Page 13 of Aced (Driven 4)
“The phone call.” It’s all I say, purposely trying to draw a reaction from him so he has to explain what’s going on.
“Phone call? What in the fucking hell are you talking about, Ry?” He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair as he leans a hip against the desk behind him.
“I th
ink you need to be the one to start explaining, Colton, because I’m a little freaked out. Something’s going on here and I should have found out from you . . . not from TMZ calling to ask me if I’d like to make a statement about the rumored video proving my husband cheated on me!” I yell, hands flailing, voice escalating. The disbelief I want to feel doesn’t feel so certain anymore when his jaw falls lax and hands grip the edges of the desk.
He blinks his eyes a few times, hurt I don’t understand flashing in them, as he digests what I’ve said before shaking his head. “Fucking Christ, Ry. You actually believed I’d cheat on you?” The shock on his face staggers me—unfettered disbelief I’d even consider his infidelity to be true—and knocks me from my momentary lapse. I can see the man in front of me, feel his love for me, and know I’m crazy for even considering it.
“I didn’t know what to think,” I whisper, my confession hanging in the air between us. And then his words to CJ hit my ears again, and I know I was wrong to even let the idea find any kind of purchase in my conscience. I shift so I can sit down, my body as tired as my head all of the sudden.
“Someone is trying to blackmail us.”
“What?” I’d laugh at the ludicrous claim if I weren’t sitting here right now, sick to my stomach. “Who?”
Colton shakes his head. “CJ doesn’t know who for sure. He, she, they are hiding behind a lawyer right now.” So many questions race through my mind as I wait for him to continue.
“Blackmail is illegal, isn’t it?” I ask, wondering how someone could be hiding behind a lawyer and do this.
Colton emits a self-deprecating laugh that gives me no comfort and only results in making me feel stupid for asking. “Money in exchange for an item they claim is mine is considered a transaction,” he states using his fingers to make quotation marks over the last word, which leads me to believe this is something he has argued about with CJ. Just as I’m about to ask more, he says something that makes my ears buzz and changes the direction of my thoughts. “They say they have a video of me having sex with another woman.”
And even though I knew as much from my short-lived conversation with TMZ, I still suck in an audible breath when I hear him say the words and automatically start shaking my head as I try to reject them. Everything I know I should say or ask is stuck in my throat because as much as I believe him, why is dread sifting through my body weighing every part of me down?
Dread. Curiosity. Unease. All three swirl in an eddy of discord as I try to process this.
I can tell my lack of a response makes Colton worry. He steps forward and then steps back. Antsy and irritated. “Do you doubt me?” he asks, voice rising in pitch with each word. I don’t answer him. I’m too inside my own head, too overwhelmed by every single thing about this.
“No.” I mouth the word, unable to find my voice.
“Don’t you ever doubt my love for you!” I jump as his voice thunders through the room; his palm hits the desk to reinforce the words. And I can see he immediately regrets the reaction by the fisting of his hands and how his head falls back to try and rein in his anger. When he lifts his head back up, he meets my eyes with a determination I’ve never seen before. “Ry, I swear on the life of this baby that I have not so much as touched, kissed, or anythinged another woman, let alone put myself in a position to be videotaped having sex with them.”
I force a swallow down my throat. I believe him. Have no doubt. And yet . . . “I want to see it,” I say with more certainty than I feel.
“You walked in just as the full video came across to CJ. He’s emailing it to me.” He scrunches his nose momentarily and in that instant I can see how worried he is about this. And not about the existence of a tape, but more so what this is going to do to me. To us. “You don’t need to see it.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do, Colton. If you didn’t do anything, then it shouldn’t be an issue, right?” I slowly stand and walk over to the desk so I can sit at the computer while Colton remains with his hips against the desk and head hung down, no doubt preparing himself for whatever we’re about to watch.
I click alive the computer screen, and my breath hitches immediately when I see the email sitting in the inbox from CJ. The subject line of “Video” taunts me as I wait for Colton to come over.
“Please, Ry,” he begs. “I don’t know what’s going to be on here . . . and you’re not going to be able to unsee it once you do. I know for a fact it’s not me but at the same time, whatever they have on tape, I don’t even want that image in your head so you doubt me.” He hangs his head down again before looking back up to me with determined clarity. “I would never cheat on you, Ry. Never.”
I worry my wedding ring around my finger, knowing what he’s saying to be true but at the same time, needing to see for myself. My only response is to move the cursor and open the email. The fortifying breath he draws in disrupts the silence in the room and rides shotgun to the sound of my own pulse thundering like a drum in my ears.
I double-click the file.
Snow fills the screen, gray, white, and black grain that holds my attention hostage. I will for it to clear and not want it to clear all at the same time. And when it finally does, it takes me a second to believe what I’m seeing.
“Oh fuck!” falls from Colton’s mouth the exact same time as the thought flickers through my mind.
The image is dark, grainy, but the what and the where are unmistakable. The memory zooms back in high definition color in my mind as I watch the one person that is unmistakably clear in the video, Colton, unknowingly look up toward the camera as he holds a woman’s hips and drives into her over and over.
Not just any woman though.
One in a dress, which is pulled up over her hips and bunched down around her waist, so she is completely exposed.
And even though the video is black and white, I know the dress is red. Fire-engine red to be exact.
Because the woman is me.
