Page 4 of My Stupid Heart

She shook her head and twisted her napkin to shreds in her lap.“I should have.But he didn’t hurt me or threaten me.He just blamed me for leading him on like somefeminist bitch.Said I was a cock-tease and wasted his time and money.Though I paid just as often as he did.I never exploited him.He said Iowedhim for the nice dinners he took me to.”

“Owed him, as in you owed him sex because he bought you coq au vin?”Ryker asked, his tone morphing from calm and cool to enraged and heated.Anger flashed in his honey-colored eyes and rather than fear igniting in her belly, it was excitement.Arousal.Compounded by the fact that he remembered how much she loved coq au vin.It was her favorite dish on the rare occasion she ate out at a restaurant that had fancy cloth napkins.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Okay, so then what?”

“He stomped away, got in his truck, and I didn’t see him for a few days.”

Ryker turned to Sasha.“Were you still on the soccer team at the time?”

She nodded.“Yeah.It was my next game that we saw him again.”

“And what happened then?”Ryker asked.

“He benched me the entire game,” Sasha replied bitterly.“And I’m the best starting forward on the team.I didn’t play for even a second.Nobody—and I mean nobody could understand it.Not my teammates, not the other parents.Not even the other team because we’ve played them before and they know I’m good.People were asking me if I was injured.It sucked.”

“I went up to Adrian mid-way through the game and asked him if he was punishing Sasha because I broke up with him,” Molly said, glancing at her daughter.“He refused to speak with me.Pretended I wasn’t even there.”

“The next morning, the wordSLUTwas keyed into the side of Mom’s car,” Sasha said.

“Did you check the security cameras we installed?”Ryker asked.

Molly nodded.“Yeah, but it was just a hooded figure, all in black, wearing a balaclava.He knows there are cameras.He saw them when he was here.So he knew to disguise himself.”

“Tell me about the cameras in the house and bathroom,” Ryker asked.

“We didn’t find them until after I broke up with him,” Molly said, shuddering at the memory of finding the small spy cams so expertly hidden in her bedroom, living room and bathroom.

“And were you able to verify that it was Adrian who put them there?”

“We don’t have a lot of guests.Besides my book club.But those are all women and we merely get together to drink wine and occasionally talk about the book we all just read.None of them would do it.”

“I’d like to speak with the members of your book club,” he said.

“They’re coming tomorrow night, so I’m sure that’s fine.”

“Tell him about the text messages and going through your phone,” Sasha encouraged, leaning forward and grabbing a ginger snap off the plate.

Molly nodded, embarrassment at getting her and her daughter tangled up in this making her nauseous.She grimaced before taking in a deep breath and pressing on.Ryker would need all the information.She couldn’t leave anything out.“That was the other reason I ended it with him.He was insanely jealous.He watched me punch in the code for my phone, then grabbed it one day when I was in the bathroom and went crazy on me when he saw that I’d been emailing with Rob.Rob had merely emailed me to thank us for the birthday gift we got the twins, then he sent a picture of him, Skyler and the girls at the beach on Moorea.Adrian accused me of cheating on him with Rob.When I explained that him taking my phone was an invasion of privacy, he tried to gaslight me by saying only a cheater would have something to hide.”

Ryker sucked in a deep breath through his nose and nodded.

“I asked him to leave.He did without a fuss, then showed up the next day to apologize.He said he was crazy about me and had been cheated on before, so it made him a little paranoid.I told him who Rob was—but I don’t think he believed me.But we made up and thingsseemedbetter.This only happened two weeks before I ended it for good, though.But after the jealousy thing and the snooping, I just … I just never felt the same way about him.He kind of gave me the creeps after that.I also never let him come back to the house again.We always had our dates in public.A walk during the day in a busy park.The movies, dinner, bowling.That kind of thing.”

“Smart,” Ryker said, sipping his lemonade.

“I should have ended it when he went through my phone.I know that.”She glanced at her daughter.“I’m sorry I brought this man into our lives.”

“He was my soccer coach.I kind of brought him into our world, too.”

Molly reached over and squeezed Sasha’s hand, offering her daughter a grim smile.“I know, but I should have kept things platonic.He should have stayed just your soccer coach.”

“Okay, so did he ever play Sasha in any more games?”Ryker asked.

“I had one more game, and he benched me after four minutes on the field.I scored and had an assist in those four minutes, then he benched me.Other parents even argued with him and when he said, ‘take it up with Molly,’ I told him I quit and walked off the field.”Sasha nibbled on her cookie.“But people are blaming Mom.”

“Who is?”Ryker asked, sitting up in his seat, his focus bouncing between Sasha and Molly.

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