Suzie’s eyes shadowed. “Just be grateful you found out what kind of guy this soccer player really was before you made something permanent with him.”
She was right. Yet, my heart panged remembering what Andy/Mick had said about wanting to be a father, the opposite of the one he’d had growing up.
As ruthless as he’d proven himself to be since that conversation, I still couldn’t see him agreeing to give up his parental rights like Tag had.
“I love you…I love you… I love you.”
The words that the man I knew as Mick chanted in my ear the last time we were together echoed across my memory.
Why had he said that? I wondered bitterly—not for the first time.
His claiming to love me and agreeing to stay an additional 3 days to keep me company was the only thing that didn’t make sense. And he’d seemed truly sincere about the idea of becoming a father.
Would he eventually live out that dream with the “right” woman? Maybe a model or someone else as famous and rich as him?
The vibration of my phone on the table interrupted the unsettling thought of him moving on as if Paris never happened.
It was a call from a number I didn’t recognize.
“Probably Dwayne again,” I told Suzie, sending the call straight to voicemail.
It was a California 2-1-3 area code this time—not the Missouri 3-1-4 numbers he’d used in the lead-up to Paris—but I wouldn’t put it past him to figure out yet another way to cloak his number.
“Do you need to get a restraining order?” Suzie asked.
“I don’t think so.” I set the phone back on the table, this time face down so that I could ignore the inevitable follow-up texts that always trailed behind one of Dwayne’s calls. “I made it clear we have no future, and I think he’s too broke and jobless to pull off another in-person show-up. That last-minute ticket to Paris was not in his best interest.”
“No, it was not,” Suzie agreed with a completely unsympathetic click of her tongue. “Though you still might want to think about changing your?—”
“’Scuse me, ’scuse me. This thing on?” A voice suddenly boomed out over the front office’s P.A. system.
I froze because the voice’s accent was unmistakably English.
But no, it couldn’t be...
“This is Mick Atwater,” the voice assured me before I could finish that thought.
“This is Mick Atwater,” the voice announced before she could finish. “Andy Atwater if real Football’s yer thing. Anyway, could you help a bloke out? I’m completely lost in this Byzantine cubicle farm, and I’m trying to find Kayla Edwards. I believe she works here?”
I rose to my feet. Oh. My. God. Mick…I mean,Andywas here. In L.A. At my office!
“Haven’t you embarrassed that poor woman enough?” a co-worker demanded on the overhead, close enough to be picked up by the P.A. system’s microphone.
“Yeah,” another voice agreed. “Kayla’s a good person. She didn’t deserve what you did to her in Paris. Especially after Dwayne.”
I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or grateful to my co-workers, who were apparently taking it upon themselves to tell off the star soccer player who broke my heart.
Either way, I started to rush toward the door to cut this conversation short.
But Suzie grabbed my shoulder in one hand and the conference room phone in the other. “No, I’ll call security. You said your piece in Paris. You don’t need to give him the satisfaction of another fight.”
Mick’s voice sounded on the overhead speaker before I could answer.
“I’m going to have to disagree with ya there, mate,” he said to the unseen co-worker. “She’s not agoodwoman. She is thebestwoman I’ve ever known.”
“Then why did you hurt her like that?” one of the voices demanded.
And another one added, “Why are you even here?”
