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“He’s always been a sucker for saving a woman in peril,” Steve commented, hoping Tamara thought he was referring to her fight earlier and not to the fact that he was moments away from losing his cool and pulling a Roux on her.
Steve was ready to play a card now, though he probably wouldn’t be as slick as the two sharks that had been baiting her before he’d arrived. “The other night was a pretty special evening between us.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “Why would you post those pictures online?”
“I didn’t.”
Flabbergasted, he looked up. She had to be lying. Had to be. But her expression read innocent.
“Who . . .” He breathed out the word.
“I sent them to Bianca. She said I’d never get you no matter how hard I tried. Guess she was wrong.”
A toe brushed his ankle and pushed up his pant leg to trail up his shin. He scooted his chair back.
“Bianca posted them?” He massaged one eyebrow; his head hurt. “Why in the fuck would she do that?” He didn’t expect an answer.
“So Sam can’t blackmail her anymore.”
Steve looked from Dare to Max to Logan. They looked as clueless as he felt.
“Sam is blackmailing her?”
Tamara shrugged. “Why else would she take his money?”
“Because her tabloid is going bankrupt,” Dare said.
“She wanted it to go bankrupt. Tax write-off.”
“So she isn’t broke?” Steve asked.
Tamara laughed. “After all the money she got from you in the divorce? She’s set for life.”
“How is Sam blackmailing her?” Max asked.
And just how many people could one man screw over at one time? Sam had to have an infinite number of dicks in those Armani trousers of his.
“He has proof that Steve never cheated on her, and his infidelity was the whole reason she won such a huge settlement. He said you could file a mistrial or something and get all your money back plus interest. I don’t know all the details, but she was really freaked out.”
“Actually, lots of people know he didn’t cheat on her,” Logan said. “Steve let her win.”
Steve couldn’t deny it. He’d been called an idiot more times than he cared to admit for giving her the lion’s share of his fortune. Bianca fearing that he would take all her money made him want to laugh. Why hadn’t she asked him about it? How had she fallen for Sam’s trickery? Probably for the same reason Max had fallen for it all these years: Sam was better at playing a role than any award-winning actor.
“But those pictures were taken recently,” Dare said. “How does that stop Sam from proving Steve didn’t cheat all those years ago?”
“Once a cheater always a cheater?” She shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her since she posted them. Maybe she thought that defense would work retroactively. Or maybe she wanted to hurt you or even me for proving her wrong and finally getting the man she stole from me. Or maybe she wanted my boyfriend to see them, which is fine, because I don’t need him anymore.” She grinned at Steve. “Whatever her reason, things are definitely working out in my favor.”
Yep. Totally delusional.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Logan said, reaching across the table to flick Steve on the shoulder. “That thing you wanted Butch to look up for you?” He bit his bottom lip, raised his eyebrows, and lifted his chin. “Seventy-two hours. I googled it.”
Steve did some quick mental math and figured it had been sixty hours, maybe more, since Ms. Delusional had slipped him the drug. He’d better find a clinic or hospital that could take a blood and urine sample before it worked its way completely out of his system. He hoped he hadn’t missed the chance to strengthen his evidence. Short of getting a confession directly from the perpetrator, he had no proof that she’d taken advantage of him, and while that wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted the public to hear, he definitely wanted Roux to know that he would never intentionally hurt her. Especially not by messing around with the whack-job attempting to play footsie with him under the table.
“I’ve got to go get a blood test,” Steve said, staring directly at Tamara for the first time since he’d arrived.
She giggled. “I guess your red-headed angel wasn’t as clean as you thought she was.”
Steve took a deep breath to calm himself. “If anyone gave me a disease, it would be you,” he said, unable to stop himself. “But that’s not why I need a blood test. I need to see if I still have Rohypnol in my system.”
The blood drained from Tamara’s face. She might as well have tattooed a confession across her forehead.
“Rohypnol?” Max asked. “What’s that?”
“Rope. Roofies,” Logan said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of roofies before.”
“The date-rape drug?” Max lifted a brow at Steve. “Why would you take that?”
“I didn’t. Tamara slipped it to me so she could stage those pictures,” Steve said. He didn’t have the patience for being sneaky about this. He might as well lay it all on the table while there were witnesses.
“You don’t have any proof,” she said, standing up.
“Hence the blood test.” Or urine test. He wasn’t sure which he needed, but neither did she, obviously.
She backed several steps away from the table. “Anyone could have slipped it to you.”
“Only one person touched my bottle that night besides me, and that would be you.”
“I’m not that desperate!”
Logan sniggered and then burst out laughing. Steve was surprised when Dare and Max joined him. “She has to roofie men to get laid!” Logan announced to the entire room.
“Aw, I’ll shag the nutter if she’s on the pull,” a man at the bar said, lifting his glass.
Tamara darted out of the bar, and the laughter around the table died at once.
“Did she really roofie you?” Max asked.
“Almost certain she did.”
“That is fucked up. Are you going to report this?”
“I just want Roux to know I didn’t betray her.” And he needed her to know as soon as possible. The fear of her breaking it off with him made him hesitate to contact her, but he didn’t want her to anguish over the situation with Tamara for another moment. “Can I borrow someone’s phone? Mine’s smashed.”
Logan offered his, but he didn’t have Roux’s number. No one had it in their contacts besides him, and he couldn’t remember it off the top of his head.
“Shit.”
“Maybe Butch has her number,” Logan suggested.
He didn’t, but he did have Iona’s. And Iona would likely answer Max’s call. It didn’t take much to convince Max to call Iona. He put her on speaker and set the phone on the table.
“If you’re calling for your friend,” Iona said, “tell him to go suck a leper’s dick.”
Max grinned at Steve. He was obviously enjoying this.
“I just wanted to make sure you all made it back to the hotel safely,” Max said.
“Yes, we’re fine.”
“Is Roux still upset?” Max asked.
“Of course she’s fucking upset. Her boyfriend cheated on her with a tabloid reporter and was forced to resort to drinking and violence. Why wouldn’t she be upset?”
Steve clutched at his thighs so he wouldn’t blurt out some defense.
“You sound upset as well.”
“No one fucks with one of my sisters. You’d better tell Aimes to watch his back.”
“I have good evidence that those pictures were staged,” Max said. “Steve is not a cheater.”
“Everyone knows he’s a cheater. It was all over the news during his divorce. He didn’t deny it. Not even once.”
“If you knew Steve at all, you’d realize he doesn’t tolerate stress well.”
What the hell was Max talking about? Steve handled stress just fine. When he was stressed he just needed a bit of alcohol or some drugs, or to disappear from the spotlight for a while, or . . . So maybe he didn’t toler
ate stress well. But that wasn’t why he hadn’t bothered to set the public record straight during his divorce. The truth hadn’t been worth the . . . stress. Steve rubbed a hand over his face. Apparently Max knew him a lot better than he’d realized. But he wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Roux. Getting her to understand the truth was worth any level of stress he’d be forced to tolerate.
“So rather than drag the divorce out into an even messier spectacle,” Max continued, “he let her vent her rage and just signed the papers.”
“Sounds like something Roux would do,” she said. “Can you believe she wants to hear his side of this? Like there is anything he can do or say to make this better.”
