“Kai!” She stood in front of him in her bra and jeans and nothing else, glaring at him like he’d tried to knock her over the head and take her wallet. “This is not fucking funny.”
“Why? Are you embarrassed of me?” He watched her smiling, but a ripple of anxiety moved through his head.
“Of course I’m not embarrassed…God…It’s just…” She shook her head, rubbing her hands into her eyes. “This is what I was talking about this whole time. If anyone finds out…”
“You mean besides your assistant?”
“If any of my bosses find out…” she corrected, ignoring his comment, “then one of us is gone and I can promise you it won’t be the man with all the sacks. My contract with the team isn’t nearly as good as yours. They can afford to buy me out.”
Kai frowned, clenching his teeth when that expression on Gia’s face shifted from frantic worry, to utter fear. How often had she told him the amount of bullshit she had to wade through to get to the place she was now? Years of listening to men telling her she couldn’t do her job well. Loud, obnoxious voices that called her a bitch or an opportunist for just trying to make something of herself.
“Gia…” he tried, hating seeing her like this. Hating more that she’d lost the ease and easy vibe that had been over her minutes before. “Please don’t worry. Talk to Cat. She’ll understand. You’ll see.”
“I just…maybe.” She moved into the bathroom, brushing her hair into place, dusting a makeup brush over her face before she hit the light and left. “Look, I have to go talk to her. I’ll…call you, later.”
“When?” he asked, hating how desperate he sounded. Gia shook her head, moving out of the room and down her hall to grab her jacket and keys sitting on the island.
“I…don’t know. It might take some time to see where Cat’s head’s at.” She pulled on her jacket and dug out her keys. “Lock up before you go, okay?” Then Gia left, that frantic worry still making her eyes bright and wide. She left without a backward glance, without even telling Kai goodbye.
19.
KAI
GIA WAS A STORM. A wild, unexpected hurricane that twisted through Kai’s life leaving behind destruction. But when that storm was coming through, there had been moments of quiet—the stillness before the pending chaos.
He missed the noise.
Kai had to find out where it had gone.
The administration offices were located on the top floor of the building next to the stadium. Kai could make it to the field or the gym inside five minutes if he was in Gia’s office and the lobby in less time than that. He hadn’t been there since the day he’d returned from Hawaii to have a sit down with Coach Ricks about how he could catch up and if he’d be allowed any field time during the playoffs. They’d crashed and burned in the NFC playoffs with Kai getting most of his play time. But walking through the hallway that led to Gia’s office filled him with more anxiety than he’d felt heading into that sit down with Ricks.
Gia had ghosted him. In fact, she seemed to have ghosted everyone. For two weeks he’d given her space. Kai didn’t blow up her phone the whole time since she ran out of her apartment worried about Cat finding them together. He decided to give her a little breathing room to sort out her game plan because the woman always had one. He didn’t want to mess with that.
But two days later, he’d gotten no texts. No calls and another day after that, there’d been no answer at her door. Nothing had happened to her, he knew that much. Mr. Blanchard, the old vendor from the Market asked Kai how Gia liked the fresh asparagus she’d picked up the day before. Then made him promise to have Gia send him the recipe for her mother’s marinara they’d chatted about when he saw her.
So, no. She wasn’t missing.
That stubborn assed woman was hiding from him, and it was starting to piss Kai off.
There were two large bouquets of flowers lined across Cat’s desk when Kai walked up to it. The arrangements were massive—roses and peonies, some sweet pea buds that he recognized from the small flowers Gia had planted in the boxes out on her balcony. From behind them, he made out a pair of long, toned legs and French