Page 66 of The Man in the Cottage

"I love you too."

I hang up and sit there in the silence, staring at my closed laptop like it might bite me. My whole body feels wrong—too hot, too cold, shaky and numb at the same time. I've never been the subject of public scrutiny before. I've never had strangers dissecting my life, making judgments about who I am based on information fed to them by people who hate me.

This is what Travis has been living with for months. This is what the scandal did to him—turned his worst moment into content, into commentary, into a story that followed him everywhere he went.

And now I'm part of it.

I hear footsteps on the porch, then a knock. Travis's knock—two quick raps, then a pause, then one more. He's been doing it for weeks, like a code, and normally it makes me smile.

Today I can barely make myself get up to answer the door.

He knows something's wrong the second he sees my face.

"What happened?"

I step back to let him in. "Have you checked the news this morning? The sports sites?"

"No, I came straight here. Why?" He's already pulling out his phone. "Kelly, you're scaring me. What's going on?"

"Google my name."

He frowns but does it, his eyes scanning the screen as the results load. I watch his expression change—confusion, then disbelief, then something darker. Something that looks like rage.

"What the fuck," he says quietly.

"It's everywhere. All the major outlets picked it up."

"Sources close to the family." He's still reading, scrolling through article after article. "This is Savannah. This is her, I know it is."

"Probably. But it doesn't matter who it is. The story's out there. People are going to believe it."

"People who don't know you."

"People who don't know me make up most of the world, Travis." I sink onto the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest. "I'm not famous. I'm not used to this. I don't know how to—"

I stop because my voice is shaking too much to continue.

Travis sets down his phone and sits beside me, pulling me into his arms. I bury my face in his chest and let myself fall apart—just for a minute, just long enough to feel the full weight of it before I have to figure out what to do.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs into my hair. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault."

"It's not your fault."

"It's my family. My mess. And now it's touching you." He holds me tighter. "I should have—I don't know. Done something. Stopped them somehow."

"You couldn't have known they'd do this."

"I should have. This is how they operate. When they can't control someone, they destroy them." He pulls back to look at me. "I'm going to fix this. I'll call my agent, get a lawyer involved, issue a statement—"

"And say what? That your family is lying? That I'm not a gold digger?" I shake my head. "People believe what they want to believe. A statement isn't going to change that."

"Then what do we do?"

"I don't know." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "I don't know what to do. I've never dealt with anything like this before."

We sit in silence for a moment. The morning light is soft through the windows, and from outside I can hear birds singing, oblivious to the fact that my life just imploded.

"What did the articles say exactly?" Travis asks. "I skimmed but I want to know what we're dealing with."