Page 95 of Whiskey Splash

His head is shaking, but I pull my phone out and slam it down on the coffee table.

“You!” I point at him, my finger accusing, shame and darkness brewing deep with my fury. “Youshow it to me. No one else.You.”

He flinches each time I say it, my words bullets.

What he’s about to show me wouldn’t have happened with anyone else. This has happened because he’s famous. He can promise it won’t happen, and he can promise he can stop it—but clearly, he can’t!

Something is out there.

Me.

Him.

Us.

Fuck!

“Desmond,” I say softly, my voice a knife. “If you make me walk out of here without showing it to me, I’ll—” My breath falls out from under me, scraping away everything solid and leaving me dangling.

I don’t know what I’ll do.

I can’t see past this very minute.

Butwewon’t survive it. It will break everything.

“Okay, okay,” he says quickly, pulling his phone from his jeans. “If you’ll just sit down and I’ll—”

“Just show it to me!”

He presses the buttons on his phone, navigating to it before holding the phone out to me. His hand is a bridge, a bridge to something I don’t think I’ll survive happening.

“I love you,” the words slip out of Desmond’s mouth as I take it, making me shudder. Making me look up at him and not at the phone like this is the last time I’ll get to hear them. They hit so deep I feel hollow, hollow with how I want them to fix everything and how I know they can’t. Hollow with how the world can’t seem to exist with two private people in it.

Love can’t weather this storm.

My hand trembles as I look down at the phone. All I catch in the headline is Desmond’s name. I’m sure it says something blasphemous, but my eyes go immediately to the picture. The picture that makes my heart stop.

The photo is of a window with the lens of the camera peeking in through the curtains. But it isn’t just any window—

It’smywindow.

The window ofmybedroom.

Ofmyapartment.

It’s not a photo of this Penthouse. No, it’s my personal space, the one safe place in my life.

My home.

And through the lacy sheers of the window, bathed in sunlight you can see me naked and straddling Desmond. You can’t see any compromising parts of my body—thank God—but my lavender hair is obvious, and if you know me, my face is recognizable enough.

My face is in the sun—my mouth open and gasping—mid-orgasm.

I drop the phone and sit back in the chair behind me.

Maybe I fall into it.

Desmond is saying things, I know he is, probably apologizing, but I can’t hear him. It’s all too personal. Too much of a shock. How long has this picture been up? Who’s seen it? People at the resort? My boss? My parents? Anyone on the globe could find it.

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