I shake my head, meeting her furious jade-green eyes with a sigh. “I promise you, if he was, I’d have him on the bloody lawn myself.”
“Oh, fuck you.” Mia scowls at me. “Half of what he learned about how to treat a woman he learned from you.”
The comment stings, but she’s also not entirely wrong. The man who’s just gone through his fourth divorce doesn’t have the high ground in a conversation like this.
“I don’t know what else to tell you. He’s due for practice at two, and when he -”
“Tell him he’s not welcome home,” she interjects, now jabbing that elegant finger in my face. “You fucking tell him that. And if he tries, if his shadow darkens my door for even a second, I’ll go to the bloody press and tell them he’s a grubby, cheating man whore who can’t keep it in his pants.”
She turns on her high-heeled boot and strides out of the office, slamming the door behind her so hard, the painting beside it crashes to the ground.
I sink back into my chair.Shit.
I grab my phone from the desk and bring up Archie’s number. I hit call, and wait. It doesn’t even ring. After a loudbeep, there’s Archie’s voice.
“This is Archie, I’m too busy being me to answer, leave a message, I probably won’t listen. Ta-ra!”
“Fuck,” I hiss, throwing the phone back to the desk. “What the fuck have you done, Archie?”
The door opens, and Gordon peers into the office, his face slightly less flushed, a heart attack hopefully now not imminent. He eyes the fallen painting, and tentatively enters the office, as though Mia may have left landmines waiting for him.
“My apologies, sir,” he says. “She was not to be stopped.”
“No, Mia never is.” I get to my feet and walk to the window, which affords me a view of the training fields. “I called Archie, but it went straight to voicemail.”
“Yes, Sarah tried calling him, too. Similar luck. I managed to hunt down Ezra and ask him, but he said he hadn’t seen Archie since training yesterday morning.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” I mutter. “When he shows up to training this afternoon, let me know.”
“Of course.” Gordon shifts from foot to foot and clasps his hands. “That is,ifhe shows up.”
There’s a knock at the door, and my secretary has popped her head in.
“Sorry to bother you,” Sarah says, eyes darting from Gordon to me. “But security’s just called. It seems there’s been a little issue with your, um… with your car.”
“My car?” I ask with a frown.
“Yes, sir.”
“What problem?”
Sarah chews her lip for a moment before inhaling through her nose. “Mia appears to have smashed your headlights on her way out.”
Gordon eyes me with alarm. “Oh, dear.”
I rub my forehead, earnestly wishing I could just go back to bed and start the day over again. “Spectacular.” I stride past the both of them, down the corridor of the club building and take the stairs, because the bloody lift will take too long.
In the parking lot, I observe the shattered glass of my Aston Martin’s headlights. After a minute or so, Gordon comes running out after me.
“Bloody hell,” he says, shaking his head. “She really did a number on it.”
“Get that seen to, would you?”
“Of course.”
I check my watch and huff out a frustrated sigh. “I have a meeting with Dubai in five minutes. Remember, the minute Archie steps foot on these bloody grounds, you tell him I’m looking for him.”
“Will do, sir.”
