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Eventually, she stroked his face. ‘Thank you, Jared. For listening. And for not judging.’
Unable to help himself, he twisted his face round so he could drop a kiss into her palm. ‘No worries.’
‘I’m sorry I cried all over you.’
‘It probably did you good,’ he said.
‘And we were supposed to be talking about Darren,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it. Darren can wait. We’ll talk about him tomorrow, maybe. Right now, this is a bit more important.’
‘I don’t normally cry over people.’
No. He’d guess that normally she sparkled that little bit more brightly, pretending everything was fine and waiting until she was on her own before letting her true feelings show. ‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘I, um, ought to let you go. It’s getting late.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said softly.
‘But …’
‘Bailey, do you really think I can walk away and just leave you here alone, upset and hurting?’ he asked.
She just looked at him, those huge, huge eyes full of pain.
‘It’s your choice,’ he said. ‘I can sleep on your sofa tonight—just so I know you’re not alone, and I’m here if you need anything. Or …’ He paused.
‘Or?’ she whispered.
‘Or I can hold you until you fall asleep. Sleep with you.’
Even though she tried to hide it, he could see the panic flood into her face. ‘I said sleep, Bailey,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘Which isn’t the same as having sex.’
‘I—I’m sorry.’
He kissed the corner of her mouth. ‘You’re upset, you’re trying to be brave and all your nightmares have come back to haunt you. Some people might use sex as a way of escaping it all, but you’re not one of them. And I would never push you into anything you’re not happy with.’
‘I know.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I’m a mess, Jared. And you’ve been hurt in the past, too. I’m the last person you need to get involved with.’
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he said gently. ‘And let me be here for you tonight.’
Bailey knew it was a genuine offer. It would be, oh, so easy to take him up on it. To lean on him. To take comfort from the warmth of his body curled round hers.
But it would also make things really complicated.
‘You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?’ he asked wryly.
She nodded. ‘And you said I had a choice.’
‘Sofa?’ he asked.
‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Really. I’ll be fine.’
‘How about we compromise?’ Jared suggested. ‘You let me hold you—on the sofa—until you’re asleep. Then I’ll tuck you in and I’ll leave—though if you wake at stupid o’clock and you need to talk, then you call me.’
So, so generous. She stroked his face. ‘I’m sorry I called you Herod.’
He smiled. ‘That was the autocorrect on your phone.’
‘But I never took it back. And you’re not a tyrant at all. You’re more like Sir Galahad. A knight on a white charger coming to the rescue.’
He laughed. ‘Hardly. I’m just a man, Bailey.’
‘There’s no “just”. You’re a good man, Jared Fraser. Kind. You do all that gruff, dour Scotsman stuff—but that’s the opposite of who you really are.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Now lead me to your sofa.’
‘Don’t you want a drink or anything? I’ve been horribly rude and haven’t even offered you a coffee.’
He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘In the circumstances, that’s not so surprising. And I don’t want a coffee. I just want to hold you until you fall asleep.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly, and led him through to the sofa in her living room.
CHAPTER TEN (#ua494eb00-dfea-56d1-8a9f-d4f6192707bc)
THE NEXT MORNING, Bailey woke to find herself still fully clothed on the sofa, with her duvet tucked round her.
Falling asleep in Jared’s arms last night had felt risky—but it had also felt so, so good.
She grabbed her phone, but a wave of unexpected shyness stopped her calling him. What would she even say?
Instead, she sent him a text: Thank you for last night.
Her phone pinged almost immediately with his reply: No worries. Sleep well?
Yes. Thank you.
Good. See you at work. And this time he’d signed his text with a kiss.
Maybe this was going to work out after all. Jared made her feel brave. And his ex, Bailey thought, really needed her head examined. Why would you throw away the love of a kind, decent, thoughtful man for a shallow, publicity-obsessed lifestyle?
Then again, unhappiness made you do stupid things. Cruel things. Bailey knew she was just as guilty when it came to the way she’d pushed Ed away. And didn’t they say you shouldn’t judge someone until you’d walked a mile in their shoes?
She showered, changed and headed for the football pitch. But when she got there she was surprised to find that the players weren’t warming up as usual on the field. Instead, they were sitting in the dressing room, and the mood was extremely subdued.
‘What’s the matter, lads?’ she asked.
‘You need to go in and see Mr Fincham in his office,’ Billy said. ‘Archie and Jared are already there.’
Mr Fincham? Why would the football club’s chairman of directors want to see her? ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘I can’t say.’ He bit his lip. ‘But there’s trouble, Bailey.’
Worried, Bailey hurried along to the office. Mandy, Lyle Fincham’s PA, was typing furiously on her keyboard. ‘Mandy, what’s going on?’ Bailey asked.
Mandy shook her head. ‘That’s for Mr Fincham to say, not me.’ She inclined her head towards the door. ‘They’re in there, waiting. You’d better go in.’
Bailey knocked on the door out of courtesy and walked in. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. There was a delay on the Tube.’
Then she saw Darren sitting between Archie and Jared. And Jared was looking every inch the dour, unsmiling Scotsman.
‘It’s in all the papers this morning,’ Lyle said, indicating the stack of newspapers on his desk. ‘And all over the Internet.’
‘What is?’ she asked.
‘The video of laddo here.’ Lyle jerked his head towards Darren. ‘In a club, getting drunk. Underage.’
She looked at Darren, who was white-faced and looked utterly guilty. So much for making the most of his second chance. Or maybe they just hadn’t given him enough support. After all, Jared had originally wanted to talk to her last night about the boy; they hadn’t got round to discussing the situation, because she’d been in meltdown.
And yet … something didn’t quite stack up. The last couple of weeks, since she’d picked up Darren’s underperformance and she and Jared had persuaded Archie to give the boy another chance, his stats had all been back to normal. ‘When did all this happen?’ she asked.
‘Last night,’ Archie said grimly.
Darren shook his head. ‘I wasn’t out last night. You can ask my mum. She’ll tell you.’
‘Actually, my stats show that Darren’s performance has been normal ever since we talked to you, Archie,’ Bailey said. ‘If he’d still been drinking, it would’ve shown up on my graphs.’
‘Graphs, schmaphs,’ Lyle Fincham said, flapping a dismissive hand. ‘Archie should never have let that box of tricks of yours cloud his judgement. This is a total mess, and I can’t afford to let this affect the club. As from today, you’re out, Dr Randall. I don’t care how much of your research project’s wasted. It’s over.’
‘Actually, I agree with Bailey,’ Jared cut in. ‘It would show on the graphs. And if she goes, I go.’
No. No way was she letting Jared risk his career. For her, this was a research project. Yes, there would be repercussions about the way it had ended, but it would eventually blow over. For Jared, it would be his whole career on the line. This wasn’t fair.
‘I was the one who talked Archie into giving Darren another chance, so don’t take this out on Jared,’ she said swiftly. ‘Don’t make him leave because of me.’
‘And that video’s from weeks back, I swear. I haven’t touched a drop since you said I could stay, Mr McLennan,’ Darren added desperately, giving Archie a beseeching look. ‘I know I was stupid to do it before.’
‘But you’ve still dragged the club’s name into disrepute.’ Lyle shook his head. ‘No. You’re out, boy, so go and pack your things.’
‘That’s not fair—he’s owned up to his mistakes, and this is just bad timing,’ Bailey said. ‘Nobody’s perfect. Can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you’ve never, ever made a decision you haven’t later regretted?’
Lyle gave her a speaking look.
‘We all have the potential to make the wrong choice somewhere along the way. It’s hard to own up to it. But Darren admitted his mistake and he’s doing something about it.’ Bailey grimaced. ‘Look, can Darren just go and wait in another room while we talk about this like the professionals we are? It’s horrible, all of us standing round like vultures pecking at the poor lad.’
‘I agree,’ Jared chipped in. ‘And I also think we can turn this around so the club can make this a positive. We’ll need your PR manager to help us, but we can do it.’
For a moment, she thought Lyle Fincham was going to refuse, but then he tightened his mouth and nodded. ‘Darren, go and wait next door with Mandy. You don’t move a muscle, you don’t phone anyone or talk to anyone and you don’t go anywhere near the Internet, do you hear? Leave your phone with us.’
Looking hunted, the boy handed over his phone and went to wait with Lyle’s PA next door.
Lyle picked up his phone. ‘Max? My office. Now. There’s a situation that needs handling.’ He put the phone down again. ‘Right. So we’ll sort this out between us.’
‘Darren’s only seventeen. He’s still just a kid, really. He’s not going to think things through properly, the way someone more mature would do. Instead of coming to you to ask about extra training, Archie, he got drunk to blot out how he felt. You agreed to give him a second chance. He’s stayed clean since then—and I bet if you ask any of the other lads they’ll be able to tell you that, too,’ Bailey said.
‘I let you persuade me into giving him another chance, yes,’ Archie said. ‘But if one player goes wrong, then all the players get tarred with the same brush. You know what the press is like about how much money is in football. They’ll have a field day with the kid—and with the club. This isn’t fair to the rest of the players, or to the fans.’
‘Or the shareholders,’ Lyle added. ‘His behaviour’s put everything at risk.’
‘But we can turn this round,’ Jared said. ‘Really.’
There was a rap on the door and Max Porter, the PR manager, came in. ‘So what’s this situation?’
‘Darren. There’s a video of him drunk and underage.’ Lyle’s colour was dangerously high again, and Bailey was really beginning to worry that the chairman of directors was about to have a heart attack or a stroke.
‘Right,’ Max said calmly. ‘Talk me through it.’
‘We picked it up on Bailey’s system,’ Jared said. ‘He admitted he’d been drinking. Archie agreed to give him another chance.’
‘And he hasn’t touched anything since,’ Bailey said. ‘All his stats since we talked to him about it match his average. And it would show up if he was still drinking.’
‘I’ve analysed the way he plays and designed a training programme to help him improve his weak spots,’ Jared added.
‘So you both obviously think he should stay,’ Max said. Then he looked at Archie and Lyle. ‘And I take it you both think he should go?’
‘And not just him,’ Lyle said with a pointed look at Jared and Bailey.
‘We can turn this around,’ Jared said again. ‘This is a classic example of what the pressures of professional football can do to young players. We brought Darren into the club. We set the bar high. And what do we do with the players who can’t handle the pressure? Do we just abandon them, in a cold-hearted business decision? Or do we treat them like a family member—knowing he has flaws, knowing he’s human and helping him to get over the problem?’
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