“What demands did he make? What’s the threat against me that has you running?”
She swallows down the emotion sitting thick in her throat.
“You can tell me. Tess, look at me.”
She glances up, her freckled cheeks pink from crying. The mascara stains her upper and lower lids. But she’s still so goddamn beautiful. She belongs in the garden of a palace, perched on a marble plinth for all to admire. But I’m selfish. I want to keep her beauty and her smiles. She’s mine and I’m hers and no matter what happens next, she’s going to know how I feel about her.
“Tess, I love you,” I say, my hand cupping her cheek. “Whatever he said to you, whatever leverage you think he has on me—on us—it doesn’t matter. Not when we know what we share is genuine. Fuck all the easy criticisms—the age gap and the career differences, us being on different life paths. Age is just a number. And all our careers prove is that we’re both driven and hard-working. And sure, you’re going through some shit with this divorce, but it’s just a life change. Everyone has them. I’m going through one now too—my contract extension, my new endorsement deals. These are once-in-a-career changes and I’m living them now. Did I mention the new one with Bauer?” I add with a smile. “MK sent over the details this afternoon—”
She groans, shaking her head. “God, I fucking hate him. I hope Troy falls into a vat of toxic, boiling goo like in that-that movie. You know, the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger. What’s it called?” She looks up at me expectantly.
“He’s been in a lot of movies, babe.”
“Yeah, but there’s only one where he’s a machine that gets dropped into a lava vat,” she cries.
“Terminator?” I offer with a confused frown.
“Yes,” she says with a snap of her fingers. “That’s what I want. I want Troy to stumble off a catwalk into a vat of molten lava, and I want to stir him in with a stick. I don’t want him murdered, because I don’t believe in that—and I’m not going to kill him, because again, I know that’s objectively wrong. But I just need him to trip, you know? I need him to wear his stupid loafers with the tassels that make him look like a trust fund tool, and I need the tassel to get caught in the grate of the catwalk, and I need him to fall into the lava vat.”
I just blink, staring down at this woman I love. “That’s some dark shit, babe.”
“Yeah, well, Troy brings out the fucking worst in me,” she snaps. “And he deserves nothing less for what he’s trying to do to you.”
“What’s in this box?” I say, pointing at the smaller one with the note I can’t read.
“That was the first present he left me a couple weeks ago,” she says, glaring at the box. “My shredded divorce papers. Unsigned, of course.”
“And what does he intend to do with all the photos of us?”
“Blast them online,” she replies. “He means to paint you as a sex-addled hockey star who can’t keep his dick in his pants, fucking anything that moves, even married women.”
“Jesus. He doesn’t flatter me much, does he?”
“He wants to paint himself as the noble victim in our adulterous affair,” she goes on. “Never mind that I left him three fucking years ago after he cheated first,” she cries. “He started this downward spiral. He broke our vows first, not me. He was cruel and controlling. He lied to me and manipulated me; he got his family to lie and manipulate me. The marriage was broken. It is broken. And now look at this mess,” she cries, gesturing all around.
“So, he’s the cheater and the abuser and the blackmailer, but I’m gonna burn for it?”
She nods. “He knows how temperamental these sports franchises can be. They won’t want this bad press. They’ll run from you, Ryan. ‘Rats on a sinking ship’ I believe were his exact words. And I believe him,” she adds. “God help me, if he pulls this trigger, it’s you who will take the bullet, not me. My life is small, Ryan. My sphere of influence even smaller. I’ll lose my job and have to leave Cincinnati, but I was already resigned to that. He knew he couldn’t hurt me anymore by attacking me directly—”
“So, he’s attacking me,” I summarize.
She nods.
“He’s hurting me because he knows just how much that will hurt you. Is that it? Do I have all the pieces to the puzzle now?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought I could handle him on my own. I should have assumed he would try to take you from me once he knew I was in lo—”