Page 16 of Exposed

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Alex felt the tension in her voice and answered promptly. He pointed to her purse, clutched like a teddy bear. “You have a tracker on your corporate phone. We had a lunch date. I thought maybe you got tied up, but then I heard you missed several meetings and hadn’t key-carded in, and I panicked. Madison, please, tell me what’s going on.”

She’d forgotten about the tracker. And their lunch. And most of the world around her for hours now. His demeanor was desperate. Concerned. And it hurt her even more to keep this much distance between them, but she imagined Jack coaching her through it, and she considered her next play. If there was one thing Jack had taught her how to play, it was chess. Two steps ahead. She opted to bait him with the easier of the two questions. Or, the least painful of the two.

“Tell me something. Are you married?” Madison darted a look, and fully expected him to sink down, hanging his head in shame and looking back apologetically. Yet, he sat taller, inquisitively looking back. He replied in a steady tone, firm, but not quite aghast.

“No, I’m not. Why would you think I am?”

Madison whipped out Exhibit A. “Looks like the happy couple and his best friend.”

Alex took the photo, and his expression turned eerily pale and cold. His fingers dredged through his hair, moving through to rub his neck. “That’s exactly what it is,” he mumbled under his breath. Madison’s heart sank. The matter-of-fact tone of his admission was worse than anything she’d imagined. Alex stood. “Madison, where did you get this?” He held it out to her.

She snatched it back. Is that all he can say? And she hadn’t even hit him with the biggest accusation. Madison detested confrontation, but this—well this was enough to completely release the Kraken. “Hang on. You’re married, shacked up with me like I’m a kept woman, and all you can ask is where I got this?”

Alex was almost too preoccupied to take in Madison’s inquisition, but her alarmed expressions redirected his attention. “Madison, there’s a lot going on here, but please believe me when I tell you I’m not married. This is not my wife. I can expl—"

“Then whose wife is it?” Madison’s tenor was cutting yet cool, a mix of fact seeking with an air of do you think I’m an idiot. She hadn’t noticed Paco walk in, until the click of the door shutting startled her. As she jerked around, the printout she held slipped from her fingers. It landed on the floor before Paco, and he swooped down to pick it up.

“Yasmin is not Alex’s wife.” Paco walked towards Madison, the worry bleeding though his usually cheerful exterior. “She’s mine.”

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