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Once Reese had collected herself enough, she made her way back to the table. Grady was there, eating his tiramisu. He smiled at her when she sat down, but his expression dimmed when he saw her distress.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You look a little pale.”
“It’s nothing.”
The last thing she wanted to do was burden him with her drama. She sat through the last of the speeches and award presentations, and she kept a smile pasted on her face, but she thought of the woman from the ladies’ room. How many people thought of Reese in the same way? Probably too many, and if she didn’t get her life back on course soon and win back all the people she’d lost, she feared she’d be ruined forever.
ChapterThirty-Three
With training camp in full gear for Grady, he was often busy, or on a road trip with the team. He wasn’t expected to play in any of the early preseason games—those games were for rising stars—but he went with the team, nonetheless. Reese missed his company, but she stayed immersed in her work. And when Cam was in town again for more meetings with his father’s lawyer, Reese asked him to stay over. When he was done his meetings, he and Reese went to an old-school diner for some burgers and fries.
“Your dad must be working you to the bone,” Reese said, swishing the ice in her soda.
“Just a lot of work lately.”
“You mentioned something about acquiring another business? Something like that?”
“Yeah.”
Something was off with him. He was normally upbeat, the one who propped her up, who made jokes, who always had a smile on his face. “You don’t seem yourself.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing,” he said, forcing a smile.
Reese shook her head. “It’s not nothing. It’s not Devi, is it?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
He stared into his soda and frowned. “Things are a little complicated at work right now, and it’s a lot to deal with.”
She wasn’t buying any of this. “We share everything. Why are you being cagey?”
“I’m not being cagey. I just…don’t want to burden you with anything. You’ve got enough going on.”
Her heart rate ticked up. “You better tell me what’s going on, because right now, I’m getting a little nervous.”
He groaned and pushed his soda away. “The meetings I have with Dad’s lawyers? It’s to avoid bankruptcy.”
His words jolted her. “Bankruptcy?”
“Business hasn’t been great, and Dad made some bad financial decisions. When I started working on his books, I realized just how bad it was. We’ve been trying to turn it around these last few months, but it looks like he has no other choice but to file for bankruptcy and lose everything.”
Reese blinked a few times. This came as a shock to her. “I’m so sorry, Cam. I guess he doesn’t want you to help him out financially?”
Cam shifted in his seat and looked pensive. “I’m not in a position to help him.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s bad and I don’t have enough money to help. I’m planning a wedding and we just bought a house.”
Something wasn’t adding up. Reese knew how much they’d made on the skating tour after they’d retired. Sure, it wasn’t a total windfall, but he must have saved more money than that, unless his father’s debt was astronomical.
“How much does your dad owe?”
