Page 2 of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Catching Feelings #1)

CHAPTER TWO

KAYLA

I ’ve sat in a lot of beautiful offices in my life.

My office in the Mudflaps stadium isn’t one of them.

Since day one, I’ve been itching to update the rust brown carpet and faded eggshell blue walls, but I’m trying to prove to the people of Mullet Ridge, South Carolina, that I am accessible. A woman of the people.

Not a billionaire whose daddy bought her a minor league baseball team because he could sense how unhappy her ex made her and thought it would be a “fun hobby.”

I love my father dearly, but we have very different definitions of what makes a hobby “fun.”

In the four months since he sprang this little surprise on me, though, I’ve had a life-changing conversation with a random bartender who could moonlight as a therapist; subsequently broken up with my fiancé; taken a leave as the Chief Sustainability Officer of one of the largest commercial agriculture companies in the world; moved from my high-rise condo in Atlanta to my cousin’s house in nearby Sugar Maple, South Carolina; and thrown myself into learning baseball.

Don’t ask me which of these has been the hardest adjustment.

I have an MBA from Wharton. How is it that The Economist is light reading, yet the in-field fly ball rule eludes me entirely?

To say nothing of trying to remember all these blasted names.

There’s one name I have no problem remembering, though.

Sean O’Shannan.

The random bartender with kind, warm brown eyes and a voice as calm and certain as a wave. He was working a wedding for a friend of mine, and somehow, his bartender therapy got me to admit that I felt trapped in my engagement. Not just trapped, suffocated.

And then Sean O’Shannan asked me the strangest question:

“What do you want to make happen?”

It wasn’t merely the question, but the way he asked it that resonated. He asked it like he couldn’t understand how I didn’t already know the answer. Like he was confident in my ability to act, not simply be acted upon.

What do you want to make happen?

Make , not have .

Looking around the office at the peeling paint, popcorn ceiling, and flickering fluorescent light that hums like a fly at a picnic, I have to laugh.

Is this what I wanted to make happen?

Four months ago, I was presenting a sustainability initiative in a boardroom that overlooked the Thames.

The week before that, I was in Italy—or was it Prague?

Wherever it was, the air in the room was crisp and filtered and didn’t smell vaguely of chili dogs.

And in my tailored silk suit, I fit in beautifully.

Unlike here, where I stick out like a vegan at a barbecue.

I spin in my chair and glance out the window, where the team— my team—is practicing. All those fit, handsome men running around, hitting and catching and throwing. But because I feel like their mother, I can’t even enjoy it.

Thanks a lot, Dad.

A knock sounds on my office door, and I spin my chair around. “Come in!”

My new assistant, Prescott, walks through the door.

She is the cutest thing. Twenty-six, with tortoiseshell glasses. Always wearing smart pencil skirts with fabulous heels that make me think she’s dressing for the job she wants. She’s from Pennsylvania, has two older brothers, and lives with her cat.

Prescott from Pennsylvania loves pencil skirts and pet cats named Pinto.

And she goes by Scottie.

Yes, I do recite facts about people in my head to help me remember them. Why do you ask?

“Miss Carville? You have that call with the league rep now.”

“It’s already 2:30? Remind me who I’m speaking with.”

Scottie takes a few steps farther into the office. “Gordon Voss, the VP of Minor League Affiliations. Should I take notes?”

“Yes, thank you.”

I roll my desk chair closer to my gorgeous Arhaus executive desk, the one luxury I’ve slipped into this room with no one knowing.

It’s simple, understated—like something you could pick up at Ikea (well, maybe Pottery Barn.

I’ve never actually been to Ikea. Evidently, people get lost there regularly.).

It’s solid oak with a weathered gray finish and softly beveled edges that look run of the mill but that could make you cry over the craftsmanship.

And the interior of the drawers is lined with a suede that’s as smooth as butter.

Sometimes when I get overwhelmed, I stick my hand in a drawer and just rub the suede and breathe.

It’s odd.

I fire up my computer and click on the calendar link Scottie shared with me. She gets off screen, and a second later, I’m waiting for the organizer to join the call.

I take a quick moment to look at my appearance. My long auburn waves are nicely tamed. My makeup looks clean. No flecks of mascara to be found on my ivory skin.

Then my eyes flash to my background, and my stomach drops.

Peeling paint. Faded rust brown carpet. Outdated furnishings. A single, dying fiddle leaf fig.

Naturally, it’s at this moment that the league representative chooses to start the zoom call, right before I can find the filter that blurs my background.

And worse still, the rep isn’t the only person on the call.

“Aldridge?” I ask, my stomach dropping somewhere around my knees. I put on my most polite smile as I look at my ex-fiancé, the man I broke up with only two months ago.

Right before our wedding.

I expect to see a ghost of a sneer, that politely amused look he gets on his face when he knows better than someone but is going to let them flounder.

But he isn’t sneering now. There’s worry in the lines of his usually smooth brow, and I don’t see a hint of the patronizing smiles he would give me when I was playing with his sister’s children at his family’s parties instead of forming alliances with politicians like I was supposed to.

A familiar discomfort creeps up my back like the daddy longlegs I used to trap on my grandparents’ farm.

And looking at my office this way strikes up that same skin-crawling fear.

It’s one thing for the people in the stadium to see me this way—in this rundown office.

Most of them were here before I became the owner.

They know the efforts I’m making to improve the facilities; they see I’m putting fans and players first. Anyone with eyes can figure out that my office is the last item on my priority list, a pointed statement meant to showcase my philosophy as the new owner in a town that seems to dislike me, if not flat out resent me.

But for Aldridge to see this? I can only imagine what he’ll tell his family. Our old friends.

“Poor Kayla. She’s really going through something right now. An identity crisis of some sort. It’s tragic. I’m terribly worried about her.”

And that’s the worst part. Aldridge genuinely believes that this shabby office and peeling paint are proof I’ve lost my way, that without him, I can’t possibly be thriving.

His quiet, stubborn certainty that I needed him to stay polished and perfect and safe is like a spider carefully tending its web—for the fly’s own good, of course.

I am not a fly.

“Kayla, sweetheart. I hoped you’d be surprised to see me,” he says over the screen. He makes a show of looking past me, as if that’s how computer technology works. “But where are you? Are you in an abandoned warehouse?”

Oh.

There’s the patronizing smile.

I wish I were sitting next to him so I could dig my heel through his foot. Even if I’m wearing wedges.

“No, Aldridge, I’m in my office. Where are you? I didn’t realize West Elm had executive showrooms. It looks so pristine and … sterile.” Truthfully, it looks ultra swanky—all leather and dark, clean colors. I grudgingly admit it’s gorgeous, if lifeless. “And why are you crashing my meeting?”

“Those questions have the same answer,” he says with a tight laugh. “You’ve always been so efficient.”

“That’s why we wanted to have this call,” the league rep, Gordon, says. Gangly Gordon has gray hair and a grimace. “Aldridge is the new owner of the Nashville Outlaws.”

I cock my head to the side, anger at myself bubbling up.

Kayla, you fool.

Aldridge is a collector, and I was the prize he always wanted.

It drove him crazy that I kept pushing back the wedding, citing work and family responsibilities.

When we broke up, I expected him to be furious, but by then, my dad had already bought me the team.

He took this as proof that my dad had seen something in me—a breakdown waiting to happen—and assumed this was my misguided way of coping.

He’s been so sure I’d come crawling back to him, he refused to take back the six-carat monstrosity of an engagement ring.

I sent it back via an armored delivery service.

So I shouldn’t be surprised that Aldridge bought the Nashville Outlaws. Because they’re not any old team—they’re our biggest rival, though I’m told the Mudflaps haven’t made it interesting in years.

I bet he reads a textbook’s worth of symbolism into that.

“You bought the Outlaws?” I smile to hide my scream. “How fun for you! Look at us, both moving on with new hobbies. Best of luck, Aldridge.”

Gordon’s condescending chuckle makes my teeth grit. “Not so fast, Miss Carville. We called you for a reason. You see, the league just approved the sale of the team to Mr. Sinclair last week, and he’s already hard at work revamping the stadium.”

Already? And isn’t the Outlaws stadium only five, maybe ten years old? What updating could it require?

“How exciting,” I say, my mask of politeness firmly in place.

“And here’s where the two of you come in. The Outlaws are one of the biggest teams in Triple-A ball, and, frankly, the Mudflaps aren’t . The league wants to see the two of you work together to get the Mudflaps some press and drum up more enthusiasm for the league.”

I smile demurely. “We don’t need the help. But thank you.”

“Kayla,” Aldridge says with a sweet chuckle. “Sweetheart.”

“We broke up, Aldridge. The terms of endearment ended with our engagement.”