Page 45 of Rivals and Liars

Leire looks up and smiles a little, because the way Kate came out was by walking out of a hotel holding a girl's hand, smiling at the cameras beside her, and when someone asked if she was her girlfriend, Kate answered, calm as anything, that she wasn't.

"Don't worry—when I have a girlfriend, you'll be the first to know."

She said that and kept walking with the girl, and even though she was on every front page that week, the whole thing was so effortless that by the time they saw her with the next one, people barely paid attention—a few articles, nothing more.

"Kate is different." She smiles softly. "She always makes everything look easy."

"Yeah, maybe," Isaac agrees. There aren't many players on the circuit with Kate Brogan's ease—though lately she seems to have lost that part of herself, always trying to fly as far under the radar as possible. "I understand it's harder for you, but whenever you feel ready, I'm here."

"Thank you."

"As for your father," he says, still struggling to believe it, "what do you want to do?"

Leire meets his eyes.

"I mean, are you going to let it go, or do you want to take legal action?"

"He says he didn't see anything—that he stopped the recording as soon as he had the first image. But I don't know."

"What he claims doesn't mean a damn thing. He violated your privacy and Brogan's, and he torched your trust. I'm not sure exactly what the charge would be, but he went way too far. So if you want to pursue this, tell me, and I'll bring in a firm that specializes in this kind of thing to make sure he never pulls anything like it again."

Leire nods. She knows she should. She knows it's the right thing to do. And still, it costs her, because she still can't fully believe it happened—that her father, the only family she has left, was actually capable of this.

"Can you look into what my options are?"

"Here's what we'll do," he says, leaning forward when he sees her hesitation—which he clearly understands. "I'll do my research and lay all the options out on the table for you. You don't have to decide anything. If you want to drop it, we drop it and it stays in a drawer. If you want to move forward, we go all in. Does Brogan know?"

"No. I didn't have it in me to tell her."

"You should. She's in those images too, and she has the right to weigh in and decide whether she wants to take action on her own."

"I know." The Spanish woman nods. "It's just that things between us are a little tense right now, but I'll find the right moment to tell her."

"Good. I'll reach out to Candela Valle—if you do move forward, we'll need her to testify."

The tennis player nods, and her head seems to sink between her shoulders. Isaac is not a brotherly man—he doesn't even think of himself as warm—but he cares about the tennis player, and given that this is the first time he's ever seen her this shaken, he's willing to do whatever it takes to help.

"Want me to order you some chamomile tea?"

"You want me falling asleep before a semifinal?" she shoots back, trying to smile.

"Fair point—no chamomile. Hey, did you know about Brogan? About the retirement."

"Yes, she told me in Cincinnati. And instead of being there for her, I froze. What I can't understand is why she didn't leave me sooner."

"I guess it must be really hard to leave someone when you love them. I didn't realize things between you two were that serious."

Leire looks him in the eyes but doesn't really see him, as if Isaac's words are the ones she needed to finally understand the full extent of the damage she's done to a woman who only ever gave her good things—who stood by her for three years and made do with a relationship where Leire would take one step forward and two steps back, making promises she never kept while asking for everything and giving nothing in return.

That is the person she has been to Kate, and she doesn't like that person. She doesn't recognize herself in her. And it's long past time she started putting her life in order and making what matters to her a priority.

Chapter 22

Leire stands at the mouth of the tunnel with her bag over her shoulder and her hands balled into fists to keep them from shaking. She's made it to the final and she still can't quite understand how, because every match has felt like a journey into somewhere darker. Kate is the other finalist—the redhead she spent the best nights of her life with, and the same woman she hasn't managed to speak to yet.

Since her conversation with Isaac, where she'd discovered, to her surprise, that her agent wasn't the kind of person she'd thought, she's tried to reach Kate several times. She sent a few messages that Kate never opened, and she called three times without getting an answer once. Leire understands—she knows it's Kate's way of protecting herself, and in some way she's wanted to give her space—but now, on the verge of playing the final, she realizes she's given her too much. This is the last match, and when it's over, Kate won't have any reason to stay.

Just thinking about it makes it hard to breathe, and she regrets not going to her hotel, not waiting in the hallway outside her room, or even reaching out to Diane to beg her to intervene and get her a few minutes.