Funny how I never minded being away from home before, but now … the short time I’ve been gone seems like forever. The worst part of all is I miss not only Violet, but Andi too. I want her lips on mine and her sweet pussy wrapped around my—

“Wilde, you with us?”

“What?”

“I was just saying that you played a great game today.”

“Oh, thanks.” One of my teammates pounds my back as we leave the locker room.

“You must be ready to get back to Italy,” he says, laughing.

“Yeah. I’m tired.”

“You should be with the way you ran and fielded the ball. Nice work. Wish I had those double-footed skills of yours.”

“Thanks.”

We’re headed out to the bus when my phone rings. It’s Andi, and I’m a little more than surprised. She’s never called me since she’s moved here. Not once.

“Hey,” I answer, smiling. Maybe she’s missing me as much as I’m missing her.

“Chase.” I immediately detect the concern in her tone. A chill races down my spine.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Violet.”

“Is she okay?”

“I’m not really sure yet.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” My voice levels up several notches.

“Okay, calm down, tiger.” That’s a name she hasn’t used in years. It makes me pause and take a deep breath.

“Right. So, why the call?”

“She spiked another fever last night so I took her to the doctor today. You know … the one we agreed on.”

“And?” I prompt.

“He wants to run some tests. With as many of these fevers she keeps getting, I concur.”

The team is loading up on the bus that will take us to the airport to fly home. This isn’t a conversation I want to have in front of everyone, so I amble off to the side where I can speak freely.

“Is this serious?” My brain doesn’t want to go anywhere that might spell devastating illness. I won’t accept it.

“We won’t know unless they run tests to find out.”

“Andi.” Her name rips from my throat as I feel the burn of possibilities I don’t dare think of.

“Chase, don’t go down that road.”

“Right. Right.” That’s what I say, but my mind is moving in the opposite direction. How can this be? I just found my daughter, and now this? Someone calls my name and I glance up to see the team has boarded the bus, except for me.

“Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll call when I get to the airport.”

“No, it’s fine. She doesn’t have the tests scheduled for a few weeks.”

“What the hell do you mean? This needs to be done now.” Again, I’m practically yelling.

“Chase, call me from the airport. You can’t do anything from there. We’ll talk in a little while.”

How can she be so calm? I’m ready to tear heads off of some people. I stomp up the steps of the bus and flop down on the first available seat.

“Wow. Who stole your …”

“Shut up. I don’t need any sarcasm right now.” I pin my closest friend and teammate with a glare that would wither a pit bull.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks.

“Won’t know until I get home. And, Leo, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, I got it.”

We get to the airport rather quickly, and I collect my bags and head to check in. It doesn’t take long before I’m at the gate calling Andi.

When she tells me the reason for how long until Violet can get the tests run, I tell her I will make some calls when I get home. Violet will have those tests before several weeks pass. Andi says they are only blood tests and she needs to see a specialist. But her pediatrician wants the tests run first.

The flight, which is only an hour and a half, seems to take forever. I thought my issue with Lucia was bad, but Violet’s potential health problem just pounded that into the ground. I had already decided to hire a private investigator and find out whether or not Lucia is telling the truth. My attempts at accompanying her to the doctor will not be pushed aside. If she is indeed pregnant, I will be with her to find out. But I have my suspicions about that. Lucia is the type of woman to use any means to get what she wants. I can see her pretending to be pregnant and then saying she lost the baby. But I will ferret out the truth in this situation.

Exhaustion nails me by the time the house comes into view. All I want to do is sleep, but then again, when I think about Violet, sleep is the last thing on my mind.

It’s late—past Violet’s bedtime—by the time I get here. Andi greets me at the door, and it’s not hard to see the worry etched around her eyes.

After I drop my bags, I open my arms and she walks straight into them. This isn’t about sex. It’s about comforting each other. I feel her body trembling, and it lets me know how hard this has been on her.

“She’s sleeping?” I ask.

“Yeah. Her fever is gone now, but it zaps her energy.”

I grab her hand and pull her toward the living area so we can sit.

She asks me, “Have you eaten?”

“No. I lost my appetite after our conversation.”

“Yeah, I haven’t had much of one, either.”

“So tell me everything.”

Violet has had way too many fevers for this to be a coincidence. There must be something else brewing. Andi knows more than she’s telling me, considering her medical background.

“Spill it. I can take it.”

“It’s not a matter of that. There are a ton of things it could be, and then it could be something that could burn itself out. The doctor was telling me about a patient he had about ten years ago that came in with fevers of unknown origin—which is what they’re calling it right now—and they never could find out what was wrong with her. Suddenly, they went away as quickly as they came. It was a mystery to everyone.”

“Hmm. Sure is weird.” I scratch my head because it sounds super fishy.

“I know, but weird, unexplainable things happen in medicine all the time.”

I look her dead in the eye. “Andi, what else could it be?”

She squirms, so I know it’s not good. “Things you don’t need to hear about.”

“Yeah, I do, because if I know now and she has one of them, I won’t be caught by surprise.”

“Leukemia.”

A knot the size of Mount Everest forms in my gut. Fuck. I don’t break eye contact. I have to be strong for all of us.

“Go on.”

“Rheumatoid arthritis or other illnesses like it—what they call autoimmune diseases.”

“And?”

“Aplastic anemia.”

“What’s that?”

“An incurable form of anemia.”

“So, what? Would she just take vitamins or something?”

Andi slowly shakes her head. “No, Chase. She would undergo treatment with medication.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Those are what they look for initially, then other types of cancer if all comes back normal.”

“Ohhhkayyy.” Another gut punch that leaves me gasping. I can’t imagine that little ball of energy with an illness such as any of those. Filling my lungs with air, I say, “She doesn’t have any of that. Violet is good. She’s fine.”

“Yeah. She’s fine.”

We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, then out of the blue, Andi says, “That woman came by.”

“Woman?”

“The one who says she’s pregnant.” She twists her fingers together and won’t look me in the eye. This has to be awkward for her, and me as well.

“What? She came here?” It pisses me off because I told Lucia to stay away from here.

“Yesterday.”

A long puff of air blows out of me. “Andi, I broke it off with her a while back. I don’t believe she’s telling the truth, but I want all doors open between us. I’m hiring a private investigator to dig into things, and I told her I wanted to be at her doctor’s appointments.” I head to the refrigerator to grab a beer. I’m thirsty, but now I need something to calm my pissed-off nerves.

“She doesn’t look at it that way.”

Andi had followed me into the kitchen, but I didn’t hear her. Spinning around, I say, “I don’t give a fuck what she thinks. I never lied to her or kept the truth from her. She knew from the beginning we were never going to be together. She’s delusional.” I can’t believe I’m discussing this with Andi.

In a soft voice, she asks, “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Is it possible? That she could be pregnant, that is.”

How the fuck do I answer this? I can’t lie, even though I know it will hurt her.

“Yeah, I suppose so, but,” I rub the back of my aching neck, “we haven’t been together like that in months. So she would have to be really pregnant. And I always used protection with her. I never trusted her.”

Andi opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, then blurts out, “Why ever would you be with a woman you couldn’t trust?”

Fuck me. Has this conversation ever gone deep? Dare I tell her the truth and bare my stupid soul? I’m not sure I have the fucking nerve to do it.

The coward in me rules and I answer, “I don’t know. She was always there, showing up at the right time, saying the right things. And I was stupid.”

“I’ll say.”

“You don’t have to rub it in. I’ve already learned my lesson. Max has done damage control way too many times with her. I thought after that fake engagement announcement she did I was through. I made it perfectly clear to her we were done countless times. But the damn woman won’t stop.”

“Chase, she’s a stalker. You realize that, don’t you?”

Having someone else say it makes it so much clearer to me.

“She could be a danger to our daughter.”

My head snaps up. “Do you honestly think so?”

“How the hell do I know? You’re the one who knows her, not me.”

“True.” I think about Lucia and everything she’s pulled and wonder about that.

“She seems pretty desperate,” Andi says.

“I’ll talk to Max and see what he thinks. Maybe I need to hire a security team.”

Andi glares at me.

“What?”

She doesn’t speak, but walks away.

“Hey, don’t do this. I don’t want any walls between us.”

She stops and turns. “You’ve put our daughter in a precarious situation with that woman, Chase. I don’t know what she’ll do. You’re not here very much. I’m alone in a foreign country with Violet, who is now ill, and I’m left to deal with this … this shit.”

“You won’t be alone. I promise. I’ll get someone here tomorrow. You won’t have to deal with her again. If she shows up here, I’ll have her escorted off the property and arrested.”

“You can’t have her arrested unless there are super strict laws here or unless you have a restraining order of some kind.”

“Then I’ll get one.”

“I swear to God, if anything happens to Violet because of her …”

She doesn’t finish, but walks away, leaving me in the kitchen alone. I immediately call Max. He’ll know what to do. When I explain the situation, he says he knows someone who can help. Max seems to know everyone. I’m not sure how, but he does.

“I’ll have someone out there tomorrow. And your Violet will have her tests run by the end of the week.”

“And, Max, I want a private investigator on Lucia. She’s lying. I know she is.”

“I think so too. I’ll get you the best, Chase.”

That night, I get zero sleep because all I can think of is Violet. The what-ifs haunt my thoughts and erase any chances of rest. By the time my room shows signs of daybreak, I’m the caged animal, ready to run free.

Thankfully, there is no practice today, only a team meeting to review our game and go over what we did right and where we fucked up. That’ll last all morning, which will suck. My concentration won’t be on anything discussed. I’m sure of that. I head to the kitchen for some coffee to find Andi already beat me to the pot.

“You couldn’t sleep either?” I ask.

“Yes and no. Violet woke me. She spiked another fever last night.”

The cup in my hand hits the floor and shatters, sending pieces of ceramic all over the place. It’s somehow fitting, because it’s the exact same way my heart feels.