by Ren Benton
Ethan shrugged. “Like you said, months until a paternity test. The damage will be done. She got at least twenty grand when she sold the story. Another tabloid will offer her more to get the scoop next time she talks to Lex and for ultrasound pictures of his love child. She’ll have a nice little nose-job-and-new-name fund by the time the truth catches up with her, and in the meantime, she’ll have her own band of paps following her around like ladies in waiting. She wanted attention. As of this morning, she’s famous.” He fired finger guns at Lex. “With the added bonus of making the personal and professional life of her ex hellish for the foreseeable future.”
Gin shouldn’t be surprised the source of that shrieking phone call would stoop to such depths, but the petty vindictiveness of some people still surprised her occasionally. It sounded like something Simone would cook up to make the spotlight swing her way.
Lex remained straight and stiff just inside the door. Muscles in his jaw bunched with tension.
So much for her plans to minimize his stress. “How recently did you break up?”
“Two months.”
“I’m off the hook for being a home-wrecker, at least.”
Ethan said, “That’s about the time you asked him to do the score.”
Midnight blue eyes bored into her. “Exactly the time.”
You’re the “just such an occasion.”
She rubbed her temples. “Please tell me you didn’t send her a form letter.”
“I gave her the gist of it in person. There’s nothing in writing.”
“Except all the thinly veiled innuendo you’ve given the press for the past six weeks,” Ethan reminded them.
“I am so sorry, Gin.”
“You shouldn’t be.” Even if he’d been less than diplomatic about the breakup, that was no excuse for this woman’s behavior. “Contrary to Jim’s histrionics, current events can’t be attributed to your penis. Many, many women have been exposed even longer than a month and not been driven to launch a diabolical revenge plot for fun and profit.”
A bloop from the driveway prompted Ethan to peer out the window. “Great. Law enforcement. What fresh hell is this?”
“Fingers crossed he’s just following up on the phones being down.”
“Fingers crossed he has the Ghoule handcuffed in the back seat.” Ethan’s gaze bounced between her and Lex. “I’ll go talk to him.”
Lex moved out of his way.
Once they were alone, the air thickened. “A vasectomy, huh?”
“I told you I didn’t want kids.”
A convenient declaration of compatibility when the pants he was trying to get into belonged to a woman he couldn’t knock up. “You left the option open, though.”
“We already weren’t going to have kids. I told myself redundant sterilization would make you think I wanted to be able to cheat without messy consequences.” He shook his head as soon as she started to open her mouth. “Don’t try to argue with drunk logic. It has no respect for reason or truth, and it lies to make itself look like the hero. I was never a hero. I left the option open because I wanted you to believe I had a future after you in which I could have children with another woman. I wanted you to believe that so you wouldn’t know you were the only future I saw for myself.”
Even five years too late, those words pulverized her defenses and left her standing in the dust, breathless and exposed. “Why couldn’t I know that?”
Fists clenched at his sides, then straightened out, only to clench again. “You had all the power, but you didn’t know you did. I didn’t want you to know you could crush me.”
He didn’t trust her not to hurt him and didn’t understand he could hurt her, too. “You didn’t believe I loved you.”
“I thought you loved me like I loved you, and that made you dangerous.” He turned toward the door. “I have to go look up my urologist’s number so I can hook him up with Patty and make my neutering front-page news because another woman who liked to throw the word ‘love’ around decided to ruin my life.”
Walking out was something Old Lex would do. It felt like a step backward, but Gin couldn’t see how chasing him could possibly be construed as anything but aggression on her part. He’d been attacked enough for one day. He wasn’t going to drink. Maybe the best thing for him was peace and quiet.
Except she knew all too well quiet didn’t necessarily come with peace.
While she vacillated between leaving him alone and forcing her company on him, the display on the silent phone in front of her lit up. After all this time, she still recognized Patty’s number.
Lex’s publicist didn’t waste time on small talk. “I need you to script him a response that expresses doubt of dear Melanie’s veracity but is full of responsible-parent vibes so he doesn’t look like a heartless asshole two weeks before he goes on tour to make money fall out of melting panties.”
The guy who wrote lyrics that made women around the world feel all other men were inferior couldn’t be seen treating a woman badly, but he’d rather look like an asshole than let anyone put words in his mouth. “You overestimate my influence, Patty.”
“Sweetie, the day I learned he was smitten with you was the happiest day of my career. It gave me a leash made of ‘Would Gin find this behavior attractive?’ He’ll growl at me, but he will damn well come to heel while doing it.”
Patty’s thumb on the scale tipped the balance toward Gin forcing her company on him. “I’ll talk to him. Don’t send any calls his way today, though. He’s pretty raw.”
“He’s trying to convince you. The sooner you tell him you believe he’s a good boy, the sooner he’ll calm down and listen to reason.”
“I don’t think it will be that easy.”
Patty had more confidence. “I trained him to behave for you. Rub his belly a little, and he’ll speak on command.”
Lex didn’t break stride in his circuit of the live room when Gin joined him. The cacophony in his head left him just enough attention for breathing and not tripping over his feet. If he added her, one of those would have to go. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She sat on the couch and folded her legs beneath her. “Drama used to make you feel alive.”
“You hated it.”
“So you admit I compromise better than you?”
“Don’t.” Play fighting wasn’t going to work as a pressure release this time. He didn’t trust himself not to unleash the ugliness clawing at his insides to maul the innocent victim he’d dragged into the poison pit with him.
“Okay.” She pressed herself into the cushions, clearly in no hurry to leave. “Tell me about Melanie so I have context in which to frame my anger.”
He flinched at the idea of Gin’s anger clashing with his. Any success they had in their relationship could be credited to her calm in the face of his storm, quietly conveying the message that he was overreacting and things weren’t as bad as his oversensitivity made them seem. He was afraid of the destructive potential if she added her tempest to his.
There was no one here but her to take it out on.
Deep breath. One foot in front of the other. “I made it clear from the beginning the relationship was not permanent. I made no promises I had no intention of keeping.”
“How did you know you wouldn’t change your mind after you were with her a while?”
Because she’s not you. “The same way I’ve always known I want to make music and I don’t want kids. Truth is nonnegotiable. I was honest with her, and she voiced understanding of my terms.”
That’s what lodged in his mind like a thorn. He could be forthright to the point of being an asshole, and a liar could say, That’s great. I appreciate your honesty. How the hell was he supposed to account for people who ignored the truth to suit themselves?
“So what happened?”
I got an email from you. “The timer ran out.”
“Did you kick her out into the street?”
“We didn’t live together.” He’d been in a h
urry to cohabitate with Gin, but that wasn’t his norm. He liked his space and quiet and everything reliably in its place and ruthlessly defended his lair against invasion. Every time Melanie left an earring or clothes or anything else at his place, he made a special trip to her apartment to return the unwelcome item and make it clear marking her territory inside his wasn’t allowed. “I did not mislead her.”
Her head tilted, and the light made her eyes glint like faceted emeralds with cutting edges. “I don’t think you’re capable of any such thing. Don’t confuse my empathy with tolerance, Lex. I’m not on her side here.”
She’d taken on Jim for him. She’d called Melanie a liar on his say-so. The noise in his head made it hard to hear her quiet, steady support.
The next breath came a little easier. “What’s the empathy for?”
“Every woman wants to believe she’s the exception to all your rules. Your no-groupies-on-the-bus policy has never stopped them from trying to be the Chosen One. Withholding commitment from a steady girlfriend is just a more exhausting test. If she’s special enough, your truth will change for her.”
The one exception to all his rules was right here.
No, that wasn’t accurate. Gin naturally fit within most of his madly drawn boundaries, and he shifted the few she chafed against so she’d feel more comfortable with him. Alcohol had been the only wall too massive to roll out of the way to make a home for her.
“Being wrong means she’s not special, and nobody likes to face that. That’s the extent of my empathy.” Even that was tinged with frost. “This bullshit isn’t justified by the agony of returning to a Lex-free existence.”
“It seems like organic growth of her campaign to make sure I don’t go back to a Melanie-free existence.”
“What campaign?”
“She’s been spending hours a day for weeks filling up my voicemail since I quit answering her calls.”
He thought he’d been so clever letting her own calls serve as a gag. He should have known she wouldn’t stand for being silenced.
“You have messages from her?” Gin held out her hand.
No way in hell was he putting his phone in it. “You’re not listening to her abuse.”
She dropped her hand and drummed agitated fingers on her knee. “In months of blowing up your phone, has she ever said anything about even the possibility of a baby?”
“Not in any message I’ve listened to.”
“Seems like something she’d have mentioned if it wasn’t a brand-new idea.”
“Even I know women don’t know right away if they’re pregnant.”
“Sure. There are a few who claim not to know until they go to the bathroom and a ten-pound baby pops out. But pregnancy is the first straw a woman desperate to hang onto a man grasps at. If she had any hope a baby would get her what she wants, she wouldn’t have to wait until she noticed a missed period. She would have bought a case of pregnancy tests and peed on a stick every day until a stork knocked on her door, slapped the box out of her hand, and said, ‘Look, lady, there’s no way.’”
The image startled a laugh out of him.
Gin remained dead serious. “We know you didn’t get her pregnant. She didn’t play the surprise baby card because she knew she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe she had her period when you broke it off. Maybe she has an IUD or gets Depo shots. Whatever. She didn’t try because she already knew she couldn’t follow through. Two months later, something convinced her lying was worth a shot.”
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
“She’ll need more than that for legal fees. Save every message you have. Hard copy so it doesn’t get purged. I can walk you through the procedure.”
The reminder that Gin was the target of enough harassment to be adept at evidence collection only made it worse that he’d dragged her into this. As a man, he’d be forgiven for acting like a dog long before he proved his innocence. Gin’s punishment for being even peripherally associated with his moment of infamy would last for years. People on social media were still vomiting bile on her for sending him to rehab, the best possible thing that could have happened to him at that point in his life. They’d blame her for this, too.
“I’ve already deleted thousands.” The last batch clogging his inbox was four or five days old, and he hadn’t listened to them to find out what they contained. “Unless one of these is a confession that she’s not pregnant but is going to lie about it, what’s it evidence of?”
“If she sounds as deranged as I’m sure she does before she decided to present herself to the press as an innocent victim, she would have a lot of explaining to do.”
The more options she presented, the less cornered he felt, and the more he felt like the bad guy — or at least the potential to become one. “I’m not releasing private messages to the media.”
“You shouldn’t have to, but you have to be able to, and she needs to be made aware not everybody on your team is as nice as you are.” Her smile bared too many teeth to be misinterpreted as friendly.
While admiring the elegance of her menace, he realized he wasn’t angry anymore. Tempers hadn’t clashed. She’d absorbed his and used it to hone her cold, righteous fury, which she wielded with control and purpose on his behalf. He trusted her to do the right thing with it.
His nervous energy promptly deserted him, and he sat on the piano bench before he fell on his face. “Want to write me a script for handling this without publicizing my medical records?”
She spat it out like she’d come prepared. “While it is medically improbable Mr. Perry played a part in the alleged pregnancy, in the event the paternity test proves positive, he will of course take on full physical, emotional, and financial responsibility for his child.”
The emphasis on full responsibility struck him as significant. “Do I detect a note of taking the kid and to hell with Melanie?”
“There is absolutely no mention of Melanie in that statement.”
“The words you omit are just as important as the words you use.” She’d said that in a writing lecture years ago. “Something about the audience pouring their own bias into the void.”
“Exactly. Everyone who wants you to be a good guy will see you stepping up to do right by a child and love you all the more. Everyone who wants you to be the villain will see you calling her a liar while also threatening to wrench the lie from mama’s loving arms, trapping themselves in a loop of contradiction. All you’ve really said, however, is that there is an unspecified medical reason you’re unlikely to have a child, but if you do, you’ll be a responsible parent.”
A job for which he was woefully unqualified. “I don’t have words for the shuddering horror inspired by that prospect.”
“Is she lying?”
Given Gin’s faith in him up to this point, he interpreted the question as a reminder for him rather than an expression of her doubt. “Unless the highly respected urologist I trusted to cauterize my balls thought it would be fun to be sued harder than anyone has ever been sued before, any kid she may or may not be incubating is not mine.”
“Then there’s nothing for you to shudder about. She’s bluffing. You’re calling it. She has three choices. One is to quietly fade away before she makes a fool of herself.”
“I think that option fell off the table as soon as she sold the story, but I appreciate that you overcame your nature and led with optimism.”
“The second option presumes she’s been stealing your hair and toenail clippings and has access to cloning facilities, where she’s already begun growing a likeness of you to submit for DNA analysis several months hence.”
He would have sworn he wasn’t in a laughing mood, but her creativity demanded recognition. “I think we can rule that one out, if only because I don’t feel a twin bond conveying my clone’s cries for help. What’s behind door number three?”
“Having falsely promised the delivery of a commodity she can’t produce, she falsely claims a tragic miscarriage brought about by your callous abandonm
ent and disregard.”
That possibility wasn’t the least bit funny. “How do we avoid that?”
“It’s not real, Lex.”
“It’s real for somebody. I don’t want this bullshit triggering grieving families.”
She sighed heavily. “The first step is to have a lawyer send her a letter indicating her story is verifiably untrue and will result in a defamation suit if she doesn’t immediately cease and desist. Since a threat might not be enough to make her back down, get the ball rolling on the legal action at the same time. You can always drop it if she recants.”
He braced his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands. “I should talk to her myself first. I should have weeks ago.”
“That never would have worked.” She came to sit beside him on the bench. Her fingers ruffled the close-cut hair of his nape, calling his attention to the stiffness of his neck. “This is not a rational response to the end of a one-month relationship, or any relationship. Unless you’re going to ask her to marry you and live happily ever after so she wins, nothing you can say to her will derail this train.”
“No matter who gets run over in the process.”
“You’re not responsible for the people she hurts while taking shots at you.”
He scooted to the far end of the bench so he could fold over and rest his head on her thigh like a child. “Don’t you know everything is about me?”
“I do, but ‘about you’ and ‘in your control’ are not the same thing.” She draped her arm across his chest and curved her body over him, providing shelter from forces beyond his control. Her lips lightly touched his brow. “It will be ugly, but it won’t last forever.”
It wouldn’t take forever to do irreparable damage to him — only long enough to drive a wedge through the fragile new bond between him and Gin.
12
They took turns making their statements, supervised by one another and Ethan’s pantomimed tone adjustments. The united front made the phones much quieter the following morning.
