Aced (The Driven #5)

by K. Bromberg

  “But every other part of me is,” I shriek, as the sudden knowledge of where he’s going with this forms in my head. He can’t be serious. My stomach knots, forcing me to focus on breathing for a moment as my eyes look deep into his and question what I see there.

  “Watch it again.”

  “I don’t want to watch it again,” I shout, shrugging his hands off my shoulders and not liking what he’s suggesting one bit. “And I refuse to entertain whatever idea is in your head.” Panic returns with a vengeance.

  “Hear me out, Ry,” he says, getting down to eye level with me as I avert my eyes to where my hands are resting on my belly. “Please look at me.” I take a moment before I raise my eyes and I’m glad that when I do, he seems as conflicted as I feel. “Do you really think that if we pay off whoever this person is they won’t keep an extra tape for insurance? That they won’t get their money and accidentally let the tape end up on the Internet?”

  “Colton . . .”

  “No, Ry. You just told me TMZ called you. They’ve already contacted media and planted a seed. Do you actually think they’d do that if they’d planned on taking the money and then disappearing with the video for good? Something is off here, and I can’t figure out what the fuck it is.”

  His comments weigh down the atmosphere around us and it takes everything I have to blink, to breathe, to think, because this just can’t be happening. He’s right. The fact they’ve already contacted a tabloid tells me it’s something more . . . and hell if I know what the more is or why the video is surfacing right now.

  “I’ve been wracking my brain, have some ideas, but that’s beside the point, right now. The point is they want money, want to make us panic . . . want to tear us apart right when we’re about to be happiest we’ve ever been with the baby coming.” His eyes soften momentarily as he looks down to where my hands rest before looking back up to me with more resolve than I want him to have. “Think about it, Ry,” he urges, and I hate that he makes so much sense.

  He can tell my mind is spinning and my ears are tuning him out. I grit my teeth and fight a wave of nausea. “What exactly are you thinking?”

  His chest rises as he takes in a deep breath, and I fear he’s preparing himself for the backlash from whatever he has to say. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “What’s not? The video? The situation? The idea in your head?” My voice rises with each word.

  “All of it,” he states.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, eyes wide with disbelief. “There’s a video of you screwing me on the hood of a Ferrari!”

  “No. There’s a video of me fucking somebody on the hood of the Ferrari. Your face is never shown. The only people who know that dress is red are you and me. The only people who know you hold your hands over your tits when you’re about to come, or that you reach out and scratch your nails over my hip like that when I come, are you and me. No. One. Else.”

  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 incre
dulity 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.

  Who would have thought almost six years later, this would come back to haunt us?

  “Hey,” Colton says from behind me and I don’t respond because I don’t even know what to say or think anymore. “I’m sorry.”

  “Who would do this to us, Colton? Why all this time later? It doesn’t make sense.” And even after I say the words, the justified spite that’s still within me after all of these years comes back with a vengeance when I think of the one person who would want to ruin our happiness. “Tawny.”

  Colton blinks his eyes slowly, telling me he already has considered this. “I don’t think so.”

  “What?” My back’s up, ire already boiling in my blood as he bites the inside of his cheek and holds my stare. “How dare you defend her,” I accuse, even when I know he hasn’t and that I’m being completely irrational.

  “I’m not defending her,” he says in that placating tone of his that is like oil to my water. “Tawny isn’t stupid enough to cross that line. She may be a vindictive cunt, but she wouldn’t cross me. Not after the paperwork I made her sign when I fired her. The consequences of fucking with us again were laid out quite candidly, and I assure you she’s not that stupid . . .”

  “Oh.” It’s all I can say. His eyes hold mine. I had no clue that he’d done that. “But she knew we were there that night, knew what we were doing. When we came back up I told her about . . .” My voice trails off as the memory flashes through my mind. My immediate thought when I saw her of here comes the rain to fuck with my parade, and how victorious I felt telling her that Colton and I had just fucked on the hood of Sex. How for the first time, I was confident in where we stood in our relationship.

  Oh my God. Did I bring this upon us?

  “No, Ry. This isn’t on you. Please,” he begs, because he knows me well enough to know what I’m thinking. “I’ve crossed a lot of people in my life. In racing. In dating. In business. By surviving. It could be any one of the many.”

  “Who else knew about that night then? Parking garage staff? Sammy?” I go through the names out loud and see the anger flicker in his eyes when I mention his most-trusted person.

  “Sammy had to sign the same agreement Tawny did plus about twenty more. It wasn’t him.” And I know he hates the narrowing of my eyes because he explains, “Not him, Ry. If he wanted to blackmail me, he has much better dirt on me than that.”

  A flash of anger fires through me. It must be the volatile emotions and uncertainty weaving around us because I can’t remember the last time Colton’s past playboy status bugged me. Yet that simple comment causes me to more than bristle at the thought. “Charming,” I say, sarcasm rich in my voice.

  “It’s no secret. I used to live a little, Rylee. I won’t apologize for who I was but rather be thankful for the man you helped make me. Understood?” The bite in his tone hits me where intended, and I feel guilt for my snarky comment. Our gazes connect. So many emotions swim in his eyes and it hits me just how upset he is. He probably feels he brought all of this upon us somehow and yet his first thought was to protect me. How could I have doubted him? I worry my bottom lip through my teeth and answer him with a nod of my head.

  “Who else then? The valet or parking staff? Security?”

  “Mm. Not likely. Not after all this time. It feels too timed, you know?” I murmur in agreement. “My gut instinct says it’s Eddie or someone connected to him. It’s a long shot but there could be a possibility there . . . I just don’t know.” He blows out a breath and scrubs a hand over his face, and the sound of the chafe against his stubble fills the silence. “I’ve already called Kelly to try and sniff him out but I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  His eyes will me to believe him but my heart says this is on me. Somehow, someway, Tawny told someone along the way and now, whether she knows it or not, she’s going to get her one last dig. I can’t look at him, can’t face him, knowing that our one night of pleasure—the catalyst of so very much for us—is now going to come back and haunt us.

  “Fuck me!” he says, eyes widening as he holds his finger up in the just-one-minute motion before jogging into the house. By the time I’ve followed him into the office, he already has the video replaying and is pointing at the screen. “Right there,” he shouts, a strained smile spreading on his lips. “Give me my phone,” he demands, his face lighting up while I’m left in the dark, handing him his cell.

  I watch him as he flips through his phone for something, my eyes drawn to the screen to the frozen image of his hands gripping my hips in all their naked glory.

  “Look at the date,” he says, excitement woven in his tone as he looks down at the calendar app on his phone. I look at the timestamp on the video and realize it has been tampered with because the date is wrong. It says last year, not six years ago. I was so busy getting lost in the frantic feeling of watching our images on the screen that I never thought to look at the timestamp. “That’s the date of the Iowa race last year.”

  “Okay.” I draw the word out, ideas forming of where he’s going with this line of thought.

  “The exact date, Ry. If we don’t pay him and the jackass releases the tape, we have proof the video was tampered with. There is no way I can be in that parking garage in Los Angeles on that date because I was in the goddamn race. And we will have proof at the office that we flew home the next day.”

  I put my hands on both sides of my head as I try to take this in. “But Colton . . . that is US,” I say, incredulity in my voice.

  “I know,” he says, not realizing how much the thought bugs me. “But whoever has this tape, either tampered with it to make the dates more recent to try to cause problems, or this is the one they found . . . I don’t know, but I know we have everything we need to prove that’s not me if they were to release it to the press.”

  I drop down into a seat opposite him, my head spinning, my chest hurting, as I try to figure out the best plan of attack. It seems to me like this is an ambush with no way to escape. “There is no way out of this,” I murmur.

  “I’m trying to find one that doesn’t affect you,” he says, and I can hear the self-deprecation in his voice.

  “I know . . . I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around it all. I just need time to think this through without the shock warping my reason, you know?”

  “I do,” he says, walking over to stand in front of me, and leaning down so we’re eye to eye.

  “Did they give you a time frame in which to respond?” I ask, not even believing that question has to leave my mouth.

  “Seventy-two hours.”

  Reaching up, I run my hands over the stubble of his jaw to weave in the hair at the base of his neck. I can’t believe how much he has grown as a person over our time together. He’s learned to make good choices, has great instincts, and has always kept my best interests in mind. Why should I doubt he’s trying to do that right now as well?

  Trust me, his eyes beg.

  Trust him, my reason tells me.

  “Let’s see what Kelly finds out . . . then I’ll trust your judgment on what you think we should do from there, but I’ve got to tell you that doing nothing doesn’t sit well with me.”

  He nods his head and leans in, brushing a soft kiss to my lips. When he steps back, his eyes are serious and intense. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

  I close my eyes and lean my forehead against his.

  Every knight has a weak link in their armor.

  I fear I just might be his.

  “THE BABY’S GROWTH IS ON par. The heartbeat is strong an
d within normal range . . . but I’m a little concerned about your blood pressure, Rylee,” Dr. Steele says, as she looks back down at the chart in her hand.

  “I know. It’s just . . . we had something unexpected happen last night and it’s still kind of crazy and . . .” I stop and blow a breath out, trying to calm myself yet again and not worry about what Colton says he’ll take care of, but know is futile. I can’t rid my mind of the grainy images or the fear that this is all going to spiral out of control. “Sorry.” I shake my head to blink away the threatening tears.

  “It’s okay. Sometimes things can be a bit overwhelming with your first baby coming. A lot of women get stressed over feeling their life is going to change so drastically and they can no longer do it all.” She reaches out and squeezes my forearm. “I’m inclined to put you on modified bed rest at this point.”

  “No!” The word falls out in a shocked gasp, my eyes flying up to meet the concern in hers as my blood pressure starts to elevate again.

  “Don’t think I don’t know that’s why Colton hasn’t been coming in. We both know he wants you off your feet, and you fear if he hears me suggest it, he’ll pressure you.” The stern warning in her voice is unmistakable. And there’s no use denying it, so I just nod my head and worry my hands together. “I’ll trust you’ll use good judgment or I’ll be forced to put you on bed rest for the remainder of your pregnancy. The longer the baby is in utero, the better all around for him or her. Delivering early because of preeclampsia isn’t an option I want. Try to make Colton deal with whatever situation came up last night so you’re not involved and your blood pressure can stay on an even keel.”

  “I will,” I say, knowing I can’t. Her intelligent eyes assess the truthfulness of my statement. She nods her head. I guess I was believable.

  “Okay. We’ll see you in two weeks then. Take care,” she says as she pats me on the shoulder before walking out of the examination room.