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The way she says it, like she understands and it’s okay, guts me.
I straighten. She needs to hear the rest. “I thought that would be the end of it, but Jess wouldn’t let go. Every couple of months she and my dad fight, and she calls. And that code of conduct clause is always in the back of my mind, the threat of losing my career enough to keep me from telling her to go to hell and hang up.”
“What does she want?”
“At first, she wanted to talk about how good things had been between us when we were together. How she missed me.” I swallow. “The hotel in Atlanta never came up and honestly, I wanted to believe it was behind us. That Atlanta was the line she wouldn’t cross. When word got out that you and I were married, I hoped she’d back off completely. But she called yesterday.”
Raking a hand through my hair, I push to my feet. “I told her to stop calling and she hung up on me. And then later, she texted. She said—” I take a breath and start again. “She said she has a video from that night.” And then she’d followed that up with a veiled threat stating she sure hoped she didn’t get mad and do something rash.
Stormy stares. The furrow between her brows deepening in slow motion. Her lips are parted, but she doesn’t know what to say, how to react. She doesn’t know how the hell she let herself end up in a situation so fucked up— but I do.
She threw in withme.
Fighting back the nausea rising inside me, I keep going.
“I don’t know if it’s true. We were in my room at the hotel, so it’s not like she could have set something up ahead of time. And I’m a professional athlete, so I’m generally pretty aware of things like phones. Except—”
“Except she was your ex-girlfriend, and you trusted her.”
I should have known better. I should have been smarter.
For a moment, there’s only silence. This is big.
Stormy’s shaking her head. “So she didn’t send a clip or anything?”
“No. And asking for proof seems like tempting the devil. It’s a power trip. She wants to work me over. Make me sweat for a while so she can draw it out. And that’s a good thing.”
“How is any of this a good thing?” She looks like she’s going to cry, and I can’t stand it. The whole point of this thing, the reason my ring is on her finger and hers is on mine was to protect her from tears. Not cause them.
“Because it gives us time.”
I spent half the night trying to come up with a solution. Some way where she could still be mine and I wouldn’t wreck her life in the process. But the gutting, brutal truth is distancing herself from me is the only way for Stormy to protect herself. And even me ripping my fucking heart out and letting her go won’t be enough to protect her completely… but it might minimize the damage.
Her family and friends will know— privately, there’s no avoiding it. But the fallout won’t be on the same public level it would be if we were still together.
“We might be able to finalize the divorce before she goes public, video or no video, about that night. But at the very least—”
“No.”
“—you’ll have publicly ended the relationship. Wait,no, what?”
“No to the divorce. Liam, we can get through this together.”
It’s torture. My ship is going down, and she’s holding out her hand to try and save me.Save uswhen I’m the one who was supposed to save her. When I was supposed to protect her from a hurt and humiliation that might not end up even comparing to the destruction this could cause her.
The gossip sites will eat it up… Heir to a classic toy company, married to a morally defunct pervert. Breaking my code of conduct clause will likely mean I lose my spot on the team, my livelihood, and the financial means to… give heranything.
I can’t do it. I can’t take her hand when I know I’ll only pull her down with me.
So, I do what I swore I never would.
I lie to her.
“Stormy, go to your parents. Tell them the whole thing was my idea. That you were doing me a favor, but none of it was real. Becauseit wasn’t.”
Lie. It was the most real thing in my life.
She blinks, her eyes going wide. “But it—”
