Page 45 of It Must Be Fate

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Chapter Thirteen

Thayer

“Where is Daddy?” Hayes questions as I place an order at a small coffee shop near the pitch.

We just left the stadium. It was a thrilling match, not just because of the come from behind victory, but because of Rhys’s reaction to my pregnancy news. I’d expected him to be over the moon but I hadn’t expected him to abandon the game and come bounding into the stands towards us.

In retrospect, I really should have known.

Rhys is the best father there is. The moment Hayes was born, he morphed into the kind of super dad I would have liked to have growing up. He takes her with him everywhere — to daycare in the mornings, to the supermarkets during the weekends, to baby swim class in the evenings, to his practices when he can.

He’s counting down the days until she’s old enough to be enrolled in soccer classes so he can coach them.

They rarely spend time apart so it comes as no surprise to me that Hayes isn’t happy to leave the stadium without him.

“Daddy has to do a post-match debrief with the team and then he has press obligations so he won’t be home for a few more hours.”

“I’ll see him for dinner?”

I grab my coffee from the pickup area. “No, Hay, but he’ll come give you a kiss in your room when he’s home.”

Predictably, her face screws up and she starts howling her heartbreak. I bounce her on my hip to soothe her, with little success. She wants her dad and anything less than his reappearance won’t do.

“Thayer?”

I turn towards the voice that calls my name with a hint of disbelief in his tone, and come to an abrupt halt, my mind short circuiting for a second.

My reaction is so sudden that it startles Hayes into stopping her crying. She blinks with tears gathered on her lashes and looks from me to the man who spoke my name.

“Carter?”

Running into my ex-boyfriend in the middle of a busy London coffee shop when the last time I saw him was six and a half years ago in Switzerland and we met, dated, and I knew him inChicago, is shocking to say the least. My brain can’t reconcile the fact that he’s here, in front of me.

“Hi, fancy running into you here,” he says, adding, “It’s good to see you.”

He looks the same, except he’s settled into his features with age. He smiles at me and I’m relieved to find it seems genuine. We didn’t exactly leave things on the best terms.

“Hi. What are you doing here?”

My question comes out somewhere between dubious and accusatory, but he pays no mind to my tone.

“Work,” he replies. “I’m a video game developer. There’s the largest gaming competition in the world happening in London this weekend so I’m here with my company.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

I’m still reeling from the shock of seeing him and not sure what else to say.

His gaze slides down. “Is this your daughter?”

That pulls me out of my momentary fog. I look at Hayes who’s still firmly on my hip, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest.

“Yes, this is Hayes. Hayes, this is Carter, he’s a… he’s a friend of Mommy’s.”

“Hello, Hayes,” he says, giving her a small wave.

My daughter sticks her tongue out at him and turns away, burying her face in my shoulder instead.

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