“Where are you?” My voice is gruff with sleep and aggravation.
“Headed back to New York, but had to make a stop first.” She pauses to give the driver instructions to a hotel on Michigan Ave. “Something came up and I want to check it out.”
“You’re in Chicago?”
“Yeah. Art is meeting me here.”
I exhale heavily and lean back on the couch. Arthur Cambridge, III is my attorney. If he’s involved, something is up. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re being blackmailed, Justice. A few hours ago, I was sent an audio recording of you having sex. I don’t know who it was with, but the woman was very vocal. She kept calling you by your name. Know anything about that?”
I close my eyes and rub the tension collecting in my temples. “No. How do you know it’s not doctored?”
“We checked it out. It’s authentic. However, my team was able to trace the IP address back to Chicago.”
I almost smirk. “You have a team of hackers, Heidi?”
“Doesn’t everybody? And even if it is from years ago, we can’t take that risk. Not with the press calling for your head on a platter. I’m texting it to you now. Listen. Call me when you’re done.”
A message chimes a second later and I hang up with Heidi to open the attachment. Heavy breathing. Moaning. A sweet voice singing my name as I instruct her to f*ck
, then suck me.
I don’t need to hear anymore. I was there. Just yesterday, I was there.
I call Heidi back, and she answers immediately. “I have a pretty good idea who’s behind this, and I’m sure you do too.”
Erin.
Stupid f*ck
ing Erin.
I think back to when I took Ally right here on this very couch. I remember telling her to take off her shirt and then capturing her flawed beauty through the lens of my camera phone. Then my mouth was devouring her pink-tipped nipples and demanding she take off those ridiculously oversized boxers. And then I was deep inside her, losing myself to pleasure, my phone forgotten.
How the f*ck
did Erin get a recording of that? Hers was the last number I dialed, but the screen was locked. Had she called? Did we accidently graze that evil, little green icon, while Ally rode me like a cowgirl?
“We’re going to bury her,” Heidi continues. “Her grandchildren will be paying you their lunch money.”
I shake my head in frustration. “How much is she asking?”
Heidi makes a tsking sound. “Two million, which technically won’t kill you but still…”
“Give it to her.”
“What?”
“Tell Art to give it to her. Give her the money.”
Heidi’s voice goes a pitch higher than I’ve ever heard it. “You can’t be serious! That bitch is in direct violation of contract, and you want to reward her? She has nothing, Justice. There’s no way she can prove it was you-”
“It doesn’t matter, Heidi. None of it matters. Retrieve the evidence, give her the money, and do what you need to do to ensure she disappears.”
The line goes quiet for several beats before Heidi chuckles. “You’ve gone completely mad, haven’t you?”
I chuckle too. I don’t know why. My business is crumbling at my feet, I’m being blackmailed by a girl who didn’t have two nickels to rub together before she met me, and I’m having an affair with a married woman that I can’t shake. I am mad. Mad, yet I’ve never felt more normal. More tied to the life I left behind—Ally’s life.
I hear light shuffling behind me, and I look up in time to see Ally leaning against the doorjamb, wearing one of my sweatshirts, sleep and sex sparkling in her eyes. She smiles at me, and a feeling too strong to fully contain bursts in my chest before sinking into the pit of my stomach.
“Take care of that for me, Heidi. And what we talked about earlier… I’ll do it. I’ll send them.”
Her voice takes on that soft, feminine sound again. Like she pities me. Like she cares for me. “Got it. This’ll be good, Justice, and everything will be ok. You can start over, rebuild. You can be whoever you want after this.”
I don’t have a response, at least one that I can voice, so I just hang up. Heidi is used to my terseness. I’m like that with everyone. Everyone except Ally.
As if she can hear her name ringing melodically in my head, she slinks over to the couch just as I set my phone on the end table. I grab her by the waist and pull her onto my lap as she squeals. I bury my face in her hair, trying to soak in as much of her scent as I can, while I can. I can smell myself on her, mixed with her perfume and sweat.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say against the smooth skin behind her ear. “I was just about to come back to bed.”
“I’m tired of sleeping,” she sighs.
I look at her, my brow raised sardonically. “You’re tired of sleeping?”
She pinches me on the arm. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
I snatch her hand and kiss her palm. Then we’re quiet, as we watch shadows grow before our eyes, dusk fading into night.
“Can I ask you a question?” Ally asks, her voice small in the vast silence.