19. Cobb

CHAPTER 19

COBB

T he last fucking thing I wanted to do today before the game was meet with the woman trying to control or ruin my life.

Could she actually ruin it? No, probably not. Could she control it? I wouldn't let her.

Monroe knew about all of this, so she wouldn't be taken by surprise and honestly, she'd taken the news pretty well.

Fuck, she believed me, which I hadn't thought anyone would do.

But could Hannah cause me a PR nightmare? Yeah, she fucking could.

Half an hour before we were supposed to meet—alone—I was waiting at the coffee shop where I'd met Monroe. That was the plan. Then she'd walk over with me to my lawyer's office, where the meeting was supposed to take place.

Hannah had offered to come to my apartment, but as far as I knew, she didn't have my address and I wasn't going to be the one to change that.

After ten minutes—no Monroe. I kept checking my phone and after five more minutes, I called her. Time was running out. My lawyer wanted to talk to me before the meeting and wanted me there twenty minutes early so that there'd be no chance of running into her on the way.

This conversation was supposed to be in a controlled environment. Manning wouldn't be part of it, watching it, and wasn't allowed to record it, so anything that happened would be my word against hers.

But the hope was that by meeting her, she'd admit she was lying and let me off the hook.

Finally, I couldn't wait anymore. Monroe didn't answer her phone and she wasn't here like she'd said she'd be, which left me with a lot of worry. First, that something had happened to her on the way here, or second, had the reality of all this set in and she'd changed her mind?

Fuck, I hoped not.

Still, I hurried over to my lawyer's office next door.

I was sitting in a conference room—alone, waiting for Hannah to show up.

Which she did two minutes after our meeting time.

She was wearing a sundress and holding a stomach that wasn't there like she was trying to show off that she was pregnant, but it was so early that there was nothing to show off. Her brown hair was in loose braids with wisps of hair around her face.

Hannah was an attractive woman who could probably get any guy she wanted. Other than me, anyway, which was part of the reason this didn't make sense. Manning said they'd verified that she was pregnant, so she wasn't faking it, which meant someone had gotten her that way.

Why wasn't she satisfied with going after him ?

"Hi, Cobb," she said almost shyly once the receptionist had shut the door behind her. The room wasn't overly large, with a rectangle table in the middle that only sat, like, eight people. But the wall shared with the rest of the office was all glass. People would be able to see our interaction if not hear it.

Which I thought was by design. Witnesses who could say whether or not I touched her because given her crazy accusations, I didn't trust that she wouldn't make something else up.

"Hello." Then I waited on the other side of the table for her to speak. When she didn't, I said, "You're the one who wanted this meeting. You're going to have to start."

She wet her lips and looked away shyly. This was an act. I knew that much about her. She'd been forward as hell at that party.

"I thought that by us being face to face, we could talk a little. You'd get to know me better and see how good we could be together."

I snorted. "What?"

That was probably the wrong reaction because her eyes narrowed. "We could be. I know everything about you."

"False," I told her immediately. "You know everything that's on Wikipedia or whatever. You don't know me. We met for, like, ninety seconds weeks ago. That's not knowing me."

"Exactly." She took a step forward and rested her hands on the back of a chair. I wasn't about to sit down because no matter what, I'd make sure she was on the other side of this table from me. "This is our chance to get to know each other."

"You're kidding, right?"

Her face hardened. Nope. Not kidding. There was something off-putting in the way she was talking to me.

Hannah would've been used to being around baseball players. She would've grown up with it. So why was she being like this with me?

"Well, it's enough to know that we'd be good together and from everything I've read, you'd be a great father. So why not just accept this?"

"Are you insane?" I snapped. Her mouth dropped open and I cringed. I shouldn't have said that. The last thing I wanted to do was rile her up more than I had to. "I'm sorry I said that, but what about the actual father of your baby? Shouldn't he have the chance to know his kid?"

She rolled her eyes at me. " You're the father of my baby."

"But I'm not." I said it louder than I needed to and threw my hands in the air in frustration. Anger turned my stomach, but I'd have to keep that under wraps to not make this whole thing worse. "I'm not, Hannah, and you know it. As soon as there's a paternity test, everyone will know it."

"I won't do the test," she said right away.

"The courts can force you to, but can you explain to me why you're doing this?"

"I want to be with you. I think that's obvious." She started to pace but then turned quickly to come to my side of the table. I stepped back, making sure she wasn't within arm's reach. "All of my research says you're a good guy." Fucking research? "You come from money. You make a ton of money. You'd be able to take care of us and you come from a baseball dynasty. Everyone knows your family."

I furrowed my brows. "Money? You dad has a shit ton of it. I don't really think you need to worry."

"You don't understand." She shook her head. "My dad will disown me if I don't get you to take responsibility."

"Why is that?"

"Because I told him you're the father." She took a deep breath then dropped the axe. "I could ruin your career," she said, sounding mildly threatening. "I could. I could go to the press and tell them that you got me pregnant—maybe it wasn't totally consensual—and now you're shirking your responsibility. No team is going to want to touch you."

She wasn't wrong in general. If she made allegations of it not being totally consensual, most teams wouldn't want to touch me with a ten-foot pole until it was figured out in court. But she forgot that my grandpa owns the team I was currently on and my mother managed it.

"You could try," I told her. "But I'd bet that I'd stay right here in Kalamazoo without much issue." I sighed. "Look, I only took this meeting to convince you to stop whatever this is against me. It's a lie and we both know it. I didn't touch you at that party."

She shrugged. "We were talking closely. Other people probably thought something was going on."

"They can think whatever they want." That wasn't my problem. "But you know that I didn't take you up on your offer."

She shrugged once more. "Maybe I don't take rejection well." She took a slow step forward.

Again, I snorted. "I think that's an understatement."

She narrowed her eyes on me. "Maybe I'm a little spoiled. I tend to get what I want and my mother told me that if you are what I want, I should go after you. Do what it takes to make you mine. That's all I'm doing."

While fighting the urge to grab her and shake her, I used my hands in the air in front of me to punctuate every word I loudly said. "But I don't want you ." Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I told her, "Even if we had hooked up that night and even if I had gotten you pregnant, I still wouldn't want you. I'd be there for my kid, but I wouldn't want you. I already have someone in my life and that's not going to change." Though technically right now, I wasn't totally convinced I had Monroe. She'd stood me up for this meeting without a call or a text when she'd been the one to offer to be here.

Hannah snapped back as if I'd actually slapped her and her face began to turn red with what I assumed was anger. "This is only going to get worse for you." Then with disgust she added, "And this supposed person in your life." After taking a moment to glare at me, she asked, "Who is she?"

I shook my head. "That's none of your business."

"I'm about to make it my business."

Now I took a step forward. "Is that a threat?" Because no matter how miffed I was at Monroe for today, no matter if she still wanted to be with me, I'd protect her. She didn't deserve to deal with this with everything she was dealing with on her own.

A sly grin spread across her face. "Not at all. I'm just saying this isn't over."

"It is for me." I walked the long way around the table toward the door to avoid getting any closer to her than I had to. "I won't meet with you again and I will figure out how to force a paternity test out of you."

"You can't do that." Her voice wavered and for a split second, I felt something like concern for her. Then that feeling disappeared just as quickly. She was the one trying to control my life. "My father will disown me."

I glanced back at her. She was picking at her fingernails and breathing erratically. She was actually concerned, which to me meant whoever had actually gotten her pregnant was going to piss her father off enough for him to turn his back on her.

But that was her problem. Not mine.

"That's not my problem," I told her, then I left the room and went directly to Manning's office, as we'd discussed.

He shut the door behind him then went to make sure Hannah had been escorted out of the building before coming back to me so I could tell him everything that had happened.

"That's interesting," he said. "The fact that she said her father would disown her twice leads me to believe that whoever the baby's father is would be a problem for her father. Which is why she latched on to you."

I threw my hands in the air and let them hit the arms of the chair I was sitting in. "That doesn't make sense to me, though, because if I was the better choice, why would her dad trade me? Wouldn't he want to keep me there?"

Manning shook his head. "I can't say what's going through his head, but the fact that she also mentioned that you come from money tells me she's looking for security. We can use that."

I narrowed my eyes on him. "Are you saying you want me to pay her off?"

He chuckled. "Not at all. But information is power, so we can go from there. I'm going to use my private investigator to see if we can figure out who the real father might be. That could help us. I'll also continue to work on a court order for a paternity test. Hopefully, in two weeks when she's far enough along, we can get that blood test done."

"Good."

"Now." He glanced at his watch. "I've got another case I need to deal with right now and you have a game to get to, don't you?"

"Yeah," I told him as I stood.

Technically, I didn't have a game for hours, but I did have a workout and a bull pen session to throw.

Reaching out my hand, he took it and shook it as I thanked him for his help. Sure, he was getting paid a fuck ton for it, but I still appreciated it.

And maybe the investigator would get to the bottom of this, but right now, I didn't give a fuck. Let her leak it. What would it matter in the end?

Other than the fact that anyone who knew Monroe and that we were together would assume it was true and she'd be inundated with questions.

If we were even still fucking together. Her not showing up today sent a message.

On my way home, I went by her apartment and her car wasn't there, so I didn't stop.

Should I have been worried that something had happened to her? I didn't think so. She was spending the morning with her dads, so I wasn't concerned that the fucknut would get to her. If she'd had an accident, I would've been called, I thought.

No. Her not showing up had been a choice. One I'd have to deal with later because right now, I had to get my head in the proverbial game.

Fuck all of this.

My choices were that I could go home or go to Brooks's house.

I chose my brother's place after the game. It was easy to hang out except that I lost track of the number of beers I'd been drinking, which was very much unlike me.

But two things became true.

One, I was going to sleep like the dead.

Two, I was going to regret this night in the morning.