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“How are you? I’ve seen your name everywhere for the last week. You and that,” he coughed, “guy on the boat together. It’s unlike you to be so careless.”
“I wasn’t careless. I was just living my life.”
“You and I both know that what you do could just as easily affect me. We talked about this. I would’ve thought putting yourself in front of the press like that would have been something you’d avoid. We don’t want what we had getting out and ruiningbothof our lives.” The emphasis on the word both didn’t go amiss for Kenzie or me. She narrowed her eyes at the phone, her protective side flaring to life. Had he been in front of us, I’d have worried about his safety.
Pressing the mute button on my phone, she rolled her finger to say something to check it was working.
“Eric?”
I heard him breathing lightly, but he didn’t respond.
“Hey, asshole?”
Eric, once again, didn’t respond, and Kenzie turned her gaze to me.
“That was a threat.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I was still surprised at his reaction, and my eyes dropped back to the phone as though I’d heard him wrong. “What do I do?”
“If he’s the man you think he is, he’ll see reason.”
“If he’s not?”
“Amber?” Eric asked over the line.
“We’ll travel that road when we get there,” Kenzie said, hitting the mute button on the phone.
Reason. Right. I could do that.
“What do you want me to say to that, Eric? It sounded like a threat.”
“I’m just saying it could be an embarrassment for us both.”
“Why?” I asked.
“If I get discovered, I have nothing to lose.”
“Half the country has seen me with very little clothes on, and I would say that puts me level with you!”
“Amber—”
“Look,” I said, rolling Kenzie’s words from earlier in my head. “Unless you have some paper trail that leads the press to the conclusion that you and I had something going on, we have nothing to worry about. They’re trying to get information on me from anyone. They have no reason to believe anything ever happened between the two of us, and they never will, which leads to the question, why would you call me about it?”
“Being high profile—”
“I’m not high profile. My boyfriend is.”
“Needless to say—”
“You’re jealous,” I accused.
Silence, once again, met me from the end of the line. I wondered if his handsome face was lined with his discomfort. I hadn’t ever seen him as anything but composed in the past.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked again, Kenzie’s delighted smile giving me confidence. “Why else would you call? I was discreet for four years while we were together. There’s no reason for me to ever talk about it now that it’s over, so why would you demand I call you?”
There were a few more breaths worth of silence before a distinguishable sigh sounded over the line.
“I loved you,” he finally said in admission, and I saw the surprise in Kenzie’s eyes.
