Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,128
my exes, and my lawyers.
Everyone but the one fucking person I needed to speak to.
My wife.
My texts had gone unanswered, my calls sent straight to voice mail. Theo had gone to check on her, but she was gone. There was a note. He hadn’t read it, but noted that she’d taken her cat with her.
Which meant she wasn’t coming back.
My hand found my lips, cupped the bottom half of my face, scrubbed it like it would help me find words. Find a solution. Find answers.
The article had broken, and it had broken everything I’d built along with it. It had stolen everything I’d tried so hard to protect. It had robbed me of my cover, and now their sights were trained on me.
Vivienne’s exposé was scathing, a dressing down that had stripped me naked. Legally, we were taking every measure we could. My lawyers were already fielding accusations from the lawyers of my ex-girlfriends, the contracts between us in question. The contract between Janessa and myself had been laid out and combed over. The USA Times legal team was, at that moment, on their way into meetings to sort out what the fuck had happened and who was liable.
My lawyers had asked if I wanted to shake down my contract with Amelia. But I’d told them to leave her alone.
I should have known when Vivienne showed up at the convention that something was so fucking wrong. But she was just being Vivienne, posturing and throwing her weight around, slinging barbs in an attempt to crack me open. And as always, I had blown her off without telling her anything but to fuck off.
I had decided this morning that Vivienne was perhaps the biggest mistake I’d ever made. And I’d made a lot of fucking mistakes.
She was the first person I’d pointed to when I sicced my lawyers on every one of the fucks who’d had a hand in this.
That deep ache in my chest throbbed when I thought about Amelia seeing that photograph. I’d had no idea Vivienne had taken it a year ago when we hooked up at this very same convention, in the very same hotel.
I knew the second I learned Amelia was gone that she had not only seen that photo, but she believed it.
That knowledge hurt worse than anything, beyond any betrayal, beyond all offenses. After everything, after all she knew, after all we’d been through, she believed Vivienne. She believed the lie that the newspaper told her, the fake pictures, the line. Everything I hated, everything I despised, she believed without question.
The knowledge, the realization, had gutted me.
She didn’t trust me after all.
She thought so little of me, she believed that I had committed the unforgivable sin of my heroes. That I’d slept with Vivienne out of spite.
She hadn’t even asked me for the truth.
And above all, that was the sin I found I couldn’t forgive.
❖
Amelia
I knew he was coming back. I knew he would find me. I knew I would see him, face him, see the truth for myself.
But the man I found on my stoop was almost unrecognizable.
Tommy was thunder and lightning, a black cloud sparking with electricity. Black eyes. Black hair. Black shadow on his sharp jaw. Black, broken mood.
He said nothing. He didn’t have to.
Silently, I stepped back, a wordless concession to his entry.
My heart, I found, was as black and bottomless as his anger. The chasm between us yawned.
My eyes lit on details of his body. His hands, where had they touched her? His lips, where had they kissed her? His eyes, had they been hot and smoldering for her? His hair, had she run her fingers through it? Had he whispered his pleas, told her of my transgressions? Had he wanted her all along?
I crossed my arms over my stomach, squeezed, tried to hold myself together as hot, angry tears stung my eyes.
Neither of us sat. We stood squarely before each other, unmoving.
“You left,” he finally said.
The sound of his voice was a salty sting on the deep wound of my heart.
“You left first. Except I came home, alone. Where were you last night?”
The flash of pain behind his eyes struck me like lightning.
“It seems you already think you know. Does it matter what I say?”
Emotion seized my throat, rising up from my heart, uncontained. “Vivienne. Of all the women you could have fucked, you had to choose her. I can’t believe you,” I cried. “I can’t believe you would do this to me.”