Page 131 of Playing for Keeps
“Ivy,” I whisper. “I don’t know who this woman is. I swear to you. I never married anyone. This is bullshit. All of it.”
She doesn’t say anything, she just looks at me.
“Wyatt,” Cleo pushes. “Did you hook up with anyone?”
Anger bubbles inside me. “Jesus, Cleo. Just give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute, Wyatt,” she says, exasperated.
Ronnie clears her throat. “She’s claiming Ivy’s the other woman. She’s painting this like an affair. If we don’t get ahead of it, your entire image, and Ivy’s, is going to be shredded by the media.”
Ivy gasps, and my heart aches.
“I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable, but we need to know what we’re dealing with,” Ronnie continues.
I exhale loudly and drag my hand through my hair. “Yes,” I say quietly. “I hooked up with someone I met in the hotel.”
My eyes find Ivy’s, and my heart splinters as she closes her eyes and drops her head.
“Name?” Cleo barks.
My jaw ticks. “I don’t remember.”
“Let me refresh your memory,” she says, pulling a file from her bag and slapping it down on the kitchen counter.
Ivy jumps as the sound echoes around the open space. My chest aches, and more than anything, I want to pull her into my arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay, but I don’t know if it is.
“Cara Livingstone. Twenty-three. An exotic dancer from the Flamingo Club, just off the strip,” Cleo says, almost clinically.
She slides a photo across the counter toward me. I hesitate, not wanting to look, but I force myself. And the moment my eyes land on it, the memory crashes back. She’d taken a selfie of us in the bar, her arm wrapped around me.
Despite what it might look like, casual hookups haven’t been my thing for a while. Not in the past year, at least. I’ve been craving something more, something real. I’d started pulling back from the empty nights, trying to find that connection.
But Cade and Sophie’s wedding… it hit differently. Watching them, seeing what they have, it just reminded me how far I was from having anything close. And that night, I slipped. One reckless decision.
The irony is brutal. Now that Idohave something real, someone who actually matters, that mistake might be the very thing that tears it all apart.
“I’m going to take a bath,” Ivy says quietly as she walks past me, her eyes briefly flicking to the photo on the counter.
I reach out, my fingers brushing against hers, hoping and praying she’ll stop. But she doesn’t. She keeps walking, and it feels like my heart goes with her.
Once she’s out of earshot, I turn to Cleo, my jaw tight.
“I met her at the bar. We had a couple of drinks, talked a bit. She came back to my room, and we slept together twice. Shestayed the night, left the next morning. That was it. No wedding. We never even left the damn hotel.”
“She knew who you were?” Cleo asks, her eyes narrowing.
I sigh. “Yeah. That’s how the conversation started. She said her brother was a Cardinals fan and asked for an autograph.”
“None of this adds up,” Cleo snaps. “Were you drunk?”
“I was buzzed, not wasted. I remember everything. Nothing about that night is hazy.” I pace across the kitchen, my hands clenched. “How the hell does someone get a marriage certificate without actually getting married? That has to be illegal. And why now? Why wait over six monthsto come forward?”
“She probably saw the press coverage of you and Ivy a couple weeks back,” Ronnie says quietly. “Figured she saw her chance.”
“And the marriage certificate?” I press.
Ronnie shakes her head. “I don’t know, Wyatt. Maybe she knew someone. Maybe she bribed someone. But something’s off.”
