Chapter Sixteen
Kendall
It’s late enough for the lunch rush to have thinned, early enough that no one should be paying attention to who I’m meeting.
I double-check the street, then the reflection in the window. Dark sweater. Black maternity jeans that Vivi swore made my “little bump” look like a “fashion statement.” Hair twisted up. Nothing flashy. Nothing that says: former NFL wife meets scandal-friendly ex for a little damage control.
Inside, the heat hits first. A delicious aroma of garlic and parmesan cheese, mixed with the low mumble of a sports channel on a hanging up in the corner TV. My stomach answers with a hopeful gurgle. I forgot to eat lunch again today… shocking.
He’s already there.
Tarron sits at the far banquette, half-angle to the door like the room belongs to him.
Expensive shirt with the collar open. A face people used to describe as “the future of the league,” and then later—most recently—“the cautionary tale.” When he spots me, his smile stretches across his gorgeous face.
Easy, like he’s never had to work for anything.
“Hey, K.” He stands to kiss my cheek, palm skimming the small of my back the way it used to, a choreography my body remembers all too well even when my brain wants to delete it. “You look…” His gaze drops to my belly and softens in a way I hate that I recognize. “Beautiful.”
“Don’t.” I step past him, taking a seat across from him. “We’re not doing that.”
Something flickers in his eyes as if my rejection of his charms injured him but he quickly smothers it.
Even if I did hit a nerve, he won’t show it.
He’d consider that a weakness, I’m sure of it.
He slides in opposite me, hands laying on the table, one on top of the other as if we’re about to sign a treaty.
“No public theatrics,” I say, glancing around. There are two old men at the counter arguing about the Mariners. A couple sharing a slice and a secret. A young family bribing a toddler with breadsticks. Safe enough. “We talk, we align, we leave.”
“Align,” he repeats, amused. “You always did love a plan.”
He’s not wrong. Which is why an accidental pregnancy with no plan has had my head spinning for the last several months since finding out.
“I love not being ambushed by headlines that make my job harder.”
The waitress appears with two waters and a smile that I return, even though I barely have the bandwidth to return, but I do because she doesn’t deserve to be caught up in the crosshairs of my annoyance with my ex-husband. “Menus?”
“Just the usual,” he says, like we’re still married and share a standing order. “Large sausage and mushroom, extra sauce.
“Half cheese,” I cut in. The baby has opinions about mushrooms right now and I’d like to keep this lunch down. “And a chopped salad. No onions… please.” I say with a smile to her, trying to cover up the fact that I just interrupted the man across from me quite abruptly.
Her job is hard enough without having to manage a squabbling ex and their feud.
“You got it,” she says, pencil moving, and then she’s gone as quickly as she came.
I turn back to him but because I can rip into him, he speaks first.
“I’m sorry about what I said this morning. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“We’re past upset Tarron. I told you no more remarks.
We could have coasted on what you stupidly said at the charity gala.
You didn’t have to say anything else. People were already quietly speculating without any more of a push.
But instead you offered up a narrative that we could have done without. ”
“I didn’t offer a narrative,” he says mildly. “I offered hope.”
“For who?” I say. “Your new GM? The crowd that wants a redemption story? Or the medical board that loves to poke around my life like it’s a lab project?”
His jaw tightens for a breath. “You think I don’t remember what they did to you in Florida? You think I don’t care?”
“You cared so much you set a fuse under me,” I say, soft. “Again. The baby isn’t yours and you know it.”
He looks aside, then back. “They asked. I answered the gentlest version of the truth I could. We are talking, and I never said that the baby is mine, but I’m not against it either. You know my offer.”
I skip quickly past his “offer”. I’d never consider it after what he put me through.
Though my heart still breaks for the man he used to be–what we used to be.
I have to remind myself that we died a long time ago, and then my mind goes to Aleksi.
How quickly he jumps in for me–how quickly I’m falling for him.
I can’t go there right now. I have to stay on track, eat and get out of here.
“We are aligning,” I correct. “On a boundary. I won’t give you more press to spin. You don’t give the press anything about me. We keep this quiet.”
“Quiet,” he echoes, tasting the word like it’s a new language. “Kendall, quiet doesn’t sell.”
Exactly… I knew what this was all really about.
“It’s not supposed to sell. It was just supposed to be enough to give the Sentinels a glimpse and for no one to suspect who the father really is.”
The TV flickers a replay of a slap shot for last season when we lost the playoffs. The commentators are talking about the Hawkeyes starting up this season and their chances at another Stanley Cup run. I already know this because everyone seems to be talking about the Hawkeyes right now.
He leans in. “The Sentinels brought me in on a trial basis. The new GM’s watching me like a hawk. I’m not exactly his favorite person in the world. My agent says a domestic angle helps. I settle down, keep my image clean, show up on time—the NFL and this town forgives… people have a short memory.”
“Not short enough,” I shoot back. I know he’s trying to say that people will have a short memory about him, ever so subtly claiming my baby, but that’s the kind of thing people will remember. “And tying me to that helps you,” I say, flat. “You said as much at dinner.”
He doesn’t deny it. What he does is lower his voice.
“It helps you, too,” he says. “The board sees a believable storyline and moves on. Do you think they are more likely to believe you put your license at risk and got knocked up by a player on your team, or that your ex-husband just moved into town and now you’re being photographed together and he’s flirting with the press about how we still care about each other.
It’s not even a hard sell,” he says, and I know he’s right.
“No fraternization scandal. No witch hunt. No headline: Team Doctor Pregnant By Her Own Player.”
My heart slams once—angry that he’s right but I can’t do this with him because at the root of it, he knows he’s pushing harder than he agreed after the first slip up.
“I’m not your PR rehab center,” I say. “And I’m not your family-values prop.”
His gaze drops to my hand on my belly, then lifts. “But you are family.”
“Were,” I say, and hate the wobble I hear on the word. “Past tense. Now, we’re two adults trying not to sink each other.”
The waitress returns with our waters, the salad, and a basket of garlic knots whose aroma could make saints sin. I tear a knot in half and pass him the other piece because muscle memory is hard to kill. He accepts it with a ghost of a smile.
“You said you knew who leaked the clinic story,” I say, leaning forward. “That’s the only reason I’m here, Tarron. Who was it?”
He exhales slowly, looking down at his hands. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“It was Eric,” he says finally. “My agent. He got a tip from someone who claimed to know you—someone who said they could confirm your appointment time for the right price.”
My pulse spikes. “Who?”
He hesitates, watching me too closely. “Your mother.”
The words knock the air out of me. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.” His voice goes quiet, even toned.
“Evidently she called around every clinic in the city after those restaurant photos hit the blogs, pretended to be you, said she needed to confirm her own follow-up. Eric told me she was asking for money, said she’d give up the details if he wired her half upfront. ”
I stare at him, throat tight, stomach rolling. “And he did it?”
“He did,” Tarron says. “He thought getting the shot would help me, help us. He's an opportunist, what can I say.”
“Interesting… I know someone just like that,” I say, the taste of bitterness on my tongue.
He licks his lips and lets out a sigh. He knows I mean him too. “When he told me yesterday, I fired him on the spot. I’m sorry. I would never have approved of the picture or of paying your mother.”
My hands flatten on the table because it’s that or shake. “I can’t believe she did this.”
“Yes you can…” he says, his eyes earnest.
I look away, eyes burning. He reaches across the table like he wants to touch me, but I pull back before he can.
“You should’ve told me sooner,” I whisper.
“I wanted to tell you in person,” he says. “You deserve to hear it from someone who actually gives a damn. Who knows what she’s like.”
He didn’t believe my mother could be so ruthless when we first met.
He grew up differently than I did. Divorced parents but at least they had his best interest at heart.
They poured into his football career. He never could understand how a mother could lack any maternal instincts–to be so cold and cruel.
He eventually saw it for himself, when he would give and she was never content, only ever demanding more, bringing crazy boyfriends that caused scenes at the games.
He finally stopped thinking he could fix it for me.
I did love him for that. His hope for me. And the way he held me tighter than anyone has ever hugged me when realization finally came. “You deserve so much better Kendall.” he whispered against my ear, and that was the first time I let myself believe it.
I needed to see that I was worth more than that in the eyes of the man who loved me.