He nodded at me, his smile wide.
I wouldn’t call him for a couple of weeks. He’d want to avoid me after this. Lie low. That suited me.
A black cab picked us up, the driver informing us that the fare would be paid by the club, which was a nice but unnecessary gesture. I phoned Genevieve, who answered after two rings, and gave her the lowdown as to what had happened. She searched the internet while I was on the phone, finding a video of it already.
“This is the ex with the NDA, right?” She always sounded far too alert at any time of day or night.
“Yep.” Genny knew the finer details, but not to the extent of Nate.
“Leave it with me. I’ll call Rhys and your solicitor. We’ll get a polite reminder sent as to the terms and conditions she had.” Genny had seen the deal that had been made. It was her job to bulletproof or deploy the troops if something looked like it could be breached. “Go calm the fuck down somewhere — are you still with Jerrica?”
“Yeah, we’re on our way to Casa Negro.” It was a quiet bar in Alderley that required a membership. Their wine list was just what I needed right now, because I had the sneaking suspicion that Jerrica was about to throw a dozen questions at me.
“I’ll call you if I need to, but get down to the club for lunch tomorrow and we can make sure we’ve covered everything. Look after Jez.”
She hung up without me confirming the time because she knew I’d be there anyway.
The bar was quiet, not because it wasn’t busy — it was — but because it was designed to feel discreet. There was space between the tables and partitions between the booths, the lighting was low and intimate, and the wait staff knew when was not a good time to come to the table.
The membership fee was high, the privacy priceless. We were met at the door with a slight smile and a discreet nod before being led to a table where even if anyone did overhear us, no one would repeat anything.
As a teenager, I never knew places like this existed. The cost of a single light fitting probably would’ve fed me for six months; the price of a drink would’ve paid for my football subs for a month or longer. When the teammate who brought me here sat me down in one of these seats, I thought I’d been transposed to an alternate dimension where the other version of me was living a life that was someone’s fantasy.
My teammate had been called Andy; he was thirty-five to my twenty-two, and he’d figured out a lot about my background.
“Take a look around you, kid. This is your life now, because you’ve made good choices and you’ve got talent. Accept your talent — nowt you can do about that — and reward yourself for those good choices. This is one of those places where you can reward yourself. It’s safe here.”He’d also been the person who took me to another exclusive club, the first place I saw people having sex in front of me, and the first time I understood what it meant to own control.
Andy lived in the States now, coaching for a college soccer team. Occasionally I got an email from him, telling me I was doing okay and to keep it up. Whether he meant at football, my standards, or my cock, I wasn’t exactly sure.
“A large St Emillion.” I told the waiter what I wanted. Red wines were my favourite, as long as they were good. “Jerrica?”
“The same, please.”
“Make it a bottle then.” I gave the waiter a nod and he disappeared, leaving me with Nate’s sister.
“This place is amazing. Nate brought me here last year and it was the highlight of my month.” She gave me a smile that suggested she hadn’t just been on the receiving end of my clearly unhinged ex-girlfriend in the middle of a very public nightclub.
“Whatever you want tonight is granted.”
Her brows raised. “Whatever I want?”
“Here. From the menu.” I couldn’t stop the smile.
Jerrica laughed softly. “Damn. I was about to call it in. Who was she, Jesse?”
I owed her an explanation and maybe a little more. “She was the ex-girlfriend who tried to blackmail me. We were seeing each other about four years ago. It wasn’t serious, and I called it off because I’d started to get the feeling that she was playing a part, that she wasn’t into what we were doing.”
“Which was?”
I shrugged. “Edging — orgasm deprivation. Light bondage. Toys. I like to be in control.” I listed it as someone might list sandwiches on a menu.
“More than what people experiment with?”
“Very much so. She was a one-night stand who became more of a five-night stand and she worked out what I was into. She played along.” I shrugged. “I figured she was faking it, and then I overheard her on the phone to a friend — or she said he was just a friend. After I ended it, she threatened to go to the press and do a tell-all of what I’d ‘made her do’ unless I paid her seventy-five grand. It was just as I was about to play in two international games for England and it would’ve jeopardised my international career. I passed it to my solicitors and they managed to get an injunction and we settled a payment with her.”
“Why not go to the police? It was blackmail.”
“Because then it would become public. She was making noises about how I’d forced her to be tied up — the way I tie, you can get out if you want — and if any of it had slipped into the media, I’d have been fucked, and not in a good way. So we settled and she signed various bits of legal paperwork.” I saw Jerrica’s eyes darken when I mentioned ties.
