I open the door and the dread thickens.
“You’re late,” she clips and nods toward a chair on the other side of her desk.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, taking a seat. My fingers tighten around my cardboard coffee mug, but I don’t set it down or take a drink.
Blaire is looking at me with narrowed, disappointed eyes, and it makes my heart rate speed up.
She’s an incredible woman. She’s strong and determined. She’s successful, creating her design firm from her basement twenty years ago before turning it into the large and admired business where I’ve had the pleasure of working. She also doesn’t waste time on drama. I know as I look at her, flipping through a stack of magazines on her desk similar to the ones I just saw on Katie’s, I’m in trouble.
“Mrs. Pascal,” I start and then clamp my mouth shut when her eyes meet mine. They’re filled with a seriousness I’ve never seen in her before.
“Kennedy, save it.”
I nod, allowing her to continue. She leans forward and claps her hands together on her desk. “We are the premier design firm in Cambridge, Kennedy. Your…antics…over the weekend have brought negative attention not only to yourself, but your clients and this entire firm. Effective immediately, you are no longer employed with us.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
She licks her lips. “You heard me. I cannot employee a person who finds themselves on the front page of magazines all over the country, not to mention websites. Katie has spent an immeasurable amount of time this morning deleting messages from reporters who have discovered your name and who are filled with questions of the utmost importance regarding your…dalliance with this Grayson Legend.”
“But…” I want to explain. I’m dying to. But I stop myself. There’s nothing I can say. Absolutely nothing I can do to defend myself. The photos speak for themselves, and I know that once Pascal makes a decision, it never changes. I can’t even tell her that nothing like this will ever happen again. Once Grayson receives the package I mailed this morning, I have no idea how he’ll react and what will happen in the future. With my chin wobbling, I nod. “I understand. I’m terribly sorry.”
“For the record,” she says, her eyes softening slightly, “I think you’re incredibly talented. I just can’t have this drama surrounding my office.”
I blink to clear my vision. “Thank you.”
“Someone from Human Resources will be in your office shortly to help you clean out your office and go over your termination paperwork. Because of the abrupt nature of this…separation…you will receive six months’ compensation.”
I stand on quaking knees and try not to spill my coffee. I need to get out of here before I cry. This is just the cherry on the top of a horrible seventy-two hours. I can’t believe this is happening.
“Thank you,” I mutter, trying to remain professional even though every building block of my life seems to be crumbling around me. “That’s very generous.”
“Take care, Kennedy. And good luck.”
I want to find it in me to be furious with her. Unfortunately, I’ve always admired her too much and I understand where she’s coming from. It’s my own fault for not being more careful, knowing how much publicity follows Grayson around wherever he goes. This was bound to happen.
Thirty minutes later, I’m holding my termination paperwork in one hand, a small box of personal effects under my other arm, and I’m down in the building’s parking garage after turning in my ID card.
And my heart? It’s never felt so damaged and broken in my entire life.
Fifteen
Grayson
The force of my sparring partner’s right hook against my left jaw makes my head snap back and to the right. I stumble on my feet, shaking it off, when I hear Rodney shouting, “Get your fucking head in the ring!”
I squeeze my eyes closed and then open them. I haven’t slept in almost a week—ever since I got drunk in my hotel room after kicking Kennedy out.
Rodney is right, my head isn’t in this—not one fucking bit. Mostly because I haven’t found any answers. After one long, frustrating conversation with my lawyer, who hooked me up with a family law office in Chicago, I don’t have shit to tell him except that Kennedy Knowles put my kid up for adoption. I have no proof.
I have nothing for him to help me with except for her name. I left the meeting more frustrated because it means without talking to Kennedy again—without hearing her soft fucking voice that makes me hard just thinking about her, regardless of how pissed I am—I don’t have any information that will be helpful in finding my son.
Unfortunately, I no longer know if I’m more pissed at her or myself with the way I reacted.
“Stop!” Rodney jumps into the ring and his hands grip my biceps, shaking me back and forth. “This is enough, Legend. You’ve got ten weeks to train for your next fight, and you’re fucking worthless. Get on the treadmill and don’t stop until you’re puking all over my damn floors.”
I lean to my right and spit in a tin bucket after I take out my mouth guard. The urge to shout back at him, to argue, is fierce inside me, but I tamp it down.
Rodney doesn’t take shit, and he’s right: I have been worthless.
“Fine,” I grit and turn to get out of the practice ring.
I tear off the bandages on my hands and throw my sparring helmet onto the floor, kicking it across the room to relieve my pent-up frustration and anger and regret and all the other shit that’s been pummeling my insides for the last several days.
A son. A kid. I can’t stop thinking about it. Him. Wondering who he is. Where he is. What he’s like.
I have the photo of a pregnant Kennedy in my fucking wallet because I can’t figure out where else to put it. I run my thumb across her swollen stomach in that photo every day, torn between wanting to hate her and wanting to comfort her.
I was a fucking dick. I spewed shit directly into her face that I shouldn’t have said.
I want to make it right with her. I want to get past this strange sense of betrayal that sears into my chest, because she had a point: I left. I ignored her.
I was the pussy who couldn’t handle that I’d fucked my best friend and screwed up a friendship.
We’re both to blame for this tangled fucking mess I now find myself in.
I’m thinking of all of this, unable to stop the circular thoughts that have been spinning inside my head while I climb on the treadmill, punch the buttons to set the speed, and take off running.
I’m dripping in sweat four miles into my run, my lungs and thighs just beginning to feel the intensity of my pace and distance, when Lynx comes out of the back office.
He walks directly to me, holding a thick, white envelope. His eyes are blank, but his jaw is pulled tight.
The look on his face makes me tear the earbuds out of my ears, silencing the music that had been doing a shitty job of distracting me.
I fucking love fighting. I have an equal amount of hatred for running—which is why Rodney always makes me do it when I’m not focusing.
“What?” I huff, keeping my pace.
“You need to come see this shit.”
“What is it?”
He reaches out and pulls the emergency cord on the machine. It stops instantly and I fling my hands out to the bars at the side so I don’t face plant into the screen.
“What the hell?” I curse, getting my feet under me.
“Office. Now.” Lynx spins around, putting his back to me, and walks back to where he just came from.
I follow, snagging a towel and wiping the sweat off my face and chest. I need a fucking shower.
I also need to quit fucking drinking. The amount of alcohol I’ve consumed over the last four days isn’t helping my endurance, my energy, or my focus during training.
As soon as I’m in the office, closing the door behind me, Lynx pulls out a single sheet of paper from the thick envelope and hands it to me.
It feels like fucking déjà vu all over again, and I blink away the reminder of my asshole father standing in front of me.
Hesitantly, I take it, still looking at the envelope Lynx’s holding. It’s several inches thick, practically bursting at the seams, and Lynx smiles. “Read that,” he nods toward the paper in my hand, “and then look at this shit. I didn’t realize who it was from when I opened it.”
His timid smile spurs me forward and I look down.
The familiar pain in my chest whenever I think about my last time with Kennedy reignites inside me, and I rub the area over my heart to erase it.
It doesn’t help. As soon as I start reading her letter, I feel as if the floor beneath my feet has dropped out, leaving me breathless and falling.
Grayson,
I don’t blame you for your anger. I don’t blame you for hating me because by now, as the reality of what I kept from you has sunk in, you surely do. If you still want, after you see everything I’ve included in this package, I will help you do whatever you need to do in order to see your son.
When everything happened so quickly back in Vegas, I didn’t think to tell you this. I didn’t realize it until I got home and saw him, a photograph of our boy on my nightstand.
My adoption was not a closed adoption. It’s what is called semi-open. I do not have contact with the child I placed into loving hands the day I delivered him…