Set In Stone

by K. M. Scott

  Looking up at him, I needed Tristan to know the truth. “I didn’t cheat on her, Tristan. I wouldn’t do that. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a cheater. Tressa means the world to me. I hope you know that.”

  He frowned and then nodded again. “I do. For what it’s worth, I don’t see you as a cheater, so that leads me to believe you’re being blackmailed. Is that correct?”

  “No. That’s the crazy thing. Eden didn’t contact me about wanting anything in exchange for not releasing the pictures, which by the way are doctored. I don’t know how, but I swear to you they are.”

  Tristan made a low, guttural noise and shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. If she doesn’t want money, what does she want? Is she hoping to get you back with this ham-handed ploy?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t even get her to answer my calls so I can ask why she told that website all those lies.”

  He narrowed his eyes like he didn’t believe me, but then he said, “None of this makes any sense. You’re telling me no one tried to blackmail you in regard to these pictures before they were released to the public?”

  “No. I had someone threaten to go to the press about a month ago with an accusation that I had taken money in exchange for throwing a game in college, but that was total nonsense. I didn’t pay them, and nothing ever came of it.”

  He perked up immediately and reached into his pocket for his phone. As he dialed a number, he said, “By mail, I’m guessing? If you have that letter or whatever they sent you, get it for me.”

  Then he said to the person on the phone, “Daryl, Tristan. I’ve got something for you. This is an ASAP situation, so it needs to happen now.”

  I didn’t hear what this Daryl person said in response, but a few seconds later, Tristan stuffed his phone back into his suit jacket and smiled at me. “I’ve got my guy on this. Anything you can tell me, in addition to giving me what they sent you, can help.”

  A minute later, I handed him the letter I’d gotten trying to blackmail me. “I don’t even bother the police with these things anymore. Nothing ever comes of them, so why would I? I didn’t think this would have anything to do with Eden and those pictures, though.”

  “I don’t know if it does, but my guy will find out. I’ve known him for years. He’ll figure out what’s going on with all of this. Eden Mitchell has a house in Malibu and one in Idaho, if I’m not mistaken. Have you tried both?”

  Surprised to hear someone like Tristan Stone knew anything about my ex-girlfriend, I stammered out, “I only tried the Malibu house. She doesn’t stay in the Idaho place after Labor Day.”

  “Didn’t think I’d know about a world famous actress?” he asked with a chuckle.

  I shook my head but said nothing, at a loss for words about much of what had happened since he got to my apartment.

  “I had you checked out when you started dating my daughter, Killian. I’m a protective father, and just because you’re the star quarterback for my team didn’t mean I didn’t want to know all about you. That’s how I was pretty sure this whole thing with your ex wasn’t what it seemed. I’ll get this letter to Daryl and let you know what he finds out. In the meantime, take it easy. Things might not all be lost yet.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to ask what he meant by that before he turned and walked out of my apartment, leaving me standing there hoping this guy of his would clear everything up so I could prove to Tressa all of this had been a huge lie.

  I spent the next three days holed up in my apartment looking at pictures of the two of us and hating every minute I couldn’t be with her, couldn’t hold her hand and promise her we could get past this. Had she already hardened her heart to the very idea of me so by the time I returned to her with the truth about what Eden had done it wouldn’t matter?

  Every few hours Sherilyn called to tell me she hadn’t found anything out yet, and I listened long enough to be disappointed once more before I ended the call and went back to looking at Tressa and me in better times. These weren’t pictures taken by the press since she always looked so stiff and uncomfortable in those that I couldn’t help but smile. She’d been so nervous every time we attended those events, but still she was right there holding my hand tightly as the press took picture after picture.

  No, the images I loved best of her were the ones I’d taken myself. Some were from quiet moments when we said nothing for long stretches of time and simply sat watching TV, the two of us cuddled together on the couch. I’d take my phone out and snap a picture before she could complain she didn’t look good enough or I’d caught her frowning.

  Others were of the two of us having fun outside at Darius’s house or relaxing at a secluded beach at one of her hotels or a hundred different times when her smile lit up her beautiful face because I cracked a stupid joke. In each of those, she was happy.

  I swallowed hard as I stopped on one of just her out at her parents’ estate. My mind flashed back to that day in August right before preseason games began. We walked around the grounds holding hands, and when we reached the fence at the edge of the property, she told me a story about how she’d snuck out to meet a boy from school one night. Tressa had always been the perfect daughter and the perfect student, but that one time she couldn’t stop herself from breaking the rules.

  She’d blushed in that way I loved as she told that story, so I quickly took out my phone and got a picture of her so adorably admitting to risking everything in her teenage life for some bad boy. I took her in my arms and kissed her after that, charmed by her honesty and vulnerability. She couldn’t understand why I liked that story of her so much since in her mind it showed a weakness, but with me, she never had to worry about fearing being weak because I would be strong for her.

  And now because of me, all her fears about our differences and how she didn’t fit into my world had come true.

  The familiar sound of a call coming in tore me from my thoughts, and I looked up to see Darius staring back at me. Our bye week had passed so quickly for me since I’d spent it doing nothing but wallowing in misery and trying unsuccessfully to fix things that I hadn’t spoken to him since the shit had started raining down on me nearly a week ago. He looked fresh after the time off, and he’d even shaved.

  “Killian, man, what’s going on with you? I would have thought you’d call me this week. What’s up with that whole story with you and that actress?” he asked in that gravelly voice of his, the only part of him that didn’t sound refreshed after nearly seven days off.

  “I haven’t done much talking to anyone this week. Sorry. The issue with Eden Mitchell is still going on. She unloads her story and those pictures to that bullshit gossip site and since then no one’s been able to find her. Nice, huh?”

  “Yeah. That’s what you get for dating actresses, man. They’re the original drama queens,” he said, his expression worried as he pushed his blond hair off his forehead.

  “Well, if I can get her to admit the whole fucking thing was a lie, I don’t plan on dating any actresses ever again. I just have to find her first. I’ve called dozens of times, but I can’t get in touch with her.”

  “That’s just shitty. You know what else is shitty? Looking online for a new jacket and two fucking links later I’m staring at your bare ass.”

  For a moment, he tried to fight back a smile, but it was no use. He threw his head back and let out a deep laugh I couldn’t be angry with. And after days of being miserable, I laughed at this whole thing for the first time.

  “Thanks, man. I needed that. Now if I could just get the truth out and get this mess over with, maybe I can get Tressa to take me back.”

  Darius smiled and nodded like he understood. Of all the people I knew, I had a feeling he did understand how I felt about Tressa. I didn’t spend my time telling people how much I loved her because that wasn’t what I did with my teammates, but Darius was smarter than most of the men I played with and read people better.

  “You know what kills me? It’s easily provable that y
ou didn’t go with her since the two of us spent the entire night before the game hanging out. Anyone who knows you can attest to the fact that you never break your routine the night before. The idea that you would go off and have some kind of rendezvous with anyone that night is ridiculous.”

  I sighed, letting the air out of my lungs as the frustration of the whole thing made me want to beat the fuck out of someone. “A picture speaks a thousand words. You know that as well as I do. Ironic, though, that a picture would be the thing that ruins my life. I’ve always loved getting my picture taken. It was Tressa who hated it. She couldn’t understand why I enjoyed it so much. Guess the joke’s on me, huh?”

  “Well, once your career is over, you could have a second one as a male model. You know the ones who pose nude for art students. You look like you’ve got the moves down pat,” Darius joked.

  I laughed again and shook my head at the absurdity of it all. “Fuck you, man. But thanks for calling. Hopefully when you see me next, this whole thing will be over and done with.”

  “I’m hoping it is. I’ll see you Monday at the field. Call me if you need anything.”

  The screen turned to black, and I sat back against the couch unsure of what to do. I hoped Tristan’s guy would have found Eden by now, but it looked like that hadn’t happened, so that left me no better off than before.

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t do it, I found those fucking pictures Eden had given to that online rag and looked at them closely for the first time. I’d avoided them like the fucking plague all week, but Darius’s joking about my future career made me want to see if I could recognize anything that would tell me when they were taken. The fact that Eden had secretly done that still surprised me. I’d been dead wrong about her, for sure.

  I stared at the first picture up on the screen and had to squint to make out much of anything through the graininess. That was definitely me and Eden. Nearly six feet tall, her legs stretched even longer than mine on my six foot four frame. They wrapped around mine like two pythons. All that could be seen of me was the back of my head and body, but there was no denying it. It was me.

  The picture had been taken in her bedroom at her Malibu home, but I knew that the first time I looked at it. Walking across the room to stand in front of the screen, I tried to make out anything that would indicate when the image had really been taken since September was a lie. I saw nothing except the enormous painting of herself she’d always kept on the wall above her bed. On each side of the image was the bedroom furniture she had the entire time we dated.

  Fuck, this was frustrating! Like I wanted to be standing in my goddamned living room staring at a picture of me naked and fucking a woman I never loved and currently didn’t even fucking like anymore.

  Moving on to the next picture with me sitting up and Eden straddling me in her Malibu house bedroom, my eyes were immediately drawn to that gaudy painting behind us. More than once, I’d looked up at it while we were having sex and wondered why anyone would keep that nearby where they slept. The artist had been talented, but the thing was creepy, like one of those velvet Jesus paintings with eyes that seemed to follow you wherever you went in the room.

  I pushed that out of my mind and focused on the two of us for a moment. Eden looked like she always did, at least from behind—long blond hair that curled slightly on the ends as it hit the middle of her back and a nice ass. None of that helped to prove the thing was doctored.

  Little of me could be seen since she was perched on my lap with her legs on the outside of my hips and her torso covering up my head and face. In fact, all that could be seen of me were my legs outstretched in front of me and my hands holding her waist.

  Squinting even harder, I leaned in toward the image so my nose nearly touched the screen. There had to be something to prove these goddamned pictures weren’t taken in September and Eden was pulling some kind of scam. My eyes roved over every square inch of her body and then what I could see of mine.

  And then I saw it. Or more truthfully, didn’t see it. The tattoo I’d gotten on my right wrist in April after she and I ended things two months before. The one to commemorate being traded to New York. Those two black bands with arrows facing opposite directions were nowhere to be found.

  I stepped back as the realization that I could prove these images weren’t taken in September washed over me. Proof! But seconds later, the happiness morphed into resignation. I could prove I wasn’t with Eden any time during that LA trip with a simple statement from Darius or any other member of the team who saw me at the hotel that night. It didn’t matter. As I said to him, a picture was worth a thousand words. My proof didn’t matter.

  Unless Eden agreed to admit she lied, those pictures would remain the only truth anyone believed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Killian

  As I sat there staring at that picture, Tristan’s face popped up in a box at the top of the screen. Compared to the expression he’d worn when he was standing in my apartment three days earlier, he looked excited, so I quickly exited out of the picture of Eden and me and stood up, hoping he had something good to tell me.

  “Did you find out anything?” I blurted out, forgetting who I was talking to. “Sorry. Hi, Tristan.”

  “It’s okay. I know you’re on pins and needles waiting for news, and I’ve got some for you.” Looking down at his watch, he smiled. “I think you’ll want to check out channel eighteen forty. I’m told something interesting is going to appear right about now. I’ll wait.”

  I grabbed the TV remote and punched in the channel number. Eighteen forty. I didn’t know what that channel was dedicated to. Hopefully, it was the channel where ex-girlfriends told the truth to the world about how they were lying bitches. I didn’t know if there was a huge calling for that kind of thing, but I could definitely get behind it.

  Minimized to a square at the top right of my TV, Tristan said, “Watch. I think you’re going to like what’s coming up.”

  I waited as some commercial about male pattern balding extoled the virtues of some revolutionary cream that promised to change your life after only a month. Annoyed, I mumbled, “Who the fuck cares about bald guys? Get on with it.”

  “If you were this impatient on the field, you’d never connect with your receivers,” Tristan said in a steady voice. “It’s coming. Just wait for it.”

  If he wasn’t the father of the woman I loved, I’d have a few choice words to say about how waiting to see some surprise he sprung on me a minute ago was nothing like my job as a quarterback. Since he was, I kept my mouth shut and hoped this commercial about bald fuckers ended before I exploded.

  Then just as I didn’t think I had a second’s worth of patience left in my entire body, I saw what he’d called about. Eden sat with a dark-haired woman in her Idaho house I remembered her hating in the cold weather and quietly answered questions in what the reporter called an exclusive interview.

  Leaning forward, the woman said in a somber voice, “Eden, you agreed to this interview because you wanted to get a few things straight about the article and pictures about you and Killian Brenton. What would you like to say?”

  Eden grimaced and then took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Turning to look at the camera, she said the words I’d prayed to hear for nearly a week. “I want to say that what that article said was incorrect. Killian and I weren’t together in September.”

  Her admission that she’d lied, as vague as it was, hit me like a truck. I stepped back as the reporter asked her why she said she had been with me long after we broke up and stopped as her answer stunned me.

  “I was paid to say that. I realize that was a mistake to take the money now, though.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to Killian?” the dark-haired reporter asked quietly.

  For a moment, Eden didn’t move and I wondered if the picture had frozen. What could she possibly have to say to me? Sorry for ruining your life? I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience? Too bad you
lost the most important thing in your world?

  When she finally answered the question, her words did little to make up for the damage she’d done. “I’d like to tell him that I’m sorry I made such a terrible mistake. I was misled by a bad person.”

  Well, Eden never had been the courageous kind. I doubted she cared at all what her lies had done to me and Tressa.

  The interview continued, but I had no interest in hearing any more of what she had to say. I turned it off and brought Tristan back to thank him since no doubt his guy had gotten her to admit her lies.

  “I’m guessing that guy Daryl found her. How did he get her to do that interview?”

  Tristan smiled and shrugged. “Daryl is very persuasive. From what he told me, though, she wanted to tell the truth about everything once he explained how her lies had caused you and Tressa to break up. You have a bigger problem, though.”

  “Bigger than the fact that I lost the woman I love because my ex showed the world phony pictures of us having sex? I can’t imagine things could get any worse, to be honest.”

  “Well, they are. Daryl found out who was behind the payment to Eden to get her to lie. You’ve got a traitor on your team, Killian.”

  A traitor on my team? No way. He had to be wrong. Every man who played on my team was one hundred percent behind me as much as I was for them.

  “He’s got to be wrong. From the coach and owner to the water boys, my team supports me. Tell him to look again.”

  Shaking his head, Tristan said, “I didn’t mean the football team. I’m talking about the people you have around you. The person who paid Eden to lie was your publicist, Sherilyn. She’s been paying her for over a year.”

  I stood there in shock. No way. Sherilyn had been with me longer than anyone else. I loved her like a sister, and she loved me like I was part of her family.

  “I don’t believe it. Why?”