Final Score: Part One (Game On #5) (14 page)

She shook her head, her dark curls bouncing around with the movement, and Radleigh carefully tried to unwind her arms from around him. As he did so, she began to cry, and when he passed her to me, she fought against me, trying to stay in his arms. Tears sprang to my own eyes as she struggled and kicked as if I were a stranger. I wasn’t hurt that she didn’t want to come with me, I was hurting because I was the one who’d made things this way. Hurting because she missed her daddy so much that she didn’t want to leave him yet.

Hurting because she was hurting.

Radleigh tried to soothe her by holding her close to him and speaking softly to her while I tried to regain my composure, but it didn’t work. She just sobbed harder and eventually Radleigh took my car keys from my hand and, with another struggle, strapped her into her car seat. He kissed the top of her head before closing the door and walking back to me, her cries loud as she watched him walk away.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as he handed my keys back, but he placed a hand on my cheek, stroking gently with the pad of his thumb. “She’ll be okay. Once you start driving, she’ll be okay.”

I nodded. “But I might not be.”

Radleigh’s arms came around me and he crushed me against him as I began to sob too. I pressed myself into him, not wanting to let go any more than Jessica had wanted to. “Baby, please don’t cry. If this is too hard for all of us… can we please talk about me coming home tomorrow? I understand all the reasons you wanted me to go, but look at us? We’re a fucking mess. We need to be together.”

I nodded again. “Tomorrow. We’ll talk.”

“Thank you.” He pressed his lips against the top of my head. “Take her home, baby. Take her home.”

Chapter Thirteen - Used

I’d thought the night Radleigh left was the lowest night of my life, but it didn’t compare to how rotten I felt as I drove away from Radleigh’s parents’ house with my daughter screaming for him all the way home. Truthfully, she’d gotten over it a lot faster than I had. She cried herself out and just wanted snuggles when we got into the house – which I happily provided. But that little incident had me questioning myself again. Radleigh and I had not separated. Our relationship – although shaky – was not over. So who the hell was I to keep him out of his own house and away from his family? All it was doing was making all of us unhappy, all of us missing each other.

Later that evening, while trying to watch a movie, and missing the usual TV watching position of having Radleigh’s arms wrapped around me, dread crept into my bones as I heard the far too familiar sound of the news alert on my phone. There hadn’t been any photographers outside Radleigh’s parents’ place when I’d left, so I wasn’t sure what it could be this time.

“Wow,” I muttered, as the latest gossip loaded up on my phone.

Again, I ignored the words – it would all be bullshit anyway – and looked at the photos. The first showed Radleigh and Jen in a restaurant.
Is that our favourite restaurant? The one we went to for his birthday?
Yup. He’d taken her there. To our place. Her hand rested on his across the table and they appeared to be in a deep discussion. The next photo showed their fingers entwined, and I shut the page down, and while I was at it, I unsubscribed to the news alerts. I didn’t need or want to go through this anymore.

After swallowing back the urge to cry again, I tried to dig up my rational side, and it told me that holding hands across the table didn’t really mean anything. I mean, when I was upset, Bryce had held my hand. It didn’t mean we were about to start ripping each other’s clothes off. But the hand holding wasn’t the problem. The problem had been the way he’d looked at her. It wasn’t the way he looked at me, but it wasn’t a million miles from it. He’d been focused solely on her, eyes transfixed. They didn’t hold the same adoration he held for me, but it wasn’t merely a friendly glance either.

How did he go from being annoyed she was at his parents’ house to this?

The worst part was, I had no right to complain. I’d asked him to go away and figure things out. How could I be mad at him for doing just that?

But does he have to do it so publicly? Knowing I’d see. And not warning me that they were going out together?

I glanced at the clock, blowing out a breath. Nine p.m. That meant it was only five in the morning in the UK. I needed my brother but it was too early to call him. He wasn’t usually conscious until eight, which meant I had three hours to kill, trying not obssess over how badly I’d messed up by giving Radleigh some space.

Bryce had been right all along. Giving him space allowed Jen to crawl into it and… what? Play the understanding ex? That’s what those pictures looked like. The idea that perhaps she was genuine this time around kept bouncing around my mind, but then I remembered the sly looks she’d thrown at me. The couple of times her “nice” mask slipped. The way she’d dropped things into the conversation purely to start a fight.

And I’d bitten. Played right into her hands. She probably couldn’t have predicted I’d offer Radleigh some breathing room. More likely she’d expected I’d become overbearing and suffocating, and drive him out that way. Whatever her game plan – because clearly she had one – it was working in her favour. The worst part? There was very little I could do about it. Excruciating as it was to see her slipping into his life, I still stood by my original decision, more now than ever. I’d been ready to discuss him coming back because seeing Jessica so upset earlier had torn me up inside, but those photos? They showed me my doubts weren’t unfounded. If he’d wanted to come home so badly, and if she really meant nothing at all, he wouldn’t have gone out with her and he wouldn’t have been holding her hand.

Instead of driving myself crazy going round and round in circles, I walked up the stairs and went into Jessica’s room. She was sound asleep in her crib, the room dark apart from the soft glow of the night light. I sat down in the huge squidgy armchair beside her cot, and reached through the bars to softly stroke the back of her hand.

Some days, whenever things weren’t so great, being close to Jessica reminded me there was one thing in my life that was absolutely perfect. One thing I’d done right. I watched her as she lay on her back, her head to one side, breathing in and out slowly as she slept. The rhythm created a sense of peace inside me and I slipped my fingers around her tiny ones.

“Mummy owes you an apology, baby girl,” I said gently. “I think, while trying to do my best for you, I might have done something that wasn’t so good. But, you know what? Sometimes mummies make mistakes. Sometimes they’re small ones that people don’t even notice, and other times they have the power to change our entire future. When you’re older, you’ll learn that Mummy rarely makes little mistakes. In fact, you’ll learn mistakes don’t qualify for me unless they cause maximum chaos. I promised I’d stop doing that when I had you. And, honestly, I didn’t think there would be any reason for me to make mistakes anymore, because when you arrived, you made our lives make sense.” I paused as she stirred, the hand I wasn’t holding moving from her side to rest beside her head. “As it turns out, I still managed to make a mess of things. Mummy tried to do the smart, grown-up thing and it might be backfiring.” The admission caused the ache in my gut to tighten and tears formed in my eyes. “I need you to know that from the second you were born, everything I’ve done, every choice I’ve made has been made with you in mind, even if it sometimes doesn’t feel that way. The only thing you need to remember is Mummy and Daddy love you very much. Even if everything else changes, we’ll always love you.”

I sat beside my daughter, just watching her sleep, for over an hour. Every time she fidgeted, my heart fluttered because this tiny human was the one person in the whole world who was a constant for me. She was a part of me. It still blew my mind that I’d had a part in creating something so perfect. Biased? Sure. But Jessica Willa McCoy was beautiful and already had a cheeky personality that matched mine before life got crazy. I wouldn’t have changed her for the world but the opportunity to put adulting on hold for a while was appealing sometimes, especially since Jen returned.

**

In spite of the pictures that had stopped my heart the night before, I heard nothing from Radleigh the next day. He didn’t call me to “explain” what had happened, he just walked through the door after work as if everything was the same. Like always, I had to control the pounding of my heart and stomp on the desire to approach him for a kiss as I always did when he came home. His newly washed hair smelled fresh, like the ocean, and I had to remind myself this wasn’t going to be the pleasant, easy conversation I’d hoped for.

“I know you’ll have seen the photos already,” he said as he threw his keys down on the table beside the door. “There’s probably no point in me telling you it was nothing, right?”

The change in his attitude from the day before stopped me in my tracks and I stared at him. He’d developed a defensive stance which made no sense to me since I hadn’t said anything yet. If my body language portrayed anything, it could only have been apprehension since I had a huge question to ask him.

“Well I guess that depends on whether or not it’s the truth.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Okay.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

I shrugged. “What do you want me to say? Seems to me you came here expecting a fight not a conversation.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No. But wandering in here ready for a fight you could so easily have prevented isn’t making anything better.” He lowered his eyes, and I took a step towards him. “Look at me.”

I wasn’t sure what had prompted him to act this way but I needed him to connect with me. Needed him to look into my eyes and remember who he was talking to. That I was the same person he wanted to come home to yesterday, even though he was now acting like I was the one who had changed.

Radleigh raised his head and as our eyes connected, his gaze softened.
Mission accomplished. For now, at least.

“What are we doing, Leah?” he asked with a sigh, pulling me to him and wrapping me up in his arms. “We can’t keep going like this. Both of us wanting me home but neither of us doing anything about it.”

I took in a long exhale of his freshly-showered scent. “I don’t think you’re ready. Yesterday, if you’d said you were coming home right then, I’d have let you. But last night only proved to me that you’re where you should be. The last thing on your mind should have been going out with Jen. And I’m not saying this in a flippant, you should be sitting around pining for me kind of way. If you needed someone to talk to, why her? Why not call Bryce, or talk to your parents, or just… anyone but her? It’s like all she has to do is flutter her eyelashes and you forget what it is you think you want. And… please don’t tell me you were talking about Jayden the whole night because I won’t believe it.”

He shook his head. “We weren’t. We talked about a lot of stuff. About the past, about her and Gary and you and me.”

His wistful tone sent an aching sensation through my body, running through my bloodstream to reach all my nerve endings and I took a slight step back from him, his touch suddenly too painful to handle.

“Let me guess. She thinks I’m a heartless bitch and she’d take care of you
so
much better.”

Radleigh shook his head. “That’s not fair. She’s never said anything like that.”

Of course not. That’s way too direct.

“What
did
she say?” I asked. “Do you know why she wants to move back here?”

“She says she was happiest here than she’s ever been anywhere. This is where she grew up. It’s where she wants the boys to grow up, but Gary is fighting hard for custody of Harley. Sole custody.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Why not joint custody? Is she such a bad mother that he doesn’t want her near his kid?”

The words left my mouth without me thinking. It wasn’t that I regretted what I’d said, but it suddenly occurred to me that if he and I split, he’d probably fight for custody of Jessica just to spite me. Just because he could.

“He doesn’t think she can handle two kids on her own,” Radleigh said, his thought process obviously not following mine. “He thinks she’s too selfish. And he doesn’t want her to take Harley away from him.”

Pausing, because this conversation was in no way beneficial to the question I needed to ask him, I said, “Just so I know… when will you see her again?”

“Tomorrow. She’s bringing Jayden to Mom and Dad’s after work.”

“And… will you be going out with her again?”

Radleigh’s body stiffened. “Yes, but with the kids, too. Not just her.”

Throwing my head back I sighed then turned away. I didn’t begrudge him time with Jayden at all, but the more he was seen with Jen, the more talk there would be about me and him, and whether we had really split up. Our PR team had made a statement that we were taking a break but the wedding was still going ahead, yet every time Radleigh was with her, it made us look weaker.

“Do you have to go out in public with her all the time?” I asked. I couldn’t judge my tone. I’d wanted to make it sound relaxed but I was certain it came out snappier than I planned.

“Well… I can’t expect my parents to cook dinner for her and the kids and she’s not exactly welcome at my parents’ place.”

“Fair point. But why not go to her hotel? At least once you’re inside, the press can’t get in.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Leah, if you found out I was leaving her hotel, you’d freak. Isn’t it better for me to be out with her?”

“It would be better if you weren’t with her at all, but I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t be happy to find out you’d been anywhere near her hotel.”

“If I come home she can come here and I won’t have to deal with her on my own, or in public.”

With a short laugh, I shook my head “You can’t cling to me just so you don’t have to deal with her, Radleigh. It’s not fair on any of us.”

“So you don’t want me back?”

“I want
you
back. But I want the you you were before she got here. The one who doesn’t keep secrets, remembers to consider my feelings and doesn’t hold hands with his ex who he claims to have no feelings for. I don’t think you’re ready to be that guy yet.”

Radleigh glared at me, but he wasn’t so lost from me that I didn’t see the realisation that I was right in his eyes. It flickered deep in the back of his blues. I wished it wasn’t there. Wished I was being irrational and crazy and jealous. Wished I knew why, after everything she did, he could stand to be near her, let alone let her kiss him and hold his hand.

Taking a deep breath, I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I need to ask you something. And this is the worst time, but honestly, I don’t think there will ever be a good time. I talked to Josh last night. Told him everything that’s going on. And he said… maybe it would be best if Jessica and I went to the UK for a couple of weeks, until things are more settled.”

Radleigh barked out a laugh, his face hardening. “Not a fucking chance. It’s one thing us having some space, but you’re not taking Jessica away for two weeks. You can go if you want, but you’re not taking her.”