The betrayal and the shame feel like ash on my tongue. I tried to drain a giant glass of cold water earlier to stave off the feeling, but I could barely swallow.
Ben hacked my private emails. Made them public.
And it’s all my fault. I was careless, reckless, ignorant. How could I not have logged out of my email account? Rafe and I have worked so hard, for so long, with the press. Sowing doubt, building a façade of a loving couple. And I’m the one who ruins it all.
He cares about his image, about his private affairs, about his perception and that of his family. I’ve completely tarnished that by not changing my goddamn email password.
I pace around the dining room table where I chose my engagement ring all those weeks ago.
A car drives into the courtyard. I stop and watch himpark, then get out, his phone tucked against his ear. He walks into the house.
I hear him before I see him. He’s talking in English, so it has to be with someone other than his assistant or executive team.
“…on it. I want every lawyer to work on that angle.” He comes into view. He stops when he sees me there, standing in the middle of the living room. “Yes. Update me at every step. Thanks.”
He clicks off and slides his phone into his pocket.
We look at each other for a few seconds. I can feel my heartbeat in every one.
“There you are,” he says, like there’s anywhere else I’d be.
My nails are worn thin from chewing on them. I removed the red polish earlier and haven’t had the patience to apply a new coat. Sitting still for the length it took to dry felt like death.
“Yes. Here I am.”
He slides his hands into his pockets. “I’m handling the headlines. No credible outlet will run them again. Not when they’re part of an active lawsuit.”
My stomach feels like lead, and I can see the way this must look to him. We worked hard to project an image to his designers, too. To his entire team. For both of us. But right now? I’m the liability.
It’s looking like he married a bad bet.
“My uncle won’t stop. He knows that smearing me in the press bothers you… us both.” I shake my head. It’s hard to hear the words out loud. “And in this case, it’s not even false. I did send you that email.”
“And I replied,” he says.
It hits me like the pinprick of a needle. Sharp and swift. Hedidreply. Is he regretting that now?
“And what about the next time he pulls something like this?”
“There won’t be a next time. I’ll make sure of it,” Rafe says. “Don’t worry.” He’s looking at me intently, so focused, but he’s far away, across the room. I want to pace. Instead my feet are rooted to the floor. “It’s not ideal,” he says, and the word cuts me like a knife, “but you’ll come out of this clean. I promise.”
Clean, he said. Like I’m dirty now. And he’s standing so far away. I wrap my arms around myself and nod sharply. “What can I do?”
“Publicly, I think silence is the best bet at this point.” He undoes his cufflinks and puts them one by one on the table. It’s so unlike him, to not do that up in our bedroom.Hisbedroom.
He sighs and starts folding up his sleeves.
“What about the lawsuit? He now has… well, proof. That we didn’t marry for love.”
The word feels wrong in this setting. To use it here, between us, when so many things have changed between us and others have stayed exactly the same.
“My legal team is handling it,” he says. The tenseness on his face gives way to tiredness. I’ve seen that look on him before, and I hate that I’m the reason he’s feeling that way. I didn’t realize until now just how much I like it when I make him laugh, or when he holds me in bed and whispers in my ear or tells me I’m so beautiful it hurts to look at me.
Now I’m a problem to be fixed.
I’ve seen him fix so many problems before. It’s what he does. At his core. I know that now, having seen him in action. He’s not a destroyer of companies. He’s a fixer.
I dig my nails into the meaty part of my palm. “My lawyers can handle it. You shouldn’t have to. It’s my uncle.”
