“You trusted me,” Dante said. “I should have had your back.”
He nodded and just turned away. “Want to talk about racing instead of women?”
“Yes. In fact, I think from now I’ll stick to cars. I understand them much better than women.”
Dante just patted him on the shoulder and led the way back into the building to talk about the setup for the car. Inigo spent the afternoon trying to concentrate on driving in the simulator, but his heart wasn’t in it. He thought about the pain in Derek’s voice and the hurt he might cause Marielle if he didn’t figure it all out. He realized he’d looked at love like a child. He’d thought he could play around with a complex woman and walk away unscathed, never realizing that he could be hurt by this too.
He finished his laps, and his time was slightly improved, but not enough to make him or Keke happy. Marco was due back tomorrow, and everyone was on edge, wanting to see some major improvement from him.
He got in his car and drove not toward his house in the city but out toward the Hamptons. He needed an escape, but he knew that the road wouldn’t take him away from the weight that was heavy on his shoulders.
He turned around at the first exit and headed back toward New York. The traffic was heavy, and by the time he parked his car in the garage under the building, he was irritated with himself and with Marielle. If she’d been willing to meet him part way, this wouldn’t have happened.
He walked into the lobby and saw the paparazzi waiting. Some of them were stringers for online gossip websites like TMZ and E! They wanted a story, and were out for blood.
“Is it true that you are involved with Jose Ruiz’s mistress?”
Inigo froze, staring at the man who’d asked the question. How had he known? Marielle had never been named in the press. Dante had said he had mentioned it at a bar when he was drunk...who had he been talking to?
“It’s Marielle Bisset, right?” the reporter persisted.
“I can’t—”
“Can’t or won’t? Your sister was his wife, right? How did you end up with the same woman? Does she just really dig drivers?”
“Stop with these questions. That’s an insult to me and to her. She’s not into drivers.”
He walked past them toward the elevators.
“But she was Jose’s mistress, wasn’t she?”
Inigo clenched his jaw to keep from responding and just waited for the elevator doors to open. Once he got inside, he hit the number for his floor. When the doors closed, he punched the paneled wall. He didn’t know what kind of story they were going to run. He should call Marielle and his sister and let them both know what was going on.
But at the same time, he didn’t want to talk to either of them. He knew that no matter how he sliced it, he was responsible for this. He shouldn’t have ever gone on a second date with Marielle. He should never have slept with her and started to care about her. He should have left her alone instead of falling in love with her.
And now he’d never have her. There was no way back from this kind of story.
But how had they found out about Jose? He hadn’t told anyone... Was it Dante’s slip of the tongue? He was the only one Inigo had told the whole story to. He knew it wasn’t Bianca, Derek...or Marielle. It seemed a far stretch that Siobahn or Scarlet would have let the story out. The only other person who knew the details was Dante.
He punched in his lead engineer’s number.
“Did you talk to the press?” he asked as soon as Dante answered.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Marielle and Jose. Did you leak that?” he asked point-blank as he entered his apartment and threw his keys against the wall with enough force to leave a mark.
“I must have. I mentioned I was drunk and I know that’s not an excuse. I’m so sorry. I never intended for any of this to happen.”
“I get that. But I’m going to have to try to fix this...damn, my nephew doesn’t know about his father. I know he’s only four. But someday he’s going to google his name, and this is going to come up. Bianca’s going to have to read about it again and be humiliated. And Marielle, who had started to set herself up as a lifestyle influencer, is going to have to start over. How can I fix this?”
“I thought you and Mari were done.”
“Hearing these questions and wanting to protect her has shown me that we’re not,” Inigo admitted, realizing that he’d been running from his feelings since that moment. He should have known there wasn’t a fast enough speed to get away from this. He loved Marielle, and he wished there was some way he could fix this for her.
* * *
“Have you seen the news?” Marielle’s assistant asked as he walked into her room at 5:00 a.m. He smelled of snow and aftershave, but his hair was standing on end as if he hadn’t brushed it. She realized he’d probably doused himself with the scent on the way out of the door. He was usually so well groomed that it was surprising to see him so unkempt.
“What? No. It’s an ungodly hour. What are you even doing here, PJ?”
“You need me,” he said, sitting on the edge of bed and fumbling around in the covers for the remote control. He pointed it at the TV, which was always tuned to E! “I would have brought you something to drink but, girl, I didn’t want to stop on my way over. This is crazy.”
Puzzled, Marielle turned her attention to the broadcast. “Breaking news this morning that upcoming social media influencer Living with Mari is actually Marielle Bisset,” the entertainment news anchor reported breathlessly.
“That’s not too bad. It was bound to come out at some time,” she said. “It’s not like it was going to take a lot of digging to find that out.”
“Keep watching.”
“Though her channel is one that promotes both good deeds and clean living, we have learned that she was the mistress of a married Formula One driver Jose Ruiz for the nine months that his wife, Bianca, was pregnant. Not sure how that meshes with her mission statement but given that she’s a Bisset, not entirely surprising. Within social circles she is known for being a wild child and is rumored to be her father’s favorite. I think we all remember that her birth followed his infamous affair nearly thirty years ago.”
What the hell?
Marielle pulled the covers over her head. A sick feeling was developing in her stomach. This was stuff that shouldn’t be coming out now. She rolled to her side, hugging her pillow to her stomach, and wished she was the type of woman who could cry. But she never had been. She couldn’t even get too angry, because they hadn’t reported anything that was untrue.
But how had they found out?
“Is my phone blowing up?”
“Yes,” PJ said. “Want me to handle it today?”
“I don’t know. I need to talk to my parents. I don’t know how they’ll want me to handle it,” she admitted.
“Bisset’s current beau, Formula One driver Inigo Velasquez, had no comment,” the announcer was saying.
“Please turn that off.”
PJ did as she asked and then handed over her phone. “It’s your mom. Or do you want me to handle it?”
She took the phone from him. “Mom.”
“Marielle,” her mom said. “How are you?”
She almost cried then. Thank God her mom was always the first to go into crisis mode. “Freaking out. I thought that thing with Jose was buried. I have no idea how it got out. I’m sorry they led with me being a Bisset.”
“That was their mistake. Carlton is on his way to your place, and I will be leaving the Hamptons shortly. We are going to come out swinging. Do you have any idea who could have leaked this?”
“No. I mean, there are only a handful of people alive who know about me and Jose,” she said.
“The wife. Didn’t you say you’d seen her recently?”
“I did,” Marielle admitte
d. Bianca had been mad and hurt, but she had also been pregnant and had a four-year-old son to think about. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine Bianca leaking this to the press.
“Would she do this?” her mom asked.
“I don’t think so,” Marielle said. “Would you have done it? Years later, would you bring up the woman Dad did his thing with?”
“No. I hate her. I don’t even want to hear her name mentioned,” her mom said. “I don’t want to rule out the wife, but we’ll put her at the bottom of the list. What about the driver you were seeing?”
Inigo? “He’s her brother. Surely he wouldn’t do that.”
“Would he have had a reason to?”
“I don’t want to believe that he would, Mom. I mean, we stopped seeing each other to avoid hurting anyone else.”
“Okay. But he’s still on the list. Who do you know who might be jealous of your success? You have sort of gone big since Christmas,” her mom said.
Marielle couldn’t think of anyone. But just hearing her mom defending her and helping her to figure this out meant more to her than she could say. Her mom was still talking about influencers who’d tried to get invited to her event when Marielle started crying. It didn’t matter who had leaked the negative information. For the first time in her life, she was being treated as a Bisset, not as a mistake or a consequence of her father’s misdeeds. And she hadn’t expected it to affect her as deeply as it was.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“You’re very welcome. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but for someone to come after you now is not right. I’m a very powerful woman, and when I find out who it was, they will be very sorry they messed with me. Now don’t respond to anything until Carlton gets there. He’s bringing a PR person who specializes in dealing with this kind of situation. Is your assistant there?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Let him answer the door and go out and get whatever you need. Stay put until we get there. We’ll take care of this,” her mom said.
She hung up a moment later, and Marielle turned to PJ. “Mama is finally protecting her little cub,” he quipped.
“She is. Who do you think would do this?”
She was trying to think of anyone who would want to harm her career, but this felt really mean-spirited—she hoped that it wasn’t anyone she knew well. She wasn’t too sure that she wanted someone in her life who would do that.
“I have no idea, but we will find out,” PJ said.
Fifteen
Inigo didn’t really look at his phone screen as he answered the video chat. He’d left a bunch of messages for Marielle wanting to explain and apologize to her, but she wasn’t talking to him. In fact, her family PR man had texted him and told him to stop calling.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. This wasn’t me,” Inigo said to Bianca, but his sister wasn’t having any of it. She’d video called him, and he could tell she was visibly upset.
“There are reporters in Cole’s Hill...that hasn’t happened since Hunter got married. No one is happy about it and everyone—I mean everyone—is giving me looks like, that poor girl. I went from being someone everyone envied to someone they pitied overnight.”
“I think you’re exaggerating,” Inigo said, noticing as the words left his mouth that Derek was moving his hand across his throat as if to tell Inigo to shut up. He realized that he’d said the wrong thing.
“You think I’m overreacting?”
“No,” he said in a rush. “That’s not what I meant. Listen, Bia, I didn’t do this. Someone on my Moretti Motors team leaked it. Back on New Year’s Day I thought that I would make things right by trying to get revenge for you. But once I got to know Marielle, I couldn’t... That doesn’t matter. She won’t even take my calls. I’ve got Alec looking into it. He can find even the smallest trace of information on the internet. I’m sorry for all the trouble this is causing you and Marielle. For what it’s worth, I know Jose lied to her too. She didn’t know he was still married when she was seeing him.”
Bianca’s mouth got tight, and then she nodded. “You’re right. It is a big mess. But we’re going to make sure the person who caused this trouble will never meddle in my business again.”
“You bet we are. But are you okay? How’s things with the baby?”
“Fine. I’m fine. The baby is as stubborn as Derek and refusing to come out. They are going to induce on Friday,” she said.
“I love you, Bianca. I’ll be there on Friday if I’m still welcome. I’m truly sorry for all of this.”
“Of course you are welcome, you’re my baby brother. And it’s not your fault, Inigo,” she said. “And as much as I wanted to blame Marielle, it’s not hers either. We are both still dealing with Jose’s crap even though he’s been dead for years. Of course, it’s embarrassing to have the world know he cheated on me, but I have a good life with a man I love very much, and I’ll get over it.”
He smiled as Derek hugged his sister and then kissed her. They had what he wanted. What he’d hoped to find with Marielle, he was realizing. He had made a million excuses for why she affected him so much. She was hot; it had been so long since he had sex; she got him because they weren’t trying to impress each other. But the truth was he loved her. He’d probably fallen for her the minute she’d caught him staring at her while his dad shoved him toward her.
“How’s Marielle handling this?” Bianca asked after a long pause.
“I don’t know. She’s not talking to me.”
“Oh, Inigo,” Bianca sighed. “Why? What happened?”
“I couldn’t keep on seeing her... It doesn’t matter,” he said. There was no way that he was telling his sister he’d broken up with Marielle to keep from hurting Bianca.
“Was it me? Did you let her go because I demanded that you stop seeing her? I’m sorry. I know I was freaking out, but now all this mean-spirited gossip has reminded me how much better my life is now. And I bet Marielle’s is different too. I remember that she was twenty-one when she was with Jose. I should have been mature about this.”
“Thanks, Bia, that means the world to me. But the issue with Marielle is mine to fix. And you were a victim of Jose’s lies and Marielle’s gullibility.”
“Well, fix it,” Bianca said. “Do you love her?”
He just shook his head. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“If you love her, you should go to her and tell her you’re an ass and she was right—”
“Let me handle this,” Derek said, taking the phone from Bianca.
“You think you know more than me?”
“No, but I’m a guy, and I know what it’s like to have to woo back a stubborn woman,” Derek said.
“Stubborn? Moi?”
“Yes. Now go,” he said, kissing her and pushing her out of the room.
Inigo wasn’t sure that Derek had any advice that would help him. He’d screwed up in his own special way. Derek was more mature, maybe even a little old to be dishing out advice to him.
“Dude, I appreciate it, but I got this.”
Derek just laughed and shook his head. “You got this? Tell me what you plan to do.”
“Figure out how to spin the leak, then take care of it,” Inigo said. “Once everything dies down, then I’ll text her and try to get back together.”
“You’re an idiot,” Derek said.
“Hey.”
“I know I’m not your brother except by marriage, but I meant that in the kindest way possible. You can’t let any time pass, Inigo. Go to her. Tell her what’s in your heart and make sure she understands you want her by your side.”
He looked at Derek. Would that work? “What if she says forget it?”
“Then you take a few days and go back again. Mo knows what I’m talking about. Your older brother did this again and again with Had
ley until she was ready to forgive him. I’ll tell you something I have learned from your sister. The deeper the hurt, the more you need to make sure she knows how deeply you love her. If you can’t do that, if you don’t feel as if you can’t breathe when you think of the rest of your life without her, then let her go.”
Inigo nodded. He did feel like that. As if without her by his side the rest of his life would be the blur that the world was when he was driving three hundred miles per hour. “Thank you.”
“No problem. If you need anything I’m here.”
“Thanks, Derek. Keep me posted about the baby,” he said, ending the call.
He needed a plan.
* * *
The beach was deserted in late January as Marielle and her mother walked along the shore. After her mom had fought her way through the lobby of her building filled with paparazzi, she’d decided they needed to be isolated on the family’s twelve-acre home in the Hamptons. It had been three days since they had come back here. Marielle was still recovering, and also wallowing in the love and affection her mother was showering her with.
They’d left the house earlier, as Carlton and her father were having a meeting to determine what the best course of action was. In the past she’d have been tucked up in her room feeling scared and guilty, but not today. Marielle realized for the first time what it meant to be a Bisset and have her family behind her. She’d spent the majority of her life trying to shake off her name and her association with them. But letting Carlton take over the entire mess had been a blessing.
Siobahn had driven her out to her parents’ house and stayed for two days before she had to get back to New York because she had another single coming out. Her brothers had all rallied around her, and her father was getting the Bisset legal team ready to ruin the life of whoever had leaked the information—something that Marielle really couldn’t get behind, because at the end of the day the gossip was true.
Her mom had been the biggest surprise. Ever since they’d come back out to the Hamptons, they’d spent long hours walking together on the beach. Her mother didn’t talk much, she just held Marielle’s hand and listened. That relationship—that bond—was something she’d never realized she’d missed until now.
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