CHAPTER 1 — THE STRANGER IN THE TRAINING GROUND

Five years ago, Evelyn Ashford walked away from Blackridge FC without saying goodbye to the only man she had ever loved. Today, she was walking back in.

The headquarters looked exactly the same. Glass and steel rising against the grey morning sky, the Blackridge crest gleaming above the entrance. A black wolf on a red shield. The same crest her father had hung in his office for two decades. The same crest Luca Moretti wore on his chest every match day.

Luca.

Her stomach tightened. She had rehearsed this moment a hundred times on the flight from New York, staring at the seatback in front of her, mouthing the words she would say if she saw him again. None of them came to her now. She had told herself she was ready.

She had lied.

A security guard stood by the entrance, thick arms crossed over his chest. He watched her approach, but his eyes kept flicking upward, toward the top floor of the building. Nervous energy rolled off him. His hand moved to his earpiece and he murmured something she couldn't hear. Then he stepped aside.

"Miss Ashford. The chairman wants to know the moment you arrive."

Of course he did. Somewhere behind those tinted windows, her father was probably watching. He always watched.

She didn't look up. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

---

The automatic doors slid open and the noise hit her first. Boots thudding down hallways. Someone shouting about a transfer deadline, their voice echoing off the walls. A television mounted near the ceiling replayed last weekend's winning goal on a loop. A group of academy kids shuffled past clutching footballs, their eyes wide as they stared up at her like she was someone important.

She wasn't. Not yet.

The reception area was cold and modern, marble floors polished to a mirror shine. A massive screen dominated the far wall, showing highlights from the previous season. Luca's face flashed across it, suspended mid-air, his body twisted into something impossible as he connected with a bicycle kick. The crowd roared through the speakers. Evelyn's chest tightened. Of course they're playing his highlights. They always play his highlights.

"Name?"

The receptionist was a young woman with sharp cheekbones and a sharper stare. She looked Evelyn up and down like she was scanning a barcode, her fingers hovering over the keyboard without typing.

"Evelyn Ashford. I'm the new Social Media Manager."

Recognition flickered across the receptionist's face, followed quickly by judgment. "Ashford. As in Damien Ashford?"

"Yes."

"Right." Her smile was thin as paper. "Take the lift to the third floor. The media department is expecting you. Welcome to Blackridge."

The way she said welcome made it sound like a question Evelyn hadn't earned the right to answer.

She walked toward the lift. Staff members turned their heads as she passed. The whispers followed her like a shadow, fragments of conversation catching in her ears.

"That's the CEO's daughter."

"Got the job because of her father."

"Heard she ran off to America. Abandoned everything."

Evelyn kept her chin high. Her heels clicked against the marble. Let them talk. She had taken a struggling club in New York and turned their social media into a global brand. She had earned this job. She did not need to justify herself to people who had already made up their minds.

The lift doors closed, cutting off the noise. Silence wrapped around her like a blanket.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding since the airport.

---

The third floor was quieter but no less alive. The media department sprawled across an open-plan office with glass walls and screens everywhere. Social media feeds scrolled in real-time. Live match stats flickered across monitors. A content calendar stretched across an entire wall, colour-coded and chaotic, covered in sticky notes and deadlines scrawled in marker. Reporters argued in a corner about headline placement. Someone's phone was ringing and no one was answering it. A young intern rushed past carrying three coffees and a look of panic.

This is my world now, Evelyn thought. This, I can handle.

A woman with red hair and a kind face approached her, weaving between desks with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. "Evelyn? I'm Sarah. Head of Content."

"Nice to meet you."

"I won't lie, we've been excited to meet you. What you did in New York? Everyone here has seen it." Sarah's smile was genuine, and something in Evelyn's chest unclenched slightly. "That rebrand you led was insane. We're lucky to have you."

"Thank you. That means a lot."

Sarah handed her a tablet. "Your schedule for the day. Meetings this morning. A tour this afternoon. And the team is training in about ten minutes. I thought you might want to see the facilities, get some footage for the social channels."

"Training. As in the players will be there?"

"That's usually how training works." Sarah grinned.

Evelyn forced a smile. "Right. Of course."

---

The training ground sat behind the main building, stretching out like a green ocean under the grey morning sky. Perfectly manicured grass. Low fences. Media platforms overlooking the pitch. The smell of fresh-cut turf and rain-damp earth hit her before she even reached the gate, and for a moment she was twenty-one again, standing in this exact spot, watching the boy she loved do the only thing he ever wanted to do.

A drone buzzed overhead, its camera angled down at the players. On the sideline, a sports analyst stared at a tablet, tracking heat maps and sprint data in real-time. Fitness coaches monitored heart-rate readings on laptops, calling out numbers to the assistants. GPS vests clung to every player's chest, small black pods between their shoulder blades tracking every metre they ran.

The team was already on the pitch, moving through drills with the kind of precision that came from years of discipline. She spotted the goalkeeper first, a giant with a shaved head and hands like dinner plates, diving to his left and tipping a ball over an imaginary crossbar. Then the defenders adjusting their vests. The midfielders sprinting through cones while a coach shouted split times, his voice hoarse. The wingers hugging the touchline, explosive and impatient.

And then she saw him.

Luca Moretti stood in the center of it all. The captain's armband wrapped around his sleeve. His dark hair was longer than she remembered, curling at the edges where sweat had dampened it. His jaw sharper. His shoulders broader. He moved like water, effortless and devastating, and the ball obeyed him the way it obeyed no one else.

She had spent years convincing herself she'd moved on. That New York had erased him. That time had dulled whatever she once felt.

One look at him, and every lie she'd told herself collapsed.

Her feet rooted to the ground. Air caught in her throat, and for one terrifying second, even breathing felt impossible.

The drill ended. The players jogged toward the sideline for water, chests heaving, sweat darkening their shirts. The fitness coaches moved among them, checking the data from their vests, murmuring adjustments. Luca pulled his GPS pod free and tossed it to an assistant without looking. He reached for a water bottle, twisted the cap, and then his dark eyes scanned the fence.

He saw her.

The world didn't stop. It kept moving. The players kept laughing. The drone kept buzzing. The analyst kept tapping his screen. But for Evelyn, everything narrowed to the space between them, years of silence and a thousand unanswered questions compressed into a single glance.

Luca looked at her for a long moment. His face was unreadable. No shock. No anger. No longing. Just a cold, polite blankness. Like she was a face in a crowd he had already forgotten. Like she was nobody.

He walked toward the fence.

"Miss Ashford." His voice was formal. Distant. He said her name the way a stranger would, as if the syllables meant nothing to him. "Welcome to Blackridge FC."

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

He turned away before she could find the words. He jogged back to his teammates. He did not look back.

But for half a second, his jaw tightened. His hand gripped the water bottle so hard the plastic crinkled, a sound too small for anyone else to notice. Then it was gone, smoothed over, buried beneath the mask he wore like armour.

One of the younger players jogged up beside him. A midfielder she didn't recognize, young and eager and completely unaware of the landmine he was stepping on. "Captain? You know her?"

Luca didn't break stride. But he didn't answer immediately either. A beat too long. A silence heavy enough to notice.

"No."

The word hit her harder than a slap.

Evelyn stood there, fingers still wrapped around the cold metal fence. A pale shaft of sunlight had broken through the clouds, warming her face, but she barely felt it. The players laughed. The drone buzzed overhead. The world moved on like nothing had happened.

Someone beside her smiled awkwardly. A young assistant coach she vaguely recognized, his face familiar but his name long forgotten. "You must be the new Social Media Manager."

"Yes." Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. Hollow.

"Captain Moretti is like that with strangers." He shrugged, already looking past her toward the pitch. "Don't take it personally."

Evelyn forced a smile. The kind that hurt to hold.

Strangers.

The boy who once held her face in his hands and whispered that she was the only thing in the world that made sense now considered her a stranger.

And maybe that hurt more than hatred ever could.