Game on, Love (Pitch and Pits #1)

33

Raina

WALKING THROUGH THE FRONT gates of our family estate felt like the key to a memory box I didn’t want to unlock. It felt like I was seeing it for the first time, yet somehow reliving a vivid dream turned nightmare. The grey sky felt like a hug wrapped up like the ones Ma gave me, and I found the courage to walk up to the front door. The trees along the gravel driveway swayed with the strong November winds, the fallen leaves an accurate representation of my chipped armour.

I was regretting this big time.

But as I stood in front of the ivy-clad house, it felt like the stony exterior was daring me to turn back.

I had texted Dev that I was walking up to the house and waiting for him like this made me feel like a guest.

And why wouldn’t I? People can lose the sense of their home in a matter of minutes after a single disaster, and I hadn’t been in this place for the better part of my life.

Ten years, four months, two weeks and one day, but who was counting, right?

The past couple of days had been a dream with Oliver, but I knew all good things eventually came to an end. Rihaan had been in and out of the house, and when he came downstairs this morning, the way he had looked at me told me he was suspecting what was going on between me and Oliver, and I almost told him then and there, but then I remembered after Oliver had told me about the pictures, I had promised him that we’d tell Rihaan together.

So here I was, ticking off another thing on my list I needed to do before closing this chapter of my life.

The front door creaked open, and Dev gave me a comforting smile. I wanted to make a joke about how he was still in a suit at home, but my voice felt like it was trapped in my throat. Like it always did in this house.

“Come in, Rai. He’s not home, I promise.”

I nodded, stepping into the house. My heeled boots clicked against the marble floor, the dull light from outside dimming the hallway. Dev shut the door behind me, and suddenly, the air felt heavy. The memories of the laughter, the screams of us chasing each other, the lingering disappointment that came later and the unsaid words that were hanging.

“How was Vegas?” I cleared my throat as my uneven voice reached my ears.

“Good. Missed you there,” Dev replied, walking behind me as he nudged my back into the foyer, and the sight of the two grand staircases hit me harder than I’d expected.

“How did we not fall off sliding down those railings?” I asked, and a relieved chuckle left Dev.

“I honestly don’t know.”

I touched the wooden table as we passed the archway, ignoring the burning sensation under my fingertips.

We walked into the kitchen, and he closed his laptop on the counter, tidying up the space he’d just been in. I couldn’t help but ask. “Why are you still living with him, Dev?”

He sighed, placing both of his hands on the counter as leaned forward. “You know I have to.”

“I promise you, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I have to keep an eye on things, and it’s not like I have a choice.”

“You know you could just marry in the next short while and be finally done with this? You owe him absolutely nothing. We both know he doesn’t make life easy for you, and he is never going to change.”

“You think this is about the fucking contract?” He asked, his jaw tightening. “It’s not. It’s about the promise I made to Ma, okay? And even if it were in my contract, I’d rather not have a repeat of our parent’s marriage.”

An ache spread through my chest as I sucked in a breath. “What the hell does that mean?”

Before he could reply, the slam of the front door echoed through the house, and my heart dropped into the acid of my stomach. The only saving grace Dev had was that he mirrored my expression.

He truly didn’t know, it just was my luck .

Dad was home.

Ten years or not, the sound of his heavy footsteps in the hallway felt familiar, like the sound of a broken heart. We were both frozen in place as he appeared in the archway, looking as stern and emotionless as ever.

I’d spotted him at the championship party, but only from a distance. But as he stood only a couple of feet from me, I could see the lines of age that had been carved in his face, and from the memories of my sixteen-year-old and twelve-year-old self, it felt like staring at a stranger.

His look bounced between Dev and me, his expression void of any emotions.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” His voice was low and cold.

“Believe me, neither did I,” I shot back, even though my pulse was racing.

His gaze narrowed. “Watch your tone.”

I straightened up, my heartbeat ringing in my ears. “No. You have no right over me. Not anymore.”

“You are still my child, and you will speak to me with respect.”

I scoffed, the bitterness in my own voice taking me aback. “It’s just DNA, I’m no child of yours. I have seen how you are with your children, and you don’t get to call the person I am an extension of you.”

“That’s enough,” His voice was sharp. “You’ve stayed away too long and lost all sense of how to speak to your father.”

“And who’s choice was that? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly had guilt over abandoning me?”

“What?” Dev asked, his voice sharp.

“Oh, that’s right, he didn’t tell you guys,” I pointed out harshly, my gaze still fixed on the man in front of us. “Don’t you get tired of keeping track of the things you’ve lied to your children about?”

I looked at Dev before speaking again. “What do you want to know? The fact that he had the choice to bring me back but decided that I was too much of a headache? Or maybe he had thought that I was better left back because I knew he was cheating on Ma, and maybe the act of him choosing to leave me right after Ma died would upset me so much he was sure I wouldn’t be able to put it together and tell my brothers exactly the kind of man they were living with!”

The balloon finally popped, and the silence in the room was deafening.

“What?” This time when Dev spoke, his voice was colder than the arctic. “Look. At. Me.”

When Dad looked at him, it was the first time I’d seen an expression on his face, and still, he couldn’t even bring himself to show an ounce of guilt.

“I am sorry.” I hadn’t expected him to say it, much less to me, but the genuine tone of his words reached me, and it felt like a bullet piercing through my chest.

“I was eleven,” I whispered, surprising myself. My heart was betraying me after not being able to hold it in anymore, and I couldn’t even find the strength to somehow warn Dev. “It was the first and only time I had joined you and Rihaan at the nets. You asked me to sit with her as you took both boys out and coached them. I remember she was so nice to me, but she kept on looking at me in a certain way. I couldn’t understand it, but at the time, I don’t think I cared much. I do remember something she said to you.”

I took a shaky breath, pressing my fingers to my palm. “‘ She’s got Diya’s eyes.’ You looked at me then, and I saw it. I saw the moment you stopped loving me.”

I knew I was telling the truth, but seeing the look on his face… that was the moment I felt the pain spread over me again.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then, explain it to me.”

He gave me a nod, knowing he had nowhere else to hide. Not anymore.

“My marriage to Diya was a business deal. Young cricketers don’t get paid much, and I already came from a small family. Both my parents had taken ill at the same time and needed immediate help. I’d gone to Rohan as I used to consider him my confidant. He was the one who helped me climb up the ranks after he became my first sponsor. He said he would give me whatever I needed if I could do one thing for him, and of course, I said yes. He was a business mogul, and I’d made a deal with him to help my career and my parents. I walked out of his office feeling like I won my first god damn world cup.

“The paperwork was vague, and it just said he’d call back on the favour in a couple of years’ time. Again, my only priority was saving my parents at that time and that is all that mattered to me. It was two years before I’d heard from him again. But in the two years a lot had changed. I was an international success, I was respected in the sport, and I was in love.”

The ground beneath me shook as he spoke further.

“I met Anchal during one of my tours to the UK. She was a law student at that time, a couple of years younger than me, but I fell for her the first time I saw her. She insisted on not telling anyone that we were together until after she graduated. She had promised her parents that she would only focus on her school. Turns out, if we had been open about it, my deal with Rohan wouldn’t have mattered,” He sighed, and I could see the regret was still there.

“In exchange for the money, he had contracted that once his daughter was of age, and it was clear I hadn’t been involved with anyone else in the past year, Diya and I were set to marry in a month. I tried to tell him I was with someone, but he asked me for proof but Anchal and I only hung out in her flat because we didn’t want to be caught.

“I tried everything, I had all the money in the world, he said, he had more. I tried negotiating, and I hired lawyers, but there was nothing I could do. Instead, I only got told that there were more stipulations in the contract that tied to me like an anchor. Not only did I have to marry his daughter, I had to provide him with a grandson to ensure that his business would be run by his bloodline.”

My gaze averted to Dev, his face hard as a stone. It felt like the world was moving too fast to keep up, but even though I knew there was more, I couldn’t look at him.

“By the time I came back to the UK, Anchal had vanished into thin air. I wanted to blame her, but How could I? To her, I had gone home to check up on my family but three days later, every newspaper had published my engagement,” He paused, taking a deep breath. “After Diya and I got married, everything about her was just a memory. I had gone on tours and dedicated all my life to my game. My parents were already apprehensive about me going into cricket, and marrying someone outside our culture was the last thing they needed before they cut me out of their lives. And Cricket was the only thing I had left that I truly loved anymore.”

He took a breath before he continued.

“Sure, over the years, I grew to understand that your mother was just a victim to the relationship as I was, so we both found common ground. We had your brothers, we started a family. We were trying to find our version of happy, but I ran into Anchal again after all those years. Maybe it was a test, I don’t know, but we talked, and she told me she never fell in love again or got married. And the more time we spent together, I had fallen for her all over again.

“I had already given Rohan exactly what he wanted, and he had enough money to help your mother raise the kids. But before I even got to tell your mother what I was considering, she told me she was sick and dying. It was a snap of a decision. If she was dying, I had to stay for the boys. They were barely a few years old, and I’d imagined her raising the kids with her dad, but knowing she was dying, I couldn’t let him raise them.”

I jumped at the sudden contact. Dev was guiding me to sit down; his touch was still cold as he unwrapped my fists, his eyes holding anger in a way I had never seen before. As he stood next to me, he placed a hand on the top of my head, and I looked down at my red palms.

“But then Diya got pregnant with you. For her, it may have been a blessing because you had breathed a new life into her, but to me, it was the moment her lies came out. She was never sick nor on her deathbed. She had found out about my affair and had made up a lie, and what was a moment of one last thing I did for her was a slap in my face. When you came out in this world, you stole my heart in a way your brothers had never done, so when after all came out, I stayed; it was because of you. But when Anchal had said that about you, it was like every time I looked at you, I saw your mother, and it was a reminder of the betrayal and lies she told me.”

Dev crouched in front of me, covering my open palms. “Deep breaths, Rai.”

Watching him take a breath struck me with the realisation that I was holding mine. His grip on my hands tightened when I didn’t copy him, but he could tell I was trying. A strained breath left me, and his glare dimmed.

I knew it wasn’t directed at me, but god, it felt like it might as well as had. It took me minutes in his presence to snap, and just like that it felt like everything I thought I knew was a lie. Something I’d just made up, something I’d chosen to believe in.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to the man who’d referred to himself as more than just a piece of my chromosome. “Thank you.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For being honest, I know that must’ve been hard to share.”

He nodded, though the rare expression on his face told me I had thrown him off. I took another breath and decided to end this for once. “I am sorry that you were used and lied to multiple times, but even after everything, you were still present for the rest of them. More than that, you decided to punish me for something that wasn’t even my fault. When it came to your precious boys, you were ready to stick around and not send them to be raised by someone who had done you wrong, but you didn’t stand up for me once.”

“You had your mother.”

“What about when she died, and you never fought for me then? Was it because I was too “settled” ?” My fingers made air quotations, and he narrowed his eyes.

“He told you that?”

I stared at him, shocked. Frankly, I shouldn’t have been. “That’s the first thing you have to say? Really?”

He opened his mouth, but I shook my head.

“You know what? What the hell. No, I overheard you two. But it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

“Raina—”

“Look, you’ve said your peace. And if I’m right, I’m pretty sure you’ve still managed to omit the truth from your story.” His eyes hardened at my words. “But I am done. You were happy to pretend that I no longer existed in your world, so let’s not change that. You can keep your reasons and excuses to yourself, because they don’t matter.”

Once I was sure I would be able to hold myself up, I nudged Dev and stood up.

“I am going to take a walk. I need air.”

Dev gave me a nod. “Don’t go too far.”

I gave him a look, silently accepting his request. Just as my hand touched the handle, I turned back to catch them staring at each other.

I wanted to be done with these secrets. I’d said to Dev that he didn’t owe him, and maybe it was one of the pieces of my broken heart that made me want to say it, but I didn’t owe him either. “Make sure to tell him about who else was there at the nets that day, Papa.”

I didn’t wait to see his reaction, but I felt the coldness of his glare on my back as I stepped out in the garden.

Unlike the house, the country path behind our estate felt like an old friend waiting to welcome me back.

As the cool breeze touched my face, I realised that I was crying. Each bristle sending a nerve of shock through me as I walked further on the trail; somewhere in my steps my mind had shorted out, but like muscle memory, I made my way to my old spot.

The ache in my chest was nowhere ready to ease down as I reached it. The sight of the familiar river cruising down hit me in the chest, but the tug I felt in me was what sent a rushing feeling in me.

“Fancy seeing you here, Gorgeous.”