Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(75)

I’m back at Austin’s house - somehow, though I don’t remember even driving myself here. I’m numb, moving on some sort of autopilot as I stumble into the house. Buckley’s there, wagging his tail as he pokes his head around the corner to say hello.

Aside from him, the house is empty.

I’m standing like a ghost in the middle of the living room, blinking, turning, and searching for something though I don’t know what that may even be.

This was home.

For a brief, fleeting moment, it was. This house, and the man who lives here felt like home.

Except now I have no home, because apparently I belong nowhere.

The phone ringing in my hand snaps me out of my daze. I glance down, cringing at Vince’s name across the screen.

He knows.

Of course he knows, and here he is ready to bait me - ready to gloat as he tells me he told me so.

Hell, my own heart wants to say the same thing to me.

I ignore the call, slumping down onto the couch and dropping my face into my hands.

The worst part is, I’ve only got myself to blame. Austin lied? Really? Is it really any sort of surprise to me that a man like that was less than truthful about his involvement with women?

Blaming Austin is easy, except I know deep down, this is on me. This is me, letting my guard down, letting my heart lead me places I had no business going, and wanting to find something in places it was never going to be.

This was me actually believing somehow that money would buy happiness, and I’ve never felt like more of a perfectly silly idiot in my life.

My mother was right. It’s a thought I didn’t think I’d ever actually have, but there it is, burning it’s way to the front of my mind. All the years I spent rolling my eyes at her “marry up and marry rich” mentality, I was the one in the wrong.

Because love is a damn fairytale, and the real world is hard, and cruel, and you make it work by looking after you.

The phone rings again - Vince, again.

This time, I answer.

“Yes or no, Natalie.” His voice is cold.

“Come back to me, take me up on my offer, and this little debt with Austin goes away.”

I’m too numb to even answer, or say anything at all as Vince chuckles.

“I suppose now he can use the money for that kid he’s going to be having with that woman from the tabloids, hmm?”

I’m opening and closing my mouth, trying to finds words but only feeling pain lancing through my heart.

“Natalie,” Vince’s voice sends a chill through me.

“Come with me, and Austin’s debt to the family disappears. Now, do we have an arrangement.”

An arrangement.

Because that’s my life. In the world I live in, that’s my future. I am in fact, my mother, and my sister, and Marnie Summers from Choate, and every other woman standing on a pedestal and ready to be an accessory or a trophy to some rich guy in exchange for a life of comforts and privilege. It’s a truth, an inevitability.

And I’m tired of running from that.

I’m done with pretending somehow I’m different, or that things will be different.

They’re not, and neither am I.



It’s in a daze as I go upstairs after the call, shoving clothes into a suitcase I find in one of the bedroom closets. And I’m numb as I scrawl the note across a paper towel in the kitchen - the irony of this whole thing starting and ending with a ballpoint pen and a napkin not being lost on me.

The ring slides off with the help of a little soap. I pause, closing my eyes and breathing, before finally placing it on the note and stepping back.

It’s time to go.

It’s time to stop pretending and stop running from my life and just play the part I was meant to play.

Goodbye, I think, before I turn and walk out of the best home I’ve ever known.





40





Austin




I’m at drill practice with my passing coach Damon, gearing up for the first game of the season, when fucking Derek comes jogging onto the field.

I frown as he comes huffing towards us in his suit, looking like he’s about to have a damn heart attack as he waves his hands in the air.

“I’ll, uh, give you a minute,” Damon says flatly, nodding at the sweaty Derek stumbling towards us.

“Thanks. Sorry, man. I’ll make sure he’s brief.”

“Make sure he doesn’t die on my field,” Damon smirks, before he heads off towards the water station.

“Austin!” Derek’s face is red and puffing, his eyes looking insane.

“Derek, what the fuck, man, I’m at practice-”

“You weren’t answering your phone!”

I stare at him. “Cause I’m at practice, Der-”

“Tina,” he blurts out, wheezing.

I narrow my eyes. “What?”