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“What do you mean Carmella is there?” Simon’s voice raised several octaves.
“I mean, your wife is out front with her friends, and they want to volunteer because the team is volunteering here, and apparently that means so do their wives.”
“Shit. I’m on my way.”
“Hurry,” Peyton snapped and hung up.
She dropped her phone down onto her desk. God, she hadn’t even had her first cup of coffee yet. This day sucked. She wanted a do over.
The intercom on her phone clicked on. “Umm, Peyton,” James said.
“Yes, sorry I’m coming.”
Okay, she could do this.Just put on your big girl panties and go out there.She adjusted the waistband of her pants and smoothed down the front of her shirt. Her hand trembled.
How was she supposed to face this woman when she knew what a sleaze her husband was? And how did she not say something to her? But how could she do that? It would ruin this woman’s life and those kids… God, those poor kids. She knew what that felt like. Her dad was the same kind of cheating jerk. She’d thought she could spot them a mile away. Apparently not.
She took a deep breath. “Big girl panties, big girl panties,” she muttered to herself. Who was she kidding? There were not panties big enough to handle this situation. This was some supersonic Spanx kind of deal. Another deep breath and she pulled open the door and walked down the hall.
Each step closer, the nausea in her stomach grew.
“Peyton, hi,” Carmella gushed the moment she saw her.
“Carmella, what a surprise.” She forced a smile that felt so fake.
“Sorry, we showed up unannounced. The girls and I got talking yesterday over brunch and we just had to come down and see the place where our fellas are going to be volunteering.”
“Right, sorry, unfortunately, umm… there’s not really a nice way to say this, so… umm… I’ll just say it. This is a safe place for kids, so it’s not really a place where we want people to come and look around as they please. Sorry, if that sounds harsh, I just have to really protect the kids.”
“Oh, no, of course we totally understand.” Carmella put her hand to her chest. “We aren’t here to just be looky-loos. I thought because it was a school day, it would be okay to come down now because you’d have fewer kids around. I was hoping we could talk about some ways the girls and I could help out.”
“Help out?”
“Yes, put us to work,” Carmella said.
“Well, until I see what this program with the Hawks is going to look like, I don’t really know what we’ll need in terms of volunteers. So, it’s a bit premature to even consider a meeting,” Peyton replied.
A curvy blonde stepped toward Peyton. “Any chance we could sit down and have some coffee and chat?”
“Umm…” Peyton stammered.
“I’m Lisa Knight. My husband, Johnny, is one of the pitchers on the team. He’s no Ryan but…”
“Johnny Knight? Right, yep, I know who he is.” Crap, that was not the woman he was with at the party. How the hell could Carmella be here with her when she’d been at the party and seen Lisa’s husband with someone else? She glanced over at Carmella, who smiled sadly at her like she knew what Peyton was thinking. Oh, hell no, she was not cut out for this crap.
“So coffee?” Lisa prodded.
“Why don’t you go sit down in the boardroom, and I’ll bring some coffee to you all, Peyton,” James said.
Peyton glanced over at James and gritted her teeth. “Great.” So much for being helpful.
“If I’m being honest, we really all just wanted to get to know Ryan’s girlfriend a little better, so prepare to be grilled,” Lisa said as she linked her arm with Peyton.
“Ryan?” James mouthed and Peyton rolled her eyes.
Could this day get any worse?
Chapter Three
