“He flew to Houston.”
“What? He’s there?”
“This morning. He came as soon as he was served. He’s not happy. There’s nothing he can do to stop it. But he’ll try. I’m so afraid this is going to get ugly.”
“No, it won’t. And if he tries anything, I’ll kick his ass,” he says, in that assured way of his that makes everything feel like it’ll be okay.
“God, I miss you, Stone.” I sigh at how good it feels to say it aloud.
“Me too. I can’t stop thinking about you. People keep asking me why I’m smiling so much.”
I giggle, another new thing that being with Stone has brought about. Marcel’s visit feels like it happened in another lifetime. Stone has a way of making everything clean and bright and new.
“Let’s go back to Mexico,” I whisper.
“I wish. I’ve been looking at the pictures from our trip. I took so many good ones of your sexy ass.” His voice is husky and deep, and it makes my knees weak just to imagine his face right now; his irreverent smile is everything.
“Ooh, I found one…I don’t know who took it, but you’ll love it.” I find the picture on my phone, taken by our tour guide when we weren’t looking.
“Send it,” he says.
“No, I’ll show you when you get here.”
“Ugh, you’re such a tease,” he groans.
A deep male voice calls his name, and my stomach drops because I know he has to go.
“I’ve got a staff meeting in five minutes. We’re leaving at first light tomorrow, so I’ll try to call you tonight.”
“Okay, have a good day.” I try to sound cheerful, even though this three-month long expedition of his feels like the sword of Damocles hovering over my neck. And I don’t even know why. Other than how much I’ll miss him and the sense of safety having him in my life gives me.
We’ve had this month of late-night phone calls and endless text messaging threads. He’s helped me think through my plans for Venus Rising, and I hate that he’s going on this trip, just as it’s finally coming together.
I know he’s going to do things that will save lives and that this is important to him, so I keep my disappointment to myself.
“I’m so proud of you. It’s going to be incredible.”
“I’m going to miss you, Regan.” His voice is gruff, and I drop my façade of happiness.
“I’ll miss you, too.” I wish I could hug him.
“I’ll write you and mail the letters whenever we stop somewhere that has postal service,” he promises.
“I’ll text you every day. And email you about Venus Rising. We’re breaking ground on the dorms, and I want you to see it all.” I force cheer into my voice.
“I won’t have service,” he reminds me, and I swallow a groan.
“Then they’ll be there when you get back.”
“And what about you? Will you be here for me when I get back?” His voice is low, sensual, and heavy with meaning.
“Of course, I will be.”
“Good. In three months, I’ll be back in Houston, and I want more than your friendship.”
My heart flails with happiness. I was afraid he’d never ask again. “Really? What about Hayes?”
“Who cares what he thinks?” he says, with bravado that makes me nervous.
“Are you sure you know what you’re getting into? Maybe we should test the waters, first. Go slow.”
“I’m not testing anything. I know the temperature of this ocean, Baby, and it’s perfect. Get your ass in here with me, and I’ll show you,” he says, in that growly voice of his, that makes my scalp throb for the tug of his hand in my hair.
“So, just three more months?” I check my mental calendar. “And everything is good with Baylor? Are you ready to start?”
“Yup, after the longest background check in history. I’m pretty sure they called my ninth-grade math teacher for a reference,” he chuckles.
“Woah, is that normal?”
“Yeah, they’ve got a major morality clause in their contract, and they do a background check that makes the secret service one look tame. If this wasn’t my dream job, the one I’ve been working for since I was old enough to remember, I’d tell them to eat shit.”
I laugh because I know he means it.
“Hey, gotta go. No more what ifs. Only up from here, Venus. I love you.” His voice is dark with promise, and he hangs up before I can respond.
I stare at the phone in shock, when I blink to clear my vision, a tear rolls down my cheek. All the seeds he planted with those letters and that book explode into beautiful blooms of joy, gratitude, relief, impatience, and excitement. Oh my God. This is happening.
“I love you, too,” I say to the dial tone.
I crawl into bed with my son, and he rolls over and throws one of his little legs across my hip and nestles his head on my shoulder and all is right in my world.
Finally.
Chapter 40
Present Day
HOUSTON, TX
Chapter 41
One More Day
Regan
My alarm’s trill sounds like a starting gun in my brain. I spring up, grab my marker, draw the nineteenth red x on my small calendar and my heart leaps in my throat. One more day. Just one more and I will be free. And when Stone gets back, I’ll go pick him up from the airport and welcome him home with open arms.
I glance at the picture I teased him with. I love having it all to myself. I don’t even know who took it. It was the last night on the island, and we were dancing. I hate that it looks like I’m bottomless – but I guess that’s better than being able to see the wedgie his arm is hiding.
But this is how I remember us…how I want us to be again.
Just one more day…and I’ve got a lot to do before I’m finally a single woman again.
2 Weeks Later
HOUSTON, TX
Chapter 42
Fuck The High Road
Regan
“I think I’m going to be sick. Can you press pause?” I breathe through the sudden grip of nausea in my gut. Throwing up in the waiting room of my husband’s lawyer’s office is not going to happen.
My racing pulse moves like an untamed herd of horses and echoes like thunder in my ears as I gaze with dismay at the screen of Remi’s iPad where we’re watching security footage from my house.
When he doesn’t respond, I press pause myself.
“What?” Remi pulls his ear buds out and turns his concerned gaze on me.
I wince as I take in the “me” captured in the freeze frame of the video.
My hair, that was almost completely dry and no longer weighed down by water, had contracted into a dark, unruly mane, so full, it obscured most of my face in the first few minutes of the video, when I was facing Marcel and in profile to the camera.
From that point of view, the bold swell of my cheekbone, the slope and slight, but noticeable, upward-tilt of my nose and the deeply downturned corner of my mouth are visible.
As I watch it, with no volume, you’d think I was on the receiving end of something mildly upsetting. But in the freeze frame, with my eyes looking directly into the camera, the stark terror I was feeling at the nuclear bomb that was being dropped on me is clear as day.
Watching a replay of the morning Marcel came in to confront me about the photo is harder than I thought it would be. It’s like having an out of body experience. All of the feelings that coursed through me that day surge up, creating a ripple layer of anxiety, right below the surface of my skin. It feels tight and hot. Just the way it had the morning everything that kept my life anchored fell away.
It happened in an instant. I should have seen it coming, but I wasn’t looking because I was so wrapped up in Stone.
In the space of seconds, I was devastated.
Tears blur my vision, and I squeeze my eyes closed to clear them.
“Regan?” Remi’s concerned voice next to me helps me settle down faster. The prospect of anot
her person seeing me cry makes my tears dry up faster than anything else.
“I just needed a minute.” I turn to look at him, with a reassuring smile on my face. He’s watching me with the same worry that’s been in his eyes since this all started.
“Are you sure? I mean, it’s only been a week, maybe you need more time.”
“It feels like yesterday,” I say, wistfully, regretting the toll this has taken on him, too.
My brother scoffs and slides his unamused gaze back to the iPad.“Really? Feels like the longest month of my entire life, Reggie. Watching this, knowing what I know, I want to kick Marcel’s ass. I can’t believe he made us all feel sorry for him.”
I brush a hand over the lines furrowing his forehead, and my sigh is heavy with equal parts regret and dismay.
“He didn’t make up the part where I was kissing another man. The pictures aren’t doctored,” I remind him pointedly.
He scoffs, his lips pursing, as if he can taste something bitter. “I wish you’d made a fucking video, so he could have heard it, too. That’s what he deserves. I can’t believe he had the nerve to treat you like this when he was doing all the shit we found at the same damn time.” He shakes the tablet in his hand for emphasis.
I put a hand on his arm. “I need you to be the one who doesn’t make a scene, okay? You have to keep your cool. We can't let our emotions get the best of us in there.”
“Emotion isn’t a bad thing,” he says, eyebrows raised in challenge.
“I know that,” I snap, and cross my arms over my chest.
He smiles, a knowing smile, at my defensive gesture. “Well then, why are you acting like nothing is wrong?”
“I’m not acting like nothing is wrong.”
“It’s okay to not be okay, Reggie.” He pats my arm, reassuringly.
I groan in irritation. “I don’t know why you think I need reminding of that. I know myself. There’s a storm the likes of which I’ve never known brewing inside me. I used it to get myself here today. Just because my outward reactions are not what you expect, doesn’t mean it’s an act.”
We hold each other’s gazes. We may have shared a womb, but we’re as different as sea and sand. And just as vital to each other. Right now, the ever-present sparkle in his eyes is dulled by disappointment. I’m not the only one nursing a heartbreak.
If charisma and empathy were divided and distributed between us, then the lion’s share went to Remi. He’s got the most tender of hearts and is swift to injure and slow to forgive. Because he knows that about himself, he’s careful about letting people close.
His good opinion and friendship are hard to come by.
Marcel won both of those, in spades.
We even have a running joke that he liked Marcel more than he liked me. It was said in good humor, but, like every joke, it was peppered by the truth.
He and my husband have much more in common than we ever had. What started off as a distant relationship between in-laws, has blossomed into a real friendship. One that I have never interfered with, even when I wanted to. I wasn’t in any sort of danger, and there was nothing about the image we portrayed to the world about our family that I wanted to change. So, I’ve kept my own counsel about the things that were going on behind closed doors.
When I only had my suspicions about Marcel being the one to have stolen that picture, he dismissed it outright.
Marcel had sent that email to everyone in my family and in our close circle of friends. He’s played the cuckolded, devastated husband perfectly.
Remi was only humoring me when he sent his firm’s new private investigator, Dina, to follow my lead. He didn’t expect to find anything behind that mirror in my room that Marcel kept glancing at.
Who would want to believe their friends capable of the kind of subterfuge and deception I was accusing Marcel of? It even took me a while to put it together.
Last week, when Marcel offered me this meeting, things were very different. According to the terms of our prenup, he was awarded temporary, full custody of our children, pending our divorce and a formal custody agreement.
I didn’t fight him because I wanted to spare my children any more drama and publicity. I was desperate, heartsick, and humiliated.
He held all the cards, and he used this meeting, with his offer, to discuss custody as a big stick that he’s used to beat compliance out of me. He picked the date, the time, the place, everything.
The fallout from my public shaming wasn’t just my reputation. It endangered something that means even more to me.
My podcast, The Jezebel. I started it after my mother suggested it, but not for the reasons she did. I knew that when he got here, I’d have to tell him the truth. But first, I had to hear myself say it all out loud. And that’s what I did with the podcast, used it as an outlet. But then, people started writing to me, commenting and sharing their stories, too.
But it turned into something completely different, which makes the timing of this picture’s publication, with my tattoo visible for all the world to see, even worse.
Two days before the picture was published, the podcast was mentioned in a news report and was credited as the source of information that led to the re-opening of a case involving a prominent plastic surgeon here in Houston. He’d been acquitted of a sexual assault charge after the woman, who accused him, was discredited during cross examination. The woman, who chose to remain anonymous during the trial due to safety concerns, had been a prostitute and that was enough to convince a jury that whatever he did to her, she asked for. He was acquitted, and she was left to get on with her life.
Then, one day, she sent me an email. Lori, as she called herself, found the podcast, inadvertently. She asked me to tell her story because she’d been so maligned in the press. So, I did. That opened the floodgates. It turns out that since the trial, there’d been more complaints from women who no one cared about. I started getting emails from women, mostly sex workers, who’d been his patients at the free clinic he volunteered at, with stories very much like Lori’s.
They had dates, times, complaints they filed, officials who ignored them. I compiled them and used The Jezebel’s email address to forward them to a staff writer at the Houston Chronicle.
There was an outcry from Dr. Zimmerman’s powerful friends and patients. He was one of them. Their golf partner. Their campaign donor. Their museum patron.
They wrote op-eds, claiming he was being “framed, hustled, and schemed on by desperate, broken and deluded women who were angry that he’d spurned their advances.”
But, this time, it’s not his word against hers or one vulnerable prostitute who could be steamrolled. It’s a tidal wave of women who have come forward to stop this man from hurting one more person.
So far, no one has made the connection and noticed that the name of the podcast is the same as the name emblazoned on my back. But it wouldn’t take much for Marcel to figure it out. And I know he’ll use it as leverage.
With my reputation so tarnished by this picture that everyone has seen, being associated with me could cast doubt on their credibility, again.
Thankfully, I have a big stick of my own that I’m going to use to bind his tongue.
My hunch the possibility of a hidden camera behind that mirror paid off.
There were also cameras in our children’s rooms, and the small library I used for my monthly sit down with my accountant. I was livid.
Until Dina, brilliant woman that she is, called to say she’d struck gold. She hacked the Drop Box where the surveillance videos were stored. He recorded me in that library, but he also recorded himself.
What I saw made me sick, before it made me smile.
When Remi watched it, he insisted on representing me himself. He’s one of the country’s most decorated litigators. And as relieved as I am to have him on my side, I hate that it comes at the cost of that disappointment in his eyes.
I soften my posture and take his hand in mine.
“I know this is har
d for you, too. Let’s not argue. I can’t change who I am or how I cope with things any more than you can. So, let’s just cut each other some slack. Once I have my children back under my roof, I’ll curl up in my huge bathtub with an entire bottle of champagne and cry myself dry, okay?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m sorry all of this is happening. I’m sorry I didn’t see who he was,” he says, in a voice made rough from a week of shouting arguments and late nights, followed by mornings, so early it felt like we hadn’t slept at all.
“We only know of other people, what they let us see and you’re not a mind reader.” I nod at the phone. “Go on, let’s watch to the end.”
His finger hovers over the triangle on the screen. “You don’t have to. It’s not like you don’t already know what happens,” he says, in that way he has of being kind, but managing, at the same time.
I give his hand a resolute squeeze. “I want to watch it. The man in this video is who Marcel really is. I’ll need that reminder when I sit across from him today. Press play,” I say, with resolve.
The video resumes. I’m prepared for what comes next. But my throat still constricts as the worst day of my entire life replays on the screen.
My heart is tied into a million tiny knots. When we get to the worst of it, I close my eyes. And even with no volume, I can hear the sounds of mayhem and destruction from that day - my shouts, my daughter crying, Marcel’s thundering silence.
“What men?” I growl, the fear in my eyes morphing into rage that turns them into slits of fire and brimstone.
I hit pause and close my eyes. Sweat beads my upper lip, and my nails dig grooves into the palms of my curled hands.
The Rivals Page 93