“I’m sorry to tell you—it seems there are pictures from your night in Vegas. Your marriage has gone public.”
I drop the phone. Ice runs in my veins.
“Hello?” Samson calls out from the floor. “Spencer?”
Quickly, I recover and scoop it up. “Sorry. Public?”
“The photos are everywhere,” he says flatly. “Are you at the gym?”
My head is spinning. “Yes,” I manage to answer.
“We’ll send a car for you. The lawyers are already together. Gabriel should be here soon.”
I tell him what gym I’m at before hanging up. I’m in shock. With a shaky hand, I start to look up the photos on my phone, but balk and call Alyssa instead.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she answers cheerily, evidence she hasn’t seen yet. “Are you calling to tell me you’ve already signed the annulment?”
“There are photos,” I answer, and the truth of it hits me like a sledgehammer.
There are photos of the night in Vegas.
I’ve been outed.
“Photos of you and Gabriel?”
“Yes.” I look around the gym, wondering if anyone here has seen them, hit by this eerie sense that they all know something about me that, until this moment, has been a deeply private secret. “Shit. Yes, I guess so.”
“Spencer. I am so sorry this happened.” Her voice gets serious. “I’ll come to Seattle. We can manage this.”
“No,” I say quickly. “That’s not necessary. I’m coming to New York today.”
“What are the pictures like?” she asks. “Here. Let me pull them up.”
“I don’t want to know.” Somehow, I’ve grabbed my bag, and my feet are moving, my body leaving the gym despite my brain being in total shock. “I just need to go and sign this annulment.”
“Spencer,” she says cautiously, “your annulment probably just got a lot more complicated. Make sure you listen to Samson.”
“Right.” I step out onto the street, my heart beating fast. “Listen to the lawyer.”
“Oh,” she says quietly, surprised.
Another bucket of frigid water falls on my head. “Did you just look at the photos?”
“It’s fine,” she says smoothly. “Let me go. I need to make some calls and get a handle on this. But reach out if you need anything or if there are any developments, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you.”
I climb into the back of the car, still in shock, my carefully constructed life crumbling around me. We speed across town to Gabriel, and I try to wrap my mind around everything that just happened. Quickly, though, my thoughts land on my father.
Does he know yet?
The inevitability fills me with dread.
The car takes me to the rear of a hotel, and I’m ushered through a private hallway to a small elevator. I fight to compose myself, clinging to the only thing that makes sense.
Annulment. I need to sign the papers and get an annulment, and then I can start the long process of fixing this mess.
When I walk into the room, there’s a team of lawyers assembled on Gabriel’s side, while Samson and his assistant are waiting for me. In contrast to the suits behind him, Gabriel looks the same as always. His dark hair falls in thick waves to his shoulders. He’s wearing a threadbare concert T-shirt and tight jeans, and his rosy lips are parted, as though he’s caught off guard by me, same as I am by him.
