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Zane seemed to take this coolly, but a vein ticked at his temple. “Considering your new best friend is sure to do that anyway, that’s hardly an effective threat.”
Owens sat up, about to spout off again. Zane stopped him with narrowed eyes. “I don’t give in to blackmail, boy. Not from you and not from her.”
“She has lawyers too,” Owens retorted.
“I’m sure she does, but if you think she’ll pay them to work for anyone but herself, you’re stupider than you look. She has what she wants from you. You’ll be lucky if she returns your calls.”
“She cares about me! She said I’m the best lover she ever had.”
Zane simply smiled at him. Jumped-up homo or not, Trey expected that title belonged to him. “Are you planning to pack? You’ve got maybe three minutes left.”
Owens packed, hefted his suitcase, then stomped like a surly teenager down the outside stairs. He owned a scooter, which he putted down the long drive. Thanks to his broken wrist, the machine wobbled at intervals. Trey joined Zane at the window to watch.
“Much as I hate to admit it, you did the right thing not beating him up. He’s still Mrs. P’s nephew.”
Zane grimaced, his frustration showing now that Owens was gone. “Missy will give him his comeuppance. What do you want to bet he’ll dial her the minute he’s off the grounds?”
“Are you going to call her?”
“And say what? She’d enjoy it too much if I beg, and I refuse to pay her off. Money isn’t what she’s after anyway. This is about revenge.” He covered his face. “When that film goes public, the media will have a field day.”
“We have friends in the media. Maybe they’d agree to keep a lid on this.”
“It won’t matter. Missy can post the file on fucking YouTube or a hundred of her fan’s blogs. Our lawyers might get it taken down, but not before it’s seen—and copied—who knows how many times.”
Zane’s arm muscles were hard with tension when Trey rubbed them. Zane wasn’t in the mood for sympathy.
“It’s my own damn fault,” he said bitterly. “I’m the one who hid what he was and gave them something to expose.”
“Everyone has a right to keep their private life private.”
Zane snorted. “Not me. And not you, apparently. I’m sorry, Trey. You saw what Missy was. I should have known better.”
“I wouldn’t have predicted she’d do this. Anyway, maybe we should worry about Rebecca. She’s in that footage too.”
Trey’s reminder hardened Zane’s face. “Damn it. She doesn’t deserve this.” He looked toward the house and sighed. “We should go back. Warn her what happened.”
“We can’t let her go home tomorrow,” Trey said.
“No,” Zane agreed. “Whatever it takes, we protect her until this blows over.”
Unlike Owens, they went quietly down the garage stairs.
“So,” Trey said, because he truly couldn’t leave it alone. “Were you trying to give me a heart attack by running toward a guy with a gun?”
“He wouldn’t have hit me,” Zane said. “He was too scared to aim. Besides, sometimes the best defense—”
“—is a good offense. I remember.”
They’d stopped on the walk at the bottom of the steps. Zane squeezed Trey’s trapezius exactly the way he used to on the football field in high school, when they’d had to hide what they were to each other. The potentially lethal danger they’d just faced had shaken Trey. At the squeeze—and the reminder—emotion sheened his eyes.
Zane saw this and touched his face. “No way could I let that pipsqueak shoot you.”
“Good to know,” he said roughly.
Zane pulled Trey to him, holding him hard and tight. This would have been the time to say I love you . . . if he’d been anyone but him. Trey usually didn’t mind not hearing it, but right then wasn’t usual. Rather than complain, Trey hugged him back. Zane had taken a risk tonight. To expose the other side of his nature to Rebecca, and then have this happen, must have seemed like the universe reaching down to smack him. Trey himself wasn’t looking forward to total strangers passing judgment on what should have been private acts. Bad enough that Owens and that bitch had seen.
He rubbed Zane’s back and let go of him.
“Rebecca will be wondering what happened,” he said.
To his relief, his voice was steady.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fallout
REBECCA’S relief when the men returned safe and unbloodied was dizzying. She jumped up from the bed and hugged them in turn.
“God,” Zane said, bending to squeeze her. “I’m so sorry you’re getting dragged into this.”
“It’s done,” she responded, stroking his golden hair. His face was pressed to her neck. She looked over his head to Trey. “I take it you didn’t kill Owens.”
“Broken wrist,” Trey said. “Confiscated laptop. Fired and gone from the house. I’m afraid he sent the file already. To Mystique, like you guessed.”
Rebecca had concluded that from Zane’s apology. She reminded herself she was good in a crisis. This wasn’t going to break her. She pushed back gently from Zane’s embrace. “I was thinking while I was waiting here. If you can’t convince that woman not to use the footage—”
“I doubt we can,” Zane warned.
“Then maybe you should prepare a statement. Come out as bi voluntarily. As if you’re not ashamed, but you wanted to keep it private. That’ll take at least half the wind out of the gossips’ sails.”
Zane sat on the edge of the mattress to think while Trey very carefully refrained from commenting. Zane might not like this, but he was too smart not to follow her reasoning. “I’d have to act fast,” he said. “I doubt Missy will wait to deploy this bomb.”
“We could call Evan,” Trey said. “He’s handled damage control before. You could record something quick tonight. —Evan is a friend of ours who’s a lawyer,” he added for her benefit.
“All right,” Zane said, his face determined. “I’ll call him now.”
He’d only half risen when Rebecca heard her cell phone’s ringtone. She got up to get it, pretty sure someone calling her at this hour wasn’t a good thing. When she answered, her brother Charlie was on the line. She returned to the bed.
“Are you all right?” she asked, big sister worry kicking in. “Did something bad happen?”
“Not to me,” he said in a funny voice. “Maybe this is a misunderstanding, but someone saw a sex-tape online of you and Zane Alexander and that other guy from TBBC in a shower. He sent me and Pete a copy. I didn’t watch, and I guess there was steam blocking some of it, but Pete said he thought it was really you.”
“Crap.” Her free hand rose to her brow. This certainly settled the question of whether Mystique was serious.
“Rebecca?” Charlie asked when she didn’t say it was a mistake. His voice had jumped half an octave. He always was the sensitive one.
“Okay,” she said, forced to bite the bullet. “The tape is really me, and it’s really Zane Alexander and Trey Hayworth. We were filmed without our knowledge.”
Trey lowered himself to her other side, both men’s presence bolstering her. Your brother? Trey mouthed, and she nodded.
“Let me talk to him,” Zane said, easing the phone from her.
Rebecca would have stopped him, but he moved away too fast. He took the cell to the arch that opened into the sitting room. From the sound of his side of the conversation, he was accepting a chewing out from both twins.
She supposed they were kicking themselves for tricking her into meeting Zane at the photo shoot.
“Let him handle it,” Trey said, giving the back of her neck a squeeze. “They’re your brothers. They love you. They can’t curse at you the way they can at him.”
“This isn’t Zane’s fault,” Rebecca protested.
“They’ll think it is. They’ll think he should have protected you better.”
Maybe Zane thought so as well. He didn’t appear ticked off after he hung up. “I told them to come here,” he said. “In case the media track them down.”
Rebecca covered her mouth. Was the scandal going to be that big? Trey put his arm around her shoulders, which was comforting and not at the same time.
“Your brother Pete told me something interesting,” Zane said. “The footage was posted anonymously. Missy seems not to want to admit she’s the source.”
“That is interesting,” Trey agreed.
Rebecca didn’t see why it mattered. Either way, the shit was going to hit their fan.
