I just keep shaking my head, eyes blinking, pulse pounding in my ears. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.” I throw my hands up, helpless and astounded. “So easy for you to suggest when the video is so dark you can barely see your dick but you sure as hell can see all of me, laid out and spread-eagle.”
“Listen to me, Ry. I couldn’t care less if my dick was on display or not.”
“Stupid me. I forgot you’re used to being seen by the masses. After all, you were the playboy once upon a time. You had your dick on display for more women than I care to count.” I take a dig at him, wanting him to be as upset as I am over this whole thing.
“That’s exactly my point. I’m the notorious playboy. The player. People expect this shit from me.”
“But they’re going to think you cheated on me,” I say, completely dumbfounded by the turn of events. And while I may have learned not to care what people think, I do care about that.
“I don’t give a fuck what people think about me . . . you know that. The only person that matters is you. You know I didn’t cheat on you—”
“This is a bad idea, Colton.”
“I’m not paying some bastard three mil so he or she can turn around and release the tape anyway. I don’t bow down to threats, Ry. Never have. Never will.” We stare at each other in silence and his words sink in, take hold, and as much as I want to reject the idea immediately, I fear that what he says is true.
“But what about your parents? My parents? The baby?” I say, each passing moment adding more panicked dread to my voice. “There’s going to be a video out there, documented for them to google and know about.” I have to stop. A gasp falls from my lips because as the baby moves into my ribs my breath doesn’t come fast enough.
“Calm down, Ry. Please.” He sits on his knees again and pulls me against him. I close my eyes, attempt to wish this all away, yet know there is no way that’s possible. “We’ll tell our family it’s not what they think. That it’s Photoshopped. We’ll have Chase issue a press release to the media. It’ll say something like we were sent this tape that’s been tampered with. That we were being blackmailed for a ridiculous amount of money and we won’t entertain paying for it because my image has been cut and pasted into it somehow, and it’s not true.”
I push him away and just stare at him, seeing the logic but at the same time, that’s us on there. Him and me. “No one’s going to believe it, Colton. You know better than anyone the press is going to run with the story and report it in the worst light possible. Sensationalize it. Try to document how distraught I am. Dig up old photos of you with other women, plaster them all over the pages to show that’s how you are.”
“Who cares?”
“I do,” I scream, causing his head to startle while I stare at him with blank, disbelieving eyes. Surely it’s not possible that what I’m thinking and what he’s saying is the same thing. “I’d care that people think you are fucking around behind my back. I’d hate that people would think I’m this meek woman holding on to her famous husband because she has this new baby and can’t get any better so she stays.” The first tear falls over my cheek and I shove it away, hating that it fell and despising I just admitted that.
“No! All that matters is what you and I know,” he emphasizes but it falls on deaf ears. “The press isn’t going to—”
“That’s what they do.”
“Rylee—”
“Don’t Rylee me! Do you want some sick fuck somewhere jacking off to images of you and me having sex? I mean, seriously? Doesn’t that make your stomach turn, Colton? I’m your wife. Not some whore you slept with and discarded for God’s sake.” I push myself out of the chair needing to get away from him and get some perspective. He’s talking crazy, and right now, I have enough crazy in my life.
I move through the house, his frustrated sigh behind me, and walk onto the patio overlooking the beach below. Alone, I can think without him clouding my thoughts. I can breathe without him and his logic that I fear is one hundred percent correct in how things will go if we do pay whomever it is off.
We’re in a no-win situation. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
I sink down into a chair on the edge of the patio and pet Baxter’s head when he sidles up next to me. My mind flashes back to those images that are etched in my mind with crystal-clear precision. Good images. Personal images. Intimate images. The fight in the garden after hearing Tawny’s comments in the bathroom. How I’d gone from thinking I was losing Colton to finding out he was willing to try and have a relationship with me. The exhilaration that had ruled my thoughts as we’d entered the elevator. The disbelief as we’d walked toward the red Ferrari and the knowledge of what Colton had wanted to do with me on it. My desire overwhelming my senses, giving into the emotion and having sex with Colton on the hood, cementing that bond we shared and feeling on top of the world.
All the while, a camera had been capturing our moment. And someone behind that camera had been watching.
My skin crawls. The ball of acid sits in my stomach, the acrid taste of incredulity on my tongue.
This is so screwed up I don’t even know what to think, where to go, what to do. Of course, the one time I stepped out of my perfectly modest box look what happened. And as much as I want to be pissed at Colton because the whole sex on the hood of the car thing was his idea, I can’t. I didn’t say no. I went along with the idea, was persuaded by passion, got lost in the moment, and had loved every minute of it, simply because it was with Colton.