She wasn’t wrong. She knew my loose cannon bulls*** better than anyone, except for maybe the person I was about to fire it at.
Shawn tearfully called my name, but Fortune blocked him in a single stride, the move of a professional. “Do your business,” he said neutrally, and it was refreshing for someone else to be the muscle for once. If only for tonight, I had the license to blow shit up.
I approached my waiting husband, snared in the headlights. “Inside,” I growled.
The cameras swarmed us like hornets as Barnes and I entered the living room, the giant antler chandelier hanging above us, its myriad prongs entwined like a wreath of thorned crowns. I wheeled on him, the punching bag expecting my jab, his penitent demeanor only infuriating me more. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Believe it or not, I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Greta doing it really spared me the humiliation.”
“I told her on the plane from China after a few drinks. She swore she’d stay quiet.”
“You expect me to believe Greta went rogue onyou?”
“Luke, it’s not 2005. I don’t exactly have anyone here on a string.” His face darkened, defensive. “No one but Greta would talk to me about youand him. You have to believe what happened meant nothing, to him or me. It was… in passing.”
“Oh, I heard, you were passing by a goddamned bathroom stall.”
“I’m saying we didn’t have some deep connection, we weren’t even alone—”
“That’ssupposed to make me feel better?” I could only laugh. “Well, wonderful! How many men qualifies as an orgy for the family values candidate?”
He involuntarily flinched as a camerawoman stepped closer, but there was no way out now; he’d opened this door all by himself. “They were back and forth… I don’t remember.”
“How do you not remember?”
He closed his eyes. “I was high, so was he, pretty much everyone at the party was.”
“So drugs too?” I asked emptily. I’d assumed he’d had boundaries, somelimit, but my husband’s revelations just kept coming. “What are your favorites? Which narcotic really gets the congressional interns hot and bothered?”
“The drugs werenevera regular thing. Luke, I don’t even recognize the person who did that stuff. That’s why I’m in therapy now, for the kids and for you—”
“You do not care about me or the kids!”
“Okay, this is done.” He abruptly ripped off his mic and charged across the room, digging for my mine as well. I resisted, but he surgically detached my pack, then dragged me down the nearest hallway toward the laundry room.
“Guys, the equipment!” Troy cried in our wake.
“Fine me!” Barnes slammed the door, one of the few in the house that actually locked.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
“I walked the house last night. This was the nearest room with no cameras installed.”
I could have strangled him. “I can’t even yell at you on my own terms.”
“Howl any narrative you want but never say I don’t care about our kids.”
“There’s nonarrative, that’s the truth. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought this shitstorm down on their heads and then abandoned them in the middle of it!”
He sneered, eyes electric. “You really want to throw that stone?”
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me. You gave me no choice.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“The only reason I’m here is to bring some stability back to their lives!”
