and all.”
For one full second, I stared at her before shoving her the rest of the way out the door. “Don’t tell me what to do, you fucking snake.”
She turned, opening her mouth to speak just as the door slammed in her face.
My hands shook as I walked through the house and straight for the bar, pouring myself a scotch, too many fingers to be considered any measurement.
I downed it in three painful swallows.
She couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be true. There was no way Amelia—my Amelia—would betray me.
There was no fucking way in hell.
And yet, Vivienne seemed to know something I didn’t. Her certainty had unnerved me, taken a sledgehammer to the foundation of my trust. That tingling in my gut was unreadable, nebulous and uncertain for the very first time.
I splayed my hands on the cool countertop, my palms so hot that a damp fog collected on the surface.
I’d ask Amelia to tell me the truth.
And I hoped to God it wasn’t the truth I feared.
❖
Amelia
By the time I was climbing the steps to the house, my thoughts were practically spilling out of me, too many to contain, and all of them waited on the tip of my tongue to confess.
I walked through the door, scanning for him as Gus greeted me.
“Tommy?” I called, absently scruffing Gus’s ears before stepping to the sideboard to deposit my keys.
No answer.
I stripped off my coat, the dread sinking, twisting my innards. “Tommy, I’m home,” I said as I walked into the living room, stopping dead when I saw him.
He sat on the couch, legs parted, empty glass of what I guessed had been scotch hanging from his hand between his knees. Everything about him was dark—the draw of his black brows, the line of his lips, the hard cut of his jaw. But his eyes were black as midnight, churning with emotion.
I stood perfectly still. The silence screamed between us.
“What happened with Janessa?” The words were low. Calm. A velvet noose.
My mouth dried, my tongue sticky and thick. “Tommy, I need to talk to you,” I said softly, stepping further into the room.
He watched me approach. Nothing moved but his eyes and the steady rise and fall of his chest.
I sat across from him on the surface of the coffee table, wanting to get eye-level with him to say what I needed to say.
Just tell him the truth.
His face gave away nothing.
I tried to swallow. My throat clicked. My hands found each other in my lap and clasped so hard, it hurt.
There was nothing to do but say it. And there was no way to say it but plainly.
“Janessa has been pushing me to write an exposé. She wants to know your secrets, and she wanted me to tell her.”
A pause, pregnant and thick. “How long? How long has she been angling?”
“Since the first time I saw her alone after…after we got m-married.” I took a breath to steady myself. It did no good. “But Tommy, I’d never—”
“Weeks. You’ve kept this from me for weeks.”
“I…yes,” I admitted.
“Did you write about me? Did you hand your notes to Janessa today?”
Sharp was my breath. Shocked was my realization.
I’d left everything with Janessa.
“I…I did.”
The mask fell, his anger rising like a storm. “Help me understand, Amelia. Help me understand why you would do this.”
I launched into the admission, a rambling, desperate attempt to come clean. “From the very beginning, she’s wanted to know about you, and from the first moment I met you, I knew I could never give her what she wanted. I…I thought she would be appeased when we came to her with the concept for the article. But she only saw it as an opportunity for more. I thought I could fix it, that I could find a way to help you with the article and somehow give her what she wanted, but…but I couldn’t. I can’t. When I took my proposals to her today, she rejected my ideas. She told me I had to choose. So, I did. I chose you, Tommy. I quit.”
A flash of warmth shifted in his eyes for a moment before it was gone, replaced by cool distance. “What did you tell her? What does she know?”
A hot flush of shame climbed my neck, my cheeks, as I confessed. “O-one proposal angled your mom, her illness, what you’ve done for her, your childhood. Another angled y-your exes, your private and public life.”
The ache in my chest roared, tearing open. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.
For a