Under the headline, there’s a picture of me kissing the face off the mystery man right before I dragged him into the bathroom. Fuck. I hadn’t even thought that someone might be here watching or might take a picture of me. I’d just come here, thrown back some gin, and launched myself at the first, unsuspecting hottie I found.
How very responsible of me.
I swallow down a groan.
Second to our older brother, Taranis, I’m usually the most conscientious one in the room. And sometimes, even his stupid boy brain makes him do stupid boy things, so there are times when I’m the adultiest adult of all of us.
Except now. Now my face heats as I skim a paragraph recounting my wedding to the people of Larne and suggesting I might have left George at the altar for the dark-haired man at the bar.
“Oh… fuck.” Matthew speaks next. He turns his phone around. It’s the website of the Larne Chronicle, and this time the headline makes every drop of blood in my body rush to my toes.
“Runaway Bride Scores with Local Sports Journalist.”
He’s not just any journalist either. The name, Robert McAllister, is a name that’s graced social media for the last fewmonths. He’s the reporter who cast a light on the dark underbelly of rugby, who relentlessly pursued a doping scandal in the ranks of Northern Irish rugby.
He’s the man who doggedly pursued my father and older brother, looking for evidence of them both being involved, too.
And he just had his dick inside me.
CHAPTER 8
Robert
This is bad. This is very, very bad.
Rhiannon’s energy has shifted in the last couple of minutes. She’s gone from furtive, flirty glances with adorably pink cheeks, to a bright red face, hard eyes, and that “What the fuck?” she just ground out between clenched teeth tells me she might have seen the news article that just appeared on my screen too.
Call it narcissism, but I’ve got alerts set up on my phone. As soon as someone posts my name, I get a notification. So, when my own publication, the Larne Chronicle, posted that picture of us snogging and outed me as being the sports journalist connected with the recent rugby doping scandal, my phone lit up like Main Street at Christmas time. Fucking Pete. I didn’t see him lurking in the shadows of the pub, which means he got his picture from another source, but his name wasright therein the byline.
If I wasn’t on thinner-than-thin ice with my boss, and probation for my job, I’d call Pete out for doing this to me. As it stands, I feel like my hands are tied, and I need to keep mymouth fucking closed before I hammer the final nail into the coffin of my career.
If Rhiannon knows who I am, my time here on earth is set to come to an end any second now. That’s probably a good thing since my leg is throbbing, my headache is getting worse, and after fucking an athlete in the bathroom, I could use a nap.
I admit, when I first came back from the Middle East, I was a little overzealous, and as soon as I got the rugby scandal between my teeth, I chewed it like a Rottweiler. I was determined to cast every ounce of disgrace out into the sunlight, to make sure no stone was left unturned, no dishonor was left to regrow in the dark.
To make a name for myself and prove—to myself and everyone else—I still had journalistic chops, I wanted to pull the rot out by the roots, and for a time, I believed there was no way the Morrigan family, rugby royalty itself, wasn’t involved.
I dug deep, I alluded to them in a few stories, and in my haste and hunger for the truth, I wasn’t particularly nice to them. Their old man especially. I rub at the knot in my chest, the constant reminder that I had started down a path I didn’t want to be down. A reaffirmation of my desire to write real stories, not just gossip, hearsay, and how much I fucking hate how sports journalism has descended into clickbait.
Case in point, the story on the screen in front of me.
Of course, someone saw me tonguing her by the bar. Of course, some keen fucker decided to throw it to Pete to post online without a second thought that she’s already been through enough today. Because everyone and their granny will be searching for Rhiannon’s name today after the two videos blew up the internet when she fled the castle.
I let my dick take over for my rational mind for a moment, but the truth is, she’s radioactive today. And probably tomorrow, too. I knew this. What was I thinking? I brush the back ofmy neck with my palm, trying to remain calm while I survey the room. Who the fuck turned us in?
Every amateur with a phone will be snapping pictures of her, trying to get their thirty seconds of fame on her coattails. Or rather, wedding dress tails. Is it called a tail? It kind of looked like one, but I’m not exactly up on my fashion terms.
The pub is uncomfortably full, and pinching the bridge of my nose does little to abate the prickling pain now tapping at my skull. If I stay, I’ll likely try to smooth things over, make it better, and like always, I’ll fuck it up and someone will get hurt.
The wave of grief that crashes into me makes me grab the bar for stability. I’d love to blame it on my disability, but at the end of the day, when people die because of you, it leaves its mark.
The easiest thing for me to do right now is flee. Head home, water my plants, and stay the fuck out of the public eye for a couple of days while I regroup. I don’t need my name attached to any more scandals right now.
Maybe if we let things lie, it’ll calm down, and Pete can go back to whatever rock he climbed out from under. Okay, that won’t happen, but he’ll find someone new to pick on. I can distract him with the research I’ve done about women’s football, to try to get him onside to publish a story about anyone who isn’t Rhiannon fucking Morrigan.
My gut tells me that’s bull, and no amount of me wanting this to blow over quickly will make it happen. Now there’s a scent of rugby princess Rhiannon’s blood in the water, they’ll go for the jugular. People love nothing more than bringing down a woman who has previously been beyond reproach. Especially Pete. I might not have known him long, but I’ve known of him since I was in uni.
The public, the media… they won’t give a crap about me, at least not in the same way, but she’ll get raked over the coals for this. The double standard makes my head hurt. And maybe with a little distance from the situation, I can come up with a way to help Rhiannon from becoming front-page news on repeat for the next few weeks.
