Playing House (Sydney Smoke Rugby) Read online

  Her heart thumped and her chest ached as she watched them bristle like two angry bears trying to mark their territory. Ryder shoved Bodie’s shoulder and he stumbled back, almost falling over in the slippery grass. There was a collective gasp from the women as Eleanor’s temper flared.

  She loved her brother, but if he so much as laid a hand on her man again, she was going to…punch him in the nose.

  It seemed the camera men and the commentators had given up on the game in favour of the action going down in the middle of the field, too. So had the crowd.

  Matilda frowned as Tanner tried to intervene. “What on earth are they fighting over?”

  “Me.”

  Eleanor said it quietly, thought she’d whispered it actually, but given the weight of horrified silence, it was loud enough for everyone to hear. Loud enough for another round of speculative glances as she pressed her forehead against the cold glass and her hands to her belly.

  No man had ever fought over her before. It was disturbingly hostile. Overwhelmingly masculine.

  And wildly thrilling.

  …

  Griff kicked the open locker door in his way, and Bodie winced as the tinny crash echoed around the empty room.

  Griffin King had been one of the best players the country had ever seen. Personal tragedy had hardened him from great into the stone cold legend he’d become, and when his body had finally dared to quit on him he’d become probably the best coach in the history of the game.

  He was tough and uncompromising, but he got results. Every rugby player worth their salt wanted to play for the Smoke and if they managed to reach that lofty goal they pushed themselves harder than they’d ever done, just for him.

  When he balled them out, it felt worse than disappointing their mothers. When he told them to jump, they asked how high. When he praised them, it felt like glories from heaven.

  And when he spoke, they listened.

  He whirled to face them. Even soaked to the skin and his hair plastered to his head, he was a formidable guy. “One of you want to tell me what the fuck that was out there?” He pointed unnecessarily in the direction of the game that was still playing out in the middle.

  He’d hauled their asses off, then left the two assistant coaches outside running the play while he dealt with this insurrection.

  “It sure as shit better not have been about a fumbled ball.”

  Bodie didn’t have to look at Ryder to know it was nothing to do with a slippery ball. But he was too steamed to answer. So apparently was Ryder.

  “You do know you’re on the same team, right?” Griff’s head swivelled from one to the other. “The Sydney Smoke?” It swivelled again. “Blue and silver jerseys? The ones you’re wearing?” He shot a long, hard glare at each of them. “We’re the ones that are winning out there tonight, despite your combined monumental idiocy, in case either of you have taken your head out of your assess long enough to notice.”

  The locker door had swung open again, and Griff kicked it one more time for good measure.

  “But we’re not gonna with two of the team fucking about with a giant pissing match in the middle of the goddamn field.”

  Bodie shivered. He was wet to the bone, cooling rapidly, and epically fucked off at Ryder. But if he wanted warm hugs and hot chocolate, he wasn’t going to get it from Coach.

  “You both want to pull your dicks out now so we can measure them, or are you going to sort your shit out? Because neither of you are getting back on the field until you’ve kissed and made up. We have enough guys out there on that field wanting to bring us down without you two doing it from within.”

  He stormed out then, a slam of the locker room door punctuating his departure.

  Neither of them said anything for the longest time, just stood and stared at the door. Bodie wasn’t sure what the hell had happened out there. Ryder had had a go earlier, but calling Bodie a sister-fucking bastard had made him see red—a whole tide of it flashing up and flaring in his head like an emergency beacon, goading him into confrontation.

  But all Bodie felt now, apart from wet and cold, was hollow. He didn’t want to fight with his best mate, he sure as shit didn’t want to blow his rugby career for anyone, but he would for Eleanor. He’d take on the whole fucking world for her.

  “I love her, man.”

  He didn’t know where it had come from. He hadn’t expected to say it. He didn’t even know he’d felt it until this moment, but he couldn’t have denied it even if the great Griffin King himself had demanded it.

  It filled him up. Lifted him up. Warmed him up.

  It was crazy but it was true.

  The urge to run to the corporate box and tell her right now injected a restless energy into his muscles.

  Ryder sighed. “Because of the baby?”

  “No.” Bodie shook his head emphatically. “Not because of the baby.”

  Eleanor had bewitched him from that first night. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else in the three months he’d known her. He’d thought it’d had been the sex, the virginity thing. It was only now, wringing wet, staring down her brother in an empty locker room after practically coming to blows with him during a game, he knew this wasn’t about his dick.

  She didn’t have him by the balls. She had him by the heart.

  “Have you told her?”

  Ryder’s voice penetrated Bodie’s internal dissection and he gave the ghost of a smile. “I only just found out myself.”

  “And how she’s supposed to believe you, now?” Ryder’s hostility was gone, replaced with a cutting matter-of-factness. “How’s she ever going to know that you love her for her and not because of the baby?”

  Bodie blinked, the racing of his thoughts halting abruptly. Well crap…he hadn’t thought of that. He eased himself down onto the hard wooden bench between the rows of lockers, all that restless energy suddenly gone. Ryder joined him and they sat side by side, brooding gazes directed at the lockers as they dripped on the floor.

  Is that what she’d think? That his love was some kind of obligation because of the baby? Fuck that. He loved her smarts and how she talked all prim and proper and how she blushed at every little thing and how damn talented she was and how her hair was always in a wild tangle and good God almighty, he loved her body to distraction.

  But Ryder was right. With a baby in the mix, would she believe him? Would she believe I love you after two weeks of cohabitation? He could barely believe it himself. And Eleanor wasn’t flighty or rash. She was considered. He’d been all set to get hitched in thirty days, but she’d wound him back. Hell, it had taken him a week to convince her to come to the game.

  Blurting out I love you now could backfire. Badly. And he didn’t want that. He wanted to be with her forever.

  “I’ll bide my time,” Bodie said, coming out of his reverie to finally answer Ryder’s question. “And I’ll be here for her, always, every day. And maybe her brother not treating me like I troll the countryside for unsuspecting virgins to gobble up wouldn’t hurt either.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s taken me a bit to get my head around it. Juliet told me to stop being a douche.”

  Bodie smiled. “Have I ever mentioned how much I like your fiancée?”

  Ryder half laughed, half snorted, but then his face got really serious as he nailed Bodie with a protective big brother gaze. “If you fuck this up, man…if you hurt her…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Bodie understood the implications of failure. And not just on himself. But on their friendship. And the consequences for the team.

  “I won’t. I’m not going to fuck it up. And I won’t hurt her.”

  And he meant it. He loved her. He just needed to keep it to himself for a while.

  …

  The following week, Eleanor was surprised to find herself at the trendy Mossman School of Design with Bodie. They were hosting a visiting fashion exhibition of Victorian clothing alongside student designs inspired by the era. It was i
n its last week and had been on Eleanor’s list of things to do, but Bodie had surprised her by asking if he could accompany her.

  And so here they were on a Thursday afternoon, wandering amongst the beautifully displayed designs, the down lights inside the glass cabinets complementing each piece perfectly. They were superbly done, so much so that Eleanor sometimes found it hard to tell the difference between the older clothes and the newer ones until she got up really close.

  What was perhaps the most surprising was how interested Bodie was in it all. “This looks quite dapper.”

  Eleanor glanced over her shoulder at Bodie, who had stopped in front of a single cabinet housing a man’s coat. She wandered over to him to admire it herself. “It’s a frock coat.”

  “Frock coat doesn’t sound very blokey.”

  She smiled at the tease in his voice but didn’t take her eyes off the long formal coat. It was a new design from one of the students but made from a vintage pattern.

  “It’s gorgeous. The cut is exquisite and the velvet practically glows like a ruby.” She almost pressed her nose to the case to examine it closer. “Look at the detail of the braiding on the cuffs and those perfect box pleats at the back. It’s beautifully tailored.”

  Mr Darcy wouldn’t be seen dead in it—too showy. It needed a man who didn’t give a fig about what others thought of him.

  She sighed, leaning into him. “I wish men still dressed like this. It’s very dashing.”

  He chuckled all low near her ear, his hand sliding to her nape, his thumb rubbing seductively. “I love it when you talk Victorian.” His lips buzzed her temple.

  And in the middle of a very public place, she wanted him all over again. They’d already squeezed in a quick session when he’d got home from training before heading out to the exhibition, but his touch made her greedy.

  He had created a monster!

  His gaze wandered to her cleavage. “I hope you’ve gone the full nineteenth century under that dress.”

  Eleanor’s nipples hardened as his warm breath brushed over her skin. She loved that he couldn’t get enough of her old-fashioned lingerie. She especially loved the irony of it hiding her very modern, sparkly, twenty-first century-vagina.

  “Not this time.” The corners of his mouth turned down and she laughed. “It’s okay, I have something else on I think you’re going to love.”

  “Really?” His eyes lit up and heat flashed through her veins. “Tell me.”

  “No. It’s a sur—”

  “Bodie? Is that you?”

  A shiver that had nothing to do with the brush of Bodie’s fingers shot down Eleanor’s neck. It intensified as Bodie stiffened and his hand dropped.

  “Anna.”

  “It is you.”

  A tall, leggy blonde gave him an enthusiastic hug. She had hair that fell straight to the small of her back, a cute heart-shaped face, dazzling teeth, and two perfect dimples.

  “Fancy meeting you here, of all places.” She smiled at Eleanor and gave her a little eye roll. “Could barely manage to get him near any kind of clothes store when were together, let alone a clothing exhibition.” She stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Anna.”

  Eleanor returned the shake as Bodie performed a perfunctory introduction. So, this was his ex. God. She was beautiful. The perfect mix of girl next door and goddess. Like Taylor Swift and Aphrodite had produced a love child.

  Eleanor half expected to look up and see a permanent opening in the sky above her head streaming down glories.

  Sure, Eleanor had Googled the other woman. She knew what Anna looked like. But her images just did not do her justice and she was…here. In Eleanor’s face. Not staring back at her through the barrier of a computer screen.

  The worse thing was Eleanor couldn’t even hate the other woman. She was being perfectly polite and pleasant. Not bitchy or predatory or condescending. No trace of bitterness or trying to mark something that had once been hers with a sly touch or a flirty giggle.

  She’d been inclusive, actually, drawing Eleanor into the conversation with smiles and eye contact as she complimented Bodie on the rugby season and asked after his parents. All while pretending not to notice Bodie’s clipped replies.

  God. What did that mean? Was it still hard to be around her over a year down the track? Did he still love her? Eleanor’s heart pounded painfully at the thought.

  “Anyway, I better go. I’m meeting Dad for a drink shortly.” Bodie nodded, the rigidity of his body easing a little at the announcement. “Nice meeting you, Eleanor.”

  Eleanor smiled and nodded, unable to talk, feeling like a mute idiot as worry tightened her vocal chords.

  “Say hi to your parents for me when you see them next, Bodie.”

  And then she swept away, her hair swinging in a perfect blonde swish.

  Chapter Twelve

  An hour later they were sitting in Bodie’s car. The mood had been well and truly broken, and Eleanor had barely taken in the rest of the exhibition. Traffic choked the roads all around them as they made their way home. Bodie’s silence was full and brooding in the confines of the car, and her stomach gurgled precariously.

  She had two options. She could tough it out, take him home, show him her new underwear and let their hormones run wild, or she could do the sensible thing and attack this head-on. Her hormones voted for the former. But her brain knew this was too important to trust to a bunch of chemicals that had proved far too slutty for their own good these last couple of months.

  “You’re still in love with your ex.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of what she thought could well be fact. One that her sinking heart had been whispering to her since Anna had swished off.

  Bodie startled beside her. “What?” They were stopped in a line of traffic going nowhere, which was probably just as well.

  Eleanor found some comfort in his surprise but she wasn’t stopping until she knew it all. “She’s very beautiful.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with it?”

  A part of Eleanor had wanted to hear him dispute it, but of course, it was undisputable. “I was thinking, you weren’t acting like a man who’d moved on.”

  “Oh, I’ve moved on.” His voice was deceptively neutral, but Eleanor didn’t miss the way his knuckles whitened over the steering wheel.

  “Really?” Had he moved on or was he just fooling himself? “Then why are you still so angry with her? You practically went rigid from the moment she spoke.”

  Bodie sighed and the tension in his shoulders eased. “I thought she might be…stalking me again. It took her a couple of months to adjust to it being over. Everywhere I went for a while after I called it off, she was mysteriously there.”

  “Oh.”

  The information mollified Eleanor slightly, but it was hard to imagine that tall, gorgeous, confident creature reduced to something needy and…pathetic. Unlike herself, who’d felt more and more needy and pathetic as she’d watched the ease with which Anna communicated.

  Bodie inched forward in the traffic and braked again. He was in a pair of tan chinos and a button-down shirt that pulled across his incredible shoulders and exposed his tanned forearms.

  He was beautiful, too. And Anna was perfect for him.

  She’d let herself think these past couple of weeks they could make this work. That she could actually be with Bodie, be a family with him. But what was he doing with her when he could pull women like Anna?

  She opened her mouth to ask him but shut it again, very much afraid of the answer as she spread her hand protectively against her belly.

  “Eleanor, just say it. I can practically hear you thinking.”

  Eleanor shut her eyes and screwed up some courage. Country women didn’t shy from hard truths or uncomfortable facts, and she wasn’t going to start. But her pulse tap danced at her temples anyway. “I guess I’m confused why you’d settle for someone like me when you can have someone like her.”

  “Settle?” His brows beetled at he
r. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  She couldn’t work out from his tone if he was angry, surprised, or insulted. The truth was, she had no idea what the hell he was doing. She still didn’t know why he’d chosen her that night back home.

  “I…think you’re trying to do the right thing.”

  “No.”

  He shook his head emphatically. He opened his mouth again like he was about to add something but shut it quickly, his fingers wrapping and unwrapping around the steering wheel. Eleanor didn’t know what it was he’d been going to say, all she knew was that his quick, decisive denial had been a cool rush of air into her burning lungs.

  “Anna is beautiful, I’ll give you that, on the surface. But her priorities are all screwed up. Life’s about money and social position for her. Just like my father. She’s so…hard and tough underneath that veneer. And not in a resilient way, in an egocentric way.”

  “Did she change, or…?”

  “No, she was always like that. I just chose to ignore it.”

  Eleanor almost asked why but stopped herself in time. Bodie was a guy. And Anna was a gorgeous woman. It didn’t require a PhD to figure out—just eyes.

  “I’ve known her most of my life. Our fathers were business associates. Everyone always kind of assumed we’d get together and we just…did. We both came from similar backgrounds, so we got each other. We were friends before we became lovers and our families were close and getting married at some stage seemed like the logical step…”

  Eleanor didn’t need a deck of tarot cards to hear the but coming.

  “Then she cheated on me.”

  A gasp tumbled from Eleanor’s mouth before she could haul it back. How could anyone cheat on a guy who was good and kind and doting? Not to mention fun to be around and thoughtful and honourable. And a genius in the bedroom? “I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t see it as a big deal. I hadn’t realised until that point that Anna had no romantic notions whatsoever about our relationship. She assumed that I was sleeping around, and having an open relationship made sense to her given that marriage was forever. As long as we were discreet. In fact, she pretty much took monogamy off the table.”