don’t think I can do this anymore.’
Grasping my elbows, he looked down into my eyes and my heart took a punch as I saw the tears welling up there. Oh God, Sam. I took in a sharp breath, tugging at my lip with my teeth.
‘Give it some more time, please, Jess.’ Sam’s urgent plea almost tore my heart in two.
‘I can’t.’ His time to play first-class cricket was running out. He was already in his mid-twenties.
‘Please, Jess.’
I shook my head, not daring to speak. I didn’t want this, but I couldn’t see how else I could fix things. I’d had enough of fighting against Victoria, the guilt, messing up Sam’s relationship with his mother, his friends and all the other problems that had arisen. Ruining his cricket career was the last straw.
I couldn’t do that to him.
The mess at the refuge gave me the perfect excuse to finish things. To make them right for him. I was the one holding him back. This was something I could give him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Any luck?’ Holly didn’t look up from where she was trawling through the latest batch of one-hundred-odd responses to Victoria’s blog.
Yesterday’s meeting had been hideous, full of outrage and bluster with the trustees wondering at length how the secret had got out.
Today I was researching how to get a YouTube video taken down and the trustees were due for another meeting. I’d already reported the video, but the categories they offered me in the list didn’t fit.
‘I’ve already reported it.’
‘What about Sam?’
‘What about him?’ I asked, my heart doing a stupid wobble just at the sound of his name.
‘Can he go and see Victoria?’
‘He phoned her four times yesterday. She didn’t pick up and she didn’t call back.’
‘Yes, but that was yesterday.’
I pursed my lips together, ducking my head.
‘Jess?’
‘Mmm,’ I said, trying to sound busy, as I kept my gaze fixed on the computer screen as if it were about to impart the meaning of life to me.
‘Is everything OK with you and Sam?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because every time I’ve mentioned his name you have this kind of constipated-but-I might-have-crapped-in-my-pants look on your face. It’s kind of weird and not you.’
‘Sam and I…’ Oh shit, my voice cracked. ‘Sam and I…’
‘Oh, Jess. Not over this.’
‘Not just this, but it’s bad enough,’ I sniffed as those pesky tears leaked out. ‘Other things. Too many other things.’
‘You’re not a quitter, Jess.’ Holly left her desk and came to perch on mine. ‘This isn’t like you. I don’t do the sappy stuff. I’ve been working here too many years. I’m a long-in-the-tooth cynical old harpy but you and Sam … you’re great together. Even I thought so, and I don’t believe in all the till-death-us-do-part crap. Once this has blown over…’
‘No, Holly. It’s done. I could take all the stuff Victoria threw at me … but this and what it does to Sam, that’s the bit I can’t do.’
‘Oh, for crap’s sake, Sam’s a big boy.’
‘Yes … but she’s blocking his cricket career.’
‘So?’ spat Holly. Wrong person to confide in. She so didn’t do sport.
‘It’s a big deal to him.’ Although he’d never made it into a big deal. My heart ached for how modest and uncomplaining he’d been about it. Last night I’d Googled him. He’d been a rising star for the last few years, until last year an injury had slowed him down. This season was supposed to be his big comeback. A couple of journalists had wondered why he hadn’t reappeared on the scene, and there was one slightly spiteful column suggesting he’d taken his eye off the ball and had been seduced by a wild social life. Ha, if only they knew. Mine and Sam’s idea of a wild night was a couple of beers on the balcony before he started marking and planning for the evening, while I planned rotas and reviewed current cases.
‘Bigger than you.’
‘That’s not it. I realised that Victoria will keep on. It’s like my mum all over again, and I’m doing that to her. And to Sam.’
‘You are talking bollocks.’
I knew Holly wouldn’t understand.
‘I’m Victoria’s nemesis. As long as I’m on the scene, she won’t let up. It’s damaging Sam. His relationship with his mother, his friends, the county selector people. The minute I’m off the scene, it solves all those problems.’
‘And Victoria wins.’
‘No, Sam wins,’ I said quietly. ‘And that’s what counts.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. You daft cow. You’ve done the big grand sacrifice, you stupid moo.’
I bristled. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘That’s exactly what you’ve