Page 184 of Challenge Me

Clearing my expression of everything but confidence, I looked directly at the camera.

“You wanted a villain? Congratulations. You’ve got one. If you were making bets, you have my permission to spend your money all in one place. I won’t be answering questions, and if you come into my bar trying to get goddamned content, I will show you what else my heathen god taught me on the streets growing up. Consider this my one and only login.” Feeling something more bitter, I held my finger over the stop button. “I hope that you were all thoroughly entertained at our expense.”

I ended the video, then picked up the phone with a shaky hand. There was no way that I was going to watch it through, and it didn’t matter much anyway. There was no coming back from what I’d said. And that was why I tagged every sports news station, Travis McKinney, Renshu, the Red Sox page, and Amir before I hit post.

Chapter 52

Amir

“Tell me he was drunk,” Avery demanded.

Leaning back against the kitchen sink, I avoided her gaze. I’d only just watched the damn thing an hour ago. He’d posted it late at night, which meant it had a whole eight hours to circulate before I caught wind of it.

“Amir.”

“Let me fucking think, Avery.”

She began to pace. “You’ve had a long time to think. Five months.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then tell me what it’s like. Was the relationship a ruse?”

Swiping a hand down my face, I sighed. “At first.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Not for long. It was a stupid PR stunt, but we had feelings for each other from the start.”

“Oh, you had feelings for each other?” She whirled on me, her blue eyes icy. “Is that what we call blackmail these days? He has a sex tape of you, Amir.”

The thought of it made my lip curl. I knew he had cameras in the bar, but I hadn’t been aware of them then. He’d never mentioned a video of us, and he also hadn’t threatened me with it like he’d claimed. He’d mixed lies with the truth, and it made it hard to sort through everything. Did the explanation really matter in the end? He’d set off an atomic bomb, and I didn’t see a way to escape the fallout.

“What we had was real.”

“You should’ve told me from the start,” she snapped.

“I know.”

“You let me introduce him to Mal.” She put a hand on her forehead. “I thought you’d known him for months, but he was a stranger. He slept in the same house as our daughter.”

“Avery, listen to me.” I took her arm so she’d stop pacing. “Remi never blackmailed me.”

“Never?”

I decided to bypass the pool table thing when I shook my head. “It’s an attempt at self-sabotage. That’s it.”

“Well, it’s one hell of an attempt. How can you expect the two of you to come back from this?”

“I’m assuming the point is not to come back from it.”

“Can you accept that?”

“I don’t know if I have a choice,” I admitted. “I have to be in Boston today. It’s bound to be a shit show.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m not sure.”