by Davis, Alexa
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. The speed Ryan switched from business mode to personal mode was incredible. He had to be admired. I suppose it was time to reward him and give him at least some gossip. I wouldn’t tell him everything. Things were between Elle and me, and I wanted to keep them that way.
“Sure, I’ll tell you,” I said while sitting on the couch. “Since I’m not the one who has to keep secrets.”
“You know I can’t help that.”
“I know, I’m joking.” Honestly, some people! “You don’t have to be so defensive...”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Elle
Saturday
My heart raced as the car sped along to Ryan’s office for an urgent meeting. I knew it had to be bad – what sort of lawyer wanted to meet up on a Saturday? This was not what I needed directly after having the best week of my life. I wanted some time to get myself together before dealing with anything like this.
What could it be? What’s happened?
Not knowing was killing me; I could feel it tearing me up inside.
“Is Delaney okay?” Alex asked me in a soft, caring tone of voice from the driver’s seat. “Is she at home?”
“Erm, yeah, she’s with Terran; she’s fine. It’s lucky Terran didn’t have to work today.” I really didn’t want to bring my daughter along to this-this was so much worse than anything that had come before. Or so I assumed. In my mind, this had to be the worst news ever. “She doesn’t really know where I’m going today; she assumes I’m at work.”
“Good, good.” His hand rested on my thigh for a moment before returning to the steering wheel. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon! It’s just a shame that it’s under such negative circumstances.”
“I know.” My mouth ran dry, panic coiled tightly in my stomach. “Ryan didn’t say anything at all about what this is about?”
Alex shook his head. “No, he can’t tell me anything. Not without your permission.”
I bit down on my bottom lip and chewed for a moment. Maybe it was time to bring Alex in properly, anyway. He knew enough, and I felt that after our time away together we’d gotten to know each other a lot better. Whatever this was, I would more than likely tell him. Plus, I wanted to moral support.
“Well, today I give you permission to come into the office with me,” I told him in a shaky tone of voice. “I don’t want to face whatever’s coming alone.”
He twisted his neck to look at me and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do that. I know this might be...”
“I want you there. Please.”
“Okay.” He nodded determinedly. “Fair enough, I will be there. Whatever you need.”
As he pulled up outside of Ryan’s office, my heart leaped into my throat. The thought of this meeting had kept me awake all night long, and now I could feel the lack of sleep catching up with me. I stifled a yawn and rubbed my eyes, while at the same time, spikes of fear burst through my organs in my body. It was a very confusing set of feelings.
“Are you ready for this?” Alex asked me cautiously. “Do you need a minute?”
I breathed in deep a couple of times, trying to work out exactly how I felt. No, I didn’t need a moment, the anticipation was killing me. I shook my head and opened the car door. As the breeze washed over me, I tried to steel myself for what was about to come.
“Come on, then.” He slid his hand through mine, just like he did in Florida. Only this was so much more meaningful. This was in New York, in real life, right in front of his friend.
I’d pushed the thought to the back of my mind because I had so much else to concentrate on, but it flooded me for a moment. I didn’t know what was happening between Alex and me, not in real life anyway. We never quite got around to discussing it. It was lovely in Florida, and I could feel myself falling for him, letting him in when I hadn’t let anyone in for a very long time, but I didn’t know what would come afterward.
This was a pretty strong message.
I smiled up at Alex under my eyelashes and clung to him tightly. With him by my side, maybe I could survive after all.
“Right, let’s go.”
We walked up the stairs quickly. Surprisingly, the office was a hive of activity, despite the fact that it was the weekend. I’d expected the place to be dead, though we’d be the only ones in there, but it seemed the professional types didn’t know when to take a break.
“Ah good, you’re here.” The fact that Ryan appeared to be waiting at the top of the stairs for our arrival only wound me up further. “Come on, come into my office. I need to speak to you.”
Alex led me towards Ryan’s office, and as he took control, I felt grateful for my choice to bring him along with me. Without him, I could quite easily have fallen apart. Once inside, we took our seats and stared up at Ryan.
“Are you sure you want Alexander here?” he asked me cautiously. “We have a lot to talk about today. Some of it might be sensitive information.”
I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat. Not knowing what was coming left me from a very vulnerable position. I didn’t know what was about to be revealed in front of Alex. But I couldn’t chuck him out now, not when he’d been so good to me. Without him, I wouldn’t even be here in this incredible lawyer’s office right now. I would be at home panicking about losing Delaney.
“It’s fine,” I almost whispered. “I want him here.”
“Alright.” Ryan took his seat and peered over at me. “As I said before, we’ve run into some trouble. I think you really need to consider what you want to do next before you make your next move.”
My heart thumped, the sickness intensified. I nodded because I couldn’t trust myself actually to speak another word.
“Your ex-husband is claiming that you are unfit to be a mother...”
“What?” I yelled angrily. “How the hell can he say that? He hasn’t ever been around; he doesn’t know anything about Delaney.”
Ryan held out his hands to stop me from getting into a full-blown rant. Angry words exploded in my brain, but I pursed my lips together to keep them all inside. “I understand that isn’t nice to hear, but he’s going to play dirty.”
“How is he going to back this up?” I spat out while folding my arms across my chest. “What does he plan to do?”
“He has a video of you, which he will use as evidence.”
Huh? I slammed my hands on the chair beneath me as shock raced through my system. “A video? Of what? Of me being an unfit mother? That’s impossible...”
“No. It’s this.” He turned his laptop towards me to show me some stills from the film. “I haven’t looked at them at all, but one of my spies on the opposing lawyer sent them to me to warn me of what’s to come.”
An icy bolt froze me to the spot. Even though Ryan said he hadn’t looked at the information, I felt sick and violated. It was me, a much younger version of me, in a sex tape that Mark and I had made when we first got together. I hadn’t been keen on the idea; I just did it to keep him happy. I’d all but forgotten about it.
“Who’s seen this?” I whispered with tears in my eyes. “I can’t believe this. I didn’t think he even still had this. It’s like he’s been waiting for a moment to use this against me.”
“What is it?” Alex demanded because he couldn’t see the laptop screen. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t answer him, my eyes filled with tears. As one splashed on my cheek, I shook my head slowly. How could I vocalize to the man I liked better than anyone else, that my humiliating past was coming back to haunt me.
“It is a video that will paint Elle in a bad light,” Ryan said tactfully. “And if it’s used in court, it will tarnish her reputation.”
“Why not his?” I hissed. “He’s in the video, too.”
Alex’s eyes opened wide as he finally clicked as to what was going on. At first, he looked stunned, then utterly fucking furious. Myself, I wasn’t sure how I felt at all. I was numb to all emotions.<
br />
“Like I said, I do not know much about it. I have not seen it.” Ryan turned the laptop back to him and closed it down. To his credit, he didn’t even glance his eyes towards the pictures. “But since I’ve dealt with vicious cases like this before, I can hazard a guess that he filmed it?” I nodded slowly. “So he won’t be in it much. Not his face, anyway. He might even try and say it’s someone else. Either way, because of society’s double standards, you will come out looking much worse.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Do you think this might actually affect me?”
“There is a way out of it,” Ryan continued carefully. “You aren’t going to like it, but I might as well tell you what he wants.” I didn’t say anything; I waited with baited breath for him to continue. “If you go back to him, with Delaney, he will drop the case and delete the video. My source tells me that he’s adamantly only got one copy to prove to you that he’s serious. He will get rid of it if you go back to him.”
No, no, no. Why didn’t I ever get any luck? Just as I was finally moving on from Mark and meeting someone else, he came back into my life like a hurricane and stripped it all away from me. Of course, I didn’t want to go back to Mark – the last thing I wanted to do was head straight back into the toxic situation that I’d tried so hard to get away from. If I did, it would be a million steps back.
But what other choice did I have?
“Don’t you worry about this asshole,” Alex growled next to me, reminding me of his presence. “I’ll take care of it.”
It was hard for me to turn my head around to face him after what he just learned about me. I didn’t know what he was going to think now, if he would judge me, too, but I forced myself to do it. As our eyes connected, my insides jolted like crazy. Everything tilted and turned all over again.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered sadly to him. “This isn’t your fight; it’s mine. You’ve already done so much for me.”
“You can’t seriously consider going back to him.” He was pleading with me. I wanted to reassure him that I wouldn’t do it, that I never could – but I didn’t want to make any promises that I couldn’t keep. I wasn’t sure yet if there was any other way out. “Please, Elle. Don’t. There are other ways.”
“Alex, I think you need to give her time to think,” Ryan interjected softly. “You can’t come in heavy handed. I know that you have a lot to say, but at the end of the day, this is Elle’s decision.”
Alex’s eyes flashed at his friend. I could almost see him telepathically yelling at him, but that wasn’t my problem. Ryan was right. I really needed to take some time to work out what I was going to do next.
“I need to go home,” I announced while scraping my chair back. “I need to be with Delaney.”
I needed to be alone, to hide under the covers. I needed to obsess over every asshole that had seen that damn tape. I hated Mark more than ever for doing that to me. He knew I didn’t have much confidence, and now he’d torn every last shred of that away.
There was no way that Alex would want me now. A single mother over thirty was bad enough, but this... this was something else.
I was screwed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alexander
Monday
I couldn’t handle it anymore – this shit was driving me crazy. It wasn’t fucking right. Elle was a good mother, I’d seen it with my own eyes. This asshole ex of hers didn’t even care about his daughter. That was obvious. I could tell Elle wasn’t the sort of person who would keep a nice father away from his daughter, so it had to all be him.
And now this latest bullshit? That was messed up.
Trying to take Delaney away was bad enough, but using something that had happened in the privacy of a bedroom between two consenting adults a long time ago was fucking low. It made my blood boil even thinking about it.
“Are you okay?” Mom asked me for what felt like the millionth time. “What’s going on, Alex? There’s something on your mind.”
I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t feel like it was my place to do so. Yet the information bubbled painfully in my chest, rising to the top of my throat. “Is Elle coming today?” I finally asked. “Is she working?”
“Yes.” Mom nodded hard. “She’s coming in a little later than usual after she drops her daughter off at school, but she is coming, Why? Shouldn’t she be? Is something going on?
“It’s just this case, Mom. Things with her ex-are bad. It isn’t up to me to tell you. Ask her when she comes, and if she feels comfortable, I’m sure she’ll share it with you.”
“Okay.” Mom didn’t push it any further; she seemed to be able to tell that I was having a hard enough time keeping it all in. “Okay, I’ll speak to her when she arrives. What are you doing today?”
“I’m working.” My head wasn’t in the game, but I did need to get to the resort to check it out. But first I had somewhere else to be...somewhere I’d researched yesterday. Not that I was about to tell Mom that. “I’ll be out for most of the day.”
My fists balled by my sides. I could barely keep myself in check. How would it be when I was finally unleashed unto the world? Thank fuck I went with Elle to see Ryan, thank God I knew. This was something that she wouldn’t have told me; if I weren't in the room, I would never know.
“Are you going to wait for Elle to turn up or do you need to go now?”
“I need to go now.” I grabbed my keys and headed towards the door. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
As I stormed down the stairs without waiting for Mom to reply, I realized that my body was shaking. The anger was ripping so violently through my body that it actually left me trembling. I needed to get out there, I needed to see the fucker, I needed to put an end to this once and for all. Yes, Elle told me that it was her issue, not mine, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to protect her. I was always going to want to look after her.
I jumped into my car and tugged out my cell phone. Using the GPS, I entered the address of her ex-husband’s restaurant and headed straight there. It was early, but he would be there now, setting up. Any chef worth their weight would be. He might have been a dickhead, but he took his business seriously.
I whizzed down the roads, following the instructions as they were read out to me, all the while growing increasingly annoyed. The worst thing about it all was Elle’s terrified face as she received the news. It looked like she was actually considering going back to him just for an easy life.
It just wasn’t right, and I didn’t want to accept it.
She wasn’t mine yet, that much was obvious. Just because we had a nice time in Florida didn’t mean I could stake any claim on her, but even if she weren't with me, I wouldn’t want her anywhere near him. He hurt her, he made her shrink in on herself, and he stole all her self-confidence.
The building I pulled up outside was nice – this Mark character had done a good job. It was sleek, smart, inviting... But it was about to be the scene of a fucking bloodbath. If I couldn’t control myself, I might actually kill the asshole.
I slammed the doors open and stomped inside. The few people inside turned to look at me with wide, panicked eyes.
“We aren’t open yet,” a female voice called out to me. “Maybe you could come back later? We open at twelve for the lunch time shift.”
“Where’s Mark?” I snapped, not bothering to acknowledge her statement. “I’m not here to eat. I’m here to speak to the boss.”
“Erm.” Her eyes darted from side to side, and I could tell she didn’t know what to do at all. “I don’t know if he’s...”
“ Mark !” I yelled, knowing that he had to be hiding in the back somewhere. “Mark, where the fuck are you? Come out here and face me like a man.”
Finally, a smooth-looking gentleman with slicked-back black hair and deep brown eyes appeared. He was bulky but small. I could take him easily. I didn’t want to end up in a fight, but at the same time, I wanted to wipe the smug look on his face.
“Can I help you, sir?�
� he asked in a much too calm tone of voice. He was being patronized, which only wound me up further. “Have you been told that we aren’t open yet?”
“I don’t want any of your shitty food,” I growled. “I want to speak to you. If you want to have this very private conversation in public, then we should stay here. If not, then maybe we should step outside.”
His eyes darted around as he tried to make a decision. I could tell he was torn between being the big man in front of anyone and having something he didn’t want to be revealed put out there. “Fine, let’s go outside. I do not like to bring my business to work, anyway.”
He steps were brisk as he made his way out the door with his hands tucked behind his back. I didn’t bother to make anything like a good impression. I didn’t care what the people in this building thought of me. I stomped behind him and tugged him into the alleyway next to his building.
“Right, you fucker,” I snarled with my hands still on his collar in a threatening gesture. “I suggest you delete that video of Elle right now before I beat the living shit out of you.”
His eyes widened in shock, but he quickly rearranged his expression into a smirk. “Ah, so you are the new man in Elle’s life? I’ve heard from you.”
“Of course, you have. You’re probably still obsessed with her. Is that why you started all of the custody stuff?”
“I do not believe that’s any of your business.” He shook himself, and I allowed my hands to drop. “What me and my wife...”
“ Ex -wife.”
“...do is nothing to do with you. I have given her some time away to get her head straight; now it’s time for her to be back with me. The sooner she sees that, the better.”
“So, this has nothing to do with Delaney then? You don’t even care about her?” He rolled his eyes and chuckled, acting like he wasn’t scared of me. I could smell the fear rolling off him in waves, though; he couldn’t fool me. “Is that why you think it’s acceptable to use revenge porn in your case?”
“You’ve seen the tape, then?” He looked mightily pleased with himself. “Good. I leaked the information on purpose. I need Elle to know what she’s up against.”
