“I’ll call you later.” I hang up before she can say anything else and set my phone down.
My heart thuds but not with fear, exactly. Just that sudden, instinctive tension that tells me something isn’t right, even if it isn’t dangerous.
Besides, I recognize that silhouette. I’ve only seen it once, but the image is burned behind my eyelids, and the guys won’t be happy she’s here. Standing up, I tug on my boots by the door and step outside.
Cold slaps me in the face as snowflakes cling to my hair and eyelashes a second after I close the door behind me. Wind hums through the trees, but Tessa keeps snapping pictures of the house like a nature photographer stalking a lazy bird in summer.
Her pitch-black hair is perfectly curled despite the weather, her lips painted a deep red, and her phone is still raised. When she sees me, she looks me up and down, slow and disdainful.
“Well,” she says flatly, lowering the phone. “I’m surprised you came running out. I thought you might be hiding inside, rolling around in all their money.”
My stomach twists, but anger rises right behind it. “What are you doing here?”
She smirks. “Just checking in on Boone. Seeing where my husband lives these days.”
“He’s not your husband anymore,” I shoot back.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says with a laugh and a flick of her manicured hand. “Paperwork or not, men like Boone don’t just move on. It might look like he has, but it’s not real, and it’s certainly not permanent.”
I cross my arms. “You need to leave.”
She strides closer instead, her heeled boots sinking slightly into the snow. “Tell me, what’s your angle?”
“Excuse me?”
Her eyes rake over me again. “You’re sleeping with all of them, aren’t you? You’re one ofthose.”
The disgust in her voice hits me like a slap, but I stand my ground. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
She scoffs. “Please. Women like you always have an explanation they’re just dying to give, a poor-me sob story to hook the rich and gullible.”
“That’s enough,” I snap. “You know nothing about me, and we’re going to keep it that way. This is private property, and you are trespassing.”
Tessa tilts her head, a slow, cold smile spreading across her painted lips. “Do you think you’re special, sweetheart? Do you actually think Boone loves you?”
She sniffs and shakes her head, her eyes burning into mine. “You’re nothing but a phase. A distraction. A… what’s the word?”
Her eyes gleam viciously.
“A placeholder.”
The words punch the breath right out of me, not because I believe her, but because it stuns me that someone so beautiful can be so casually cruel.
Channeling my inner-city girl, I square my shoulders, the cold finally sinking in deep enough to feel like clarity. “You need to get off this property.Now.”
Tessa doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink. Instead, she smiles again, syrupy but poisonous.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, taking yet another step closer, snow crunching under her boots. “You don’t get to decide who belongs here. Boone will come back to me.”
My eyebrows pull together. “You’re divorced.”
She waves her hand like she’s brushing snowflakes from her perfect hair. “Once he knows I want him back, he’ll come running.”
I stare at her, genuinely wondering for a moment if she’s delusional.
“Do you have a hearing problem? I said you have to leave.”
She takes another step closer, her breath steaming in the cold. “Let me guess, you really believe they love you.Allof them.”
