Her scream makes me jump.
She drops the moving boxes to her feet, her hands going to clutch at her chest. “Ryan, you scared the pee outta me,” she shrieks.
I feel breathless, my heart racing as I take her in at last. It’s only been ten fucking hours, but it may as well be ten years. “Tess,” I say softly, putting all my feeling into the word.
She stands there in her ratty T-shirt and a pair of leggings, her curly hair up in a high ponytail. She looks so casual, like we’re about to flop onto the couch and watch another episode of Sons, not pack all her shit to leave. She really meant for me to come home and find her gone? It’s an act of cruelty I wouldn’t have imagined her capable of.
That’s when it hits me: it wasn’t her idea. She’s acting on orders. Troy’s orders. Because he somehow threatened me. How? With the photos? What is he going to do with them? What do they prove other than he’s a fucking creeper who should be in jail?
I have to know what the fuck is going on. “Tess, baby—”
“Wait, what time is it? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at your game for another hour at least. Ryan, why aren’t you at your game?”
“I left,” I reply, stating the obvious.
“Why would you leave in the middle of a game?”
“Jake said you needed me here, so I left. Now I know why—”
Her anxiety is palpable. “Did anyone see you come in? God, of course they did,” she says to herself. “His car is parked out front…and so is mine.” She glances up, fear in her eyes. “Ryan, you have to go—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, standing my ground.
“Ryan,” she begs, snatching up one of the moving boxes.
“I told you I would put you first, and I meant it,” I say, crossing the room towards her. She goes stiff at my approach, and it breaks my heart. She’s so fucking scared. All my anger and bravado melts away. “Oh…baby. What did he do to you, huh?”
She blinks back her tears, using the box like a shield to keep me back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t fucking know?” I counter, my voice rising. “Tess, look around you.” I gesture at the chaos on every surface of the room. “You’re packing up to run again. I think I deserve to know why. What did he say?”
“It’s not your burden to bear,” she says. “Ryan, I’m dealing with it. You have to trust that I’ll fix this on my own—”
“No,” I counter. “Tess, no. This isn’t love. Hiding all this from me, carrying the weight of it all on your own when I have two strong arms and a strong fucking back to help you—it’s not love, Tess. It’s control. You’re trying to control the outcome for both of us by keeping me in the dark. You need to tell me right now, aside from the photos, what else has he done?”
“What photos?” she dares to say.
I take three steps back and point down at the bed.
She inches closer, needing to see over the large mound of her open suitcase. As soon as her eyes settle on the boxes, I watch the emotion flash across her face—fear, disgust, sadness, anguish. Fresh tears well in her eyes as she looks up at me. “How did you know?”
“Jake,” I reply.
She shakes her head, her frustration evident.
“Don’t be mad at him. He was just giving me a fighting chance.”
“I didn’t want you to get dragged into my mess. I—” She sucks in a breath that comes out like a sob. “Oh god—I didn’t want to hurt you, but I think I did anyway. Just being near you is hurting you. Even now, he’ll know, and he’ll use it against us. I never wanted to use you, but that’s what he’s going to say. He’s going to twist this all up and take what we have and ruin it. He’s going to take something so beautiful and make it ugly and I can’t fucking stand it.”
The moving box drops to her feet again, and then I’m rushing forward, wrapping her in my arms. “I’m so sorry,” I say into her hair, my hands brushing up and down her back.
She sobs into my shoulder, her entire body trembling as she clings to me for dear life.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” I repeat. “He violated you with those photos. He stole from you. From us. Our joy, our happiness. And we have so much of both together, right?” I pull back, tipping her chin up to look in her eyes. I need to see her face. I do better when I can see her.
“I never wanted this,” she says, her mascara leaving streaks down her freckled cheeks.
I brush her hair back. “No one wants their privacy violated. Tess, this is a crime,” I say as gently as possible, praying she’ll hear me this time. “All these photos are evidence of Troy’s mounting crimes. Stalking, harassment, blackmail. He’s digging his own grave.”
“The creep brought them to my work,” she whispers. “He watched me leave the office and brought the box to Cheryl. He’s been watching me for weeks. He’s probably outside even now,” she says, glancing around as if he might be peering in through the windows.
My gaze darts over to see the curtains are pulled tight. “Is that why all the lights are off?”
“I didn’t want to give him anything else to photograph,” she replies with a little nod. “I don’t know that I can stay here anymore, even without Troy’s demands. This place is tainted for me now.” She glances up at me, trying to show me her vulnerability.
“What demands did he make? What’s the threat against me that has you running?”
She swallows down the emotion sitting thick in her throat.
“You can tell me. Tess, look at me.”
She glances up, her freckled cheeks pink from crying. The mascara stains her upper and lower lids. But she’s still so goddamn beautiful. She belongs in the garden of a palace, perched on a marble plinth for all to admire. But I’m selfish. I want to keep her beauty and her smiles. She’s mine and I’m hers and no matter what happens next, she’s going to know how I feel about her.
“Tess, I love you,” I say, my hand cupping her cheek. “Whatever he said to you, whatever leverage you think he has on me—on us—it doesn’t matter. Not when we know what we share is genuine. Fuck all the easy criticisms—the age gap and the career differences, us being on different life paths. Age is just a number. And all our careers prove is that we’re both driven and hard-working. And sure, you’re going through some shit with this divorce, but it’s just a life change. Everyone has them. I’m going through one now too—my contract extension, my new endorsement deals. These are once-in-a-career changes and I’m living them now. Did I mention the new one with Bauer?” I add with a smile. “MK sent over the details this afternoon—”
She groans, shaking her head. “God, I fucking hate him. I hope Troy falls into a vat of toxic, boiling goo like in that-that movie. You know, the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger. What’s it called?” She looks up at me expectantly.
“He’s been in a lot of movies, babe.”
“Yeah, but there’s only one where he’s a machine that gets dropped into a lava vat,” she cries.
“Terminator?” I offer with a confused frown.
“Yes,” she says with a snap of her fingers. “That’s what I want. I want Troy to stumble off a catwalk into a vat of molten lava, and I want to stir him in with a stick. I don’t want him murdered, because I don’t believe in that—and I’m not going to kill him, because again, I know that’s objectively wrong. But I just need him to trip, you know? I need him to wear his stupid loafers with the tassels that make him look like a trust fund tool, and I need the tassel to get caught in the grate of the catwalk, and I need him to fall into the lava vat.”
I just blink, staring down at this woman I love. “That’s some dark shit, babe.”
“Yeah, well, Troy brings out the fucking worst in me,” she snaps. “And he deserves nothing less for what he’s trying to do to you.”
“What’s in this box?” I say, pointing at the smaller one with the note I can’t read.
“That was the first present he left me a couple weeks ago,” she says, glaring at the box. “My shredded divorce papers. Unsigned, of course.”