Epilogue

EPILOGUE

ADAM – FIVE MONTHS LATER

T he crowd is completely silent as I watch Anna for the first time in a big match—the French Open final. I glance at the scoreboard for what must be the two thousandth time. This game is going down to the wire. It’s 12–12 in the tiebreaker and, honestly, she must have nerves of steel. But boy, she has needed them today. Katarina Yenko has fought every point and come back time and time again when Anna’s been in the lead. After Anna lost the first set, I thought it was all over.

She serves, but even I can see without the call or the electronic beep that it’s out. Fuck, Anna, don’t double-fault now. Come on! Ilov’s face next to me is impassive—how is he so calm? Anna bounces the ball a couple of times on the court, then throws it up and smashes it over the net and Yenko stretches to get to it, but it’s too fast and too near the center line. An ace! Fuck. I try not to gnaw on my hand like I want to. There are cameras all over this thing, and I’ve already had one or two Slack messages from my team saying, You look cute on TV.

We’ve got two months in Europe, starting with the French Open, then Wimbledon, and we’ve left Pepper with Janus and Jo, given she’s now best friends with the cats. Susie’s been running things in the business like a pro in my absence. I’m still online with people in the office every day. In fact, it couldn’t be easier. The guys have been amazing, and I’ve done loads since coming here, even with attending all of Anna’s matches. I’ve gone to a few hackerspaces in Paris, taking the suitcase full of electronic kit I brought with me, and I love the freedom and the peace I get while Anna’s off practicing.

Katarina bounces the ball ready to serve on the switch. If Anna breaks Yenko’s serve here, this could win her the tournament, but she’s had these kinds of nail-biting battles with Yenko throughout this match. She’s one point ahead now. Make it two. The ball whizzes down, and Anna stretches all out, managing to fire it back over the net, and it clips the top, but Katarina gets to it and top slices the ball as she closes in on the net, eager to make the kill. Anna is off-balance, her weight on the wrong foot, but even with my limited knowledge of tennis—though I’m getting better each day, I swear—I can see the opportunity it’s opened up for Anna to put one past her opponent. She does, somehow twisting her body, not quite steady, and belting a ball almost too fast to see, straight down the line. It misses the end of Yenko’s outstretched racket by millimeters, and the whole stadium erupts as Anna goes down on her knees, forehead pressed into the red clay of the court.

And I’m on my feet, eyes damp. Ever since I met Anna I’ve turned into a sap, but God, it’s so fucking amazing being with this woman.

Then she’s up and climbing up to the stands where I’m sitting with her parents, whom she flew in to be here, alongside her coach, Ilov, and her public relations guy, Damian.

The crowd is going wild, cheering and clapping as Anna arrives with us, tearful and sweaty, hugging everyone in turn. When she reaches me at the end of the line, her eyes are red and full of tears.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she says, as I pull her into a tight hug.

I laugh through my own tears. “I think you could.” I kiss her temple. “Watching that was the highlight of my life. I love you.”

She squeezes me tighter. “Me too. I’ll see you later,” she says, and then she’s gone with a wave to the crowd as she heads back down to the court and her trophy presentation. No doubt she’ll have to work through a whole round of questions at the press conference and everything else she needs to do. A hot, welling sensation takes hold of my chest. If I feel like this, what on earth must her mom and dad be feeling?

I glance over at her dad, and his eyes are full of tears. When I met him earlier, he was gruff and monosyllabic, but I’ve realized that’s just his way. They both speak a little English. In the halting Russian I’ve been learning, I apologized to her mom for not being Arty Maroz and she grinned a grin that was so like Anna’s it almost stopped my heart. Then she slapped my arm and went into a long diatribe in Russian, and I caught the words Maroz, his father, and something about wanting a son-in-law and grandchildren. Maybe one day. Understanding Russian is a long slog. With a lot of gesturing, I managed to communicate that the grandchildren were dependent on them—Anna’s parents—living in the US. Anna’s managed to persuade them and her sister to move to Latvia so they’re in a much safer place, but I don’t think she’ll be truly happy until they’re in the US. Fortunately, for now, Fabian is keeping an eye on everything. He has enough leverage and he keeps me briefed. It’s not a long-term solution, but it’s good enough for now.

Eventually, we’re led behind the scenes for a drink and to chat with people, and everyone wants to speak to someone connected to Anna. We see Anna again briefly, but there are loads of interviews lined up for her, so I manage to extract myself and her parents and we head back to the hotel together. Ilov and Damian stick around to organize things and talk to the media. When I leave her parents at the door to their room, both of them are quiet but beaming, and I promise in broken Russian to let them know when Anna returns. There’s a dinner being held tonight which we’ll all be attending.

I settle back on the cushions at the head of the bed in our suite and pull my laptop onto my knees. I’ve got several hours of peace to work on a few things on the website for Susie and some designs Sean and I discussed yesterday.

But the next thing I feel is my laptop moving, and as my arms shoot out to save it from falling, my eyes fly open to find Anna smiling down at me, her hands wrapped around my computer.

“Long day?” she says with a wink .

“I watched a very exciting tennis match and it wore me out,” I say, grinning up at her. “Ms. French Open Champion.”

She places my laptop on the floor and climbs over my lap, eyes latching onto mine as she runs her thumb along my lower lip.

“I’m in the mood to celebrate,” she whispers, sliding her ass down my legs and pressing in.

My relationship with Anna is warm and close and solid, but this aspect of being together is like some unstoppable force.

“Winning’s a big turn-on, huh?” I say.

She smiles. “I think it is.”

“What time is it?” I start to lift my wrist, but she pins it down to the bed and all my fighting instincts roar to life.

“We have time,” she says.

So, I slide my hand through her hair and move forward as if I’m going to kiss her, but twist at the last moment, pinning her on her back instead. “I like a worn-out opponent,” I say, rubbing my nose along hers and kissing her eyelids.

She smiles. “Who says I’m worn out? I’ve had a few energy drinks.”

“I like the way you pick up on the fact that I said you were worn out but let the fact that I describe you as my opponent go by.” I prop myself on my hands. “Congratulations, by the way. How does it feel to win your first French Open championship?”

She blows out a long breath. “God, I’ve been asked that question a thousand times over the last two hours. There’s no greater feeling in the world. One of those special feelings that happen so rarely, when all your hard work pays off. Because so often it doesn’t.”

“I see.” If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Anna, it’s that failure is far more common than success, and the only choice to make is to carry on, to fight another day, and another one and another one.

“A better man would have had some champagne on tap to celebrate,” I add.

“I’d die if I had any alcohol.” She makes a face. “I bet there’ll be a lot flowing tonight, though.”

She’s got me hard by sitting on me, so I flex my hips forward and she gasps, hooking a leg over my hip and rolling me over. Then she sits up and tosses her ponytail over her shoulder. She’s out of her sweaty tennis gear and in some soft-looking post-game pants and a top, no doubt provided by her sponsors.

“Do I have to wear anything particular this evening?” I say.

Her agent, Barb, has persuaded me to be involved in some of Anna’s deals, and we now have an agreement about how that works and how much money I’m paid from it. I told Anna it didn’t matter, but she was very insistent that I was treated fairly, which amused me greatly given that no one would be at all interested in me if I wasn’t with her. Barb’s chomping at the bit to sign me up to all manner of people who want to provide sponsorship, particularly in fashion, but honestly, the way I look most of the time, no one should want me as a style icon. Anna got Rolex to give me some super-fancy wristwatch after that first event we attended, and it’s beautiful, but it’s so unimportant compared to everything else. Barb has also been whispering about some big deal that’s in the works. If it’s good for Anna, I’ll do it.

“Damian and June are turning up in about an hour to do some behind-the-scenes stuff.”

“We’re not doing pictures of me in my boxers!”

Anna snapped a picture of me in the bathroom yesterday and told me she lived with the hottest man alive. Which, given all the amazing male models she could be with, is patently ridiculous. Okay, I’m wiry from all the jujitsu, but I’m not built, and my body hair doesn’t fit the mold for male hotness currently in vogue. But she studied the photo and a small secret smile curled over her lips. When she waltzed out of the bathroom saying it was the best picture to have on her phone, I shouted after her, “No posting!”

I’m looking a little thin. I lost weight in the hospital and afterward because I didn’t want to eat, and if it wasn’t for Anna, I don’t know where I’d be now. She had to leave to play in the Australian Open, but she bullied me into going to live with Janus and Jo and gave me Pepper to look after for three months. She got her nutritionist to make me food and FaceTimed with me every night, no matter where she was. Janus got me up each day, cooked me breakfast, and walked Pepper with me. And after a couple of weeks of working with him at his apartment, I went back to the office. Between the pair of them, it stopped me brooding. Jujitsu always made me feel strong, but someone got to me so easily and I started to get this creeping sensation on the back of my neck if I was outside. Not something I’ve ever felt in New York. And the best thing was? Anna understood all of it. She’s had people tracking her and exploiting her all her life. Having her talk me through the mentality and fear was everything.

Anna pushes her hips into me, and I’m fully hard now just from having her sitting over me. She leans forward and rubs her nose against mine.

“I’d like some naked pictures for my phone,” she whispers into my skin.

“So would I. But imagine if someone hacked into it,” I say.

She sits back. “Yes, Fabian has given me a whole new perspective on that.”

“There’s not many people who can do what he does, though.”

“Not many isn’t zero.”

I squeeze her thigh. “No nude photographs then,” I whisper back, my hands coming up to unzip her sports jacket, and she shrugs out of it, revealing a vest and bra. So, I whip the vest over her head and her hands go back, unhooking the bra.

When she’s naked from the waist up, I slide my palms up her torso to cup her breasts, rubbing my thumb across her smooth skin and watching her face as her eyes drift closed.

“You’re my reward,” she says, eyes popping open. “Better than any title I could win.”

My throat closes up. “What? No, Anna.”

She nods, cupping my face. “Of course, Adam! All my history, how could you not be? I’m so glad you’re okay now. I was so worried for a while.”

“Thank you for everything you did,” I say.

I’ve thanked her every time we’ve talked about it, but I can’t help saying it over and over because it means so much having someone in my corner. In totally different ways, Fabian and I never had that kind of unflinching support. His father expressed himself with his fists and ended up killing his mother. My mother is just condemning, and my father never managed to offset that, despite his soft, dry humor .

“I don’t think you felt like thanking me at the time.”

I laugh. Sometimes when we FaceTimed, I was a grumpy old bear and as miserable as sin.

She pushes at my T-shirt with questing fingers, and I sit up so she can drag it over my head as she runs greedy hands over the curls on my chest. My mouth finds hers, her hips shifting over my erection. Sliding my fingers inside her tracksuit pants, I find the edge of her panties and snug her pelvis up to mine. Shivers run through my crotch and up my body as the friction against my length starts to register.

She tilts down to kiss me, and I bring one hand up into her hair, pulling it out of the tight ponytail and combing through its softness. I spin her over again, and I’d swear my cock has a mind of its own because before I know what I’m doing I’m grinding all over her. Her hands roam down my back and around my sides to the waistband of my jeans, trying to get between us to undo them, so I lift my hips to give her access as I tangle my tongue with hers. I swear every time I try and take it easy with her, something sets me on fire and I lose my head.

Then her hand grasps me, she runs a thumb over my tip, and it makes my breath wheeze out.

“Oh yes,” she mumbles against my lips. “That’s the sound I wanted.”

“Slow down. Slow down.”

“No, Adam, I …”

“Can’t we savor this, just for once?” I gasp as she slides long fingers down to my base, feeling me, exploring me, and making me shake with need. My hand on her torso maps the curve of her breast, and I get a shiver in return.

“Not if you keep doing that,” she chokes out.

It’s like a house that’s burning down, timbers falling down like dominos, both of us powerless to stop the impending inferno.

“I want to be on top,” she says, so I roll onto my back and she sits up, pushing a cascade of dark hair out of her face. When the strands brush across her breasts, I can hardly restrain my groan. This is like the hottest fantasy. It’s always the hottest fantasy .

Anna shoves down the waistband of her tracksuit, and I help her peel it off. A pair of sports boy shorts match the bra she was wearing earlier. Somehow, it’s the sexiest thing on the planet that she never wears anything else and that only I get to see the woman underneath. But she pushes the shorts off, too, and I wiggle my jeans down my thighs as she scoots backward to wrestle them down my legs. But I leave my boxers on—perhaps a barrier will give me the illusion of control.

As if she can read my thoughts, she says, “Control is overrated.”

“But very necessary, I find.” My lips quirk as I take in her flushed face, sliding my hand between her legs and then up to rest my palm on her flat stomach.

It’s my favorite thing to see the pink build on her chest as she gets close, so I feather my thumb over the smooth skin between her legs. She shakes her head and snaps at the elastic of my boxers, so I lift my ass up and she pulls them down and off.

Anna’s so controlled and patient in everything she does, it’s fucking wild how she loses the plot when we’re together. Running her hands up my pecs, she grinds down on me, trapping my fingers as she falls forward and nips my lip.

Her hand steals between us to stroke my erection. Then before I can clock what she’s doing, in one fast movement she lifts up on her knees, holds me up, and sinks down. The wet. The heat. My eyes stutter closed as my hips come off the bed. We stopped using condoms a while ago, and I swear I will never get used to how sensitive this feels. My cock twitches. Holy shit. I’m going to shoot like a teenager . I clamp my hand on her hip to keep her stationary and her lips curl against mine, the minx.

“Behave,” I mumble.

“When have I ever behaved?”

And that’s true, and Lord, I also love how she pushes.

Her tongue steals out to touch my mouth, and I open up to tangle my tongue with hers.

“I can’t stop touching and feeling and …” Her short nails dig into my chest as she tries to shift her hips.

“Stop. Let me get some control here. ”

“I don’t want control,” she says. “I want power and …”

Cutting her off with my lips on hers, I roll her again, pulling out and thrusting back in, using anything to help me last, even the board design for a little electronic car that I was looking at before I fell asleep. Fuck. The grip and the wet slide. I’d give this woman anything she wanted, and she deserves it all. My time, my commitment, my generosity. Fast sex if she wants it.

I grind all over her, and she arches and gasps. “Oh … oh … oh …”

Her hands come up as if to scrabble at me, so I pin her with my arm across her collarbone, and she lifts her hips as I push down into her. She’s strong, Anna. So often the sex we have is like fighting, and fuck, I do not need to be thinking about how hot that is.

As I pull out and press back in, rubbing all over her, she explodes around me like she was on a hair trigger, her muscles clamping down on my cock. My eyes roll into the back of my head, grinding my teeth as I thrust through it. Flutters of pleasure race down my length and coalesce in my balls, making them tighten painfully. Don’t come, don’t come.

I prop myself on my hands, looking down at where I’m moving, and Anna uses the opportunity, now I’ve freed her arms, to run her nails down my back, stroking over my ass. Goddammit, she’s worked out that that’s one of my favorite things.

The tingling moves up my legs and my pelvis cramps sharply. “Oh shit …” I shake my head. “No … no … no … I want one more, Anna.”

She bites her lip as air whooshes out of her, my hand between us playing with her clit as she tries to bat my hand away, sensitive, but I know her tells now. She can give me another one.

I laugh. “You’re a champion now—you can do anything.”

“Goddammit, man. That is the first and last time you’re using that line.” Her breath halts as I swipe my thumb over her nub. “No, no, no. Fuck, Adam.” She bucks her hips. “Stop!”

Her second orgasm is often better than her first. Come on, sweetheart, where is it? I want to make this fantastic for her, so I keep softly pressing and rolling and she lifts her head and sinks her teeth into my neck .

“You want me to bite you back? Show you how good it feels?” I whisper, and she groans, head thunking back onto the pillow. I can see the moment where it starts to feel good, where she’s reaching for it.

I rub my nose against hers. “There you go, sweetheart. There. You. Go.”

The way she’s tightening around my length is causing serious pain. I’ve been inside her wet heat for too long. A sharp ache has taken over my pelvis and is now traveling down my legs, and every time I move in and out it only gets worse. I let out a groan as her eyes fix on my face.

“Yes, Adam. Yes,” she says.

“Are you close?” I say, closing my eyes. I can’t take her flushed face and soft brown eyes any longer.

Her nails dig into my butt, pulling me farther into her, and it’s not helping. She bites my ear. “Such a sexy man,” she says.

“ Anna. V equals ir. C equals q over v .”

“What the hell?”

“Basic electrical formulae,” I say, and she laughs with a hiccup as I swipe my thumb over her hard nub again.

“Oh, oh, Adam. It’s … I’m …”

Just as I think I might die this way, die happy buried deep inside her, she starts contracting around me, sweeping me along with her, her second orgasm triggering mine. Burning up my length so fast, the pain shoots through the whole of my lower body, and I gasp at the relief and the starbursts making my vision blur. A rap on the door echoes through the suite as I shudder and shudder, spilling myself into her.

I blink at the beads of sweat rising up on her skin and listen to our panting breaths and the silence behind them. Did I imagine that knock?

Again, tap, tap, tap.

Shit.

I collapse down onto her.

“Now,” she whispers in my ear, “now I’m worn out.”

“There are people at the door,” I whisper back.

She smiles, eyes closed. “They’ll go away. ”

“Just a minute!” I shout out, and she tries to keep a hold of me, with her strong thighs locked around my hips, but I shake my head, pulling out as she pouts. I think she lied about the time we had, the troublemaker. But then again she just won the French Open so she deserves any damn thing she wants.

I pull on a hotel robe from the heap on the chair and shut the bedroom door as I head to the door of the suite. No doubt flushed and sweaty. Well, whoever is here, they’re just going to have to suck it up.

The makeup people and clothes people are standing in the corridor, gaping when they catch sight of me, but I wave them in and tell them to make themselves comfortable and set up in the living room, and that Anna is resting and I will be through in five minutes. Then another tap at the door reveals June and Damian and a cameraman, and after I’ve let them in too, I shoot off to shower and get into something more respectable as Anna lies in our bed with a pillow over her face.

We chat and are styled and primped while they get their background shots, and then I look at the strapless number that Anna’s wearing and run my thumb over the top of it where it covers her chest.

“Can I take this off you later?” I whisper in her ear, and she smiles down at where my finger is exploring.

“You expect me to stay awake beyond 8 p.m.?”

“Are you going to face-plant in your soup?”

“What are you two whispering about?” June says.

“How fast Anna is going to fall asleep,” I say, meeting Anna’s eyes and smirking.

As we’re standing in a corridor waiting to go into the hotel ballroom with a member of staff up ahead with a walkie-talkie because Anna’s got to be announced, Anna squeezes my hand.

I need to talk to her. I didn’t say anything earlier. She deserved to enjoy her win, but it can’t wait.

“I had a message from Fabian while you were on court today,” I say .

Gold silk shimmers around her legs as she turns toward me. The way it moves around her body reminds me of the dress she wore that first night I met her, and the idea that I might get to take this one off her makes my neck grow hot.

“Oh yes?”

“I didn’t want to tell you just after your win, but Konstantin was arrested today.”

“Are you serious ? Oh my God!” She’s already pulling her phone out of her bag.

“For pedophilia. Apparently, the Russian Tennis Federation is in uproar.”

“How did that happen? I thought Fabian said the group of newspapers weren’t ready yet, and …” She stares down at her screen. “Oh my God!”

“What is it?”

“All the messages on my phone! I didn’t look at it because I just wanted to celebrate. I thought I could deal with all the congratulations tomorrow, but there’s so many messages about the academy!”

I step forward and slide her phone out of her hand, pulling her back into me and wrapping my arms around her. “Perhaps we should look at it later, hmm? I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you now but then I thought someone might say something tonight, or ask you for a comment, and I didn’t want you to be blindsided. I don’t want to spoil tonight with …”

She squeezes my waist. “Spoil it? This is amazing!” Her eyes are bright when she looks at me. “Perhaps I really will get out from under it.”

And I laugh. If I could give Anna this … this freedom, it would be everything.

“Goddammit, nothing could make this day better. Except …” She tips her head back and looks at me. “I want to ask you something.”

I grin at her. “What is it?”

She goes up on her toes so her mouth is next to my ear. “Will you do this with me?” she whispers.

“Do what?”

She sinks back down, biting her lip as a shot of vulnerability crosses her face .

“What, Anna?” I say, frowning.

“Travel with me? Come to tournaments? I mean not all of them, of course. I know you’ve got a business to run and …”

We talked about me coming out to Europe with her for these two months, but not how this would work longer-term.

“Try and stop me,” I growl.

Her lips part as her eyes roam from one of mine to the other. Then, as I watch, her eyes fill with tears and my throat tightens as I shake my head. “No, no, no,” I say, stretching out to pull her back into me. “Don’t spoil that amazing makeup.”

“I never thought I’d find this,” she whispers, pressing her mouth into my neck.

“Find what?”

She hiccups through a laugh. “Find you .”

“I’m all in with this. You know that, right?” I whisper into the hair by her ear. She smells of the sea and pinecones.

“Oh God,” she says, wiping a finger under her eye and tipping her head back.

“You won’t be traveling and competing forever, Anna. It’s not a downside. I have an amazing opportunity to do this very special thing, to sit in a competitor’s box and watch you play. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Maybe I can’t come every time, but the guys are competent, and the business is doing well now. They like being in charge of it, and I can work happily from anywhere.”

“I’ve been on my own for so long,” she says quietly.

And I think back to my silent father and my condemning mother and how I escaped my lonely life with them to a solitary life in New York. I had Fabian and Janus, and they’re great friends, but it was never like this. I’ve always wanted somebody to share my life with. Dinner on our knees in front of a TV show about dogs. A set of shared goals. I think that’s what cut me up so much about Celine: I got a taste of what it was like having someone on your side, and it was all a mirage. It turned into dust in my hands, and then I didn’t trust myself.

Anna lowers her head and nods and nods. “I’m all in, too, Adam. ”

I tip her chin up as my gaze roams across hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says, then she laughs, “and now I want to take you back to bed.”

Over her shoulder, the usher is waving at us to come forward, and I can hear the MC announcing Anna’s name.

Maybe you never know. Maybe you just have to keep getting up off the floor. Maybe the only risk you take is staying down for too long.

THE END