"Theo—"

"After dinner, Scarlett," he told me, but I shook my head.

"No. Don't cut me off. You'll tell me now," I spoke sternly, eyes narrowed at the side of his face.

Alfred had driven out of the garage and was now heading towards the restaurant. The partition was once again rolled up, leaving Theo alone at my mercy.

"Theo, I'm serious. I've just about had it with you hiding clearly important things from me," I continued, genuinely growing frustrated with everything, "if you truly want us to work, you can't hide these types of things from me. Is there something between you and that woman? Carmen, right?"

"How do you know her name?" His eyes met mine, confusion written all over his face.

"She was one of the women at your practice being rude to me because of me being with you. She also said she's been trying to get you to settle down for ages," I raised my brows at him, both of us knowing there was no way for him out of this except to explain everything to me.

Theo sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking as if the control of everything he always had was now slipping.

"She's talked to you?" He asked.

"Of course she has... She made me feel like scum, I told you how it made me feel."

He was shaking his head, "she had no right to talk to you, I can't believe she'd actually do that..."

"What? Theo, why? What's between the two of you?" I was trying to get him to look over at me again.

I felt stupid, wearing the expensive and gorgeous evening gown he'd bought me. He had way too much power over me, and even wearing something he'd bought me made me feel like I was his property. I didn't like it, especially now that he was withholding information from me as if I wasn't worth it for him to even open up.

"We used to have sex, Scarlett. There's nothing between us anymore, I'm devoted to you," he was trying to assure me, "you know I am."

Through his intense and dark eyes, he was pleading for me. My hard exterior remained, not feeling well at all with this situation.

"I'm really not so sure about it anymore," I told him quietly, now looking out of the window on my side, "maybe it's best if we don't go to dinner."

"No, love," he let out a frustrated breath. He didn't have me in the palm of his hand anymore, and he knew the control he had was almost lost, "I'll tell you everything after dinner. Please. About Lucy, Carmen, your brother..."

"My brother? What does he have to do with anything?" I grew defensive. Theo just shook his head.

"Let's just have dinner and then you'll hear everything."

"Theo..." I knew he would try his best to continue dodging this subject, and I feared I would end up getting none of the answers I wanted.

"You deserve to know, Scarlett. I will tell you tonight, I just want to enjoy dinner with you first," he managed to give me a small smile, and I sighed, "you look so beautiful in that dress. I'm glad you let me buy it for you."

The necklace I had bought for him flashed through my mind. I had planned to give it to him during dinner, but now I wanted to prolong it, depending on how I would feel after he told me.

"Fine. Don't compliment me, I'm not happy with you right now."

__

"Is this how you do it?" I asked, trying to fight back a smile.

"Like this," he fixed his hands up in front of his chest.

"Like this?" I had my hands over my face.

"A bit lower," he instructed, amusement evident in his low tone.

I lowered my hands down to be over my chin and neck. Theo was attempting to teach me he how to do his celebration - something personal football players had, which they used after scoring and so on - with very little luck.

He laughed, seeing my expression, "love, flip your hands over..."

I did as he'd told me, gaining yet another laugh from his lips. I couldn't help but smile then.

"I'm doing it completely wrong, aren't I?" I laughed quietly.

"You're using the wrong fingers to point up and it's sort of completely flipped around..." Theo explained, a grin painting his beautiful facial features.

I lowered my hands and untangled my fingers, before letting them both rest on the table cloth in front of me.

"You're so beautiful, Scarlett," Theo was then telling me sincerely while taking his phone out, "will you let me take a photo of you?"

"Why?"

"Not to post. Just for me to keep," he explained. His tone definitely held a deeper meaning within. After our talk in the car, he now seemed to act as if he was trying to gain memories from and of me. As if he was preparing to lose me.

I gave him a gentle smile and nodded. I glanced down quickly to make sure my front looked alright. Right as I looked up with a smile, he snapped a photo of me.

I watched him for a moment as he looked down at it, a small smile ghosting on his lips.

"Show me," I spoke quietly, both of us very affected by our thoughts right now.

He turned his phone around for me to be able to see myself. I had on a gentle smile and my eyes were focused on Theo, instead of the phone's camera in front of him.

"I've never seen you looking so lovely as you do tonight," he spoke, our eyes connecting for a short moment, "lady in red."

Theo was quoting Chris De Burgh's song. For some reason, my heart ached.

I gave him a nod in approval regarding the photo and took a sip of my red wine, ignoring his sweet quotation.

He then slipped his phone back into his pocket before speaking, "do you drink anything beside wine?"

I raised my brows at him, a small smile on my lips, "what's the point in that? Wine is my favourite."

He nodded with a small chuckle and our conversation slowly died down. We both knew what needed to be discussed and had no room in our minds to talk about anything else.

Dinner had been delicious and lovely. Our conversations had been about how excited he was to be playing the winner of tonight's France-Portugal match, when they'd compete for first place.

We had also talked about other things, but it was hard to let myself relax when all I could think about was, that once we were alone, I would finally get to know the truth. There was no way he was not answering me this time.

"Thank you, Theo," I thanked him once he'd paid. Him using any type of money on me still made me uncomfortable, which really didn't ease the situation.

"My pleasure, love."

From the dim and intimate setting of the fancy restaurant, I was led by Theo's hand on my lower back towards the front doors.

"Theo!" A male voice stopped us just as we were passing another table. His hand slipped from my lower back, and I slowed to a stop. I turned around to see him shaking hands with a man his age. I recognised him from when Theo had introduced me to the whole English national team.

"Hey, man," Theo grinned, "what are you doing here? Getting fat for the final?"

The other man laughed, the extremely attractive woman with him eyeing Theo as if he was a piece of meat and money.

"I could ask you the same," he the man grinned. I was almost positive he was the goalkeeper.

"Let me introduce you to Bendela," he then motioned politely over at the woman with him. Theo's glanced over at me quickly before he gave her a tight lipped smile.

"It's great to see you again, sweetie."

I almost gagged at how overly sweet her tone was, and how her breasts were slipping out of her very low cut dress.

"Jay," Theo cleared his throat, addressing the man again and disregarding what the woman had said, "you've met my girlfriend, Scarlett, right?"

I sighed quietly and closed up the space between Theo and me.

"Good to see you again," I gave Jay a smile, "you guys have been playing so well."

"Good to see you too, Scarlett," he returned my smile while Theo's hand brushed over my lower back almost comfortingly, "and thank you. I like to credit myself for our success."

I laughed quietly while Theo shook his head with a small grin, "you do that, while the rest of us score the goals."

He chuckled, his hand clearly on the woman's thigh underneath the table. Her eyes met mine and, instead of returning the small and polite smile I gave her, she gave me a small look and acted as if I wasn't even there.

"We'll see tomorrow at warm-up, enjoy your evening," Theo spoke, his free hand on the man's shoulder.

"You too."

And then I was being led out of the restaurant again.

Before I had a chance to ask him about the woman named Bendela in the restaurant, the flash of a camera made us glance over to out side where a few paparazzi were taking photos of us. I had no idea how they had even known we'd be here.

I was about to quicken my pace toward the black car in which Alfred was waiting for us in, but Theo had other plans.

His hand left my lower back and formed his celebration in front of his face. A surprised laugh left my lips when he turned towards the paparazzi to pose.

I sighed and shook my head at him for a moment, before doing my rendition of his celebration and also turning towards the paparazzi.

__

"Who was she?" I asked him as we left the dark evening. My mood had plummeted as soon as we were alone in the backseat, knowing I was soon going to get answers which would surely upset me.

"Nobody. A jersey chaser," he brushed it off and I sighed.

"Who is she to you?" I rephrased, "you might as well start being honest with me at this point."

"Well?" I pressed, both of us knowing he wasn't telling the full truth, my eyes challenging his.

"We've had sex. Once or twice, ages ago. She's nobody to me anymore, Scarlett."

"For me personally, the jersey chasers are a bit too much; some of the guys like them, which is why they're even allowed in. Don't take anything they say to heart, they're only jealous," I remembered how he'd comforted me after I had basically bullied by the plastic women.

Now it seemed as if everything he had said had been lies. The jersey chasers hadn't been too much for him when he'd had sex with at least two of them, surely more as well.