Page 84 of Break

“If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be paying them for their silence.”

“How did you know I was paying them?” I gawk at Kerrington, feeling too exposed for my own good.

“I didn’t until just now, baby.”

He fucking tricked me into admitting I’m in deeper than I want to say. And when he pulls me into a hug, I want to bite him.

Instead of taking a chunk of his face off, or pushing him away, I cling to him with all my might. I can’t stop shaking. I don’t have it in me to shed tears over this, because that pity party ended several months ago. “If he’s calling now, he’s only upping the amount… or has something new to use against me.”

I keep the little detail that the fucker has been stalking me to myself. I’m not trying to get my guys locked up for murder.

Wow. I must be a special kind of delulu if I think either of these men would actually kill for me. Still, I don’t want them charged with assault or anything else either. My reputation was trashed long ago. I’m not about to let theirs go in the shitter, too.

“Who else knows about this?” Kerrington asks.

“No one.”

“Not even Mason or Grace?”

“Definitely not.” I push free from Kerrington’s embrace. “And they betterneverfind out.”

“Your secret is safe with us,” he promises, and I want to believe him. But there’s an edge to his tone I don’t trust.

“You’resafe with us.” Landon sits downnext to me and holds me against him, kissing the side of my head. “Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us this, sweetheart.”

All I keep thinking about is how I was so happy this morning. I was so free and joyful and hungry and it’s like I was a new, better person.

But chucking my phone off the twenty-seventh floor isn’t going to solve my problems. Just like fucking the two loves of my life for a week won’t ease the ache in my soul after I leave.

I’m just putting band aids on bullet holes here.

“He won’t follow me to Japan,” I say, like I have a clue how far this guy will go. “And he didn’t touch me, so if you’re worried about that, don’t be.”

“Why does that sound like a half truth?” Landon asks.

Because it is, damnit. “He came to my office late one night. Locked me in a boardroom and tried to coerce me into fucking him. Said if I did, he wouldn’t put out the photos.”

The tension in the room is so thick, I could cut it with a chainsaw.

“What happened then?” Kerr’s voice is so calm, it makes me wince.

“He tried to take what he wanted from me, anyway.”

I don’t like talking about this.

Landon’s hands ball into fists. I keep my attention on Kerrington, if only to let him see howbrave I am. “I threw a chair at him and screamed until security came in. He got away, and was wearing a mask, so the surveillance cameras didn’t catch him. But he followed me to a coffee shop a couple days later, demanding I give him money, or he’d send out my pics. When I dumped my coffee on him, he posted two articles, which set my career on fire.”

“Greystone Princess rebels with ex-fiancé’s best friends,”Landon recites.

“Rebound and Reboot - Taking revenge where she can find it.” Kerrington adds.

I cringe inwardly as shame heats my face. “You saw those?”

“Sweetheart,” Landon grabs my hand. “I was the one who took them down.”

“Wait. No. My parents paid off some hacker to take all the damning articles down.”

“They didn’t pay us a dime, baby,” Kerrington says quietly. “We did it before they even asked.”

---