Читать книгу Trying Too Hard...: A steamy standalone sports romance - Molly Wishlade Ann - Страница 9

Chapter Two

“There’s something different about you, Catrin, I can tell,” Sarah narrowed her eyes and peered at her as if to see into her mind. The look made Catrin giggle as it reminded her of Larry David’s expression in his TV series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Catrin waved her hand dismissively at her best friend but her lips twitched with a grin. She turned away, feigning interest in a passing couple and their twin buggy.

They were snuggled into a booth at a Cardiff City Centre Starbucks, nursing cappuccinos and apple muffins. It had been weeks since they’d had the chance to catch up and Catrin had really missed having her old friend around. Since Henri’s arrival from France just over a week ago, she’d been busier than ever. Although Liam hadn’t assigned her any of her own clients as yet, he had given her responsibility for Henri during his stay in Wales. It was unusual for Liam to delegate hands-on client time to her but he was currently chasing up some reality television stars, keen to sign them to his books before another agency commandeered them, so Catrin finally had the chance to show what she could do.

And look what had happened!

She was risking it all for great sex. And it was just for the sex, right? She wanted to believe that it was just a physical attraction to Henri that was driving her into his arms but she had a feeling she couldn’t shake that there might be something else unfolding too.

“Is it work?” Sarah queried. Catrin knew that her friend was well aware of how hard she had worked to get her internship at the firm. After all, Catrin had roped her into the composing of her résumé.

“Yes…kind of…” Catrin smiled, breaking small pieces off her apple muffin and making a small pile on her napkin. Wonderful work. She loved her job so much and until recently it had been all she’d had to focus on. As an intern at the agency, she’d been striving hard for two years to secure a permanent position. But Liam H. Clarkson, though seemingly kind and full of praise, had not yet seen fit to promote her. He was, she reflected, almost too keen to keep her as his intern/personal assistant. And she wanted so much more.

“How’s that what’s-his-face treating you? You know, your boss?”

“Liam?”

“That’s the one!” Sarah leaned forwards over the table and a tendril of her long red hair brushed against the froth of her coffee.

“Sarah!” Catrin giggled. Her friend was so clumsy. She was always covered in food, drink or dog hair.

“Dammit!” Sarah wiped the end of her hair with a napkin. “So?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “Has ‘Mr Liam I secretly love Catrin as my PA because she’s so efficient’ finally given you a hint of a possible permanent contract?”

Catrin shook her head.

“Then what’s happened? Is he still using his Blackberry as a remote control?”

Catrin giggled. Sarah had joked on several occasions about how Liam used his mobile to control Catrin wherever and whenever he chose. It wasn’t that either of them believed that Liam fancied Catrin, just that he was a bit of a control freak. But then, Catrin could kind of understand his need to micro-manage because he’d been a founding member of the company and his life savings were riding on its success.

“So…what is it then?” Sarah was like a bulldog once she got hold of something – she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“I’ve met someone.” Catrin bit her lip.

Ooops!

Sarah’s mouth dropped open and she clapped her hands together. The noise drew the curious glances of some other customers and Catrin sank lower in her seat. She hated being the centre of attention. She leant over and smoothed the legs of her skinny jeans into her Uggs.

“Who? Tell me, tell me!” Sarah scrunched up her face and pouted her lips, causing Catrin to snort. Her friend was crazy, which probably helped as she worked at a dog rescue centre. Sarah earned minimum wage, still lived with her mother and father and spent fourteen-hour days at work but she loved it. She was the happiest person Catrin knew as well as the most generous. Sometimes Catrin wished that she could be happy with such simplicity. But she knew that she couldn’t. She’d always felt the need to push herself, to strive for more. It made her wonder what it would take for her to be really happy.

“He’s French.”

“How did you meet a Frenchman?” Sarah frowned then realisation filled her eyes and her red eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Through work?”

Catrin nodded then hung her head. She knew what was coming.

“Are you crazy?”

She nodded. Tears sprang into her eyes. The last thing she needed right now was Sarah’s disapproval. Sarah was the one person who had the ability to make her feel better about herself. They’d shared so much, been there for each other for so long. She was like the sister that Catrin had always wanted.

“What were you thinking?” Sarah slapped her hand against the table top causing the cups to rattle against their saucers. The small pile of muffin collapsed and some of it fell into Catrin’s lap.

Catrin shrugged as she picked the crumbs off her jeans and placed them back on the napkin. “I, uh…I…look, Sarah, we’ve been friends for a long time…”

“Since uni!” Sarah sighed. “And that makes me qualified to remind you of how hard you’ve worked to get where you are! I didn’t spend nights writing résumés with you, months missing you when you went abroad to develop your contacts then days waiting for your phone call as yet another interview left you in tears…just to see you throw it all away now!”

“I’m not throwing anything away.” Catrin looked at Sarah then back at her coffee cup, heat flooding her cheeks. Sarah was right. It had been so hard to get into her chosen career. Hell, she’d even worked as a waitress, a chambermaid, and at a power company call centre to fund her studies. After graduating, she’d tried to gain a position at one prestigious agency after another. Finally, she’d struck lucky with Clarkson and Gwillam and here she was risking it all. Utter madness!

Especially when she also knew that the glass ceiling in the celebrity agency business was double-glazed! So she might have gotten in but she could well find that she could climb no further.

“Well, you know I love you.” Sarah reached out and took her hand over the table. “And I’ll always be here for you. But I know you and I know that if you lose this job you’ll be broken…and broke.”

Catrin sighed. Her friend was right. She thrived on the excitement of meeting new clients and helping Liam to make new deals, of eating out at fancy restaurants and attending events where she sat in reserved seats with the best views. As an only child who’d lost her father during her time at university and with a mother who spent most of the year in Spain with her latest fling, she had little else in her life. She had to admit it, her job was her life. Plus – her heart sank – she had so much debt. University loans were crippling her and hung over her horizon like thick black clouds. Her Cardiff Bay apartment was everything she had dreamt it would be but the rent was extortionate. She needed the meagre wage that the internship paid and could really do with the pay rise a permanent position would offer. Maybe then she could quit working at the Venus Lounge at weekends. She shuddered.

“Whatever happened to that guy from Swansea?” Sarah broke into her thoughts.

Catrin picked at a cuticle. “He wasn’t for me.”

“Why ever not? You always find something wrong with them, Catrin. At this rate you’ll never settle down.” Sarah wagged a finger at her though her lips twitched at the corners.

Catrin shook her head. “You sound like a mother hen! Totally unlike my own mother the last time she phoned.”

“More of her repetitive warnings that men and children ruin your life?”

Catrin nodded. “Same as always.”

“All the sangria.” Sarah shook her head. “Rotted her brain cells.”

Catrin’s cheeks filled with heat.

“Oh I’m sorry.” Sarah squeezed her hand then lifted her coffee and took a gulp. “I know she gives you a hard time about it. About everything. And that’s not what I meant to do. You know I’d never say anything to hurt you. Anyway…look at me…the eternal Bridget Jones!”

Catrin laughed with her friend. At twenty-five, neither of them had to worry urgently about biological clocks and finding ‘the one’, though she knew that Sarah was, in fact, in love and had been involved with another woman for the past six months. She had confided all in Catrin one drunken night. Her fear of her parents’ reaction to the relationship meant that she’d kept it quiet and not spoken of it again, maintaining her happy-go-lucky attitude and carrying on as if nothing was wrong. It was tragic that such an open and honest person felt the need to conceal her true self. Yet, Catrin mused, here she was, sitting on her own little pile of secrets.

“So are you in love?” The direct question shocked Catrin. She hadn’t really thought about it. She’d only known Henri a week and that was far too brief a time to fall in love. Wasn’t it? They had great sex and she enjoyed his company, she loved the way she felt when he enveloped her in his strong arms, but she didn’t even know him very well. She had no idea what his parents’ names were, what size shoes he took, even what music he liked.

Her stomach lurched. She’d fallen into his arms and into his bed, caught up on such a powerful wave of lust and longing that she’d thrown all caution to the wind.

“I’m not sure.” She finished her coffee. “I’m smitten but I don’t know if it’s love. It’s too soon. He’s a client.”

She looked at Sarah but her friend’s face was warm with understanding.

“I gathered that.”

“He’s a rubgy player. He’s good,” she smiled, “really good.”

“Rugby, eh?” Sarah grinned, her eyes full of mischief. “Big thighs, tight ass, abs? Yummy! And have you…”

The question hung between them, floating above the empty cups and half-eaten muffins like steam from the coffee machine.

Catrin nodded. “He’s amazing! I’ve never been with a man like him…he’s…”

She bit her lip. Strange. She would usually share much more about her latest beau with Sarah but there was something different here. Henri. Catrin didn’t want to tell Sarah about the level of intimacy she’d shared with him. It was…special, important, theirs. Hers and Henri’s. To discuss their sexual exploits would be like betraying him and she didn’t want to do that.

But she could show him off!

She reached into her bag and pulled out her iPad. She cleared the cups to one side and placed it in front of her friend then opened the celebrity client folder. When she found the right file, she pulled up Henri’s photograph.

“Wow!” Sarah sighed. “That is what I call a man and as you know I’m not all that fond of…” She cut herself short and looked at Catrin then started to giggle.

Catrin winked at her then gazed at the photograph. She tapped the screen to enlarge it and absently traced the strong jawline and dark hair which flopped softly onto his forehead and curled above his ears. He really was one of the best looking men she’d ever seen. She was consumed by an ache to hold him again and to be held.

“So when are you seeing him?”

“Tonight.” Catrin’s stomach flipped in anticipation. “In fact, I’m going straight there.”

“Well let’s go get you something nice to wear!”

Catrin grinned. “Really?”

Sarah nodded. “But promise me that you’ll be careful.”

“I promise,” she replied, well aware that caution had not been her strength of late.

As they stood up and donned their coats, Catrin allowed Sarah’s warmth and enthusiasm to warm her right through. She knew that the relationship with Henri was doomed, knew that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. She was breaking protocol and taking a gamble with her career. But Henri wouldn’t be in Wales permanently and once she got promoted to celebrity agent in her own right, she’d have no more to do with him. She’d build her own client list and this would be a fling she’d had one wet, miserable Welsh summer. Like the brief glimpses of sun that Wales celebrated in August, Catrin would savour Henri’s warmth. Until it was time to let go.

It must be something to do with the time of year, when love should be in the air -if you listened to the radio and believed the clichés in the magazines – and she’d let her emotions and her lust get the better of her. She’d enjoy what time they had, keep it all under wraps, then watch as he sailed off into the sunset. Make that rode off – on the Eurotunnel.

It would be as easy as that!

Wouldn’t it?

***

Henri paced up and down the length of his hotel room lounge with the frustration of a caged tiger. He just wanted Catrin to arrive so that he could immerse himself in her, both physically and mentally and shut out the nagging doubts.

He was a Frenchman in Cardiff. It might not sound as exotic as Sting’s Englishman in New York but it was certainly exotic to him. Everything was so different here yet so beautiful. He was just hours from his homeland and could be back there by train or plane whenever he chose but he had a feeling that he may not want to return.

He’d come to Wales to train with the Welsh team. Following their Grand Slam victory, everyone with international ambitions and any sense wanted to experience their training regime and to see for themselves the new improved team that the top New Zealand manager had created. They were tough, strong and fast. He’d debuted with his own local team in France but his mother had been Welsh, which gave him dual nationality – and a choice.

He was a skilled full back and sought after. Offers had been made and deals placed on the table. If only it could be as easy as playing for France and Wales but it wasn’t. The IRB stated that you had to choose which country you played for then stick with that country. He needed a strong agent to seal the best possible deal for him in order to map out his career. He had received proposals from both France and Wales and he had to make a decision before the autumn round of matches began. If he made his international debut for Wales, he could never play for France and vice-versa.

His agent in France had referred him to Clarkson and Gwillam’s Welsh branch for the duration of his stay and he had gone along to their anniversary dinner just a week ago. He hadn’t been looking forward to it, in fact he’d almost been dreading it. He hated all the fuss and glitz of the celebrity world and he’d had enough of the bimbos and hangers-on that the modern culture encouraged.

But then he’d seen her and it had all changed.

Walking into the fine medieval hall at Cardiff Castle had been an experience in itself. He’d been chauffeured to the event, though he could easily have walked it from the Hilton. The chauffeur had told him that Liam H. Clarkson would meet him at the entrance. The agent must have been late, which hadn’t troubled Henri at all. He didn’t need someone to hold his hand, so he’d entered the historic building alone and the atmosphere had been an absolute delight.

Long, narrow corridors weaved like labyrinths, their cold stone walls illuminated by heavy candelabra. Every so often a corridor widened out into a small chamber which was adorned with faded tapestries and suits of armour. He had to force his mouth shut to prevent himself from gawking like a schoolboy in a sweetshop.

When he’d arrived at the largest chamber so far, he was lulled by the mellow Celtic tunes plucked from a harp and the heady aroma of the expensive spicy perfumes and citrus colognes of the hundred or so people milling around. The air was filled with animated chatter which rose above the mournful melody and bounced off the curved stone ceiling.

Though he’d grown up in France, he’d visited Wales on several occasions but never made it to the castle. That evening he had wondered why. He felt something there, a connection deep in his soul, like a part of him belonged to this ancient, beautiful and rugged country.

He had accepted a glass of champagne from a pretty young woman dressed as a medieval servant and taken a big gulp. Then he’d seen her. She reminded him of a mermaid with her slim figure and white blonde hair which fell like a satin waterfall to her waist. Her grey-blue eyes sparkled like sapphires in the candlelight and her skin seemed to glow, making her appear ethereal. If it hadn’t been for her modern attire, he’d have been convinced that she was a spirit trapped within the castle walls, luminescent with paranormal energy. A hundred cheesy chatup lines had run through his head but he’d been so overwhelmed that he couldn’t pick one out. They just merged together like a giant melting pot of lust and nerves.

His breath caught in his throat as she’d moved across the room. Her elegant frame was swathed in the sheerest black fabric which clung to every curve. He could tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra and his cock had twitched with desire at the high, round breasts. He wondered if she was aware that the material of her dress was so sheer but then of course she was, she was probably a model or actress and used to displaying her wares. It was all about attracting attention with these types of women. The hem of her dress stopped just below her knee – not too slutty, not too formal – and it drew attention to slim calves and killer black heels.

“Henri!” Ahand clapped him on the shoulder and he turned, reluctant to look away from the flaxen-haired vision.

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I’m Liam Clarkson.” The man held out a manicured hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“How did you know who I was?” Henri asked the rhetorical question. He knew that his height and build made him stand out in the crowd and with his dark hair and rugby scars, it didn’t take a genius to work it out.

“Ha! Ha!” The slim man, who Henri quickly decided was in his forties, swigged his own champagne. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” With that he waved a hand and caught the attention of the beautiful blonde. She nodded and walked towards them.

Henri’s mouth suddenly became so dry that he wondered if he’d be able to talk. As she approached, he couldn’t take his eyes off her form, the way the material caressed her breasts, the gentle curve of her stomach, her hips. If he did nothing else in his whole life, he felt in that moment that he had to have her. His common sense called out, telling him that she’d be another disappointment, a wannabe out to snare him for a tabloid tale or a wag desperate to ride on his rugby successes. But his desire growled with hunger and his heart pounded with need.

The chatter around them seemed to dissipate, fading like a passing car. The harp’s gentle melody moved in tune with her body as if it played only for her. His body throbbed with every step she took and he had to press his free hand into his pocket for fear that he would reach out and pull her to him.

When she arrived at his side, she held out a small white hand and he stared at it mutely.

“Henri Chevallier,” Liam announced, “I would like you to meet Catrin Owens. My intern, assistant and…yes, I guess I can call her my protégée.”

Henri noticed a flicker of something pass over the young woman’s face but she quickly masked it with a dazzling smile.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, taking her hand and bowing over it.

“Oh, Monsieur Chevallier.” Her cheeks coloured. “It is true what they say about the French having manners.”

He smiled in reply.

“Yes, yes!” the agent at his side fanned himself with a napkin. “I daresay they do. But Monsieur Chevallier is here to demonstrate his prowess on the rugby field and to draw in some British sponsorship, not to display manners that put us other men to shame.”

Henri glanced at the man, sensing that he was perhaps intimidated by the presence of a younger and fitter model but then it could just be impatience with propriety. The whole agency game was a bit of an act at times and Henri bet that Liam, like anyone, got tired too.

But he wasn’t really interested in Liam. His attention was glued to the young woman. She was not, as he had first thought, a model or actress but an assistant in training to be an agent herself. So her looks were the façade that hid something, he hoped, even more interesting. He was so used to being surrounded by clones with their fake hair, fake tans and fake tits, that to find natural beauty (which he hoped might be unfettered by a desire to use him to climb the celebrity ladder) was a novelty. And a challenge.

He wanted her even more.

The evening had passed in a haze of introductions, fine wines, mead and medieval food. Liam H. Clarkson had sat at Henri’s left and placed Catrin to his right so that Henri had been flanked by the agency. They had spoken of contracts and promotions, events and meetings until Henri’s head had spun and he didn’t know if it was the wine or their chatter. Catrin’s appearance belied the focused career woman beneath the attractive, elegant exterior and he was fascinated by her knowledge and determination. A lesser man, one lacking in self-confidence, might well have found her intimidating but Henri found her refreshing. She was different. It was clear that this woman did not need a man to define who she was. That could deter many possible suitors but it intrigued him and he wanted to find out what made her tick, where she had come from and where she was headed.

At the end of the evening, Liam whispered into Catrin’s ear and she nodded then turned to Henri.

“Liam has asked me to accompany you back to your hotel.”

“I’m sure I can find my own way there, Miss Owens.” He was just being polite. He hoped that she’d insist.

“It’s all part of the service.” She flashed him a dazzling smile. “And please, call me Catrin!”

“Yes, Catrin.” He smiled in return, then held out his arm and they made their way through the winding corridors and out into the damp July air.

Thinking about how the evening had ended made heat run through his blood. He wasn’t sure if it was the wine, the heady atmosphere of the medieval castle, being in a different country or just Catrin’s overwhelming beauty but they’d ended up having fast and furious sex as soon as they crossed the threshold of his hotel room. Initially, as they travelled back in the limo, she’d told him she’d see him to the hotel lobby, then it had been the door to his room and finally she’d said she’d come in for a night-cap. He’d worried briefly about whether or not she was after a story for the tabloids but dismissed the thought by reminding himself that she was building a career as an agent and she was surely above such behaviour.

She’d refused to stay that first night and every night since. He didn’t mind because he didn’t want things to get all serious and confused anyway. He had some big decisions to make and he was happy to enjoy her company for what it was.

For now.

But he just couldn’t stop thinking about her.