Page 18 of Her Player

“We can’t do this, Rhett,” I whispered.

He tilted his head. “Do what?”

My face fell flat. “Don’t give me that. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

His smirk grew. “I don’t have the faintest idea, Miss C. Why don’t you give me a hint? I do love a good puzzle.”

“This,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I swatted his hand away. “All of it. The looks. The names. Cornering me in my office. Interjecting yourself. Hanging out⁠—”

He simply shrugged, but his crystalline blue eyes sparkled with delight. “We haven’t hung out in months, Miss C. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My nostrils flared as I looked away, and I found myself gazing toward one of the blackout curtains. If I pulled it open, would there be a reporter standing there on the balcony? Just waiting for me to open the curtains so they can snap a picture of my fucking face?

I felt a warm, reassuring grip on my chin. It tugged my attention back to Rhett, and I hated the way my shoulders relaxed when I looked up into his face.

This was wrong.

All of it.

“We will get through this, all right?” he said, his voice dipping an octave as he towered over me. “I know you don’t believe me. I know your mind is running away from you.”

I scoffed and pulled my chin from his hand, taking a few steps back. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

“I know you’ve been carrying this grief for a long time.”

That whipped me back around to face him. “No, you don’t.”

He pointed at me. “And if that answer is any inclination⁠—”

My voice grew stern. “No, I don’t.”

He tilted his head. “Yes, you do. It was written all over you months ago when I came to check on you. It’s written all over you now. Your mind is spiraling right now. Let me help.”

I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides, even as the words fell from my lips. “I’m not stuck in grief.”

His eyes flickered to my fists, and it forced me to unclench my hands. And when his eyes roamed back up my body, I knew I had to get out of there. I was cornered. Like an animal.

Like when the police called me that afternoon to tell me my husband had been shot dead.

“Anybody hungry?!” I called out as I stormed out of the bedroom, rushing past Rhett.

And even though he didn’t stop me, I felt those cold blue eyes on my back as I quickly left the room.

Thank fuck, the Willow Estate was massive.

Because I’d need some space if I was going to get my daughter through this disaster.

8

RHETT

The estate was quieter than I expected.

After everything that happened in the last six hours, the article and Bry’s breakdown and the car chase and mud-splattered news vans and the backroads and the police checkpoint, I half expected to walk through those front doors and find the noise had followed us inside. That it would be impossible to simply arrive somewhere and have things be still.

But the Willow Estate was still.

The thick stone walls and the blackout curtains and the sheer size of the place conspired to swallow everything whole. The press was at the gate. I’d seen them when we pulled in, the glint of cameras between the iron slats, but in here you couldn’t hear them. In here the only sounds were our footsteps on marble and the distant sound of Victoria’s heels moving through rooms she was seeing for the first time in however long.