Final Score: Part One (Game On 5)

Two days ago. Forty-eight hours. And all that time I’d had to deal with him stomping around the house, snapping at me, when he could have just told me and this wouldn’t have felt like so much of a betrayal.

“Two. Days. Radleigh… why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not true.”

I spun around to face him. “Really? You just decided it’s not true so I didn’t need to know?”

“I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you tonight, but you were late back and I overreacted, and Jen-”

The bark of laughter I let out stopped him mid-sentence.

“Look, she might be a manipulative, cold-hearted bitch, but don’t think for a second about blaming what happened tonight on her. It was your lies that led to this.”

He lowered his eyes because he knew he couldn’t deny that. Not that that made me feel any better. In fact, the realisation that he knew what he’d done and didn’t fight to deny it told me my worst fears were already coming true. She was in L.A, and she had already established a hold over him.

“I just needed some time, okay?” he said. “I know talking to you first would have been the right thing to do. I know that. But she came at me out of nowhere, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t think straight.

I saw her for the first time in six years on Monday after work. Or, I thought I did. She was across the street from the training ground, but I wasn’t sure it was her and I shrugged it off. On Tuesday, she was actually outside work, waiting for me. And that was the first time I talked to her. She did the same thing yesterday. She was in the diner at lunchtime and that was when she threatened to tell you what she’d told me. But our total conversations haven’t lasted longer than thirty minutes.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “So, she told you you have a son, and you… what? Just walked away?”

He nodded. “Pretty much. She’s getting a divorce, Leah. She was caught doing some other guy and Gary told her to pack up her shit and move out.”

“She admitted that?”

“Read a newspaper. It was in the papers that she’d cheated on him, and now they’re in the middle of divorce proceedings and he’s trying to stop her leaving New York because of the kids.”

“So why is she suddenly saying Jayden is yours?”

“I don’t know. Maybe if she only has one kid tied to him, it’ll be easier for her to get away. I have no idea how this stuff works.”

“But surely he’s not just going to accept what she’s saying? He, and you, are going to want some proof of whose kid he is before anything else happens.”

Radleigh sighed and shook his head. “Jen says Gary always knew Jayden’s mine, but they wanted to make their family work so they kept it between themselves. But this doesn’t make any sense to me because she’s a greedy, money-grabbing bitch. If he was my kid, she’d have been on my ass for money, even though she and Gary have more than enough. That’s why I think she’s lying.”

“I don’t know, Radleigh. I’d be pretty amazed if she was lying about this. This can easily be proved false in a very short time. Why bother if it’s not true?”

He let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t know her. She’s been here for four days, and look how things are between us already.”

“Like I said, she didn’t make you lie to me. If you’d just come to me at the start then…” I trailed off, my voice wavering a little.

“What, Leah?”

“I wouldn’t feel like I’m losing you.”

My words sounded dramatic, I knew that. But with this one decision he’d made not to tell me that the woman he used to love was back in town with life-changing news, he’d shattered the promise he’d made me. He’d shattered the image of how solid I thought we were. I would have felt like we could take on the world if he’d been honest the first time he spoke to her. Because then I’d have known for sure he wasn’t going to let her break us down, son or no son.

Radleigh ate up the space between us in a second and cupped my face in his hands, his eyes holding mine. “Baby, I’m not going anywhere. I know I messed up here, but she hasn’t changed anything.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth. That’s a pretty big change because you haven’t lied to me since we’ve been together.”

“I’m telling you the truth now. If you have more questions, I’ll answer them. If there’s anything you want to know about the last few days, ask me. And I swear, I will never keep anything from you again.” The desperation in his tone chipped away at some of my fear and I placed my hands over his.

“I have questions.”

He nodded and slowly moved his hands down my neck to my shoulders. After a second, he took my hand and led me over to the sofa. We both sat down at opposite ends, our feet up, facing each other. It was like a stand-off. For a moment, I just stared at him, letting my eyes drink him in. Since I’d got home from Freya’s, I really hadn’t fully taken him in. We’d done nothing but fight in the last couple of hours, and I wanted to take a second to ground myself. To look at him and see, not the man I was mad at, but the man I was marrying. The man I loved. Radleigh watched me studying him but said nothing. I trailed my eyes over his face, over those ice blue eyes, his full lips, then down to his muscly shoulders and his chest which was covered with a dark green polo shirt. His stance was the most relaxed it had been all week, and his determination to be open with me now made me soften.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked, quietly. “What did she say to you? Do you know exactly what she wants? What her plans are?”