AJ shrugged; the thought absolutely killed him. “Could be. I don’t know. She claimed she’s hated him for the longest time, but suddenly she’s meeting up with him and talking to him on the phone and giving into every fucking request he makes to see her.”

When AJ noticed his raised voice had gotten Sydney’s attention, he walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room. As expected, Emi followed him into the dining room. The table in there was packed with a ridiculous amount of pastries, cakes, and every other dessert imaginable. AJ grabbed a croissant, even though he hadn’t had much of an appetite in days.

“So you don’t know for sure that she’s actually seeing him again. Just meeting with him and talking to him on the phone?”

“He’s still in love with her, Em.” He tore a piece of the croissant off, a little harder than he’d intended to. “She admitted he’d told her he was, just recently. He left his wife and wants to move out to California to be near them, and she keeps making excuses for why she has to keep seeing him. I’m done. I’ve already talked to Preston. I haven’t extended my contract with the Padres, and I’m not going to—”

“You’re leaving the Padres?” she asked, her eyes going wide. “AJ, we’ll never see you.”

“Sure you will when I’m in town to play against them.”

“But you love the Padres.”

“I know, but I have to, Em. I can’t stay with them. I’m already dreading seeing her or Clair tonight—dreading having to be around them for the entire World Series. I almost wish we’d lose this series just so I wouldn’t have to worry about that. There’s no way I can do even one more season here.”

The buzzer from the driveway gate went off. With some of the Morenos still expected to arrive, AJ didn’t bother asking who it was. He walked over and pushed the open button.

“But you don’t know for sure—”

“I know me,” AJ said, shaking his head. “It’ll never work. I won’t even be able to stand knowing she’s talking to him on the phone. And she’ll insist she has to. So we’re at a stalemate. I’m fucking out.”

“You won’t even try—?”

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head even more adamantly. “C’mon, Em, do you really think I’d ever have the patience for that? To know my girl is chatting on the phone with her ex who’s still in love with her? She already said that, if he insists on spending time with Clair, she won’t leave Clair alone with him. So they’ll be spending happy little family days at beaches and the zoo and shit. Fuck that!”

He slammed the croissant in the waste basket just as the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Emi said, exhaling in frustration.

The fury was back in full force again, and he welcomed it because the pain of losing what he’d begun to consider his family, damn it, was brutal.

“AJ,” Emi said, and he turned around to face her.

Addison stood there behind Emi, almost as if waiting for the go-ahead to walk all the way in. They both stared at him. Emi’s face pleaded. Addison’s appeared . . . angry?

What the hell could she be angry about? Emi turned and nodded at Addison then turned back to AJ, giving him that same pleading expression before rushing back into the kitchen and leaving them alone.

“Why are you here?” he asked, beyond grateful he’d worked himself up because she looked even more beautiful than he remembered. As worked up as he felt, the temptation to rush to her and pull her into his arms was still there.

“I need to speak with you, and you’re not answering my calls.”

He needed to crush that ever-growing temptation. So he thought of the night he’d gone to her hotel room to give her one last chance to explain why the hell she had to take Bigsby’s call in the middle of such a pivotal conversation between them. He remembered the unrelenting rage he’d felt the moment he realized where she was and with who.

“There’s a reason why I’m not answering, Addison. I don’t wanna speak with you.”

She stared at him for a moment before spinning around toward the open door. For an unbearable moment, he fought the urge to call out to her. Tell her to stay. But she didn’t walk out. Instead, she pushed the door closed with such force it slammed loudly, and she spun around to face him again.

Her eyes glistened, but if those were tears, they weren’t tears of sorrow because she looked as pissed as he felt. “Like it or not, you’re gonna hear what I have to say.”

Chapter 30

Addison

The whole way there Addison had argued with herself. She was doing the wrong thing. AJ was making it perfectly clear that he was through with her, but she couldn’t believe he’d be such a hard ass about this. In a way, this was good. She now knew the kind of person she was dealing with. As much as he claimed to love her and Clair, he’d been willing to throw it all away and not even hear her out.

Here she’d been crying in the shower and taking long drives to hide her heartache from Clair, and he was having a happy little party? And on top of it all, he was going to be a coldhearted asshole about this too? She couldn’t have misjudged him this badly, could she? This wasn’t happening to her all over again. It couldn’t be.

“How dare you?” she began, trying desperately not to give into the inescapable emotion she’d been dealing with for days. “How dare you not give me at least a chance to explain—!”

“Explain what?” He shot back, that all-too-familiar spark in his eyes igniting instantly. “What is it you want me to hear you explain, Addison? That the night I found out that piece of shit was Clair’s dad and needed answers, you had to cut my call off to take his? That instead of coming to see me that night so we could talk about this, you went running to him?”

Isaiah’s crutches at the kitchen door as he stepped into the room cautiously distracted them momentarily. Addison exchanged a glance with his brother before turning back to AJ, whose outburst was what obviously had Isaiah coming in to see if everything was okay.

AJ lifted his hand to his brother. “Give us a minute; she’ll be gone soon.”

The moment Isaiah hobbled back into the kitchen Addison turned to AJ, glad now that he was being such an asshole. “You know what? I’m glad I came here now. Glad I got to see your true colors. It’ll make this breakup so much easier.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad it’ll be easy for one of us,” he said, glaring at her, but he’d lost a little of his fire.

“You’re doing this,” she snapped back, angry that the stupid tears were blurring her vision now, “not me. You’re the one being completely unreasonable. I never in a million years would’ve believed that you could be so cold to me—to Clair. What did she do to you?”

“I told you before,” he said, taking a step toward her. “As much as I love that little girl, there’s no way I can continue talking to and being around her, not when I know there’s a possibility she might let something slip about you and her dad that would make me crazy.”

“That’s crazy,” she said, swatting the tears away, “that you would still think—after everything I’ve sacrificed to make sure that bastard is never a part of her life—that I’d give into him.”

“You said you would!” He took another menacing step toward her. “You said Clair was so upset that day she wandered off because you were giving in to his request to see her.”

She shook her head, even more frustrated now. “She heard it out of context. I didn’t mean I was giving into him. I was telling my dad what Fred wanted me to do.”

Whatever tension AJ was feeling practically radiated off him. He stared at her, still breathing hard. “So you’re not going to? You’re just gonna keep meeting him alone?”