K. Bromberg - Aced

“Okay,” I say with a slow nod. “Well, you were right then.” What else can I say?

The low chuckle he emits is anything but amused, and I will him to look at me so I can see what he’s thinking. But he won’t. Instead he just purses his lips, eyes focused on the bottle of Jack next to him, and pours himself another drink.

“But I was so very wrong.” The words hang between us as he slowly raises his eyes to meet mine. And the look in them—absolute and utter apology mixed with regret and concern—causes more than just feelings of dread. Something is so very wrong.

“What do you mean?”

“They never wanted the money.” Another long pull on the whiskey and the fact he never even winces tells me he’s had more than a few already. “Nope. Not even close.” He shakes his head when all I want to do is shake the answer out of him as the silence stretches. “In fact,” he says as he raises his glass toward me, “they one-upped us.”

“What do you mean they one-upped us?” The teeter-totter of uncertainty we are standing on starts to crash without a stopping point.

“They reeled me in, Ry, like a fucking fish on a hook. Doctored the time stamp like they knew I’d notice it. Made me think that was the only video of that night . . .” His voice draws off as he finally meets my eyes. “But there was one more. Another angle.”

And that simple statement hijacks my breath and makes my heart thunder. “Another angle?” My voice is barely a whisper.

“Fuckin’ A straight,” he barks out, his self-deprecating laugh back that sounds equal parts sinister and lost hope.

“What the fuck do you mean, Colton?” I ask, my own mind running a million miles per hour now. I’m scared, worried, uncertain, and it all comes through in the words. Another angle? What do paparazzi know out front that I don’t?

“Sit down,” he orders, as he reaches out to grab my hand and tries to make me.

“ Don’t !” I warn him as I shrug out of his grip, letting the single word mean so many things. Don’t coddle me. Don’t bullshit me. Don’t tell me to calm down because I’m not an idiot. I know something is very wrong here.

His eyes hold mine while the silence that feels like hours stretches between us, unnerving me more and more with each and every second that passes. He starts to speak a few times and stops; the words he wants to use not coming to him.

“Just tell me,” I implore.

He closes his eyes momentarily before running a hand through his hair and taking a long swallow of his drink. I wrack my brain to remember the last time I saw him this stressed. It’s been so long that I feel completely out of practice in what to say or how to soothe him.

“They played me. Knew I was going to say ‘fuck them’ and not pay. They never wanted the money, Ry,” he says. Even though I’m not completely following him, I’m also mentally begging him to get to the point because I need to know why he’s this upset. “Nope. They wanted to prove what an arrogant son of a bitch I am. Prove that even when I do what I think is best for my family, I still can’t fucking protect you.”

“What’s on the tape, Colton?”

“Close-ups. Your face. Your body. Us together. The correct date,” he says so quietly, it takes me a second to realize what he is actually saying.

“No!” I shout. He reaches out for me but I step back. The pressure in my chest mounts and the buzzing in my head grows louder.

“Ry . . .” My name is a plea on his lips and even though I hear it, I can’t respond. My discordant thoughts are colliding together like a kaleidoscope—fractured images of unfinished thoughts that overwhelm me and confuse me all at once. “How was I supposed to know?”

The emotion in his voice pulls on every single one inside me, and yet I’m not sure which one to hold on to for a reaction. I want to rage and scream while at the same time I want to run and hide and pretend I didn’t hear a thing.

I brace my hands on the patio railing; my eyes focus on the tranquility of the beach below, but all I feel inside is a dissonant storm of turmoil. “There’s no mistaking it’s me?” I ask, hoping against hope he’s going to tell me what I need to hear.

“There are close-ups of us getting off the elevator and walking toward the car. Of you during,” he says, voice empty, because how else can he possibly sound, “of us leaving after.”

I press the heel of my hand on my breastbone, the pressure mounting steadily as I try to fathom how the situation he swore to me was under control is more like a tornado about to touch down.

And then it hits me. I’ve been so dumbfounded listening to him and trying to get what is wrong out of him that it didn’t compute to me the real reason paparazzi are outside. It’s not just because it was a sex tape where they thought the Prince of Racing was cheating on his do-good wife. No. Not in the least. They are out there circling like sharks with chum in the water because they’ve seen the tape where the Prince is actually fucking said wife on the hood of a car.

Oh. My. God.

I have a sex tape. That’s been made public.

Oh. Shit.

Even through his whiskey-fogged mind, Colton must sense it’s all clicked for me because when I turn around to face him, a deep exhale falls from his mouth. He watches me warily, possibly wondering if I’m going to rage and scream or go into my no-nonsense, let’s-fix-this business mode.

“How bad?” It’s all I can say, the only question I can think to voice.

“I already have Chase on it.”

“That’s not what I asked.” His response gives me all I need to know though. If his publicity rep is already responding, that means it’s public. Like majorly public. Like it’s beyond controlling, public. “How bad, Colton?” His chuckle returns in response. I start to pace one way then stop and forget what I was doing. I can’t focus. “How is this even . . .?” I can hope, although the dread I feel already tells me what the answer is. The anger festers but is held at bay by disbelief. “Like viral bad?”

“The public loves their celebrity sex tapes,” he says, sarcasm thick in his voice and the look I’ve learned to hate on his face. The one I’ve seen so many times during our fertility journey that says there’s nothing he can do to make it better besides put one foot in front of the other and try to put this all behind us. And that’s not what I want to see right now. This is the last thing I need.

I want to dig my heels in instead of putting one foot in front of the other.

His eyes, usually so full of life, are deadly serious. I just shake my head back and forth as he starts to speak because I don’t want to listen any more and yet need to hear everything.

“I have our lawyers on this, Ry. We’ll find out—”

“Does it matter, Colton? Does it?” I throw my hands up, my body vibrating with anger, my soul hiding in embarrassment. “It’s not like CJ is going to be able to get it taken down from the Internet. Because that’s what you’re not telling me, right? That’s why you won’t answer me when I ask how bad it is because you’re afraid to say that a video of us having sex is being uploaded left and right to computers all over the goddamn place and there’s not a fucking thing we can do about it.”

I feel violated in so many ways right now, and not just because I’m naked. But more so because someone took an intimate, meaningful moment between him and me and exploited it. Demeaned it. Made it sleazy.

Made us sleazy.

This is not some sex scandal. It. Is. Us . A married couple. We’re not cheating on each other. We’re not into some weird taboo sex. Loving each other to the point where the outside world faded away and we became caught up in each other was our only fault.