Page 48 of Light Up My Life (Forbidden Heat 3)

Chapter Sixteen

Kat

I hated seeing Lance’s face when I told him that I was leaving. He looked so down, lower than I’d ever seen anyone. I hated having to do that to him, but I had to follow my heart. I had to follow my dreams. I was sure he understood that.

“Are you crazy?” Kayley asked me when I got back home. I told her everything. She was walking back and forth while I sat there, sipping coffee. I had left in such a hurry from Lance’s. I wanted to get home and pack. I was planning to leave the next day.

“I might be. But, we’ve always wondered about my mental state,” I said.

“Well, then you need to think this over. Why are you throwing away a great guy over a dream?”

I wasn’t sure where to begin answering that question. “I have to do this. I’ve only known him a few weeks. I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a kid.”

“Why does it have to be now? Softball will be there later. You are still a very young woman. You have a good ten to fifteen years of it if you want.”

“It’s just getting way out of hand,” I said. “I barely know him, and he wants me to marry him? That’s crazy, right? I can’t justify it.”

Kayley stared at me like I was from Mars. “You want to run that by me one more time?”

I sighed. I hadn’t really told Kayley the full story about what Lance wanted me to do. I sat there and gave her the entire proposition. Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped so wide, I thought she might trip and fall in. It was kind of funny to see.

“And why are you just now telling me this?” she asked. “Holy shit. You are walking away from twenty million dollars and a great guy? You need to have your head examined.”

“I’ve thought that a time or two, but right now I really think I’m doing the right thing. I’ve got to take this opportunity.”

“Are you telling me that you have no feelings for him at all? Like, you don’t consider him husband material, when twenty million are on the line?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s too much to think about. I can’t make that decision. So, the decision has basically been made for me.”

“That’s insane. Well, you know I am going to miss you like crazy. I just hope you don’t do anything really wild in Cleveland that I have to hear about on the news first.”

“I will try,” I said. “I promise.”

“Ok, so when are you leaving?”

“I’ll probably be leaving tomorrow morning,” I said. “I want to get up there and get settled in. I have a little money saved for a first and last months’ rent, plus security deposit. I hope to get something near the fields. I am going to take some time to get to know them. That way they will have a lot more faith in me as a leader on the field. I can’t believe they want me to pitch. I thought my tryouts sucked.”

“Maybe they pulled up some old footage of you from your days in high school.”

“Yeah, but that was years ago. They must have chosen me based on what they saw. And that is very strange. I could have sworn I saw better talent on that field than me.”

“Are you trying to talk yourself out of this dream? See, even you don’t think you really should be walking away from Lance and what he is offering. Deep down, I think that’s where you really belong. I would love to see that for you, but in the end, you have to follow your heart. It is your life, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it is my life. I just don’t know if I’m making the right choice.”

Kayley seemed confused. “I thought you just said how right it was? What’s going on in that twisted mind of yours?”

I laughed. “I think you just answered your own question. I don’t really know. There are too many things coming at me at once. I need to do something to clear my head. I’m going to go for a run and make sure that I am making the right choice. Shit, why does this have to be so hard? I wish that I’d never met Lance. Then I wouldn’t know about him and my life could have stayed perfectly simple.”

“Is that really what you wished had happened?”

“No, I guess not. It’s just frustrating.”

I changed into my jogging outfit, grabbed a bottle of water and ran out the door. The air was warming up as I got farther into the Spring. I loved this time of year. I usually jogged at least two miles a day, but lately I’d been opting for more of a weight workout at the gym.

As I jogged, I couldn’t help my mind thinking about the situation with Lance and the fact that I was leaving him hi and dry to sort out things on his own. It was a shitty thing to do on my part, but I had never promised I was going to follow through with the whole marriage thing. I could tell he thought I would still come around to the idea. And I might have. I was running out of options, and it was the best offer anyone could ever dream of having.

And I was leaving the man I loved.

---