Chapter Twenty-Six
Payton
That afternoon it was scorching hot on the field and I wanted nothing more than to call it quits and go back to the suite and enjoy a cool, refreshing drink and the comfort of air conditioning, but I knew that if I left before the practice was over, Nick Wilcox would think he’d won. There was no way I was going to let that man get the best of me, so I suffered in silence as I counted down the minutes until practice ended and I could escape.
Dax spent the afternoon wandering up and down the sidelines, watching the players run through their drills, and occasionally asking questions about the benefits of each drill. As I watched him out of the corner of my eye, I realized he reminded me a lot of my father. Tall, dark, and handsome with an underlying fierceness that they only showed when absolutely necessary. I smiled as I recalled the afternoons my father spent striding up and down the sidelines alongside my grandfather, listening to the old man tell him how things ought to be. Daddy had loved and respected my grandfather deeply, but he’d never let Granddaddy take advantage of him. It was a fine line, and he walked it well.
Having come from the Bears family, I knew that Nick’s outburst was not only understandable, but also expected. If someone like me had suddenly shown up on the sidelines of the Bears training camp, Granddaddy would have been equally suspicious. I didn’t take it personally, but something told me that Nick Wilcox wasn’t just suspicious of me. I didn’t have any evidence of anything beyond what had happened, so I tucked the memory away in the back of my mind for future reference.
As soon as practice was over, I headed straight for the Navigator idling in the drive. I could feel the effects of the sun’s rays on my skin and I was eager to get back to the hotel and take a dip in the enormous rooftop pool. As we waited for Dax to appear, I thought about how I was going to explain all of this to my mother. I knew she’d be furious with me, but I also know that I’d take a bit of pleasure in telling her. She’d put me in an untenable position and I’d done what I’d needed to do. She was going to have to deal with it.
“Hey, aren’t we waiting for Dax?” I leaned forward and asked Geo as the SUV pulled away from the training facility.
“I’ll come back for him, ma’am,” the man responded without looking at me.
“I see,” I said, leaning back against the cool leather seat and wondering what business Dax had to take care of before he returned to the hotel. I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t talk much about football or the team, but I knew that given the situation it was unlikely that Dax would suddenly trust me with insider information about the team.
I sighed and looked out the window as the vehicle moved through the small city. Champagne-Urbana was a beautiful, little college town, and without the students it felt almost pastoral. I wondered where we’d go for dinner and whether there was a bookstore nearby. I made a mental note to do a search for one after my swim.
It wasn’t long before we were pulling into the hotel drive, and by the time I got up to the room, I wondered if maybe a nap might be a better choice than a swim. Deciding my first choice was the best option, I slipped out of my clothes, pulled my bikini out of my suitcase, and put it on. I had just grabbed a towel from the luxuriously large bathroom when my phone rang. The ringtone let me know it was my mother. Now was as good a time as any.
“Hello, Mother,” I said warily.
“Goddamn it, Payton Grace!” my mother exploded into the speaker. “What in the hell do you think you are doing?”
“What are you talking about, Mother?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm and give nothing away.
“Do not play games with me, young lady!” she yelled. “I’ve seen the papers and the pictures. What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“Oh, you mean Dax?” I asked innocently.
“You know goddamn good and well what I mean,” she growled. “How do you think this looks for me? For the Bears?”
“Well, since you were the one who issued the ultimatum…” I said trailing off.
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady,” she spat. “You cannot do this. Your grandfather is rolling over in his grave as you humiliate this family!”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Mother,” I said in bored tone. “After all, you’re the one who demanded that I find a man and get married, or have you forgotten that?”
“This is not what I meant, and you know it!” she yelled. I pulled the phone away from my ear as she spat out an angry torrent of insults designed to get me to bow down and come running back to the fold. What she didn’t know was that I’d had enough and I wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“Mother, I’m going to say this only once, so I’ll speak slowly and clearly,” I said once she’d wound herself down. I could hear her breathing heavily on the other end and I knew that she was seething. “You told me to find a man and get married. You gave me the deadline of a month. You told me that I’d be disinherited if I did not do as you ordered. I’ve done everything you required, so I think you should back the hell off and leave me alone.”
“You are the most ungrateful and disrespectful child ever to have lived,” she hissed. “Your brother would never have spoken to me this way.”
“Well, we’ll never be able to prove that one way or another, now will we?” I said spitting venom. She had pushed all of my buttons and I was dangerously close to drawing blood.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve such a rude and hurtful daughter,” she said trying to shame me into line.
“I do,” I replied. “You’re being an unreasonable bitch and Daddy would be horrified to see how you’re treating me.”
“You ungrateful—you will pay for this terrible behavior, Payton Grace,” she hissed. “I will not tolerate disrespect and disloyalty from my own flesh and blood!”
“Then you probably should have thought through your decision to force me to get married,” I struck back. “Because this is all your own doing.”
On the other end, I heard a strangled cry and then the line went dead. I stood holding the phone to my ear as if it would stave off the feelings of hurt, anger, and betrayal that were about to come crashing down on me. When it was clear that my mother was no longer on the line, I dropped the phone on the bed, sunk to the carpet covering my face with my hands, and wept.