Final Score. Michelle Betham

you regret it? Not being there when Brandon was born?’

      He took her hand, bringing it up to his mouth and kissing it gently. ‘Now I do, yes. Which is why it hurts even more to know Ryan was there with you when Rico arrived.’

      ‘It still couldn’t make me love him the way I love you, Jim. Do you understand that? Yes, it was an incredible experience, but I would give up everything I have to have shared that experience with you. Not Ryan. Even through the most painful of contractions I wanted you there with me. You. Not Rico’s dad. I wanted you. The first alarm bell rang that night, Jim, drowning out everything else my head was trying to tell me. It rang out loud and clear; even when I was holding Ryan’s child in my arms, I wanted you.’

      ‘Jesus, Amber, we handled all this so fucking badly.’

      ‘Oh, baby, don’t cry. Don’t cry…’ She leaned over to gently kiss his tears away, tasting the salt, hating the way all the pain and the hurt still refused to go away.

      ‘He could have been my baby, if we’d just tried that little bit harder.’

      She shook her head, her hand still resting against his cheek. ‘Don’t go back there, Jim. Please. Don’t go raking over the past. What happened, happened. And there isn’t a thing we can do to change it. All we can do is try to move forward and deal with all the problems and complications that are going to be thrown at us in the best way we can. And if we love each other, we can do that. We can do that, Jim. Together.’

      He threw his head back for a second, and Amber watched as fresh tears fell from his eyes, her heart physically aching as everything he was feeling seemed to flood through into her.

      ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered, her voice faltering as she watched him almost fall apart in front of her. She’d never seen him like this before; never seen him so vulnerable, so real. But the pressure of keeping up that controlled and slightly harsh front was quite obviously becoming too much now.

      He smiled and she wiped away yet more tears, sliding a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down for another kiss, opening her legs to let him lie between. She needed to feel him close, to feel him against her before she had to let him go. Before he left her to start making the plans that would change their lives, plans that still scared her, but it was all she wanted now. A new life with the only man she could ever let herself love. And this time she wasn’t going to fight it.

      ‘I am so, so sorry, for everything,’ Jim whispered, his eyes staring deep into hers, and she gasped quietly as she felt him gently push inside her.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she breathed, pulling her legs up around him. ‘None of it. It doesn’t matter.’ Maybe that was a little lie. Some of what had happened mattered a great deal, but right now she meant it. Right now it didn’t mean a thing. All that mattered was that he was with her, beside her, inside her. He loved her. And how badly had she wanted that only a few months ago? How badly had she wanted that, forever?

      Arching her back she moved her hips up against his, wrapping her legs around him as he pushed harder, his hands in the small of her back pushing her up towards him, and she cried out as she felt him touch her so deeply it sent the most incredible shivers coursing through her entire body. For over two decades this man had been her life. Her world. Yet only now did she feel he was truly hers.

       Chapter Eight

      The freezing north-east wind whipped around Amber’s ears and she wished she’d put a hat on. It was December, and the Christmas lights and festive feel filled the city of Newcastle. And she should have been excited. This Christmas she had the baby she’d so badly wanted, and the man she loved beyond anything. Last Christmas she’d had neither. But it wasn’t that simple, was it? Her baby belonged to another man, and she was about to tell him that, this time, she really was taking his son hundreds of miles away to another city, to be with the man he’d fought against for so long.

      Walking past Fenwicks, one of the oldest and largest department stores in the centre of the city, she stopped to look at the beautiful Christmas window display the store put on every year. Ever since she’d been a little girl she remembered her mum and dad bringing her here, to see what theme the store would be displaying that year – from traditional to fairytale, she’d always loved standing there with her nose pressed up against the glass, staring in awe at the colours and the moving puppets and the sheer magical feel of everything. And now that she had a child of her own she wanted him to experience that, too. But maybe it wouldn’t be here, in her native north-east. Maybe he’d experience that elsewhere. And anyway, London was full of this kind of thing. There’d be plenty of places to take him over all the future Christmases she’d have with her son.

      ‘Here. I thought you could do with this.’

      She turned to see Ronnie holding out a takeout cup of coffee. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled, taking a much-needed sip.

      ‘So, it’s all going public today, then.’

      Amber stared back at the window, concentrating on a Christmas elf, who was banging a wooden hammer up and down on a bright-red brick. ‘There’s a press conference at 5 o’clock. At Tynebridge.’ She looked at Ronnie. ‘I should have told him sooner, shouldn’t I? Ryan, I mean. I should have told him about this sooner.’

      So far only her father and Ronnie knew about Jim’s imminent departure from Newcastle Red Star for his old London club, Endleigh United. Her father wasn’t exactly over the moon at this sudden turn of events, but he also knew there wasn’t much he could do to change Amber’s mind. He just wanted her to be happy, when all was said and done. And Jim made her happy. Simple as that.

      ‘Ryan Fisher is still unpredictable, Amber. He’s still a loose cannon, no matter how much you think he’s changed. If you’d told him this sooner, there was every chance he’d kick off and the secret would have been out way before now.’

      ‘I’ve been lying to him, though.’

      ‘Think of it as sparing him the truth before he needed to know it. And anyway, you could have just let him hear about it at the same time everyone else was going to hear about it.’

      ‘Oh, yeah, that would work, wouldn’t it?’ She took another sip of coffee, staring back at the window, her eyes now focused on a mechanical Rudolph chewing on a carrot. ‘Maybe if Rico wasn’t involved… maybe then I would have left it to the press conference to let him know about it.’ She threw her head back and sighed. ‘Oh, what kind of person does that make me?’

      ‘Come on, Amber. He’s just going to have to deal with it, isn’t he? And anyway, you’re telling him now, aren’t you?’

      She checked her watch. ‘Yeah. I’m telling him now.’

      ‘Come on. I’ll drop you at his place.’

      She slipped her arm through Ronnie’s as they walked away from the crowd that was building outside Fenwicks’ window. ‘I’m scared, Ronnie.’

      ‘Of what?’

      ‘Of everything. It just feels as though it’s all out of my control now. When I think back to the way things used to be…’

      He slipped his arm around her shoulder and she clung onto his waist as they walked past the imposing Theatre Royal, the cold wind showing no signs of letting up. ‘You’re gonna have to stop thinking in the past now, kiddo. Things have moved on. Your life has changed inextricably over the past couple of years and I…’ He stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘I really want to tell you to stay here, to forget about going with Jim.’

      ‘Jim’s only going because of me, Ronnie. But we need a new start if we have any chance of making it work this time, and that just isn’t going to happen here. It isn’t. That’s why he’s cited conflict of interest in his get-out clause. The whole set-up is