“She going to stay home once the season gets going, though, right?”
I should lie, but I cringe before I can get the lie out.
“Sinclair, I’m not saying this to be insensitive or to tell you how to run your life, but you see the other guys who have wives and kids. You know how this goes down. If those ladies work, they work around the team’s schedule. You either get a full-time nanny, or she stays at home. That’s just how it goes.”
I shrug helplessly. We don’t have space for a nanny. We don’t have money for a nanny. I’m waiting until my next bigpaycheck drops to have the hard conversation with her about whatever outstanding debt remains and what we need to do so I’m not continuing to be bled dry. I’m probably going to have to bring in a money adviser or something. But we’re definitely not having a child care conversation until then, and with Donovan’s health in flux, child care is an even bigger problem.
Bradley scratches his beard as he stares me down. I’m not Gabe, I’m not freaking out. But yeah, I sink a bit in my chair. I’m glad I never told anyone from the Jugs about the blackmail because it would look so fucking bad now, but . . . this still looks bad.
“You boys are getting paid in a week, yeah? Does an extra $100,000 keep her home?”
It’s enough that the day it shows up in my account, I finally feel like I can breathe for the first time since that day Tilly showed back up in my life, having just robbed me of nearly every penny I had left.
I take her and Donovan out to dinner at the nicest restaurant I know of that I know people aren’t going to be too mad about a baby, a popular Asian fusion restaurant downtown that’s by reservation only but not opposed to a name drop to get squeezed in that night. She dresses up and does her makeup. I have Merrick bring down a nice suit and dress shoes as I tell him that, actually, I am going to move out, I just don’t have room for my stuff yet. Lin somehow finds out we’re doing a fancy date night — probably it got passed around through the WAGs — and gives me a tiny three-piece with proper trousers and a vest for Donovan that his baby never got to wear before he grew out of it.
I send a quick text to Stephanie, my social media manager, that there might be some paparazzi photos popping up, and we’re waylaid in the parking lot by a photographer I recognize from game days. Several secret pics of us walking to our table and enjoying our date — yeah, our first date, sue me — get scattered about the internet, but the best one is the first one that goes right onto the Jugs’ social media.
It could be the best night. We have a great time, and I know difficult conversations are ahead, but we joke and laugh and shake people’s hands and sign autographs while forcing them to admit that Donovan is the cutest baby ever. Tilly looks happier and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her, even if she shies away and makes herself busy with Donovan when people stop by. Seeing her like this makes me feel at peace with everything I went through, every decision I’ve made, and everything I had to ignore to get here.
And then, when we’re in between dinner and dessert and Tilly’s busy giving Donovan a bottle, I cave and check my phone. It’s blowing up, of course, but there, mixed in with my emails, is a dreaded, familiar name, demanding more money than I have access to. Attached to it is a series of photos and video from that night at the con, but these are the first that have come from the bathroom.
I don’t need the audio to know what I’m telling her to do. I see, clear as day, what she does. What I reciprocate.
These cannot get out.Can. Not.
Tilly tilts her head and frowns. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
My eyes dance between her and the phone. She hasn’t touched hers all night. She didn’t send this to me. And yeah, I’ve assumed all along she had an accomplice, but the way she pales and says, “Oh god, what happened?” has my gut sinking.
“A video was just sent to me,” I say carefully, which has her only leaning forward in anticipation. “A sex tape.”
“Eww,” she blurts out. “Anyone we know?”
“Yeah.”
“Gross. Don’t tell me who, okay? I don’t need to know what freaky stuff people are up to. Lord knows I would absolutely die if anything we’ve done ever got out.”
Her laugh isn’t nervous, just embarrassed.
Shit.
Fuck shit.
It’s like a flashback of every conversation we’ve ever had races through my mind, everything that I thought was her confirming that it’s been her, that she knows I’m Donovan’s father but didn’t want to come out and say it, every time she denied it, but she was always nervous.
But she’s always a bit nervous.
“Right. Yeah.” I want a nice segue, but nothing comes to mind, so I just blurt out, “Hey, how’s your dad’s home paid for, anyway?”
The change in her is instant. It’s no longer vague embarrassment over the concept of something. She stiffens, her complexion going ashen.
Okay, it is her. I don’t know what to do now, if she’s aware that her accomplice just sent this email or if she’s going to be as blindsided as I am, but at least I’ll finally get her to confess.
And then she just crumbles, tears welling in her eyes, her hold tucking Donovan in closer like she’s worried I’m going to snatch him out of her arms.
“Emerson’s been paying this entire time,” she says so quietly I can barely hear her, her face hung low so no one can see her behind the bangs of the wig Emerson gave her. “I was his mistress for years. I swear it ended, way back when I gotmy cancer diagnosis. But that’s why I had that suite atAni-Con.”
Chapter 26
