Free Inner Circle by Evelyn Lozada Page A

exception.”
    Eve smiled as Andrew pointed to his custom-framed jersey bearing the #7 on it.
    “I knew after my shoulder blew out on me my sophomore year that I’d have to play on the opposite side of the field, but I also knewthat if I got in the game in any capacity, I’d be the best. Five partnering offices later . . .” Andrew’s smile was wide.
    “That you are,” Eve agreed.
    “How’s that husband of yours treating you? And how’s your mama?”
    “Chase is fine, doing really well this season, and my mom . . .” Eve hesitated. “Well, let’s just say the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
    Andrew laughed out loud. “Is she still having a fit about you and Chase getting married?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Well, it’s certainly her prerogative to feel that way about it. Tell you the truth, I don’t know how keen I’d be on either one of my daughters marrying anyone in sports, either. You just see and hear too much is all. I don’t think any parent desires for their kids to marry into any situation where the temptation for trouble awaits them because their spouses are in the public’s eye. Not that every marriage doesn’t have trouble, but trouble under a microscope is altogether different. I’d say your mama has a right to worry.”
    Eve appreciated Andrew’s words and as with everything else he’d ever told her, she allowed the words to sink in. “Speaking of my mother, I’m supposed to meet her in half an hour before heading back to L.A.”
    “That’s fine, darlin’, I won’t keep you. I’ve just missed you the last few times you were out here; wanted to make sure you are okay,” he said leaning against his hand-carved mahogany-colored desk.
    “Things are good. The partners and people in the L.A. office are treating me with the upmost respect and courtesies. Although I miss you guys immensely, I’m doing all right out there.”
    “No one can close the deals quite like you, Eve, that’s for sure.”
    “Mr. Rothberg,” Kimberly, Andrew’s assistant, interrupted, “sorry to interrupt you, but Drew Rosenhaus’s office is on the line; says it’s urgent.”
    Almost as if on cue, Eve rose from the plush chocolate-colored leather chair she was sitting in and gave Andrew a good-bye hug. “Dinner when you come to L.A. next week?” she quizzed as she gathered her things and made her way to the door.
    “Most definitely!” he replied, making his way around his desk and back into his oversized cherry-leather studded chair. “Have Kimberly put it on my calendar on your way out. Good seeing you, darlin’.”
    Eve closed the door to Andrew’s office behind her, stopped at Kimberly’s desk in an effort to coordinate her schedule to accommodate Andrew’s visit to Los Angeles, then darted to the elevators and out the door to the town car awaiting her with hopes to make it across town in time to make lunch with her mother. With six months having passed since their last visit together, she knew being late to meet her mother was not an option.
    Eve secured her seat belt and tried to relax her mind. She focused her thoughts back to Andrew’s advice about cutting her mother some slack. Although Nadia had refused to come to her wedding, refused to meet Chase’s family, and refused to come or even set foot in their house in L.A., Nadia was still her mother, the only blood relative she knew and had. And even though the rules of the game weren’t fair, the situation was what it was, and if Eve knew her mother, how it was, was exactly how it would stay.
     
     
    Eve leaned her head against the air-conditioned cool leather booth back as she waited for her mother to complete her order. She rolled her eyes at her mother’s constant ability to drag out even the simplest of tasks. Every time she took her mother to lunch it was always to the Houston’s across the street from Nadia’s store. No matter how many changes they made to the menu, Nadia always ordered the same thing: salmon