by Lily White
“Move.”
We approached his favorite table when Tanner barked out a command, the students seated there doing as ordered, their books slamming closed, papers shuffling as they hurried to comply.
I shook my head and sat down. “You’re such an ass.”
He dropped his weight in the seat opposite me and kept those dark eyes pinned to my face while slowly spinning his phone over the table with his fingers.
Rolling my eyes, I looked up at him. “What’s going on with Jase and Everly?”
Although there was fire behind his gaze, his voice was as calm as ever. “How the fuck would I know? Do I look like his diary?”
Unaffected by his grumpy mood, I stared back. “She left school. He busted into my dorm looking for her-“
“When were you planning on telling me you’re back together with Clayton?”
Surprised by the question, I flinched back. Tanner’s jaw ticked repeatedly, as if the answer mattered.
“That’s not your business.”
He grinned, the slow curl to his lips terrifying me as his phone kept spinning over the surface of the table. It was a slow rotation, a quiet scrape of plastic against wood.
“No, I guess it’s not. Apparently you like to get around.”
My eyes rounded. “What is that supposed to mean? Why do you even care?”
I mean, yes, we’d slept together, but Tanner was a manwhore. He slept with a lot of women. Yet, for some odd reason it looked like he cared, like he’d wanted...what? Something more? The idea was ridiculous.
“I don’t care,” he answered, and I felt vindicated for knowing that would be the case. “But I don’t appreciate being lied to, even if by omission.”
“What are you talking-“
Before I could finish the question, Tanner shot from his chair to hover over me, his finger trapping my chin and tilting my face up to his, his lips so damn close that I had to swallow my reaction.
My damn tongue dragging across my bottom lip, his eyes flicking to the movement, a leisurely grin widening across his face until those eyes dragged up to pin mine in place.
“You’ve been a bad girl apparently.” He tsked. “Not only did you con my friend and use my kindness against me to force my hand, but then you lied to all of us. One I can forgive, the other…” He cocked his head to the side. “And here I thought better of you.”
He tapped a code into his phone and tossed it in my lap before settling back in his seat, his dark eyes focused intently on my face, waiting for me to give into my curiosity and look.
It took effort to look away from him. He was in full predator mode as if he had something on me. What could he possibly have?
My gaze dropped to his phone and my heart stopped. Literally. A painful thump as it kicked into action again with a beat so fast that I damn near passed out.
“What the hell is this?”
The question rattled off my lips, my thumb swiping from picture to picture, five total, each one getting progressively worse.
“There’s more than that from what I’ve heard and I’m interested to see just how bad a girl you were while tucked away in my bed.”
My head shook, my thoughts careening out of control as I struggled to remember anything.
“Who took these?”
I wasn’t asleep in the shots. My eyes were open as if I’d been a willing participant in someone photographing me strip off my clothes.
With each shot, more skin was exposed, my lips stretched into a smile or a laugh, my eyes crinkled at the corners where they looked up at the camera.
Dropping the phone, I shot my eyes to his.
“Who took those? How many more are there?” I yelled, people hushing me in answer to my loud voice in a library.
The one question I didn’t want to ask was how much more clothing did I lose before the shutter stopped snapping?
Tanner grinned, his voice so eerily calm that I wanted to strangle him for it.
“That’s for me to know. And while I will handle the asshole because I don’t like men who take advantage of drunk women, the question becomes when will I take care of him? Will it be before or after he spreads those photos all around campus?”
He lifted a hand to examine his fingernails, not giving much of a damn that I was seeing red.
“I guess Luca Bailey is not the angel she makes herself out to be after all.”
I launched from my seat to grip his shirt, my teeth clenched as I asked, “How bad do they get?”
From the shots on his phone that had been texted to him, I’d been in my bra and panties still. But he claimed there were more and-
Bile shot up my throat as Tanner gripped his fingers over my wrist to rip my hand from his shirt.
Dark eyes crawling up to mine, he was an island of calm in the storm of my anger. “Take a seat, Luca. It’s not my fault you got yourself into a shitty situation.”
Except it was his fault. It had to be. Only, he wasn’t there that night, but that didn’t mean anything.
“You did this,” I accused as I retook my seat.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
Brushing the wrinkles from his t-shirt, he lifted his eyes to mine.
“I was busy picking up two idiot friends of mine, as you should remember. Apparently, while the cat was away...”
His voice trailed off and I could barely stay in my seat. I was too angry. Too panicked.
“Tell me who it was and I’ll take care of it myself.”
He smirked, scratched his jaw, the stubble scraping against his fingers with a rough sound. He smiled and I wanted to slap the expression off his face.
“You know, I’d love to do that, but I’m not feeling all that generous at the moment.”
Quiet laughter shook his shoulders. “Unless, of course, you’re asking for a favor.”
And there it was, the bomb he’d been waiting to drop the entire time. It exploded right in front of me, the shock of it ripping me out of whatever winner’s box I’d sat in for the past week.
“You’re an asshole.”
“No,” he said, laughing again. “But I am a lucky bastard, aren’t I? Here you thought you had me cornered, but then, well, a surprise falls in my lap. I’m simply taking advantage.”
Silence fell, thick and pregnant with my hatred for him. It slow danced with his amusement, his triumph as he closed the walls around me and took back the victory flag, peeling it from my death grip with every intention to rub it into the wounds he left on me.
“Make a deal with me, Luca, and this can all go away.”
There was no fucking way in hell I’d give him what he wanted.
“Fuck off,” I answered, enunciating each word.
Grabbing my things, I stormed from the library, felt his dark stare on me until I was through the doors and back outside.
Tears pricked my eyes as soon as I was out of sight. What the hell was I going to do?
That was the second punch of the night.
And while I was walking to my dorm trying to think of how I could stop those photos from being spread around, the right hook came through to knock me to the ground.
My phone rang as I climbed the steps to my floor. Thinking it would be Tanner, I didn’t look at the screen before answering.
“What?”
Silence, and then a familiar voice tapped at my knees, weakening them with every word.
“Luca, it’s dad. Listen, baby, I don’t want to have to tell you this, but I think you should come home for a while.”
I sank down to sit on the top step, the tears steadily falling now that my feet had been ripped out from under me.
“Honey, it’s your mom. She’s not doing good.” His voice shook. It was the first time I’d ever heard my dad sound so defeated.
“Come home, Luca. Ask the administrators if you can make up whatever work is left for this semester. I’m sorry to ask this of you.”
I left Yale the following morning after Clayton convinced me it was b
est.
I never returned.
Never bothered.
And I thought that at least it was good because I’d never have to face Tanner again.
But the universe wasn’t done with me.
Three years later, and that dark force would be overshadowing my life once again. And this time, he would make sure I couldn’t escape him.
To Be Continued…
Treachery returns in May, 2020 (keep reading for a sneak peek of Book One)
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Luca
Three years had passed since I left Yale.
Three fucked up years I’d given my life to a man who had promised to be my world. For our entire marriage, my husband, Clayton, did everything he could to sneak around on me.
After holding me back, after convincing me it would be okay to leave law school to help take care of my mother, he was now leaving me for a younger model, his secretary, as if that wasn’t cliché enough, while also attempting to renege on the prenuptial agreement that promised me several million dollars for his playboy ways.
Even worse, he’d chosen to file for divorce three short months after my father died. I was already broken to lose him so soon after my mom, and Clayton’s declaration that he was leaving me was like getting kicked in the belly when I was already down.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d learned this morning that Clayton had finally hired an attorney to represent him. Much to my surprise - and anger - he’d chosen the biggest bastard of them all, a bastard I’d hoped to never see again for the rest of my life.
Tanner Caine.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around how Clayton had convinced Tanner to take the case.
While I sat at a table in the front of a large courtroom, I watched Tanner approach with my soon to be ex-husband strutting beside him. My fingernails dug into the wooden armrests of the chair, my teeth grinding together loud enough for my attorney to hear them.
“Don’t even look at him, Luca. Tanner’s not as much of a god as he likes to think. And that slimeball husband of yours is about to learn his Senator daddy can’t make all his problems go away. The prenuptial agreement is invalid. Clayton will pay you for what he’s done.”
Tearing my eyes away from Tanner’s arrogant smirk, an expression that tossed me directly back into a past nightmare, the no-nonsense expression of Marjorie Stoneman filled my vision.
A goddess among divorce lawyers, she’d represented every high profile marital split where assets ranged in the millions and billions. Celebrities, politicians, CEOs, it didn’t matter. If the asshole husband in the cases she worked wanted to keep so much as his dick in the divorce, he quickly learned how to bargain.
“I don’t even know why that jackass is in the courtroom. He handles corporate mergers when he actually deigns to work a file in his office. And never have I seen him take a divorce case.”
Platinum blond hair slipping over her shoulder, Marjorie snuck a glance at the two men as they slipped through the half door leading into the front portion of the courtroom.
Thankfully, Clayton was able to work a deal where media wasn’t allowed in the room, and the only people sitting on the viewing benches were his father’s campaign manager and another man I assumed was part of his father’s team. Clayton’s father was up for re-election in four months. For that reason, I knew he needed to keep these proceedings quick and quiet.
“Marjorie.”
Softly rolling thunder shook the air around us, a deep voice resonating over every cell in my body. The timber of Tanner’s words always had an effect on me. Except where other woman had melted into puddles over their expensive brand name shoes to hear it, I’d been the girl smart enough to run.
Unable to look up from the gouged scar carved into the dark oak respondent’s table, I saw Marjorie turn in my peripheral vision, her hand smoothing down her cream colored skirt to find Tanner watching her closely.
“Mr. Caine. How nice to see you’re still practicing law. I thought being a playboy was more your style. And in an area you have zero practice litigating. Does Mr. Hughes know you’ve never worked a domestic case before?”
I couldn’t decide if Marjorie was brave or stupid. There stood Tanner, the menacing, angry, sharp toothed bear, and she was poking him with a stick as thick and lethal as my pinky finger.
His calm laughter forced a chill down my spine, the cold spreading lower until my legs were overrun with pins and needles.
“Mr. Hughes is well aware of my abilities, Marjorie.” He paused long enough for my gaze to slide his direction, “As is Mrs. Hughes, if I’m not mistaken.”
Asshole.
With his signature smirk, Tanner broke our stare to look at my attorney. “Try not to worry your pretty little head over it.”
My eyes clenched shut and I could feel the indignant heat radiating from Marjorie. Tanner hadn’t been in the room longer than five minutes and already he’d gotten under her skin. But I had to have faith. She was a bulldog skilled in handling men just like Tanner. This wasn’t her first rodeo.
Adjusting her posture, Marjorie tapped a set of perfectly polished fingernails over the table.
“I’m glad to hear you’ve been forthcoming, especially when up against a woman of my caliber. The case speaks for itself. Mrs. Hughes has been nothing but the perfect wife. Your client, however…”
Her voice trailed off before she grinned and added, “The prenuptial agreement is invalid due to his inability to keep it in his pants. I’m not sure why I’m even wasting my time here today. Have you taken a moment to review the facts of this matter?”
Before Tanner could answer, a bailiff entered the room through a door near the judge’s bench. “All rise. The Ninth Circuit Court is now in session. The Honorable Franklin T. Mast presiding.”
On shaking legs, I stood from my seat, my eyes studiously glued to the top of the judge’s bald head. The last place I wanted to look was in Tanner’s direction, yet I found my eyes dragging right regardless.
Now standing behind the petitioner’s table, he wore a black pinstriped suit with a white shirt and sapphire blue tie. Tapping a pen against the side of his leg, he appeared relaxed in his environment, the king of this courtroom as much as he’d been the king on campus. I knew exactly why Clayton had run to Tanner to handle our case, but what I couldn’t figure out was how much bootlicking Clayton must have done to convince Tanner to agree to it.
We had history, the three of us. A history that began with the mistake of climbing in Tanner’s bed, and ending with my marriage to Clayton. Those two hated each other by the time I left Yale. Now they were standing side by side in their bid to destroy me.
“Be seated.”
The judge pulled a few papers from the desk in front of him, and I hadn’t yet relaxed into my chair by the time Tanner glanced over at me. In the split second our eyes locked, my heart climbed into my throat, the frantic beats a pulse beneath my chin that were visible from where Tanner was standing. The smug curl to his lips told me as much.
Leaning back, I used Marjorie as a wall between us. I preferred the sight of her platinum hair to the black silk of Tanner’s. Grey eyes peered at me, a plucked brow arching in question. Shaking my head at her unspoken inquiry, I directed my gaze forward, barely able to restrain the urge I had to sink lower in my chair.
“It looks to me we’re here today on the matter of Hughes vs. Hughes, Petition
er’s Motion to Enforce The Prenuptial Agreement due to Extramarital Affair.”
Marjorie’s expression twisted, the red haze to her cheeks telling me something had already gone wrong. Standing from her seat, she cast a sharp glance at Tanner before speaking. “Your Honor, we’re here today on Respondent’s Motion to Compel. I set this hearing myself.”
The judge conferred with his court clerk briefly, but I already knew Marjorie was in for an upsetting surprise. A smug grin tilted the corner of Tanner’s mouth, a sure sign that whatever Marjorie believed would happen today wouldn’t. Light bounced off the top of the judge’s head when he answered her. “I have correspondence here cancelling your hearing, together with a notice of cancellation filed this morning with the Court.”
Eye’s wide, Marjorie went stock still.
“May I approach the bench, Your Honor? I’m not sure what you’re referring to because I am certain I haven’t cancelled my hearing.”
“Both counsel may approach.”
While Marjorie stormed forward to review the documents the judge claimed to have received from her office, Tanner took his time rising from his seat and rounding the corner of his table. As soon as he looked my direction, I knew the game he was playing. With a wink, he told me I’d lost already.
Tanner’s arrogant swagger hadn’t changed since I last saw him. With broad shoulders, a tight waist, and careless black hair that appeared brushed by fingers alone, he approached the bench with the casual ease of a man out for a late afternoon stroll.
Marjorie, on the other hand, was practically in hysterics. For a bulldog attorney accustomed to powerful men, she was already losing the battle against Tanner. A hushed conversation occurred, my attention lost to the dread of my circumstances. There was no way in Hell this would work to my advantage.
The conference ended as Marjorie spun to storm in my direction, the feet of her chair screeching over marble floors from her weight. On a whisper, she told me what I already knew.