Trying Too Hard...: A steamy standalone sports romance. Molly Wishlade Ann

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СКАЧАТЬ mobile to control Catrin wherever and whenever he chose. It wasn’t that either of them believed that Liam fancied Catrin, just that he was a bit of a control freak. But then, Catrin could kind of understand his need to micro-manage because he’d been a founding member of the company and his life savings were riding on its success.

      “So…what is it then?” Sarah was like a bulldog once she got hold of something – she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

      “I’ve met someone.” Catrin bit her lip.

       Ooops!

      Sarah’s mouth dropped open and she clapped her hands together. The noise drew the curious glances of some other customers and Catrin sank lower in her seat. She hated being the centre of attention. She leant over and smoothed the legs of her skinny jeans into her Uggs.

      “Who? Tell me, tell me!” Sarah scrunched up her face and pouted her lips, causing Catrin to snort. Her friend was crazy, which probably helped as she worked at a dog rescue centre. Sarah earned minimum wage, still lived with her mother and father and spent fourteen-hour days at work but she loved it. She was the happiest person Catrin knew as well as the most generous. Sometimes Catrin wished that she could be happy with such simplicity. But she knew that she couldn’t. She’d always felt the need to push herself, to strive for more. It made her wonder what it would take for her to be really happy.

      “He’s French.”

      “How did you meet a Frenchman?” Sarah frowned then realisation filled her eyes and her red eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Through work?”

      Catrin nodded then hung her head. She knew what was coming.

      “Are you crazy?”

      She nodded. Tears sprang into her eyes. The last thing she needed right now was Sarah’s disapproval. Sarah was the one person who had the ability to make her feel better about herself. They’d shared so much, been there for each other for so long. She was like the sister that Catrin had always wanted.

      “What were you thinking?” Sarah slapped her hand against the table top causing the cups to rattle against their saucers. The small pile of muffin collapsed and some of it fell into Catrin’s lap.

      Catrin shrugged as she picked the crumbs off her jeans and placed them back on the napkin. “I, uh…I…look, Sarah, we’ve been friends for a long time…”

      “Since uni!” Sarah sighed. “And that makes me qualified to remind you of how hard you’ve worked to get where you are! I didn’t spend nights writing résumés with you, months missing you when you went abroad to develop your contacts then days waiting for your phone call as yet another interview left you in tears…just to see you throw it all away now!”

      “I’m not throwing anything away.” Catrin looked at Sarah then back at her coffee cup, heat flooding her cheeks. Sarah was right. It had been so hard to get into her chosen career. Hell, she’d even worked as a waitress, a chambermaid, and at a power company call centre to fund her studies. After graduating, she’d tried to gain a position at one prestigious agency after another. Finally, she’d struck lucky with Clarkson and Gwillam and here she was risking it all. Utter madness!

      Especially when she also knew that the glass ceiling in the celebrity agency business was double-glazed! So she might have gotten in but she could well find that she could climb no further.

      “Well, you know I love you.” Sarah reached out and took her hand over the table. “And I’ll always be here for you. But I know you and I know that if you lose this job you’ll be broken…and broke.”

      Catrin sighed. Her friend was right. She thrived on the excitement of meeting new clients and helping Liam to make new deals, of eating out at fancy restaurants and attending events where she sat in reserved seats with the best views. As an only child who’d lost her father during her time at university and with a mother who spent most of the year in Spain with her latest fling, she had little else in her life. She had to admit it, her job was her life. Plus – her heart sank – she had so much debt. University loans were crippling her and hung over her horizon like thick black clouds. Her Cardiff Bay apartment was everything she had dreamt it would be but the rent was extortionate. She needed the meagre wage that the internship paid and could really do with the pay rise a permanent position would offer. Maybe then she could quit working at the Venus Lounge at weekends. She shuddered.

      “Whatever happened to that guy from Swansea?” Sarah broke into her thoughts.

      Catrin picked at a cuticle. “He wasn’t for me.”

      “Why ever not? You always find something wrong with them, Catrin. At this rate you’ll never settle down.” Sarah wagged a finger at her though her lips twitched at the corners.

      Catrin shook her head. “You sound like a mother hen! Totally unlike my own mother the last time she phoned.”

      “More of her repetitive warnings that men and children ruin your life?”

      Catrin nodded. “Same as always.”

      “All the sangria.” Sarah shook her head. “Rotted her brain cells.”

      Catrin’s cheeks filled with heat.

      “Oh I’m sorry.” Sarah squeezed her hand then lifted her coffee and took a gulp. “I know she gives you a hard time about it. About everything. And that’s not what I meant to do. You know I’d never say anything to hurt you. Anyway…look at me…the eternal Bridget Jones!”

      Catrin laughed with her friend. At twenty-five, neither of them had to worry urgently about biological clocks and finding ‘the one’, though she knew that Sarah was, in fact, in love and had been involved with another woman for the past six months. She had confided all in Catrin one drunken night. Her fear of her parents’ reaction to the relationship meant that she’d kept it quiet and not spoken of it again, maintaining her happy-go-lucky attitude and carrying on as if nothing was wrong. It was tragic that such an open and honest person felt the need to conceal her true self. Yet, Catrin mused, here she was, sitting on her own little pile of secrets.

      “So are you in love?” The direct question shocked Catrin. She hadn’t really thought about it. She’d only known Henri a week and that was far too brief a time to fall in love. Wasn’t it? They had great sex and she enjoyed his company, she loved the way she felt when he enveloped her in his strong arms, but she didn’t even know him very well. She had no idea what his parents’ names were, what size shoes he took, even what music he liked.

      Her stomach lurched. She’d fallen into his arms and into his bed, caught up on such a powerful wave of lust and longing that she’d thrown all caution to the wind.

      “I’m not sure.” She finished her coffee. “I’m smitten but I don’t know if it’s love. It’s too soon. He’s a client.”

      She looked at Sarah but her friend’s face was warm with understanding.

      “I gathered that.”

      “He’s a rubgy player. He’s good,” she smiled, “really good.”

      “Rugby, eh?” Sarah grinned, her eyes full of mischief. “Big thighs, tight ass, abs? Yummy! And have you…”

      The question hung between them, floating above the empty cups and half-eaten muffins like steam from СКАЧАТЬ