That was when I saw the phone lying next to the note. Still connected on its long charger.
As if Kayla had gotten a message on it while she was writing the note to me.
Gotten a message and thrown down the phone, leaving it behind when she dashed out of the suite.
Listen, I wasn’t looking to add to my long list of red flags where Kayla was concerned. But some male instinct made me pick up the phone, knowing that I’d find the reason for her hasty exit there.
What I saw caused my heart to flatline.
Several missed call notifications and two text messages waiting on the front of her still-locked screen. One from Suzie and the other from an unmarked number.
SUZIE: Girl, you are on vacay with a fine Mr. Right Now! Stop worrying about Dwayne!
314-555-9876: You block my mom’s number too??? That’s bullshit!!! Choosing some player u just met over me! Well, guess what? I’m n Paris! Down here n the Tourmaline lobby. So now ur gone have to talk to me.
CHAPTER19
Mick
I spottedthem as soon as I stepped off the private penthouse elevator with Kayla’s phone in my hand.
My heart plummeted at the sight of the woman I loved. She was dressed in a Suns hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, with the team’s name written down one leg, and clung to the handle of her large purse as she spoke animatedly with the French butler whose name she’d insisted I commit to memory, François.
Well, Kayla didn’t look nearly as happy with his performance as she did when she made me promise to remind her about leaving a review before we left the hotel last night. And even worse than that, there was a bloke who was not me standing at her side.
I immediately recognized him as her ex, Dwayne. Even if Bruno hadn’t insisted on looking up a picture of “the enemy” yesterday at breakfast while we were plotting my perfect last day of activities with Kayla, I would’ve known who he was due to him being dressed from head to toe in L.A. Suns gear.
He had that classic bench-warmer physique. The football tights he wore underneath athletic shorts showcased his muscular legs. But the tight, long-sleeved yellow thermal top he wore underneath an orange sideline cape coat strained around his belly paunch. Clearly, he hadn’t kept up with the necessary core work to assure a strong kick for the few times he was called off the bench.
However, that didn’t bring me much solace as I approached the scene.
Dwayne and Kayla looked like a couple as she confronted François.
“Tell me!” she was saying to François. “Tell me the truth right now!”
“Madame, please calm down,” François said. “If you will just follow me, we can call Monsieur Atwater, and perhaps he can?—”
“Perhaps he can do what?Lie to mesome more? I mean, what the heck?!”
She vaguely waved her hand in the direction of the lobby’s overhead flatscreen television, which was broadcasting a news program.
I quickly recognized it as the same type of football morning sports highlights shows we broadcast in England. Except in this French version, the announcers were talking excitedly while a cartoon graphic of me wearing a Paris Triomphe jersey, along with my usual perma-scowl, stood with arms folded at the bottom-right side of the screen.
On the top-right side of the screen, video of Kayla and me ran on a loop. Me getting in the car outside of Kentucky, entering Je T’aime Tourdin. They even had a video of us giving each other a kiss as we left the Eiffel Tower.
What had happened was immediately obvious. Someone had leaked the news of me agreeing to join the Paris team. And now this French sports program was discussing not only the highlights of my career, but also the mystery woman I’d been running all over Paris with.
And maybe even that wouldn’t have been enough to tip off Kayla, but obviously her ex had also found out about us. Probably via some sports gossip site that catered to sports afficionados on both sides of the pond.
“Why would you help him do this to her, man?” Dwayne demanded loudly beside Kayla just as I’d almost reached them. “Did he pay you? Is this, like, some kind of Frenchie thing?”
“Madame, monsieur, please. Do not make a scene,” François pleaded. “We can talk about this privately. Please come this way.”
François attempted to take Kayla by the arm, but Dwayne got between them. “Don’t you think you already did enough? Kayla’s suing you, him, this hotel, and anybody else who had anything to do with this.”
“Andy!” a French voice called out from a cluster of seats in the lobby. “Andy Atwater! The Atomic Foot! It is really him!”
I stopped short as nearly everybody in the lobby turned to look at me.
