Page 1 of Hard to Hold

PROLOGUE

RUSH

I TAKE A DEEP BREATH and close my eyes.

Their fists pound against the blacked-out windows of the SUV with my name a constant repeat on their lips.

“Is it true?”

“Are you really a homewrecker?”

“Rush, how could you?”

The paparazzi. The press. The media.

On any normal day, their presence means I’m doing my job properly. It means I’m playing great and the team is kicking arse and all is right with the world.

Today though . . . fuck, today, I just need to get the hell out of here for a while.

If I could look past their flashing lights and demanding voices, I’d see the gate to my house. The house I never in a million years dreamed I’d own in Formby. My pipe dreams from back then are currently a reality, and how bloody crazy is it that the connection between then and now still remains? Still binds?

Every part of me begs to drive back to Anfield Stadium and get lost in the green of the pitch and the ability to block the outside noise that I’m known for. My salvation then and my serenity now, but still the one constant in my life.

And now? Now that’s all been jeopardized by IOUs being cashed in, for a situation that’s blown too far out of control for me to rein it back in.

“That’s some shitstorm out there, isn’t it?”

I meet the eyes of my driver in the rearview mirror and hesitate before I nod. There’s something in the way he looks at me, as if he’s begging me to tell him the reason the reporters are surrounding his car is a lie and that I’m not really guilty of what they’re accusing me of doing.

But why would they think any differently? Isn’t that what everyone expects from me?

I nod in response, even though I’m dying inside to tell someone, anyone, that he’s right—that I’m not guilty of this.

Unclasping my seatbelt as his eyes are still on me, the denial so damn ready on my tongue doesn’t come. “Yeah, mate. Fun times.” My words sound like an exasperated sigh.

But I don’t say anything else.

Not an admission.

Not a word.

I can’t.

“I don’t know how to thank you—”

“No need to,” I say and look to my left at the other passenger in the car, needing to cut Archibald off before he says anything else that can be overheard by the driver.

I’ve known the man all of my adult life. The profound sadness that weighs heavily in his eyes and the defeat in the set of his posture eats at me. There’s also a calculation to him too. A hard glint I catch every now and again, and I’ve known him long enough to feel like this has been preordained for years.

He’s simply cashing in at the perfect time.

And here I thought that all along he’d been acting out of the goodness of his heart and conscience.

I should have known better. I should have seen through the scripted speeches and knowing glances. The teenager in me is still trying to hold on to what I thought was sincerity, but now realizes was far from it.

Yet he sits there staring at me with a muted smile that says he knows I’m doing this at a great personal and professional cost. He knows I’ll say yes because of the debt I owe to him and his family. Lifelines have a funny way of coming full circle, and mine just did.

Too bad I have to do this for it to be complete.