She shrugged and went back out on the deck to sip her tea. She checked her phone, but there were no messages from Gavin.
Okay, so he didn’t owe her anything. He didn’t report to her. They weren’t a couple. Hadn’t she been telling everyone that?
Still, he always left her messages letting her know where he was going and where he was going to be. So why nothing now? She kind of expected him to come home after the game. Okay, she didn’t really expect him to, but it might have been nice if he’d let her know if he were going somewhere else, just so she wouldn’t worry about him.
She went back inside and picked up her laptop to do some work, but she kept staring at her phone, disgusted with herself for her own weakness.
Dammit. She’d known this was going to happen, that it was going to come to this if she let her heart get wrapped up in Gavin. Now she was checking her phone every five minutes, hoping he’d toss her a crumb.
She was spending entirely too much of her time on Gavin and not nearly enough on herself, which is what she normally did. Her career was vital to her happiness. Not a man. She knew what focusing on a man—on love—could do to a woman. It could make a woman lose all sense of herself, could change her career-driven focus and skew her priorities.
It was time she altered her trajectory and stopped worrying about Gavin other than as one of her clients. She needed to think about what was best for his career, because what was best for his career would be what was best for her career. And what was best for his career was definitely not her.
Everyone already thought of her as his girlfriend, which was going to screw up his image once the season started. Gavin Riley off the market was a death sentence for his PR.
Gavin had a reputation as a hotshot first baseman and a sexy, product-endorsing single guy who played the field.
He hadn’t been playing the field lately. He’d been playing with her. Just her. No one else but her.
She was not good for his image. Lots of young, sexy women throwing themselves at him were very good for his image.
Fun and games were over. It was time to get back to business. Her business. The thing she most loved and needed to make a priority in her life.
Her work would never hurt her. And with the way things were going with losing Mick and now Steve Lincoln, playing house with Gavin was the last thing she should be doing.
Spending time on her clients should be a priority. Getting Blane McReynolds signed with Tampa Bay in the first round of the draft needed to be a priority.
She hadn’t been focusing on her work because she’d been too busy playing with Gavin.
That had to stop. Now.
She searched the airlines online and found a flight back to Saint Louis early tomorrow morning. She could drive down to Miami, stay at one of the airport hotels, and be ready for her flight in the morning.
Which meant she’d have to pack and get out of here in a hurry, just in case Gavin was on his way back to the house. She didn’t want to face him, didn’t want to have a conversation with him about her leaving.
She packed up, changed clothes, and tossed her bags in the car. As she hovered near the front door, she decided at the last second to jot down a note for him. No text message because that was too immediate. When he got home, he’d see the note.
She pressed the lock on the door and pulled it shut, climbed into her car and clenched the steering wheel in her hands.
“You’re doing the right thing. Career first. Always first.”
Never let a man have power over you, Elizabeth.
“Damn straight, Mama,” she said as she backed out of the driveway.
It’s too bad her mother never had the strength to take her own advice.
Gavin,
Have to head back to the office. The draft is coming up soon and I need to focus on a few deals. Plus, it’s time I get back to work. It’s been fun.
E
Fun? That was it? What the hell was this bullshit blow-off note?
Gavin crumpled up Elizabeth’s note and tossed it across the room, pissed at himself for even being angry that she had left.
He had no idea what the hell set her off running this time, but he was tired of wondering. Or caring.
She was right. It had been fun. That’s all it had been.
He went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, irritated that the team owner had forced them all into a three-fucking-hour meeting right after the game that had sucked up his entire night. And he’d left his phone in his locker, so he hadn’t been able to call or text Elizabeth to let her know because he was a moronic slave to technology and he didn’t know anyone’s phone number by heart other than his parents’, and that only because they’d had the same phone number for forty years.
Obviously, it wouldn’t have mattered since she’d just decided to leave.
Again.
Fine. He didn’t need her in his life. The regular season was about to gear up, and he needed to be ready for it. Baseball was all he needed to be thinking about right now. It was time to focus on the game.
Not on Elizabeth.
THIRTEEN