“Jesus.”
“Don’t you see? He wanted me to deny it,” she explains. “He wanted to watch me flail. He wanted to watch me tell the truth and suffer for it. That’s what he does. He twists me up and makes me think that lies are truth and that his version of reality is the only version. He did it our whole marriage.”
Okay, I know I haven’t met every person in the world, but in this moment, I’m pretty confident that Troy Owens is the worst one. He’s at least top fifty.
She steps in closer, taking both my hands in hers. “Ryan, please believe me that I didn’t intend to hurt you or drag you in deeper to all this mess. But I told him the lie. I told him we were together. He wanted to burn me down, so I gave him the match.”
My mind works in overdrive as I piece it all together. “Walk me through the timeline. The wedding pictures broke after Christmas, right?”
She nods, letting go of my hands.
“So, after Christmas, the pictures get leaked online. What happened next?”
“I went into work, and Troy already had it all arranged,” she replies. “He blindsided me with an early morning HR meeting. They had the pictures and the bullshit song and dance about morality. The coup was already over. They put me on leave, and I left. I came here.”
It doesn’t add up. “You’re leaving things out. Pieces are missing.”
“Ryan—”
“If I’m in this with you, I’m in it,” I press. “I have to know the timeline. Start again. You go to your HR meeting, they show you the photos and put you on leave, yes?”
She nods.
“Then what happened?”
“I came here,” she replies.
I glare at her. “You’re fast-forwarding.”
“Ryan—”
“Between the HR meeting and you arriving here in Jacksonville, what else happened?” I say over her. “You don’t just pack up your entire life and get on a plane. You don’t throw your phone out of a moving car—”
“Maybe I do,” she counters with a scowl. “You don’t know me, Ryan.”
“You’ve called your ex controlling, vicious, and dangerous. You’re scared of him, aren’t you? I see it in your eyes. He gave you a reason to be scared. What did he do?”
She shakes her head. “Please, don’t. It doesn’t matter—”
“What did he do, Tess?”
“I went back to my office. Troy followed me. We argued.”
“You argued about me.”
“We argued about a lot of things,” she says, her gaze lowering to somewhere around my left shoulder. “I wanted to understand why—after years of separation and both of us seeing other people—why would he suddenly care if I was with you? That’s when I realized…”
I raise a brow at her, waiting.
“It’s because it’s you,” she says at last.
I mull that over for a moment before admitting, “I don’t understand.”
“You’re everything he wishes he could be,” she replies, finding my gaze again. “You have a career of your own, not one your mother hand-selected for you. You’re rich, handsome, athletic. You’re the whole package, Ryan. And you’re a man.”
My brow furrows in confusion. “What does my being a man have to do with anything?”
“I’m bi,” she explains. “After Troy, I swore off dicks, literally and metaphorically,” she adds. “For the last three years, I’ve pretty much only dated women. And Troy is just enough of a misogynistic asshole to delude himself into thinking my girlfriends were just that, girls who were friends. But the moment I’m pictured with a man, he suddenly sees red. It’s just so typical. And so deeply disappointing.”
“You say he saw red…”
She gives me a warning look. “Please, don’t push this.”
But I can’t help it. “Tess, did he hurt you because of me? Because of those pictures?”
She shakes her head, but the look in her eyes is giving her away.
“Tess, did he put his hands on you?” Tears burn my eyes at the thought of this person I care for—any person—being abused.
“I’m fine,” she soothes. “He choked me a little and he pushed me around, but I calmed him down, okay? I got him to stop.”
I feel gutted, sick. “Tess…oh, baby, I’m so sorry. But—did you report him? Did you call the police—”