I repeated that over and over again until my heart stopped racing, and then I played back the recording for even longer. Only when I trusted my stomach to hold on to its bile, and my legs to hold me up, did I slowly untangle from the sheets and trudge into the closet.
I emerged a bit later in my running clothes. Glancing at the clock, it flashed just past seven in the morning. That gave me two hours to run, shower, and be back downstairs to meet with our party planner, Christie.
My teeth gritted. I wanted no part of that meeting, that sham of a party, or that strange, unsettling grin the guys gave each other when they spoke about it, but I didn’t see what choice I had but to attend. Mrs. Prado was officially starting her second first day of work at ten o’clock, and I had to be there to run her through our and Lily’s new routines. Not to mention she had a stack of employment profiles she needed my final approval on before hiring. As much as I wanted to hide from the strange and sudden thickening of the atmosphere in the manor, Lily had been living in a busted-up haunted house on a steady diet of takeout for long enough.
Either way, I was going to be in and out of every room in the manor that day, explaining to Mrs. Prado what we needed, so that would make hiding from Christie and Alex impossible.
I headed out of the east wing to the west, making for the back door. Rhodes looked up from the same spot I found him in the first time—sitting on the patio bench lacing up his sneakers.
“Sue—”
I took off running without a warm-up or backward glance. It was my turn to leave him there with his mouth hanging open.
“Wait, Sue!”
Rapid footfalls chased after me, so I picked up the pace—tearing through the trees and running off the path. I knew these woods. I didn’t need a manmade path to tell me where to go.
“Whoa, where are you going—? Sue, will you wait a minute, please?” Fingers grasped at my sleeve. “I don’t understand what happened! Things were good for three days, and then all of a sudden you’re giving us the silent treatment,” he huffed. “We were supposed to have sex the other night, and you just blew me off.”
I skidded to a halt. Whipping around, I gaped at him. “Thatis what you’re mad about? That you didn’t get your dick sucked? Are you for real right now, Rhodes!”
He stared at me. “I mean... I’m not mad, but it seems like you are. I just kinda want an explanation for why you’re sleeping with Micah, but not with me.”
My jaw dropped lower, deepening his confusion.
“What?”
“You have to be kidding,” I hissed. “You’re chasing after me, demanding an explanationfrom me, after you three acted like the creepiest freak triplets that ever walked out of a horror movie!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“What was all of that with the anniversary party?” I cried, hands waving about. “Why is it so important to you three that we have this eye-wateringly expensive bash when all of you want to be rid of me, and none of you believe I want to start over and give our relationship a real chance—?” I clamped down hard on my tongue, shock rocking me to my core.
What did I just say?
“What did youjust say?” Rhodes echoed. Confusion battled with the surprise on his face, and both were winning. “You want to stay together? Since when?”
“I— I— I— That’s not the point,” I snapped. “The point is that you, Micah, and Alexdon’twant to stay with me, so why are we spending sixteen million dollars celebrating a seven-year failure? Huh? Huh!” I cried, getting in his face. “You know, I heard you three in the hall that night. Saying that my truce is just an act, but you have no choice but to go along with it until the anniversary party, because after that, you’ll finally be rid of me.”
“Ooh,” he drew out, understanding dawning. “You heard that and you thought—” Breaking off, he snickered.
“Hey! Don’t laugh at me!”
“I— I can’t help it,” he replied, cracking up. “You have it so cutely and adorably wrong. Sue...” He grasped my shoulders, gently rubbing them with a shockingly tender touch. “We were talking about you, and how hard it is to trust this new persona of yours, but wewere nottalking about you when the topic of the party came up.”
“You... weren’t?”
“No,” he pressed, laughing. “Why would we be planning and plotting to get rid of you? You already offered to leave amicably with only a fraction of the money you’d be owed in the divorce. The other guys don’t have to worry about that last bit, but I’m the one who’s legally married to you. You could have—and still could—completely cleaned me out. I, of all of us, am very happy about this truce and your willingness to agree to a peaceful separation. Trust me when I say I have no interest in provoking you into changing your mind.”
I stared at him—his words slowly penetrating my brain... and staining my cheeks. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He smirked, flicking my nose. “Oh.”
I ducked my head, looking anywhere but at him. “But if you weren’t talking about me, who were you talking about?”
“The truth?” Sighing, his hands fell from my shoulders. “It’s been a rough... decade. After GloryBoi, everyone kept after us about our next big thing. We were geniuses. Wunderkinds! The college boys who becamebillionaires at twenty couldn’t possibly be one-hit wonders.” He fell back, leaning against a vibrant red maple. “What a joke.”
“What happened?” I asked, voice soft.
