“You couldn’t afford bad press, Inés,” she insisted, desperate now. “After the Hamptons, when you started posting again, theyknewyou were struggling. They approached me with an offer. If I gave them stories about Chloe, they’d be more positive about you.”
“All you’ve done is put us both in danger!” I snapped, unable to keep my voice from cracking. “Everything got out of control, and you put her in danger. Was that worth the paycheck?”
Selene’s face was drained of color. “The press were going to bury you if I didn’t go along,” she pleaded. “I did it tosaveyou. If you weren’t willing to make sacrifices, take shitty deals, sell harmless stories, then I—”
“And that’s where you fucked up.” My voice wavered, raw with emotion. “Because I would rather loseeverythingthan go this low.”
Selene’s desperation twisted into anger. “I was protecting you!”
“Protecting me?Joder. You got greedy, Selene.” I took a step back. The anger in my chest burned cold now, sharpened into something lethal. “I’m finished with you. You’re fired.”
Her mouth opened, whether to argue, to beg, I didn’t care.
“And if I see one more headline with Chloe’s name in it, I will make sure her parents destroy you.” Selene didn’t know what had happened between Chloe and her parents. And right now, I’d never been more relieved I hadn’t mentioned it before. “You know their power. Her father is one of the biggest sports managers out there. And then you’llreallyfucking regret it.”
I turned and walked out, leaving Selene standing there, speechless. The silence behind me was deafening. The betrayal should have hurt. Maybe later, when the adrenaline wore off, itwouldhurt. But right now, all I could feel was rage, cold and unwavering.
I didn’t even remember the walk to the elevator, only coming to when the doors slid closed again and I found my reflection staring back at me in the mirrored walls. My pulse pounded in my ears. My hands were shaking.
Not with fear. Not with sadness. With fury.
Because I had seen this before. I had watched Scottie get dragged through the mud. I had watched Dylan get torn apart by people who had never even met her. I had watched my friends have their lives gutted and spun into headlines to sell ad space and I refused to let the woman I loved be another casualty in their game.
49
Inés
I’ll Call You Mine—girl in red
The ball machine in front of me fired at an unrelenting pace, each shot whizzing towards me like a missile. I swung my racket forward, delivering a clean backhand slice that sailed effortlessly over the net. Resetting, I prepared for the next one.
Swing, hit, reset.
The routine ran on muscle memory, the motions feeling more like meditation than physical exertion.
It was the night before the final, and sleep had evaded me long enough that Chloe had dragged me out of bed to burn off some nervous energy. Shadows stretched across the court, chasing the movement of the ball as I hit each shot.
“Come on! Hit it like you mean it!” She sat cross-legged, watching me with the critical eye of someone who knew the game inside out.
One thing was certain, Chloe Murphy would make a brutal coach.
The machine’s tempo suddenly picked up, firing at a speed that knocked me off my rhythm. I stumbled, nearly retreating off the baseline.
“Did you crank it up?” I shouted, scrambling to recover.
“Whatever do you mean?”
I shot Chloe a glare between swings, struggling to find my rhythmas the relentless barrage of balls continued. Each new target felt like a jab, a reminder of what was looming.
This wasn’t just practice; this was survival. I’d worked for years to get back to the top, and now I had made it, I’d never felt so close to letting it slip through my fingers again.
What if this was my last shot at the top? When I won in Paris, I thought that this could be it, the start of the best times. I’d been so wrong.
If I failed here, what would I do? Could I continue or... would I be forced to retire?
My grip on the racket tightened, my heart thundering against my ribs as I delivered a powerful, almost desperate blow, sending the ball flying.
“Whoa,” Chloe muttered.
