Page 108 of Off Court Fix

And I have a speech to get through, which I regret asking if I can give after I connected with Susan from the First Step Group last week.

I wash my hands again with cold water since I can’t splash it on my face, then dry them.

“I’m good,” I say to myself in the mirror. “Everything is fine.”

I’ll eat dinner, give my speech, and Crosby and I will leave the gala and come up with a game plan. Or better, he’ll already have one. He already resigned. It could be worse.

Reaching for the door, I stop when I pull it back.

“Please, please, not right now,” I say when I see my father standing there in a tuxedo and I should’ve remembered he bought gala tickets for former clients of his to attend.

I can only handle one emotional crisis at a time, and I don’t know how much more I can take.

Dad sighs. “We need to talk.”

That had been the only thing he wrote in the email he sent me three days ago, the message being just a hair more than the radio silence between us since he showed up at my house. I had planned to fire my father, no longer accept him as my manager, but with everything that happened in Cincinnati, I couldn’t devote the mental energy to taking care of it. And how was I supposed to do that? Over email? A phone call? Take him to lunch?

“Tonight is not a good night,” I say, trying to move past him, but Dad steps forward, forcing me back. “This is the ladies’ room!”

“I heard,” Dad begins, “you’re giving a speech tonight.”

It doesn’t matter how he heard. I never meant to keep it secret. I just didn’t feel the need to send a press release about it.

“I am, and I need to get back out there.”

Dad holds up a hand. “What exactly are you planning to talk about?”

I know where this is going, yet I still shake my head at his audacity. “Does it matter? Mason has been dead forfouryears. Four years today, actually, in case you forgot,” I snap.

“That’s right, Maxine. And let’s let a sleeping dog lie, shall we? Is there a need to have some sort of emotional, drawn-out discussion about this?”

There is, I want to scream. Because people can learn from my mistakes—our mistakes. But they can’t do that if I stay silent, like I’ve done my entire life.

“Did he put you up to this?”

“Who?”

“The gardener.”

“Are you...” I press a hand to my forehead. “Are you out of your mind? Why would he have anything to do with it?”

Dad folds his arms across his chest. “You tell me. What was he doing at your house at nine a.m., considering he has a full-time jobhere?”

I tongue my cheek. “Protecting me from you.”

Jutting his head back, Dad drops his arms. “Oh, for god’s sake, Max—”

“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s helped me,savedme. You know, out on the path through the dunes down to the beach, I accidentally took a bite of a protein bar made frompeanuts.” I can see the shift in Dad’s eyes, but his hard, firm stance doesn’t waver. “I was alone, it was early, Jack and I started hitting at six that day. I could’vedied. And Crosby? The gardener? The umpire? He was there. He administered my EpiPen, brought me to the emergency room, took me home.”

Dad shakes his head. “You didn’t call me.”

“Do you know why? Because I knew exactly how the conversation would go, Dad. Take a few days off from tennis.Don’tplay in Wimbledon, but do go to this meeting, that meeting, shoot this campaign... You would’ve used my weakness to makeyoustrong. That’s what Crosby was protecting me from the day you showed up at my house. But guess what? He’s not here. And the Max you think you can bully or guilt into doing whatever you want, she’s long gone too.”

Looking down at his feet, Dad begins to speak slowly. “If youtrulyfeel that way about me, you’d give me a chance to explain myself, to make things right. Now, we—”

“There is no morewe,” I say calmly before stepping around him. “I’m a one-woman show, Dad. Make sure you take a front seat. You won’t want to miss it.”

Again,I’m wondering if fate is playing some cruel joke on me tonight, because the only thing that could make this situation worse is if I found myself sitting at a table with both Hunter and my father.

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