Page 93 of Divorced from Number Thirty-Eight
“He’d do anything for you.”
My heart squeezes and Luna sniffs. “Sorry.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “Ignore me and my pregnancy hormones.”
But Kailey’s sniffing too and then they’re hugging, holding back tears as they murmur to each other.
I smile at them but when I transfer that smile to Harper, I see something like pain in her eyes.
Only it’s there and gone so quickly, and Luna and Kailey are breaking apart and turning toward us, Luna demanding that we start shopping “immediately” that I’m distracted.
And I forget about it.
Until much later.
“Okay,” my publicist, Marie, says, stacking her papers and setting them aside. She glances at her notepad then up at me through the camera. “There’s just one more thing I wanted to talk about today.”
I nod, finish up a note on my own pad, my mind more on the adjuster I met with this morning. My insurance company is dragging their heels and it’s making me crazy.
I want to move forward.
Want to see something that’s not the shell of my house next door.
Because as lovely and beautiful and soul-fulfilling as this time with Gray has been…my home, my memories, my past are all of thirty feet away.
And they need attention too.
“It’s about the fire,” Marie says and I snap to attention.
“I turned in my manuscript already,” I say. “And I’m making good progress on my newest project, so it hasn’t delayed me on that front.”
“That’s great, but it’s not what I wanted to discuss.”
I frown, but fall quiet, trying to read her expression through the video feed on my laptop. There’s something in her tone that has my nape prickling.
“I presume you’ve seen the videos that have gone viral about Gray Roberts and you—though you haven’t been named in them.”
Small miracles, that.
Though, I suppose it’s only a matter of time.
All it will take is one person looking into property records and putting the pieces together.
“I’ve seen them,” I say, and I know Gray has too.
Same as I know he hates them, the tension ratcheting up through his body every time one pops up on our feeds or someone mentions it during an interview.
“I don’t comment on my personal life,” is the only response he’s given.
“I think we can use the videos to our advantage. Leverage them into some fresh coverage for your new release, see if we can’t get the hockey romance fans salivating for the real-life story of the romance writer and the hockey captain.”
My mouth falls open, surprise and disgust ricocheting through me.
I know Marie hustles for me, know she’s good at her job.
But…
Ew.
And it feels even more disgusting after all the negative press Gray endured the previous couple of seasons, the sports bloggers and influencers taking pot shots at him, the media taking every opportunity to dissect his relationship.
