There wasn’t the slightest hint of his upbringing in the house.He didn’t have pictures or albums lying around.Not that she’d necessarily have recognized any of the faces.Their name was famous, they owned a vast proportion of the worldwide media in its various forms, they didn’t feature in it.Not as such.Of all the men in the world she…
“You didn’t know that?”
This guy was successful in his own right.People talked of his professional brilliance and, yeah, he had wealth, but a CollCom Collier?Holy hell!
“You’re an architect.You never said—no one ever said—”
“It’s okay, we’ll figure this out.”
“No,” she said on a doubtful snicker.“It’s never that easy.Spence and I spent a long time, a long, long time staying as far from the limelight as we could.People want scandal, they want to vilify and—no, we never wanted that.”
They didn’t talk about this, about them, about… She and Spencer had lived in a bubble of their own making, by choice.It wasn’t fun to feel that choice fading away.
“You and Spencer?”
The air was thinning again.“I’m sorry.”
“This is why you’d never talk about your past.”That didn’t need a reply.“Your husband…” His hand slid off the wall.“Shit, you were married to Spencer Raith.”
“Until the day he died.”
Something more discerning put his hand back by her head.“But you scrap and graft, there should’ve been enough money there to—”
“We didn’t have any money, and I wouldn’t take it from them.”
They’d never offered and never would.The Raith family only wanted to pay her for one thing and it was something she’d never leverage, even in her darkest moments.
“The family?”he said.“After you and Spencer—”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”She squeezed her eyes closed.“I was there, I know what happened, and the world doesn’t need to salivate over the details.”
“I’m the world now?”
And when her eyes opened, there was a tinge of anger mixed in with his hurt.
“I honestly didn’t know who you were.I had no idea there was a Collier son so far from their loop.We’re about as far from California as you can get in the lower forty-eight.I wouldn’t have invited this.I chose to live as far from the media’s radar as—you can’t know what it’s like.”His family controlled the media, they couldn’t be hounded by it.“And now there’s footage of me here, with you…”
In the party mess and last night’s dress.Shame hadn’t needed a walk, she’d laid it out on the pool table.
“That footage will never see the light of day.It’ll be destroyed—”
“You can’t.”
“I can,” he said, vehement.“I might be far from the loop, but that doesn’t mean I’m out of it.”He tipped his head back to call.“RK—”
“Footage is being burned as we speak.Knox is on the road already,” Roxie replied without him asking a question.“Troops are mobilizing.”
“You should call Mieux,” Tripp said.
“Any excuse.Why should I call Mieux?”Roxie asked.“Since when do you need me to call a woman for you?Want me to pass her a note after gym?Pull her pigtails for you too?”
Mimi chimed in as well.“Many millions of women out there in the world would offer themselves to your beck and call, Sweet Breckenridge Priest.Including the ones you’ve already slept with.Especially them.”
Cam’s fingers curled around her chin as the other conversation went on without them.“No one here will hurt you.We protect our own.”
And was she that?One of theirs?
“I can’t go through it again.”She’d only just got to a place where life was starting to make sense again after a very, very long time.“No one understands—”
