What?
It took a moment for her to make sense of the words on the screen. It was from the company she and Colin used to run background reports. It was fairly important their clients were who they said they were. That they weren’t broke, had a criminal record...
Because she was swamped with clients this week, she’d done the interview with Kimball before she received the background checks, something she didn’t like to do. If she had waited, she would’ve known Ross Kimball was not who he said he was. He wasn’t living at the address he stated; there were no marine biologists working in the area, or in the country, under that name and his contact numbers were bogus.
Brodie pulled out her chair and sat down. She’d been played and played well. Who was Kimball and why had he used such an elaborate ruse to meet her?
It didn’t take her long to come up with an answer.
Kade. And her relationship with him.
Since the world found out she was carrying Kade’s baby—a new generation of Mavericks!—she’d been bombarded with requests for interviews and she’d refused every offer. Her standard response was a consistent and, she guessed, infuriating “no comment.”
As Kade had said, the press had gone looking for a story and Ross had sneaked in via the back door. He’d played the role well, she thought. She hadn’t once suspected he wasn’t who he said he was.
So, who did he work for and what had he penned? And how could she find out, preferably before Wren and Kade did?
What had she told the man? They’d discussed the city and how lonely it could be, he’d flirted with her and she’d shut him down...
Shut him down by telling him she didn’t believe in love...
“‘Brodie Stewart is a walking contradiction, someone who earns a very healthy living matching people in that eternal quest for true love while discounting the notion for herself.’”
Brodie jerked her head up and winced when she saw Kade standing in the doorway to her office, reading from his phone. Well, guess she didn’t have to go looking for the article. Kade—via the annoyingly efficient Wren, she presumed—had accessed it on his smartphone. And, judging by his furious expression, he was less than thrilled by its contents.
Brodie leaned her head against the back of her chair. “Who is he?”
“Ross Bennett. A blogger with an enormous following. Quite well-known for his ability to twist the truth,” Kade replied, looking back down at the screen. Then he started to read, his tone flat and terrifyingly devoid of all emotion.
“In an interview with Ms. Stewart, she candidly admitted she didn’t believe in love. ‘I believe in sex. I believe in being independent, of standing on my own two feet. I believe in my career, in forging my own path, in keeping an emotional distance.’
“She doesn’t seem to have much faith in Kade Webb, either. Webb, according to Ms. Stewart, won’t stick around for the long haul. To Kade, having a baby is a novelty and she expects him to lose interest.”
Brodie gripped the arms of her chair. Oh, this was bad. This was very bad.
“Luckily for the Mavericks, Bennett is regarded as a trash-talking, sensation-seeking journalist. He is best to be ignored. Wren thought he was sucking the story out of thin air, but I heard your voice in those words. What happened?”
“He posed as a client and he fooled me,” Brodie reluctantly admitted.
Kade leaned a shoulder into the wall, his face a blank mask. His eyes were flat and emotionless and his mouth was a hard line. Kade was, she knew, incandescently angry. Maybe this was the final straw; she’d pushed him away so many times...maybe this time she’d pushed him too far. She’d tested his commitment to sticking by her and their child and he’d passed every test. But this was no longer a game, she realized; she’d pushed too hard and too far.
She didn’t need him to verbalize his intentions; he was done. The moment she’d both dreaded and welcomed was here and the pain would follow. She would deal with it and then she would go back to her safe, emotion-free life.
The life she wanted, she reminded herself. The life she felt comfortable in. The lonely, color-free, safe, boring life.
“Did I ever give you reason to think I would fade away?”
“No.”
“That I was playing at being a father?”
Brodie shook her head.
“I read that blog while standing outside the gallery exhibiting my father’s latest work. It struck me you could’ve been describing my father—that’s the way he was, the way he acted.”
God, she hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t meant him to think that. He was nothing like the man who sired him. “I’m sorry.”