The Game of Love: (BWWM Romance) (27 page)

             
Austin’s mind then ran to Sommer’s words that night on the beach. About being used up and tossed aside like trash.

             
“I’ll get to the bottom of everything,” he finally answered. “But is that the only reason you came here tonight? To tell me that?”

When Jessica looked up, she saw a flash of desire flicker in his eyes and nearly choked on her sip of tea. She’d read him all wrong. He did still want her.

“Maybe,” she coyly responded, placing the cup on the marble countertop. “Unless there’s something else that you have in mind.”

“You don’t have a moral bone in your body, do you?” Austin spat.

“But I thought—”

“What’d you think, Jessica? That I still wanted you? You’re no different from the people out there claiming that I can’t possibly really love
Sommer because we have different complexions.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “I just don’t like thinking that there’s no possibility for you and me anymore.”

“You may not like thinking it, but it’s true.”

“I know it’s true.” She pushed the mug out of arm’s reach. “I mean, people have dragged me into this too. Asking me if your affair with
Sommer was the real reason for my tryst with Walter Remos, and if it’s been going on for longer than speculated.”

“And you’ve been handling that pretty well,” Austin said, surprising her. “I appreciate that you didn’t take this as a chance to drag either one of our names through the mud. Thank you, for that.”

She tugged on the sleeve of her pullover sweater. “When I ran into you and your sister at that burger restaurant, I knew that what you said was true. That you were in love. I was not ready to accept it yet, but I never questioned what you said.”

Austin sighed and clasped his hands behind his head. Three weeks had been too long for him to be without his family, but he also knew that
Sommer had needed that time. She’d been thrust into the spotlight in the most negative of ways and during one of the most vulnerable periods of her life, so he’d taken a step back to give her a chance to piece everything together. But time was now up. He missed his daughter, and he missed his woman.

“Jessica?”

Both he and Jessica looked up and in the direction of the voice.

“
Sommer?” Austin asked, taking her in as though he expected her to float away. She looked absolutely gorgeous dressed comfortably and casually in a pair of jeans, and one of his college hoodies. Olivia was attentively looking around the room and he wondered if his curious daughter ever slept.

He crossed the room and crushed their lips together for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally let her up for air, he brushed a finger across her jaw and lifted Olivia from her grasp and into the air. When he brought her down, he pressed raspberry kisses against her cheeks.

Sommer’s eyes flickered over to Jessica and for a split second, she actually felt sorry for the woman. Even with all of Jessica’s money and good looks, she was still the woman across the room with that hollow look in her eyes as she watched on, excluded from a moment of happiness. Unfortunately for her, Austin was one piece of happiness that she was never going to get back.

“I guess I should go,” Jessica said, retrieving her purse.

“I’ll walk you out,” Walt offered, appearing in the hallway. “Austin and Sommer have some talking to do.”

With a brief nod, Jessica followed Walt out the door and Austin lifted Olivia into the air once more.
Sommer delightedly watched them before making her way over to the refrigerator.

“She cried for five nights in a row,” she told Austin, putting away a generous portion of brownies that she, Arielle, and Arielle’s two older daughters had made. Thinking about the way they’d looked in the kitchen, Aria with a face full of flour and Isabela tumbling with laughter whenever Aria smudged cocoa on her nose as she tried to get it off, had made her heart long for Austin in a way she
hadn’t even known was possible. Not having him around had only magnified the loss of her mother, and she realized then how stupid she’d been to think that not having him in her life could have ever been a solution to anything.

“Baby girl, why were you crying?” Austin cooed, taking a seat and holding Olivia up to face him. “Did you miss Daddy?”

Sommer unwrapped one of the brownies and took a bite. She’d missed Daddy too.

“How about Mommy? Did she miss Daddy too?” Austin said, echoing her thoughts. “Was she tossing and turning at night because she realized that she can’t live without Daddy either? Did Mommy really think that Daddy would let more than three weeks pass before he came looking for his ladies again?”

Olivia beamed and it lit up his heart.

“You’re corrupting our child,”
Sommer teased, crossing the room. She took a seat next to him and held up the brownie for him to take a bite.

“I missed you,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Austin, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be all sweet and use your Barry White voice at the same time. It confuses me.”

He tossed his head back and laughed.

“I missed you too,” she admitted, leaning into his side. Austin rested his cheek against the top of her head.

“I would’ve come for you,” he assured. “Not having me in your life was not an option.”

She reached up and touched the side of his face. “I love you, Austin, and I’m sorry.”

“I love you too,
Sommer. And don’t worry, you’re going to make it up to me.”

She leaned forward and took his mouth, this time letting her lips linger even longer against his. She welcomed his tongue and used her own to play back
, and then slipped her hand behind his head to pull him closer. She ended the kiss by nibbling on the sensitive spot she’d found on his lower lip.

Austin glanced down at Olivia and then cradled her in his arms.

“Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,” he began rocking her gently. “Come on, baby girl, it’s time for you to sleep. Mommy and Daddy have some making up to do.”

Sommer
covered her ears. “I guess that’s where the similarities between you and Barry White end.”

Austin
laughed and continued to sing as he carried Olivia up the stairs, and Sommer made her way to the master suite on the ground level. The minute she walked in, Austin’s phone began to vibrate wildly in the middle of the bed. She leaned over it to see several missed calls from Gary, which usually meant bad news.

She returned to the kitchen to search through Olivia’s baby bag and found a few missed calls from Emma and Arielle, her phone still on do-not-disturb since their connecting flight in Atlanta. There was a single message from Arielle instructing her to turn to the sports channel, so she turned on the TV in the kitchen.

The featured story of the night was none other than William Riley, and viewer comments and responses followed the image of a face older than Sommer had remembered, with a head full of hair that had been obviously dyed brown. The reporter shook his head in disgust as he read a quote that was highlighted on a blurred background:

I mean, these things are delicate in this day and age with Civil Rights and Affirmative Action and whatnot. And men, we were made to procreate. To spread our seed. Sometimes, one of those seeds take root. You can’t help who it’s with.

Anger simmered beneath Sommer’s surface. William Riley had actually had the audacity to say that she’d just been a receptacle for Austin’s seed. That Olivia, their daughter, was the result of some sort of uncontrollable, instinctual penile curiosity.

“Where’d you run off to, baby?” Austin called, his voice coming from the direction of the bedroom. When he appeared in the kitchen entryway, he grinned seductively when he saw her standing there, but the grin faded when he followed her eyes to the TV.

“Austin,” she said, turning to face him. “I’m done running from this.”

“What the hell is this?” Austin asked, crossing over to the TV in a few strides. He grabbed the remote to increase the volume
, and then stood with his hands folded and legs shoulder width apart as William’s story was replayed for what he was sure was the umpteenth time that night.

Dressed in his traditional navy and khaki, Austin was sure that his father had assumed that he’d looked professional, but new clothes couldn’t hide the aging lines that had been etched into the man’s face. Nor could they hide the slight yellow tinge to his eyes indicating early liver problems and a life enslaved to alcohol. Even as
William tried a smile, his face had only twisted into a villainous smirk that clearly demonstrated that this was a man that could not be trusted. Yet, the reporters hung onto his every word. They’d even had the audacity to give credence to those words, and think that they represented anything that Austin had ever believed.

“We have to get in front of this, Austin,”
Sommer added. “As much as we’d like for it to, it’s not going to go away. The more we try to brush it off or avoid it, the more the media gets to add their own spin to it and turn us into people that we’re not.”

Austin’s eyes tracked his father’s movements across the screen. It had been nearly two decades since he’d last seen the man and just like back then, he’d hated him. However, there was no longer a son’s underlying need for unconditional acceptance from his father
living somewhere in that hate.

Back then, he’d tried everything he could think of to get his father to accept him just the way he was, as well as accept who he chose to befriend. But, as he watched
as William answer questions in the middle of his front lawn and in front of a house that should have been destroyed years ago, that need for acceptance was nowhere to be found. It had been engulfed by pure contempt.

“You’re right.” He turned to face
Sommer. “We’ve got to get in front of this. I’ll call Gary and give old Willie Riley his interview. But first, I have a question. Jessica told me that she thinks Kyle is the one who leaked that my father was still alive and gave your name to the press. That night we went to Louie’s, you said something about being tossed aside like trash by somebody. Was that person Kyle?”

Sommer
nibbled on her bottom lip and carried her gaze over to the stovetop. “I was talking a little bit about Kyle, and a little bit about my father,” she answered.

“What did Kyle do?” Austin prodded. “There’s never really been any problems between me and him except now, so whatever the problem is, it seems to be related to you.”

Sommer shifted her weight onto her other leg. “Well, the four years me and Kyle spent together at NC State, we became pretty close. Really good friends. Somewhere along the line, his view of our relationship got blurred and he started seeing me as his property, rather than just his friend. Kyle’s always been the possessive type. The formulaic only-child used to getting whatever he wants.”

She stopped and Austin tilted his head, indicating that he knew that her story wasn’t over. Sighing,
Sommer climbed onto a bar stool.

“After we graduated, I
started working at a small PR firm in Charlotte and he moved to Miami. We kept in touch quite often, and it was through those conversations that he found out about the crush that I’d had on you for all those years. Once he found out, he started showering me with gifts that I would politely return. When that didn’t work, he introduced me to all of his girlfriends and told me about how wonderful they were. Each time, I’d only be happy for him. When
that
didn’t work, everything went back to normal…until I got offered the job at that firm in New York. It was short notice, so when I told him, he offered to let me stay at a place that he’d bought out there. I accepted because I needed something quick, and told him that it would only be for a few months until I got everything figured out.”

She started wringing her hands together
and Austin could already tell that he didn’t like where the story was headed.

“So, I moved to New York and everything was perfect. The job was perfect, the place was perfect. It was wonderful. Then, on a whim, I decided to buy a ticket to the game
Dallas was playing in New York. Kyle called the same night I bought the ticket and I told him, not thinking anything of it because we were
just friends
. He said that it was his team’s bye week so he’d come along. I didn’t think anything of it until that night in bed when I felt someone climb in next to me.”

Austin’s jaw clenched and he sat in the stool across from her, never breaking his gaze.

“I was scared out of my mind,” Sommer went on, “But once I realized it was Kyle, the terror waned some. I was more confused as to why he was in bed with me. He then explained that he didn’t like the fact that, even after all these years when he’d been there for me, I still kept an image of you hanging like a shadow over our relationship. That was when I first realized that he’d seen our relationship completely different than I did.”

She closed her eyes. “I made the mistake of telling him that he and I had never been in a relationship, and pointed out that I’d dated several men since college, all of which he’d known about. His answer to that was that those were regular men. Middle-class men. He would always be better than them and I would have always come back to him. But you, he saw as a threat for some reason.”