Team Niklas (The Saints Team #3) (19 page)

Chapter 24

“What’s happening with you and the Kaiser?”
The Russian asked, seeing me Monday morning at work. I felt Alice and Kay look over
at me—they had asked was I okay but avoided questioning me given I looked so
morose. I took a deep breath and turned my attention to The Russian.

“Off limit discussions
today Russian include Nik, New York City, shots of me with my tongue out and
anything that is not work related,” I said, in my best commanding voice.

He strode towards his office
and muttered, “Well that’s just boring isn’t it?”

I couldn’t help but
smile and I saw Alice trying not to. The Russian was clueless. Kay braved the
subject.

“Are you okay, Sasha?”
she asked in a quiet voice.

I looked at her and
shook my head in the negative. I couldn’t speak and she and Alice understood.
Kay nodded.

“We’re here for you
darling,” she said, which just brought tears to my eyes which I quickly blinked
back. I turned my focus to the computer and began to field the emails of media
requests I had, ignoring the ones related to Nik’s pending child.

He had called me this
morning but I didn’t answer. His text was desperate and I didn’t know what to
send him back. I just wanted to work and try and get back into that space I had
been in pre-Nik, it had been a good space, I had been happy. If it was possible
to go under the radar, I achieved it. I returned texts to family and friends to
say I was okay and going below ground. Ethan didn’t give up that easily and
neither did Max. They both arrived around that night with wine and therapy.

Alice called later to
tell me that Nik had a bad time at training... all the guys thought he was a
legend and a stud or plain unlucky to get hooked. Men... they really were from
a different planet. She said Nik was a mixture of despondent, angry and
defeated—he had gone to his room, hadn’t eaten and hadn’t surfaced since. I
told Alice there was nothing I could do about it. I lay on the bed and my phone
rang... again. It was Nik. I answered.

“Nik...”

“I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you.”

“Can I come around?” he
asked.

“No.”

“Are you okay Sarsh?”

“No.”

“She says that she is
eight weeks. It was just before we met… so… I have to wait two weeks to get the
paternity test done, when she’s ten weeks,” he said. “They can’t do it earlier.
I’ve got James and a lawyer working on it. The club just thinks it’s a huge
joke.”

“They’re not doing
anything to help protect you?” I asked, surprised.

“No. I guess they think
it’s my mess.” He sighed.

“So you’ve spoken with
her?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get her
number?”

There was a silence. “I
had it,” he said, reluctantly.

“Right. There’s nothing
more to be said really Nik. We can’t do this for another two weeks while we
wait... and then who knows...”

“Sarsh, we can do this,
I’m not the father, I know.”

“I don’t.”

There was silence
again.

“I can’t be without
you,” he said.

“And I can’t be with
you. So please don’t say that to me...” I felt the pain in my chest at his
words. “Please don’t contact me Nik. Just go, sort this out, leave me alone
now.” I hung up.

I hated thinking of him
talking to her about their night together and now their pending child. I wasn’t
a drama junkie, I didn’t need the pain. I just wanted to lick my wounds, stay
in and lie low. Soon it would all go away... I know, I remembered the pain from
Adam, and it went away. It always goes away if you wait long enough.

*****

I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, I drank too much wine. I really had to pull
myself together. I arrived at work looking like a zombie. Good thing Jim didn’t
notice; he was blissfully unaware of the emotions of his female staff most of
the time. At least I could keep busy. I had a match this weekend to prepare for
and a media release to be done and stats to gather.

The Russian stuck his head out of his office and asked
me to come in.

I rolled my eyes. “Not talking about it, Russian,” I
said, with a glance to the window. Where was the goddamn coffee van when you
needed it?

“It’s a security matter, Sash, I need to talk with
you,” he growled and disappeared back into his office.

I rose, accepted a sympathetic glance from Kay and
Alice and headed his way.

“Close the door,” he said, as I entered. I closed the
door and dropped into Ed’s seat; he wasn’t in yet. The Russian was wearing a
suit today.

“You’re looking a bit spiffy, what’s going on?” I
asked.

“Could say the same about you,” he returned the
compliment to my pin-striped suit. “But then again, you usually dress up. I’ve
got some client meetings,” he explained.

I nodded. “What’s up?” I took a deep breath, waiting
for the Nik discussion which I didn’t need. I was so raw, every mention of him
just cut me more.

“Where are you at with Nik?” he asked, directly.

I frowned at The Russian. “Why do you need to know?”

“I want to know what support he is getting and where
he’s at in his head. Lucas, Shayne, the club in general, they’re not taking
this very seriously but we should be providing some kind of media security or
support for our players.”

I looked at The Russian with surprise. “That’s very
understanding of you Russian. But I assure you I have the media side of it
locked down. It’s a no comment situation and they’re not getting to talk with
Nik about it.”

“Good.” The Russian sighed. “There was an incident
last night that I’m trying to keep under wraps.”

I bit my lip, I had been worried about some fallout.
“What happened?” I asked.

“Bloody Buzz, biggest mouth on the team, I swear that
guy has fuel in his blood he’s so aggressive.” The Russian shook his head. “He
made some smartass comment to Nik in the parking lot after training asking if it
was the most expensive fuck he’s ever had.”

I groaned. “What happened then?”

“Nik went him. Absolutely fucking full on. It took me,
Lucas and Jackson to pull him off.”

I began to chew my nail. “How’s Nik?”

“He came out okay. Buzz is black-and-blue, going to say
he ran into a door, a couple of times—and maybe fell down the stairs—that’s the
unofficial line since no-one knows except you, me, Lucas and Jackson.”

I shook my head and swore under my breath.

“Sash, he needs someone to lean on,” The Russian said.

“He’s got someone; she’s expecting his child,” I said,
and I left his office.

Chapter 25

Alice put down the phone, grabbed her keys and handbag
and rose to leave the office.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“That was Shayne. He asked me to
come around to his office and bring my home keys,” she said, with a shrug.

I watched her walk off and
wondered what the hell that was about. Alice lived with Nik, I had heard from
Nik that morning and he had been alive and kicking so... had he locked himself
in his room? Were they running a drug test on him? Were they looking to borrow
an outfit from Alice? So many questions so little time. I pushed it to the back
of my mind as the phone rang and I had one of the journos on the line wanting
to speak with a player for a weekend interview. Sigh. Douglas from the local
suburban paper called every week and the paper had a readership of about
two—Douglas’s dad and cousin. Yet every week I had to ‘waste’ a player on an
interview with him. It was so hard to get the players to do media as it was,
and I hated to use up my favors. I told him I’d get back to him ASAP. I tried
asking for the questions hoping I could do it that way and peddle the answers
to a few outlets, but he was onto me.

Thirty minutes later, Shayne
called me on my office extension and asked me to come around to his office. Mm,
this was getting interesting. I told Kay and Jim where I was going and passed
Alice in the hallway returning to her desk.

“What’s happening?” I asked her.

“It’s about Nik,” she said, and
lowered her voice. “He’s gone AWOL.”

“For fuck sake,” I muttered and wandered
around to Shayne’s office, knocked and entered an ambush.
What the fuck?

Shayne was sitting down, Captain
Lucas was pacing and The Russian was standing with his arms folded blocking an
entire wall... well almost.

“Hi Sash, close the door,” Shayne
said.

“What’s going on?” I looked at
them suspiciously.

“Nik’s bolted,” Lucas said, and stopped
pacing long enough to look at me and for me to notice how particularly handsome
he was in his British way. “We’re hoping you can help.”

“Define bolted,” I said, narrowing
my eyes.

“Packed and left,” The Russian
added.

“What? He’s got a two-year
contract,” I said, “hasn’t he?”

Shayne nodded. “I think we might
have let him down,” he said, with a sheepish glance to The Russian. Makes me
wonder if The Russian had some experience in this and knew how Nik was feeling.
Shayne continued, “We need to fix this before we lose him for good and the
media get a hold of him leaving, breach of contract, all that drama.”

I dropped down into a seat in
front of Shayne’s desk.

“We didn’t take him seriously,”
Lucas said, “the chick getting pregnant, it was all just a bit of a laugh but
it obviously wasn’t to Nik and we blew him off.”

“Sasha, we need you to call him,” The
Russian said.

I shook my head. “My private life
is just that, Russian. If you guys want to fix it with Nik, then you call him.”

“We’ve tried,” Shayne said.

“What if we called him on your
phone Sasha, but we’ll do the talking?” Lucas asked.

“He’ll answer,” The Russian said.
“We need to do this before he goes back home to his family and friends.”

 “Sash,” Shayne called for my
attention, “as Lucas said, we’ve kind of dropped the ball with Nik and we need
to fix this.”

I looked from one to the other. “You
didn’t tell them Nik has no family?” I asked Shayne. “I know you like to keep
things private, but this is one time when he could have used the club’s
support.”

Lucas and The Russian looked at me
with confused expressions. “Shayne told me Nik’s next of kin was his financial
adviser, Anton, who is his childhood friend. That’s all the family he has.”

“Fuck,” Lucas swore, “that makes
it worse. We really blew him off, no-one helped him and we let the media
vultures get him.”

“Thanks,” I said, being one of
those.

“Sorry,” Lucas acknowledged, “I
just meant we didn’t realize this was such a big deal to him and we should have
been looking out for him.”

“We should have had a protection
order around him,” Shayne said.

I nodded. “When this is over
Shayne, you and I are better sit down and write an issues management
strategy... what the club does in the event of a number of scenarios like this
to protect the players and the club... you know for club in-house fighting,
drug issues, bad press, all that stuff,” I said. Shayne agreed.

“So will you talk with him?” The
Russian asked me.

As intimidating as the three guys
were, it was none of their business.

“No. What Nik and I do isn’t the
club’s business. I’m not going to go out with a guy who’s having a baby with a
groupie model just so you can keep your asset,” I said.

“No one’s suggesting that for a
moment, Sash,” Shayne said, “but we accept we’ve handled this badly and I guess
we’re just asking you to help us fix it from our end and... maybe, try to
support him until the paternity test is done? If it’s negative, will you two
get back together? Have you discussed that?”

I didn't know if he'd have me back
given I had run away from the whole situation, but I’d have him back in a
heartbeat, because I did believe it had happened before I'd been on the scene and
I... well, I loved him, damn it. But I didn’t need him, a new baby, a
connection with this other woman hanging over us—we didn’t have enough history
to sustain that and I didn’t want the drama.

“If it was all cleaned up, if it
wasn’t his kid, yes,” I said, honestly. I lifted my phone, found Nik’s number,
thumbed it and handed it to Lucas. He put it on speaker and pressed the call
button. I didn’t think Nik was going to answer and then after five rings he
picked up. He took a deep breath and said my name.

“Sah-sha?”

“Nik, don’t hang up, it’s Lucas,”
the captain said, leaning forward to speak into the phone lying on Shayne’s
desk. “I’m with Shayne, Russian and Sasha. Where are you?” Lucas asked.

Again with the silence. Lucas
looked up at Shayne and The Russian.

“Nik, it’s Shayne. You’ve taken
your gear from Alice’s place, but I need you to come in and have a chat. We can
work through any issues you have with the club... where are you?”

“I’m at the airport,” Nik said.

The three guys looked at each and
The Russian puffed his cheeks out with concern. I bit my lip, this wasn’t good.
Was he going home to Berlin?

“Buddy, I’ll come and get you,”
Lucas said.

“No. I came and saw both of you
last week. What’s to say now?” Nik almost snarled the words. For a guy who had
been through so much he had always been so up; it was bizarre to hear anger in
his voice.

Lucas was looking at the ceiling. I
could hear his mind working overtime as he tried to decide how best to handle
this. He moved around to sit next to me and took a large breath. Leaning into
the phone reception, he continued, “We handled this badly Kaiser, I’m sorry. I
should have taken it more seriously instead of blowing it off as a joke.”

Nik spoke. “Luke, if some girl
came out in the media and said she was having your child and your girlfriend
Mia walked away, how funny would you find that?”

“Fucking not funny at all,” Lucas
said, bristling at the thought.

“The club should have stepped in and
stepped up, Nik, we missed this one, I’m sorry,” Shayne agreed with Lucas. “We
want to fix this and we’ll fix it so it won’t be handled like this ever again.”

“If that kid was mine, I’d take
full responsibility,” Nik said, “but it’s not, the paternity test will show
that. But you know, all that aside, I’ve had enough.”

The men looked at me and I shook
my head. I didn’t know what to say, I had nothing.

“I spoke with your manager, James,
this morning,” Shayne said. “I’ve told him we’ve got our solicitor working on
it...”

“I have my own solicitor on it. I
don’t need yours,” Nik cut him off.

Shayne swallowed. “Even so, James
has put your solicitor in touch with the club’s solicitor and we’ll manage this
now. We’ll get the tests and we’ll shut this down.”

“You know why I came to the
Saints?” Nik asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I had six international
offers, big offers, all the same. When I met with you, Luke, you said you
wanted to play with the Saints because you were near your friends. The money
wasn’t the main priority. You talked about the importance of club loyalty,
sticking together, the club looking out for each other... fuck that was just
bullshit.”

“No Nik...” Lucas started and Nik
cut him off.

“The Saints are just like every
other club... just play well and give us our money’s worth. That’s all that
matters,” he finished.

“Nik, I promise you, you are
wrong. I fucked up, the club fucked up, but you’re important to us and the club
as well. I don’t want you to leave. I’m coming to get you and we’ll fix this,”
Lucas ordered stepping into Captain mode.

There was a silence on the end of
the line again.

“Where exactly are you at the
airport?” Shayne asked. There was a silence again.

“Kaiser, don’t make me get my
airport security buddies to take you in for a strip search,” The Russian
threatened and broke the tension. I think I even heard Nik scoff.

“The departure lounge. My flight
leaves in an hour,” Nik said.

The Russian spoke. “Give me the
flight number and I’ll get my buddies there to pull your bags off.”

Nik hesitated and then gave his
flight number.

“Okay, this is what we are going
to do,” Shayne said. “Nik, has anyone spoken to you? A journo?”

“No. I’ve signed a few fan
autographs and been in some photos,” Nik said.

“Right, I want you to head to the
arrivals and sit there. You’re waiting to collect a friend, that’s why you are
in arrivals. Lucas is on his way, stay there until he arrives and calls you and
then head out and he’ll pick you up. Leave your bags, we’ll get them sent to
the club. Yes?” Shayne said.

“Will you come Sah-sha?” Nik
asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Stay put buddy, we’re on our
way,” Lucas said, and hung up. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Let’s go,” Lucas said.

Shayne held up his car keys.
“You’ll need more than two seats,” he reminded Lucas.

“All that money spent on a car and
you can’t drive around more than two people,” I shook my head and Lucas smirked
at me. Might as well get a few shots in while I can.

*****

Lucas and I hardly said a word on the way to the
airport. Normally I would have been super consciously aware of sitting next to
one of the sexiest and biggest names in soccer, or I would have been pushing
him to do more media for me, but I was too busy stressing out about seeing my
own sexy guy, Nik. Thank God Nik didn’t go home—
I know I had
told him to leave me, but I hadn't been thinking straight.
I guess I thought if, when, he sorted it out and got the DNA
results back, if he wasn’t the dad we could pick up again. I didn’t think he’d
leave the country and I might never see him again. I felt chilled at the
thought.

Lucas didn’t call Nik on our arrival.
Instead, I asked him to park and to let me go in and meet him. Lucas thought it
was a good idea and pulled into the short-term parking. He said he’d return a
few calls while he waited. I left him and rushed into the arrivals area. I
spotted Nik straight away—sitting low in the chair, watching the airplanes
through the glass windows, his long legs out in front of him. My heart stopped
momentarily... just seeing him caused me pain and desire. I took a deep breath,
moved up behind him and draped my arms around his neck.

“If that’s Luke, it’s taking
friendship too far,” he said.

I stuck my tongue in his ear and
he groaned and grabbed me from behind, pulling me forward onto his lap. I
cupped his face in my hands and I watched as his eyes looked wet. He blinked.

“Glare,” he said, explaining it.

“Don’t go,” I said, “I love you.”
I don’t know where that came from, from the heart I think. I hadn’t planned on
saying it but I meant it.

He pulled me tight to him and
kissed me deeply. “I love you,
Süsse. I want to
marry you, and travel the world with you... I’ll do soccer commentary and you
can design in every city in the world that inspires you and we’ll have
beautiful children, and a handsome dog and Prada...”

I
laughed. “Can you just come back first?”

“Okay,”
he agreed.

“I
can’t believe you were going to leave.” I held him. “Why? Where were you going
to go?”

“I
needed to go back and spend some time with Seb and Britta. They would put my
head straight,” he said. “Besides, you were going to clear out, to Paris.”

“Not
anymore,” I said, shutting him down. “I’m sorry Nik... I just had no manual to
handle what happened...”

“Me
either,” he said. We stared at each other and he smiled, the tension falling
off us in waves.

“I
was so busy being lost in my own pain, I didn’t have room to contemplate
yours,” I said, stroking his face.

“It’s
okay, I understand,” he assured me, holding my gaze.

“C’mon,
Lucas is waiting in the car. You gave them a scare, they all feel very bad
now,” I told him.

“How
do you feel?” he asked me seriously.

“I’m
still scared,” I said, softly.

He
nodded. “We’ll be okay, no matter what, we’ll always be okay as long as we stay
together. We’re a team.” He extended his hand. I shook it.

“Team
Wagner and Saxon,” I said.