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An enormous weight pressed against my shoulders as I took in her words.
What the fuck?
I scrubbed my face and ran fingers through my hair. “Jesus, Zoey.” I drained my wine. “And you willingly went along with it?”
“What am I supposed to do, Matthias? Call the police? He’s my dad and it’d be my word against his.”
“Not if they knew about the videos,” I shot back.
“Do you want your video being made public?”
She had a point. Snorting cocaine off an erect cock wasn’t exactly a smart decision, even if I didn’t remember doing it. That shame would follow me around for a long time.
“Of course not.”
The room was getting stuffy and my fingers fumbled with the tie strangling my neck. I loosened it before removing it all together.
“You may be as rich as Croesus, Matthias, but you can’t say the same about others on your team. They can’t afford for their videos to go public or testify in a court of law. Some of them need to keep scholarships in place. Or they want to make Nationals. Or they need to secure sponsorship deals. They don’t want to rock the boat, so they never press charges, Matthias. They just want to swim, same as you.”
It was almost as if she knew how people reacted to being blackmailed. As if this was a regular occurrence.
“How many athletes is Coach blackmailing?”
In that moment, the question was left hanging in the air. Chef Clementine entered the dining room, asking if we were ready for the fish. Zoey and I hadn’t even finished our salads yet. I’d lost all pretenses of an appetite, but I indicated she should still bring in the dishes.
When the chef left the dining room after placing perfectly prepared fish and vegetable plates before us, I asked my question again. “How many people is he blackmailing, Zoey?”
“I don’t know. Two or three, maybe. You’re his primary target, though. He has videos going back years for other athletes. Most of the time he doesn’t do anything with them, especially if he has nothing to gain. Just the threat of their existence is enough to keep most in line.”
Fuck. I shot out of my chair and it toppled to the floor with a thick thud.
“In my case,” I started, pacing the room, “what Coach has to gain is specifically related to your Hollywood ambitions.” I pinned her with a hard stare. “Are you dating multiple people for this purpose?”
“Are you jealous?” she asked, and I couldn’t help but notice the blush of hope on her face.
She didn’t realize it, but she’d just revealed her hand.
This was my chance.
My chance to get Zoey on my side. If she thought I’d date her for real, would she help me? Would she then destroy the evidence?
Her ambition only coincided with her father’s goals when it suited her.
By revealing her cards, I could make everything end.
Make it go down in flames.
Zoey’s dreams of stardom.
Coach’s dreams of wielding power over me.
But that meant squashing my dreams of earning Olympic gold.
Almost no matter what I did, I wouldn’t come away clean, and I’d hurt Ciaran in the process. I had to keep him in mind, too.
It came to me then. In order to fix everything, I had to sever Zoey’s ambition from her father’s blackmailing scheme.
“No,” I said. I restored my chair and offered her a serious expression. “I’m not jealous, Zoey. I could stand here and lie to you, but I’m not going to. I could pretend to like you, to date you, and get you to help me out of this jam, but I won’t.” Her nostrils flared at that. “That said, I still want to see you succeed in Hollywood. Why can’t we enter into our own agreement and leave your dad out of it?”
