Chapter 1
Leesa
Get a good education, a steady job and make your own happiness.
That’s what my parents had been telling me since I was old enough to understand the words – in English and Polish, since they’d insisted on speaking both all through my childhood.
The education part I’d finally managed after a decade of part-time study around my race schedule, but the other two? A long way off.
Eight months into my transition from women’s elite cycling to normal life and I couldn’t say it was going well. After two rounds of surgery and physio, my wrist was completely healed, apart from a knobbly purple scar. I couldn’t say the same for my spirit – or my bank balance.
I was living in a tiny room in a tiny apartment in Pasadena – and even those precarious developments could all come crashing down in a few weeks when my internship came to an end, shortly followed by my sublet.
When my parents were my age, they’d both qualified as doctors, moved to the US to set up their practice and had a baby on the way.
All I had to show for myself at nearly 30 was one competitive – but ultimately demoralising – career and the beginning of another, transitioning from sports into sports marketing, neither of which paid much at the bottom rungs, I had discovered – at least not for women.
And while I appreciated I was lucky my mom and dad had helped out with college fees, I still had a student loan the size of their crushing expectations.
Maybe I should have taken their advice and enrolled in pre-med, but I’d been inspired and wanted to walk my own path – or rather, cycle it, before I’d quit all that once and for all.
That inspiration was supposed to serve me well in my internship at Redwin, a prestigious sports marketing agency in LA, but after four months of being dismissed as inexperienced and performing mind-numbing, repetitive tasks for others – not to mention the sad fact that inspiration doesn’t pay the bills and neither does an intern’s salary – that well was empty too.
My feet were heavy as I arrived at the office one morning at the end of April.
Even the trophy wall in the reception area, with framed photos of previous campaigns in professional and grassroots sports – even the campaigns directed at women that usually got me in the chest – couldn’t shift the chip on my shoulder.
I was out of cash and would soon be out of time, unless Redwin offered a real job at the end of the internship.
So much for being school valedictorian, a bachelor degree summa cum laude from NYU and a masters from Rice – plus the intelligence test results in my medical file that my parents strictly forbade me from ever mentioning outside the family but talked about constantly between themselves.
I had a meeting with the vice president first thing. His assistant had slipped it into my diary two days ago without explanation. It sucked being the bottom feeder who apparently didn’t even deserve any hints as to whether it was a hire or fire moment.
If I wasn’t offered a job, I might be stuck back at home, taking pity shifts as a medical receptionist at my parents’ practice, as though nothing had changed since I was 16 years old. As though my entire sporting career had never existed. Sometimes I thought it might be better if it never had.
Needless to say, I was not inspired, not any more, and I might very soon also be unemployed.
Usually, I waved to the receptionist and glanced hopefully at the trophy wall, but that day I slunk past with little more than a mumble and headed to my desk in the open-plan office.
I just had time to knock back an espresso – a skill I’d mastered over months spent in Italy and France during the racing season – before I headed to the VP’s office to hear my fate.
Bill Weekes, Executive Vice President and Head of Account Management, was too big a fish to be my direct supervisor, but he held the purse strings for my department and I suspected he had the sadistic streak required to give tiny cogs in his machine sleepless nights, waiting in suspense.
‘Leesa!’ he boomed unnecessarily, as though my appearance in response to his summons was a surprise.
He dragged out the ‘ee’ in my name, even though I pronounced it like ‘Lisa’.
It was still a mystery to me why my parents had saddled me with the unusual spelling – a long-winded explanation instead of a first name, as though they wanted me to be special, but ended up with simply ‘complicated’.
‘Come in, come in. Sit down. Would you like anything? Coffee? I can get Julie to—’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Perhaps I shouldn’t have interrupted him, this big cock in the marketing henhouse – no pun intended – but I didn’t want to hear him pimp out Julie’s coffee-making services. I met his gaze expectantly, which I possibly also shouldn’t have done.
‘Right then, well, you must be wondering what this meeting is about.’
I held in my sarcastic response with my last hopes that this was a ‘hire me’ moment and not the opposite.
‘You understand, Leesa, salaries are our biggest expense.’
Not my shitty wage, but okay. My chest felt hollow and my head pounded.
I understood. Food and housing for me – independence, vindication, purpose – was an expense for him.
The all-powerful bottom line was getting ready to slice me off, even though I’d had nothing but good feedback over the past four months.
‘We can’t hire every intern.’
‘I understand.’
He eyed me, as though I’d said something wrong, as though dying inside wasn’t allowed in his office. The poor cleaner would have to wipe me off the floor.
‘I thought you had a lot of promise.’
Oh crap, now I had to listen to his disappointment?
I was already panicking about how to tell my parents, who had their own trophy wall for their only child: my school certificates – framed and hanging alongside their medical degrees in Polish – and one cycling trophy, the only one they’d deemed an equivalent achievement to my studies, the stylised wave from last year’s Great Ocean Road Race.
He wasn’t the first person to tell me I wasn’t reaching my potential.
I struggled to tune back in as he continued speaking. ‘It’s a shame, since I would have a project for you, except you’re sure to refuse it.’
‘What?’ I breathed out through pursed lips to slow down my brain. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. I’m interested – in anything.’
‘That’s not what you said when you started here.’
I could barely remember what I’d had for breakfast in this panic state, let alone what I’d said four months ago.
‘I wanted to send Morgan, but the event is in July and, as you know—’
‘They’re getting married,’ I finished for him.
‘I’m having real trouble finding the right person. Content creation at an important event in Europe in July, weeks away from home in a hotel – it’s a hardship assignment.’
I couldn’t quite stifle my snort. It sounded like a dream – actual responsibility, performing the work I’d studied for ten years to do.
And travel – I didn’t even care where. With my non-existent vacation time I’d travelled precisely nowhere since I moved to LA.
Plus, the hardship hotel would solve the pressing practical problem of the end of my cheap sublet.
‘I’m sure I can do it,’ I blurted out.
Bill continued speaking, as though he hadn’t heard me. ‘It’s a hardship for anyone with a family or a partner anyway. You don’t have commitments, do you?’
I hated to think of the colour of my face as I shook my head. The whole office must know my social life had been non-existent for… even longer than they thought, actually.
‘None at all. I’m completely free in July – June and August too.’ And I really need a job.
‘But, alas, I completely respect your wishes, so I can’t ask you to take on this project. It would have been excellent experience for you – working with a major talent in the sport.’
Everything I’d wanted to do since I started my internship.
‘With your knowledge and connections, it would have been perfect for you.’
For all the sheets of paper certifying my education and intelligence, I should have been able to work out what Bill Weekes was talking about.
‘I said I’d do it – I can do it. Please, I’m sure I can.’
He grinned – the kind of smile the recipient wasn’t supposed to share.
‘Good, good. I knew you’d come round. Here’s a file Morgan put together with some of our previous work with the client.
’ He pushed a manila folder in my direction and even through the wash of relief, my gut was insisting I’d been played, although understanding was still a luxury Bill obviously thought I didn’t deserve.
‘I understand you requested not to be put on the PowerFuel account or anything cycling-related, but to be honest, your connection to the community is your greatest asset – the main reason we would consider taking you on long-term.’
A tingle skittered from my neck to my hairline.
PowerFuel was a manufacturer of carbohydrate gels for endurance sports, the weird little sachets I slurped hours into a race to keep my metabolism functioning despite burning more nutrients than my body could actually replace – I had slurped when I’d been the one on the bike with my body pushed past its limits.
Bill was right, I’d asked to stay off cycling accounts – for a better range of experience, I’d claimed, but mainly because of the tingle that was turning into a stab of memory: failure, pain. That last race had been such a disaster I’d vowed never to get back on a bike and I’d kept to it.
Then I realised what Bill was talking about and my breath deserted me.
PowerFuel – July – Europe. Shiiit.
It took me a moment to find my voice. ‘You’re thinking of sending me to the Tour de France.
’ The swoop in my stomach wasn’t all dread.
The Grande Boucle, the three-week race that had started my own love affair with cycling – televised in the waiting room at my parents’ practice over a long summer when I was 13.
It would break my heart to go back, but the prospect of being there again stole my breath with anticipation.
‘“Tour de France”,’ Bill repeated with a mock French accent that made me grimace inwardly. ‘You could be a real asset to the PowerFuel account. Did you ever win anything then?’
‘A handful of races,’ I managed to answer.
‘Pays peanuts, I imagine,’ he mused. ‘Especially for women.’
I hoped my silence implied enough assent for him to leave the subject.
‘But it’s an interesting sport. Lovely scenery and the grassroots aspect makes it intriguing indeed.’
He looked up, as though expecting me to say more, but my heart wasn’t beating properly and, if I didn’t get out of this room soon to emotionally process this development alone, I was going to burst into tears and prove how much I needed the expensive therapy I paid for out of pocket because the crappy insurance I had through this job wouldn’t cover it.
‘If that’s settled, I’ll get the contract drawn up and you can discuss the rest with Morgan.’
I stood to leave, but Bill stopped me before I got halfway to the door. ‘Don’t you have any questions for me?’
Dear God, I was supposed to have questions as well?
‘Don’t you want to know who the talent is? It might be someone you know. Wouldn’t that be a delicious development?’
‘Delicious’ wasn’t exactly how I’d describe anything to do with PowerFuel.
I still said nothing and Bill went on, ‘He wasn’t our first choice, but he’s quite a personality. Not always the most successful, but a crowd favourite – if you can capture the charisma and… play down some of his less redeeming qualities.’
He could have been describing Colin Gallagher, with his ‘less redeeming qualities’. ‘Big personality’ fit, too – bigger even than his quads. Wouldn’t that be a cruel joke—
No, I wasn’t going to imagine that. Bill meant someone else, someone who hadn’t mocked me and pranked me and… I didn’t want to think about what had happened in the hospital after my final race – what had almost happened. Between me and Colin.
My throat closed. Surely my luck wasn’t that rotten?
‘But you’ll know all about that, I’m sure, since he’s on your old team, I understand.’
I groped for the back of the chair I’d just vacated as the enormity of what I’d agreed to washed over me. Even if I clung to the dim possibility that this assignment wasn’t about Colin, Bill was making me go back – to everything I’d lost.
‘The team is Harper-Stacked?’ I hadn’t said those sponsor names in months and they felt like an incantation that brought back everything I’d been trying to move on from.
My teammates Lori and Doortje, Bonnie and the other riders – we’d been a kind of family, the feeling all the more powerful because we were so different.
The team was Lori’s family – her dad was the manager and her brother… Her brother.
‘Harper-Stacked indeed,’ Bill continued, lacing his fingers over the bulge at his middle.
My eyelids drifted shut and the room seemed to be spinning. My voice was thin when I finally found it to ask, ‘And the talent?’
‘In the file,’ he said, nodding indulgently at the folder that suddenly seemed to be burning my fingers. ‘Have fun, Leesa!’
I lurched out of the room, finally breathing again on the other side. Escaping behind the dividers surrounding my desk, it took me several long, stern words with myself before I could bring myself to open it.
When I did, the truth was so much more frightening than I’d expected – my own reaction in particular.
Of course it was him. Somehow, every time I was struggling, there he was, with his shit-eating grin that couldn’t be called anything other than a smirk. Five years on the same team – and that one mortifying moment after my surgery back in September.
The moment I’d looked at him and for the first time felt… attraction.
I slammed the folder shut, but it was too late.
I could still see the blue of his eyes, the curve of his bottom lip.
I could hear that low, deep drawl that made everything sound like dirty talk.
I thought I’d been at my lowest back in September when I’d last seen him, but this felt like some kind of prank – exactly the kind he’d play on me.
But this was my only chance. Joke or not, I was going back into the cycling world – and all because of Colin Gallagher.