Wicked Ambition

She turned. ‘Who?’

‘I’ve just taken a call from Arcadia,’ announced Barney triumphantly. Arcadia was Puff City’s management. ‘They’re interested in a partnership, Robin. Slink Bullion likes what he sees. Your profile’s rocketed and they want a piece of it.’

She was elated. ‘That’s the best news I’ve had all week. Get us a meeting?’

‘You bet I will.’

Robin pushed open the door with her name on it. The first thing she noticed was the enormous bouquet of peonies and roses on her make-up table, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a purple ribbon. There was a card sticking out of the top.

‘What’s this?’

‘They got delivered to the office,’ said Barney. ‘I had a runner bring them down.’

‘Why?’

‘Some kid dropped them by. He said to make sure you received them, or the guy he worked for wouldn’t be happy.’

She turned the card over. It read:

But I want to be friends with you

Robin frowned. She pretended not to know who it was, but she knew straight away.

‘Who’re they from?’ asked Barney.

‘I have no idea. There’s no name.’

The last words she’d thrown Leon’s way. Make friends with someone else.

‘It’s a fan,’ she said dismissively. ‘And I’d rather this stuff got filtered.’

She had decided not to tell Barney about the creepy stuff she’d been receiving in the mail recently. Last week a weirdo scrapbook had arrived filled with cutouts of her image and inscribed with the note: I’m closer than you think. Before that a ream of paper, in which her name was reproduced over and over, line after line, page after page, like something from The Shining. She thought the handwriting was the same on both but couldn’t be certain.

It was freaky but there was no point mentioning it. Some fans were nuts; it went with the territory. She could take care of herself.

‘I thought you preferred to see everything?’ said Barney.

‘Not any more.’

Seizing Leon’s bouquet, she crossed to the wastebasket and dropped it in.

Barney was shocked. ‘Can’t you take them home? They’re hardly offensive. You never know, they might brighten up the place…’

Robin tried to imagine the arrangement in her flat. It didn’t work for a second. Her first-floor space in Camden was minimalist to the extreme, the walls blank, the bed unmade and the cupboards empty. All she had in the fridge was a half-drunk litre of Coke and some leftover Chinese noodles. A single coffee cup rattled round the kitchen.

‘I don’t like flowers,’ she said. ‘They’re sickly.’

‘I think they’re pretty.’

‘You would. And anyway, I don’t want a stranger’s shit in my space.’ Especially when she didn’t have her own shit in her space. Other people’s houses were stamped with their history, mementoes of a time gone by, but Robin’s displayed evidence of nothing but the necessities of here and now. It came from a life of being constantly uprooted, spat in and out of the system like an unwanted toy—and Robin had been unwanted, she was unwanted by definition. Why else would she have been given up? Her own mother hadn’t wanted her.

At four days old Robin had been left in a bin in an East London park, wrapped up in a plastic bag. She hadn’t been Robin Ryder then, she’d had another name, one the hospital had given her, but they had never found the woman responsible and Robin had long ago given up on dreams of reunions and forgotten sisters and brothers, replacing that need with the iron resolve that she would never rely on anybody ever again. When things got tough, people abandoned you. It was a fact of life. The only person you could trust was yourself.

So she didn’t need Leon Sway or his stupid dumb flowers.

‘Let’s go,’ said Robin, pulling on her jacket. ‘First round’s on me.’

‘Encore, encore, oui, oui, oui!’ The girl arched her back, craving his touch with animal reflex. She had never had a lover like Leon Sway. ‘Vous êtes magnifique!’

Leon hardened for what time he’d lost count, pulling the girl on top of him and kissing her fiercely. Their tongues entwined, hungry for more.

She gasped as he filled her. Strapping his powerful hands to her waist, the girl rocked back and forth, marvelling at Leon’s physique, the immaculate, glorious body of a world-class player. Every tendon and sinew was a model of perfection, the summit of strength and beauty; a machine shaped and honed for the sole purpose of winning. Her palms were spread across his pecs, dwarfed by the canvas of his chest, as she moved to his rhythm, quickening and quickening as their hips locked and Leon pulled the hair from her face as she sweated and pulsed on top of him, loving the muscle and the tenderness and how one was indistinguishable from the other, until, in a crescendo, they both reached their pinnacle.

At twenty-four, Leon was one of the greatest American athletes of all time.

Without contest he was the greatest lover.

‘That was amazing,’ she moaned, her accent thick. She collapsed on to him. Leon held her, trailing his fingertips down her arm and listening as her breathing slowed to sleep. It had been too long in the run-up to competition. All that effort and fury, all the passion and drive, had nowhere to go once the finish was crossed. Desire, the simmering volcano Leon had held at bay through months of training, of replacing his urges with the promise of victory and the unwavering commitment that required, fired his run from the splinter of the starting pistol. But now it was over? Another person’s skin; their warmth: the softness of a woman.

He closed his eyes, trying to picture anything else but what he always did:

Another man’s tread crashing over the line before his.

As the sun swam into the darkened room, Leon rolled over and checked his watch. Eight-thirty. He needed to be at the airport. He had been putting off returning home, knew he had his reasons but that didn’t make it right. Somehow there was always a TV appearance to be filmed, a gala to be attended, a photo shoot to make…Each day brought with it a fresh deluge of offers: luxury watch brands pursued him as the face of their sports range; global drinks manufacturers were desperate to secure his allegiance; designer labels coveted him to front their new campaign. Just yesterday he had been stripping off in a Paris studio, replacing a soccer legend as the face of an underwear giant. His almost naked pose, a vision in black-and-white of rippling torso and bulging crotch, had been blown up to the size of an airbus and would already be winging its way across the Atlantic for its debut in Times Square.

Quietly Leon extracted himself from the bed sheets and parted the blinds. The French capital was spread before him, the glossy River Seine and the glinting Eiffel Tower, in the bronzed early morning like a jewel city. Imposed against its skyline was his own reflection: dark hair, almond skin, green eyes that had stared down a legion of opponents…except one.

The tyrant he couldn’t defeat, the rival he hated: Jax ‘The Bullet’ Jackson.

Swiftly Leon showered and dressed. As far as he was concerned, Rio couldn’t come around soon enough. Bring on the competition—because next time, he would win.

He packed his belongings, checking his phone for a missed call or a voicemail. Nothing. Robin would have received the flowers by now: he had put his digits on the back of the card and wondered if she’d make the move. Leon couldn’t get her out of his head, ever since they’d met—since before they had met, if he were truthful, because he’d noticed her in the press, admired her from afar, and when he’d been offered the spot on The Launch he had taken it partly as a way to meet her. He could never have guessed that their first encounter would be quite so memorable.

Robin wasn’t his usual type, if he had one, but then she wasn’t his usual anything because she wasn’t at all…usual. He kept replaying that initial face-to-face (though he could think of other ways to describe it); the VIP room he’d been told was empty, the glimpse of Robin’s smooth back, the delicate, bare shoulder, and the curve of her waist beneath the hastily pulled-on shirt. She thought he’d seen more but he hadn’t—honestly he had been as embarrassed as she, and had tried to make light of it but instead it had backfired. How Leon wished he could go back to that night and play it differently. Robin was sexy and feisty and rude and wilful and she fascinated him. Was it the attitude that came off so brutal, yet in a dropped gaze betrayed her fragility? Was it the big fringe, beneath which shone those huge, careful eyes? Was it the way he had seen her laughing with her friends before she’d come over in the club, a generous smile that he suspected she saved for people she loved? He had to see her again. They had to start over.

‘Hey.’ Leon woke the girl, brushing her hairline with his thumb. ‘I gotta split.’

She smiled. ‘Is it too much to ask for a second date?’

‘Never say never.’

‘Last night was incroyable. So was this morning.’

He kissed her.

She tried to pull him back but he resisted. There were things he had to get home to; people who needed him. He made for the door.

This is a long game, his coach always said. Never lose focus.