse still stuck to my back. I shouldn’t be doing this. Coffee could be innocent enough, but things were rarely innocent where Jaxon and I were concerned. This was how things had started four years ago. We’d hung out as friends: gone for coffee, grabbed milkshakes, and ate brunch at the weekends. Everything had been so innocent. Until it wasn’t.

  Now history was repeating itself, and the image of Emilia and Jaxon kissing didn’t seem to be enough to make me hate him. Not when he was right in front of me. I needed his summer tour to go as quickly as possible, and for him to go back to England. I wanted to be left alone with my heartbreak before I did something stupid and made things worse.

  Mom and Dad always told me how clever I was, and to them going to Harvard University had proven that. However, clever people didn’t do things they knew were stupid, and going for coffee with Jaxon was definitely stupid.

  Jenny relaxed around me when we were in a public space. She didn’t even flinch when we sat down at the table and our knees pressed together. The table was small, so it wasn’t like there was anywhere else for them to go, but I still expected her to give me grief about it. Instead, she just ignored the contact between us, and we chatted like we used to four years ago.

  Well, not quite like we used to. Jenny was a little stiffer and held something back, but it was a big improvement on the conversation we’d had back in England. She was treating me like a human being now, at least.

  “I didn’t realize you made quite so much money,” Jenny admitted. “You must be a multi-millionaire at this point.”

  “I suppose. But I probably have less money than you expect.”

  “Did you blow it all on hookers and coke?”

  “I don’t touch drugs,” I replied seriously. “And I certainly don’t need to pay for sex. I do need to pay tax though. That takes a big chunk of the money. Besides, I haven’t been earning millions of dollars a year for that long. My first contract was for a mere $3,000 a week.”

  “Wow, however did you survive?”

  I smiled. “Fair enough.” Jenny was in a devilishly sarcastic mood today, but that was a big improvement on hating me, so I accepted it willingly.

  “Why weren’t you paid the big bucks straight away? Was it because you were young?”

  “God no. In Europe, if you have the talent they will pay you the mega-money, no matter what your age. When I first went to Europe three years ago, I could only get a contract with a smaller club in the third tier. I did well for them so a club from the second tier came in for me. We got promoted, and I got snapped up by Liverpool United. That was only a year ago so I haven’t accumulated many millions yet.”

  “You must have a lot of sponsorship deals though?” Jenny asked. “Didn’t I once have the misfortune of seeing your chest in a magazine advertising swimming trunks?”

  “Yes, I’ve done some sponsored stuff, but I don’t bother with that much anymore. To be honest, I have enough money that I don’t need to pimp myself out all the time. It feels kind of tacky, but Daisy loves it because she can take her ten percent. Did you keep it?”

  “Keep what?”

  “The picture of me in swimming trunks. Don’t tell me you didn’t like it.”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” Jenny said, looking down at her coffee. “I turned the page as soon as I could. I don’t want to see my brother with bikini babes draped all over him.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said seriously. “I’m not your brother.”

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “And they prefer the term ‘swimsuit models,’ ” I added, which got a smile out of her.

  We’d gone for coffee in a place much like this one when I’d first noticed I had feelings for her. My cock had wanted her the moment I’d laid eyes on her, but it took a while before I knew there was more to it than that. It should have been obvious. Before Jenny, my women had been the blonde-haired, thin legged type, who wore next to nothing on nights out. Jenny didn’t fit that mold at all. She did have a great body, but she kept it concealed more than I liked.

  At first, we’d hung out mainly to complain about our parents’ marriage, but then we started talking about our parents less and less, and focused on what we were doing with our lives. I usually zoned out when people talked to me about their day, but I listened intently to every word Jenny said.

  At some point it dawned on me that I wanted to talk to her as much as I wanted to fuck her. Ideally we would do both, but it took ages before I could convince her to take our relationship to the next level. No sooner had I managed that, than I had gotten the bad news from the hospital. From that point on, everything changed.

  “Three years?” Jenny said curiously.

  “What?”

  “You said you went to Europe three years ago. Don’t you mean four?”

  Shit. Slips of the tongue like that were going to get me in trouble. I could lie and say I went to Europe four years ago, but a quick Google search would prove that to be false. I needed to say something resembling the truth.

  “I had to take a year off,” I said. “My former agent messed up the transfer. We were all ready to accept an offer, but he forgot about the time difference and filed the paperwork late. I missed the transfer deadline and had to wait a year. That’s one of the reasons why I now have Daisy as my agent. She might be a nasty piece of work, but she is competent.”

  Thankfully Jenny didn’t know enough about soccer to realize there were two transfer windows, and I would’ve been able to move after six months were it not for my medical issue.

  “I should head off to the hospital,” I said, finishing the last of my coffee quickly. I wanted to get out of here before I made more mistakes. I was usually so calm and collected, but Jenny seemed to give off some vibe that fried my brain and stopped me from thinking straight.

  “I thought your appointment wasn’t until three?” Jenny asked.

  “I just told Daisy that so she would leave me alone,” I lied. Jenny was picking up on every little detail today. “If you’re going to miss me that much I can stay longer?”

  “I’ll manage,” Jenny replied. She immediately pulled out her phone and started messaging someone. I wondered if that was the same man she was meeting for a date later this week. I would deal with that problem later. Say one thing about important hospital appointments, they do at least provide a distraction from other issues in life. I headed to the hospital three hours early. My afternoon was going to be miserable, but at least I could spend my time cheering some people up.

  -*-

  Soccer wasn’t a huge sport in the US, but it was growing in popularity and kids loved it. In many parts of the country, more kids played soccer than any of the traditional US sports. That meant I could walk around hospital without being recognized until I walked into the children’s ward. At that point, I started attracting glances, and heard my name as sick children tried to walk around or at least sit up to catch a glance of one of the few Americans playing in the Premier League.

  “Hi, my name’s Jaxon Foster,” I said to the nurse in charge. “I phoned yesterday and said I would spend a few hours with the children this afternoon.”

  The nurse hadn’t recognized me immediately on-sight, but she recognized the name. “Of course, Mr. Foster. I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t tell any of the children you would be visiting in case you failed to show. You wouldn’t believe how often celebrities say t
hey will pop in and never do.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” I said. And not at all surprising, unfortunately. Some of my teammates did exactly that. Back in England, the club provided regular opportunities for players to do their bit in the community, but most of them tried to get out of it. I included myself in that category.

  I’d canceled three hospital visits arranged by the club’s community liaison officer until I finally went along to one after Daisy got on my case. She’d insisted it would be a good photo opportunity and improve my image, but after spending ten minutes talking to the children, I asked the journalists to leave and kept the entire thing a secret, much to Daisy’s frustration. Now I tried to visit children’s wards as often as possible, and always insured I did so in secret without any cameras around. Except for the cameras owned by the kids or their parents, anyway.

  My motives were partly selfish. There was nothing like seeing children struggling with cancer and disease to make you realize that you have an easy life in comparison. Before visiting these types of children’s wards, I’d assumed children would struggle to handle their illness, but they were almost always braver than adults. They were certainly braver than me. Most kids dealt with illness like it was just another challenge to be beaten; I found it inspiring.

  Some of the children were able to walk around, so I talked with them for half an hour, and made sure to sign autographs and smile for the photos. Not many of the parents knew who I was, but I heard children explaining my background to them.

  I then moved on and went from bed to bed, speaking to the children who were unable to get up. Most of them had at least one exhausted-looking parent by their bedside, but a few were alone. I spent the most time with them. In the end, everyone got a photo if they wanted one, but that was all I could do for them and it drove me crazy. I had money, but that wouldn’t make a dent in the medical costs for a facility like this.

  One thing I never did was ask the children how they were. Whereas adults—especially in England—would pretend they were fine, children had a remarkable tendency to be honest. One child I asked in England had told me, without a second’s hesitation, that he was feeling sick because of the chemotherapy. My own illness had been unpleasant enough; I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for a child to have to go through cancer treatment.