“Sorry, but no.” Adrianna leaned closer. “That sounds like an excuse. Come on, we want to know. We won’t sell it to the newspapers, don’t worry. Was it a break-up? You were engaged to Hannah Edgerton, right?”
Lia flinched at the mention of Hannah’s name. “I was. But, yeah, we broke up. And staying was too hard. So I left.”
“Well, her loss is our gain.” Adrianna threw an arm around Lia’s shoulders and batted her eyelashes. “And whenever you’re looking to date again, let me know.”
Erin smothered a scoff. Player-player relationships were rife in the women’s game, and Erin appreciated why. They spent so many hours together, and no one else truly understood the life of a footballer like a fellow professional. But it was also wholly unprofessional to tie your own career to someone else’s. To allow such distraction.
Erin had nearly fallen foul of it herself, as a naïve eighteen-year-old, but she’d be damned if she’d ever let it happen again. Had Lia really tossed away a potential legacy at Wanderers for love?
Her already low opinion of Lia dropped further. And it still didn’t explain why Lia hadn’t gone further afield. Surely if the break-up was bad enough to send her skittering away from the club she had been at for the last seven years, she would want to leave the city behind, too?
Erin didn’t understand the logic. But she wanted to. She liked solving a puzzle, and if she had to stop ignoring Lia Ashcroft to get to the bottom of one, she would.
* * *
“I’m going to go grab another drink.” Lia grabbed her empty glass. “Does anyone else want anything?”
Everyone shook their heads, so Lia stole away to the bar.
After finishing their meal, they’d moved from the Japanese restaurant to a karaoke bar. She wasn’t a singer, but her teammates had insisted that it was tradition for new recruits to belt out a song of their choice. Liquid courage was a requirement if she was going to get through it.
She could also use a breather. Immersing herself in being social with the rest of the team was a lot. With everything going on in her life lately, her social battery was lower than ever.
Still, she was managing to put on a brave face. Or so she hoped, anyway. No one had asked her if she was okay or questioned why it took her a fraction of a second too long to force a smile when someone told a joke.
With another beer in hand, Lia turned to head back to their booth—and froze when she came face to face with Erin Finch.
Dressed in a pair of tight black jeans and a white blouse, she looked good. Three of her buttons were undone, leaving a deep V that exposed her collarbones and the slight swell of her small breasts. Lia tried valiantly to keep her gaze on Erin’s face, having to tilt her head to do so. A typical tall and lanky forward, Erin easily had three inches on her. At five feet six, Lia was on the smaller side for a striker, but she made up for her lack of height with lightning-quick speed.
Erin’s eyes were hazel and cold. She’d spent the majority of the meal nursing a glass of sparkling water, gaze flicking around the table and her lips pressed together, no doubt to suppress her disdain.
When spoken to, she was polite enough—certainly more polite than she’d been to Lia earlier that day—but she didn’t interject into the conversation unless asked a direct question and only spoke to Alex of her own volition. It was fascinating that this woman played a team sport and was so good at it, considering she looked at every single one of her teammates as if she was above them.
Then, Lia supposed, she was. But she didn’t have to act like it. “Can I help you?” Lia asked when it became apparent that Erin wasn’t going to move out of the way. “I thought you wanted me to stay away from you. Or have you decided you can play nice after all?”
Erin sighed as if Lia was causing her a massive amount of inconvenience, despite the fact that Lia had been at the bar first. “I want to know why you’re here.”
“Um, because it’s mandatory?” Lia was more confused than ever. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t. You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
A muscle in Erin’s cheek twitched as she ground her teeth. “No. Why are you here? At Albion?”
“Oh. Like I said before, when I broke up with my ex, I didn’t want to stay at Wanderers anymore.” The lie easily came to her lips; though she supposed it wasn’t technically a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth, either.
The truth that she’d been waiting, on edge, to come out. After Lia had leaked what she’d discovered to the board, she’d already heard rumblings of an internal investigation, but the media didn’t yet know the details. And Carol still had her job, so the investigation couldn’t be finished yet.
“Yes. I got that.” The look on Erin’s face suggested she thought it was a dumb reason to leave a club. Then again, little Miss Prim and Proper probably wouldn’t ever dream of having a relationship with a teammate.
Lia wished she felt the same way, but you couldn’t help who you fell in love with.
“But that doesn’t answer my question,” Erin prompted.
Fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the side of her glass, Lia frowned. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re asking me.”
Erin sighed again, as if Lia’s mere presence was enough to make Erin suffer. “Why not leave Manchester?” she demanded. “Why not go to another league? You’re good enough to play for the top teams in Germany, France or Spain. You could play anywhere. But you chose to take a step backwards to come here? Why?”
“Wow. Do you know you just gave me a compliment?” For Erin Finch to say she was good enough to play at the top of the top was glowing praise. Lia tried to keep her ego in check. “And Albion isn’t a step back. You pushed us all the way last year.”
“And still lost.” Erin’s voice betrayed how much that pained her to say. She wasn’t a woman used to losing.
