Chapter 9
Theo
Rain comes at me sideways. Stirling’s weather forecast promised ‘light precipitation’, which is meteorologist-speak for ‘prepare to drown standing up’. My fringe’s sticking to my forehead like seaweed, and my wool coat now weighs seventeen stone.
But the cameras are rolling, so I smile.
Scrubby grass flattens under the wind, the Ochils crouch in the distance, dull green under a sky that can’t decide between grey and greyer. Trees lean in the wind, bare-limbed and stubborn.
The Rebels’ new stadium reeks of wet grass and fried food.
Lads in puffer jackets crowd under umbrellas, shouting over each other about tactics like they’re on the coaching staff.
The stands pulse with anticipation, half-empty but twice as loud as they should be.
What the local rugby fans might lack in numbers, they make up for in volume and creative profanity.
Charlie texts:
All set?
All ready. Position secured. Kiss arranged. Operation Dummy Pass
My stomach flips at the word ‘kiss’. It sounds harmless enough for what I’ve orchestrated. A performance piece and strategic photo opportunity. Nothing more than optics.
But after that moment at the party …
Finn emerges from the tunnel with the team. He’s transformed in his kit. Pink hair slicked back by rain, shorts hugging his thighs in ways that would probably get flagged on TikTok. He moves like the rules are optional and every eye belongs on him.
‘Look who it is.’ His voice cuts through the din as he jogs toward me. ‘My good luck charm.’
‘Save it for the cameras.’ I click my nail against my watch. ‘Two minutes till kick-off. Quick peck on the cheek, then you’re off.’
‘Of course, darlin’.’ He shoots me that crooked smile.
‘Let’s not make this harder than your thighs,’ I say.
Finn smirks with the cheeky arrogance of a man who’s going to reply with something I’ll regret hearing. ‘My thighs are not the har—’
‘I swear, if you finish that sentence, I—’
The cameras swing our way. Perfect timing. I rise on tiptoes, aiming for his cheek as planned. Sweet, supportive girlfriend appropriate.
But Finn turns an inch at the last second. His lips brush the corner of my mouth. Not quite a kiss, but more than we agreed. Heat rushes through me, pooling right where I shouldn’t feel anything. My cheeks blaze so fast I half-expect steam to rise.
This isn’t part of the job. This isn’t part of the job. This isn’t part of the damn job.
He pulls back, eyes locked on mine. ‘For luck.’
My pulse jack-knifes and he fucking knows it. I speak through a shield of fingers, just in case anyone’s trying to read my lips. ‘We agreed it’d be the cheek.’
Finn reins in a wolfish smile and lifts his hand, too. ‘I changed tactics.’
‘Without consulting me.’
‘Would you have said yes?’ His question hangs between us.
‘Irrelevant.’ My voice splinters. ‘This isn’t real, Finn.’
‘Oh, I know.’ He wipes water off my cheek with his knuckle. ‘Now watch me get us a real win.’
Then he’s jogging backward, still facing me, that insufferable smirk stamped onto his face. The stadium lights catch raindrops on his cheeks. I’ve never seen anything more magnetic in my life.
And I hate that I smile back.
I file the moment under hazards of contact sports.
Next item on the list: feigning excitement for my boyfriend rolling around in the mud.
My feet find the steps to the VIP box on autopilot.
The air inside is sterile, smelling of new flooring and old money.
Knox Montgomery, the Canadian founder and owner of the Stirling Rebels, had the five thousand seater stadium finished just about a year ago.
It’s the first home fixture of the new year, after last week’s away opener.
I wish Charlie were here. She’s missing the match because she’s at a charity gala in the Highlands, schmoozing potential clients we’ve been chasing for months.
Black tie, big cash. One more step to Elite Edge’s survival.
The whistle shrills, a sharp, clean sound that slices through my thoughts. The game explodes into motion.
I find my designated seat, a plastic throne of corporate hospitality, and sink into it.
My coat drips onto the floor and my notebook’s already warping, ink bleeding through bullet points.
Operational focus underlined twice. Client boundaries circled so hard the paper nearly tears. I have to concentrate.
Instead, I’m remembering his breath against mine at the party a week ago. The weight of his hand on my waist. How he looked at me when I ran, as if I’d pocketed something vital.
I pull up the restaurant photos from our dinner date that night on my phone for the gazillionth time. Even I can’t tell myself that I’m that obsessed with them only for professional reasons.
It’s just… The photographer captured a story we never told.
There’s one image of Finn watching me, my head thrown back in a laugh I don’t remember letting loose.
His expression isn’t for the cameras; it’s quiet and focussed, trying to memorise my joy.
My thumb hovers over the image of his gaze.
Gil never saw me like that. After the initial charm offensive – or love-bombing – wore off, his eyes would skim over me, assessing and calculating.
His touch was a transaction, his praise a down payment on my next brilliant idea he could claim as his.
He took my light and used it to illuminate himself, leaving me in the shadows he’d created.
Gil made me shrink, sucking the life out of me with one narcissistic move after the next.
Finn makes me feel visible. And after Gil, that’s its own kind of fear.
I press the heel of my palm to my brow, pulling myself out of it. This is good, I tell myself. The story is selling – the pink-haired rogue and the PR girl who tamed him. It’s a narrative people can digest and savour.
The near-kiss was a blip. The moment on the pitch was a calculated risk. Even though that cheeky kiss still burns.
Anyhoo, the cameras caught it, and by tomorrow morning, those images will be everywhere. I’ve handled worse assignments. I’ve certainly handled worse men. I’m perfectly capable of containing this.
A steward offers me a Bovril. I decline with a shudder and try to make mental notes. Monday meeting: leverage the ‘good luck charm’ angle. Pitch a Valentine’s Day feature. Follow up with Sports Weekly.
But my focus narrows and hooks on the number seven shirt. On the bright flare of pink hair in a scrum. Over the course of the game, I watch him move. He’s made of kinetic energy and feral grace. When he has the ball, he doesn’t just run; he devours the grass. He’s dancing.
The small crowd erupts, and I catch the movement just in time – Finn sprinting down the pitch, ball tucked against his side, a defender closing in fast. My heart vaults into my throat as the larger man slams into him, driving him into the muck.
‘Get up, Lennox,’ I mutter, not realising I’ve spoken aloud until the woman beside me chuckles.
‘First rugby match?’
‘No.’ I smooth my hair. ‘Just the first one where I care if someone breaks their neck.’
She nods knowingly. ‘My husband plays. I still close my eyes during tackles.’
Finn bounces to his feet, shaking off the hit as if it’s nothing. He pats Brodie’s back, grinning through the mud and rain. When he glances toward the stands, I swear he finds me instantly, like there’s some invisible thread connecting us.
He gives me a thumbs up. He knows I’m worried. And my skin goes hot, neck to knees.
The rain intensifies and turns the pitch into a quagmire. Players skid and crash. Finn collides with a prop twice his width, wiggling out of the hold with a raw power that makes the crowd scream.
When he scores, the stadium erupts, and he points directly at me before being mobbed by teammates.
‘Lennox is brilliant today,’ the woman next to me says.
I suppose he is. Every move sharp, every decision precise. My phone pings with notifications. Social media’s already on fire with the gesture.
Not him pointing after the try
I hope she doesn’t regret taking him back.
Forget the try, that look he gave her should be illegal.
Finn pls. We saw that.
Concentrate on the game, pal!!
I should be pleased. This is precisely what we planned. Sure, the ghost of his scandal still haunts the algorithm. But all in all, engagement’s up and negativity’s down. The strategy remains sound.
And I remain entirely unmoved by the way his kit clings to his thighs and chest and—
Then it happens.
The final minutes of the first half bleed away.
Finn gets the ball near the halfway line, weaving through a wall of opposition players.
He’s a blur of pink and blue, a force of nature.
He’s almost clear when a tank of a player comes at him from the side.
The tackle isn’t illegal, I think, but brutal.
Finn goes down. This time, he doesn’t get up.
The air in my lungs turns to glass. My notebook drops from my grasp, scattering pages across the damp floor. A collective hush ripples through the stands, even the rain seems to pause.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Medics are sprinting onto the pitch.
My body moves before my brain can issue a single, rational command. I’m on my feet, shoving past the corporate suits. My heels clatter a hectic rhythm on the concrete steps.
‘Miss MacMickin!’ One of the match day liaisons calls from the doorway.
I ignore him, and protocol goes up in flames. I’m already halfway there. I barrel into the restricted corridor at a near run, my sodden coat flapping behind me. A security guard with a neck like a tree trunk steps into my path, arm outstretched.
‘Staff only, miss.’
‘I’m his emergency contact.’ The lie comes out absolute. I brandish my all-access pass, my face set in a mask of authority I don’t feel. ‘Now move, please.’
He hesitates, caught off guard by my tone. It’s enough. I move past him, pushing through a set of double doors and into the echoing concrete tunnel. The air is thick with the smell of sweat, dirt, and something metallic that ties my stomach into knots.
I find the medical bay just as they’re helping Finn onto an examination table. He’s shirtless, his torso a roadmap of bruises, old tattoos, and fresh scrapes. A medic is dabbing at a cut above his right eye.
There’s blood.
Oh god.
But… He’s fine. He’s breathing. And he’s pissed off.
Relief slams through me, and I wobble forward with weak knees, composure barely hanging on. My hand finds his arm without permission, my fingers digging into the muscle.
‘What happened? Are you okay?’
Slowly, he turns his head in my direction. His eyes find mine, and he smiles through the blood. The medic pauses, cotton swab held aloft.
Finn grits his teeth as he adjusts. ‘Dinnae worry, darlin’. Just a scratch.’
‘A scratch?’ My voice is tight and unfamiliar. I lean in to inspect the cut. It’s clean but deep, a crimson line slashing his eyebrow. Blood runs towards his temple. ‘You were down for forty-one seconds. I counted.’
A slow grin spreads across his face, pulling at the cut and making him tense. ‘Didn’t know you cared that much, List Girl.’
‘I don’t.’ The denial is automatic, a reflex. ‘A head injury is a complication we don’t need.’
‘No, we don’t need that.’ His gaze is intense, stripping away my pathetic excuse. He sees the tremor in my hand, still clamped to his biceps. He sees the panic I’m wrestling down. ‘Complication. Is that what you call it when you look like you’ve seen a ghost?’
‘I’m managing a potential crisis,’ I insist, finally dropping my hand.
The skin where I touched him feels hot. I take a step back and lace my arms tight across my torso, trying to rebuild my fortress.
‘Pure poetry,’ Finn says, his voice soft now. He gestures for the medic to continue. ‘Theodora MacMickin, always on the job.’
The medic cleans the wound with an antiseptic wipe. Finn sucks in a sharp breath but his eyes never leave mine. He’s not looking at my professional facade, he’s seeing straight through it.
‘Your eyebrow is going to look like Vanilla Ice’s,’ I say.
‘Didn’t peg you for the vanilla type, MacMickin. But hey, I’m adaptable.’
I shake my head.
Unbelievable.
The medic tapes a strip of gauze over the cut. Finn winces. I should say something useful or comforting. But all I can see is blood. All I register is the phantom imprint of his skin under my hand.
I back off to give the medic more space. ‘You’re in good hands,’ I say, voice thinner than I want. ‘See you in a bit.’
‘Bye, babe.’
I turn to leave and my legs are rubber. My coat’s soaked and heavy, but it’s the weight under my ribs that nearly floors me.
A cold, coiled fear I thought I’d outgrown.
Teenage me, hovering in doorways, listening for sounds that meant Mum was making it out of bed.
That she’d eaten. That she was still…here.
That panic. Same shape and weight. Same trap.
I go back into the tunnel, heels echoing on wet concrete, trying to put distance between us.
I’ve been there before. Sick with worry and powerless anyway. Holding on to nothing but the fear they won’t get back up.
And I can’t do it again.