If not, Ill be selling these to press next week.
And it would be a shame if my friend had to make anything crazy happen if he doesn’t get his cut.
ur smart. Do the right thing.
Attached to the email are photos.
Oh God, so many photos.
I take it from him and swipe through each.
Photos of us walking into Wilder’s apartment, his arm thrown over my shoulder and me smiling up at him. If this weren’t such a screwed-up moment, I would love it.
Photos of me… without Wilder.
Me leaving my yoga class. Standing by my car at the arena, wearing his hoodie.
And then another photo of us kissing in front of my apartment. It was a quick one, in the heat of the moment, that neither Wilder nor I even thought of.
A picture from the night we left Jack’s, standing a breath apart, staring at each other like there’s no one else around.
And God, it felt like therewasn’t, that it was just the two of us that night, so completely wrapped up in each other, but now I realize how reckless that was.
Everyone goes to Jack’s. God… We gave this woman everything she needed on a silver platter.
So much leverage.
“Someone’s been fucking following us. Taking pictures. Fuck, they’ve been close to you, Maisie. And I didn’t even fucking notice. Whoever this is, whoever she’s been working with, is not anyone I ever want within a hundred miles of you. She’s been in fucking prison.” He’s shaking now; I can see it when he lifts his hand to drag down his face.
I move toward him, trying to get through to him, but he steps back, shaking his head. “They could’ve hurt you,” he says, and there’s so much pain, so much worry in his voice that it makes me ache. Wilder snatches his phone back from my hand and lifts it up. “If she sells this shit, it will hurt you too, Maisie. Your reputation, your liaison role. My job. My potential to ever get back in the NHL. Everything will fucking implode.” He shoves a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. “Christ, how could we’ve been so stupid thinking that we were safe, that no one would catch us. That it was just going to fucking work out somehow. Shit doesn’t happen like that for me!”
As he says the words out loud, it’s as if it truly dawns on him only then what the true consequences of this could be.
“Motherfucker!”
Again, I try to get close, to touch him, ground him, bring him back from the pure panic that’s setting in, but I can’t because he shakes off my hold and stalks through the kitchen toward the front door. “I have to go. I can’t fucking do this right now.”
“What?” I cry, nearly sprinting to keep up with him. “Wilder, we can figure it out, together. There’s got to be a solution. I?—”
Suddenly, he whips around, coming to a complete stop right before the door, and I almost collide right into him.
“I told you this would happen, Maisie. I fucking warned you what would happen from getting involved with me.” His jaw flexes. “Poison. To anyone who gets too close to me.”
My eyes widen, frustration shooting through me. “This is your mother. This is not you. You arenotresponsible for her actions!”
Part of me wishes that he’d stay, even if just to fight with me, but he doesn’t. He wrenches the front door open and stalks out of it, slamming it shut so hard that the picture frames on the wall rattle with it.
And I’m too stunned and hurt to even process the fact that he just left me here alone.
CHAPTER 56
WILDER
I’m still shakingas I pull my truck onto the highway in the direction of where, I don’t even fucking know, hating myself that I left Maisie, that look of hurt and confusion etched onto her pretty face because I couldn’t…
I just… I had to get out.
It felt like the walls were closing in. My chest felt tight, my skin prickling with tension, my lungs constricting until I couldn’t breathe. Fuckingsuffocating.
