I chance a look around the corner and spot a panicked Harry pacing back and forth, face red, his free hand pulling at his hair.
“What you made me do was wrong.” His face is verging on purple now. “They’re good people. They don’t deserve this.”
Harry does figure eights throughout the open hallway. “I’ll have to live with my part in this, but you took it too far, Mr. Chapman.”
I rear back. I don’t think I’ve ever so much as seen Lawrence say a single word to Harry. Why would they be on the phone right now?
Whatever is said on the other end of the line exacerbates Harry’s anxiety before he pulls his mobile awayfrom his ear and pockets the phone, conversation clearly over.
“Harry?” I say, stepping out from my hiding spot so I can check on my friend.
He leaps out of his skin and pales to a ghastly shade of white when he sees me. “Mr. Sto-one” he stutters, clearly on edge.
“You alright, mate?” Harry’s always been a skittish lad, but right now, his eyes are wild, resembling a cornered animal looking for a way to escape. “You seem upset.”
“I—” He looks around me before deflating and finally meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone.”
“Tieran. We’re friends, Harry. You should call me by my first name.”
He looks like he wants to discard the invitation to reject formalities. “I haven’t been a friend to you.” When I give him a puzzled look, he continues, “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have believed the promises he made.”
“What are you talking about, Harry?” Something toxic sinks low in my gut and starts to fester.
“I’ve been watching you…and Ms. McKallen.” My heart constricts so painfully at the sound of her surname, I almost don’t register his meaning.
“What do you mean, you’ve been watching us?” I have to be sure, have to know exactly what he’s talking about and if it could possibly tie back to Jade’s untimely breakup two nights ago.
“Mr. Chapman has had me watching Ms. McKallen in the hopes he could find something on her to get her sacked. I—” He pauses.
“Keep going.” My voice fills with a strange sense of calm as I urge him to continue.
“I thought I sensed something between the two of you, at that first match when she called you into her office, and I told Chapman.” My heart is in my throat. “He promised me a promotion if I watched her and found something hecould use against her. Every time I’ve seen you together, he’s known about it.” My fist clenches around my bag, and the movement doesn’t go unnoticed as Harry blanches further. “I’m so sorry. I know it was wrong. He promised me no one was going to get hurt, but—” He breaks off his sentence, looking everywhere but at me.
“But what, Harry?” My thoughts scatter, voice going frantic, because if he’s implying what I think, then someone did get hurt. If it wasn’t me, then it must be Jade, and the thought of her in pain makes me ready to fight. “But what?” I shout, causing him to jump in place.
At that moment, Myles rushes into the hall, eyes worried and hair standing on end, as if he’d been running his hands through it. “T?—”
“What?”
He holds up his phone, and a news article flashes across the screen, but he’s too far for me to read it. “There’s a story running about you…and Jade. It’s—they’re saying some pretty heinous things.”
I rush over to him, the team’s equipment manager forgotten, and snatch the phone out of his hand.
Wanks for Wins: Legends owner Jade McKallen giving out sexual favours to players?
My stomach roils in disgust at the vile words filling the screen, and I scroll to the next one.
Who’s Really the Boss? Multi-Millionaire influencer turned Legends Owner won’t bow down in a boardroom but will in her office.
I read countless articles, all about Jade, my name barely even mentioned despite being half as responsible. I’m used to the heat from trash rags, but the fact that none of these are condemning me, instead easily pitting Jade as this perverse monster, makes me see red. They’re defiling everything we are, taking this beautiful thing we had and staining it in an ugly wash of colour when she was the very thing that kept me tethered to this world.
I torture myself by looking at one last article.
Ruck or Fuck! It looks like the owner of The Legends got too comfortable in her office.
That one goes on to say there are blurry camera snapshots of me and Jade in a compromising position in her office. How the fuck do they even know that? How could theypossiblyknow that?
It dawns on me that Harry might know. I whirl around, and he’s still standing ten paces away, looking like he wants to curl up and die. “How does the press know about this?” I hold the phone out so he can see the article.
