Chapter 34 Season 20, Episode 8 “… To Keep Me from You! （Part Two）” #2
“Come on, not even I’m that good. Besides, you think Barnes benefits me? He’s been here five hours, and you’re a human tornado.” He frowned. “Seriously, are you okay?”
“Please quit the buddy act—”
“No, we can fix this. I’ll go in a Trial and boot him. Just put me to work.”
“Stop,” I answered coldly, leaving him at the sink. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”
Halfway into the flight, Imogen and I at last managed to meet alone by the flight attendants’ kitchenette, launching into triage while the others slept.
“You cannot target Barnes,” she said firmly.
“You’ll become the vindictive spouse, which does you no good.
Especially with the kids. They don’t need a video diary of you two reenacting Kramer vs. Kramer.”
“So how do we get rid of him?”
“If anyone makes a move, it’s me or Erika. God knows we both have enough reasons. But you stay clear.” She regarded me warily, clearly not convinced I could. I wasn’t either.
We sailed over the equator, and I didn’t sleep once.
Hours later, Shawn and I disembarked first alongside Zara, who halted us at the sliding doors out of customs. “Troy just texted. He sent the local crew to film your arrival,” she warned, and I doggedly grabbed Shawn’s hand, bracing myself.
Except it wasn’t just Endeavor’s cameras waiting…
Flashes detonated as the doors parted, paparazzi frothing behind stanchions while airport security fought to fend them off.
Zara, Shawn, and I gasped, each of us instinctively shielding our faces.
“Did they find out Barnes is here?” I asked helplessly, but Zara had frozen before a nearby news kiosk, tabloids glaring back at us…
More specifically, we glared back at us.
Splashed across the Daily Mail, the New York Post, and every other gossip magazine were sundry portraits of me, Shawn, and Barnes.
Including screenshots… from a video recording of me and Shawn on our night alone at the hotel in Shanghai.
Little heart emojis covering our crotches as we blithely fucked in the penthouse.
“But… I heard Troy say the cameras were down…” Shawn said, barely audible.
“They were.” Zara was red with fury as she brandished her phone. “And now I need to know why the network didn’t tell their own showrunner about this the second we landed.”
Right as she unlocked her screen, a paparazzo evaded the security guards, barreling right at us. He shoved Zara, and on instinct I blocked him, flinging him to the ground like I’d done to countless linemen before him. “Do NOT touch her!”
“Hey!” Zara gripped me. “You can’t give these scumbags a reason to sue you!”
But the floodgates were open, unwelcome questions drowning us in their undertow.
“How do you feel about the video that leaked last night to TMZ?”
“Shawn, where does Luke rank in your stable of studs?”
“Was this video revenge on your husband for his own sex tape?!”
“How will this affect your custody battle with Barnes?”
A fresh wave of howls erupted as a hand pulled me toward a nearby gray door marked GENDER NEUTRAL & FAMILY BATHROOM. I rushed inside out of sheer instinct. In the mirror, I caught Barnes duck in behind me, the two of us running from the mob. Just like old times.
The seconds it took him to bolt the bathroom door felt like a decade. Barely a sound intruded. We might as well have been in a tomb. “I’m so sorry… This was the only way to—”
“To what?” I interrupted flatly. “Threaten me financially or steal my children?”
“I would never take the kids from you!” His palms pressed into his eyes, muffling an anguished groan. “Christ, this has spun so far out of control. I don’t even know how to start.”
“Start with a lie. Historically that’s always worked.”
“No, listen, I came here for you, I swear.” My head tilted in disbelief as he continued pleading.
“Ever since you left for Italy, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to make things right, to show what you mean to me.
At first I thought I could wait until you got home, but then I realized I can only do it here, especially once… ”
“Once what?”
“Once the kids mentioned you were seeing someone.”
“I never told the kids that!”
His hands fluttered, trying to placate me. “No, I know, I pieced it together from little things they said… So I pitched the network about coming to help you win.”
“Right, immediately after you got expelled from the Senate,” I snapped. “And how dare you tell the kids you were going to bring me home, like I’d abandoned them and you’re the savior hauling me back? There’s no way you’re here to ‘help’ the man your own lawyer called a glorified babysitter.”
“He said that?” Barnes looked like he’d vomit. “Look, I was wrecked when you filed for divorce, even if I had no right to be. I’ll admit I told him to play hardball, but I’ll fire him—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. Because if you think I’m backing off full custody, you’re delusional.”
“Luke, our family is my entire world, I’ll never forgive myself for jeopardizing—”
“Then why did you?!”
“Answers to big questions like that aren’t simple,” he said after a moment, leaning despondently against the door. “They ‘come in waves,’ at least that’s what my therapist says.”
“I do not need to hear about your fucking therapist. Unlock the door.”
He moved back in front of me. “What will make you believe I want to help you?”
“Well, we’re in an airport. Get on a plane and fly the fuck away. That would help.”
“The network prepared for that particular breach of contract, and I would effectively be buying said plane if I did. Plus, the divorce isn’t the only lawsuit that’s come calling since you left. We need money.”
“There is no we,” I corrected coldly. “But fine! You want to prove yourself and make things hunky-dory? Full custody. Right now.”
Any color left in his face bled away, as if I were addressing a man made of chalk. “Don’t ask that of me in an airport bathroom.”
I shook my head in disgust and reached for the door, but he still refused to release me. “Luke, you’ve always helped me win. It’s my turn. Let me defend you now—”
“I’ve got people defending me.”
“Who, that dumb kid?” he asked, defaulting to a tone I remembered all too well.
“Don’t pretend to be jealous of someone taking what you didn’t even want.”
“If you think that’s true, then you are—”
“Then I am what?” Our faces were inches apart now, but he didn’t dare respond. “Stay the fuck away from me, or you’ll wish your biggest problem was a breach of contract.”
He finally relented, letting me pass. Upon escaping, I saw reinforcements from local police wrangling the press back toward the wall of rental car desks.
A red-eyed Shawn had already collected our luggage, and Zara deftly led us to the bus before we could be pursued, the cold winter air of a new hemisphere catching in my throat.
My head was ringing by the time the coach reached our expansive hunting manor, a hulking fortress of timber and stacked stone.
A fire pit blazed in the corner of the sweeping lawn, where an overlook offered a panoramic view of Queenstown and her lake, the snowy peaks in the distance encircling it like the back of a sleeping dragon.
Inside, the fine art had metastasized from our previous residences, paintings in every cranny taunting us with their potential impact on the game ahead.
One replica I recognized at first glance: the famous statue of the Dying Gaul, a young soldier, prostrate, pierced by a spear, uncertain if he will rise or succumb to his mortal wound. I was practically gazing in a mirror.
Shawn and I selected our room and pushed the two beds together, the act that had felt so celebratory in China now totally forlorn. We sat on the edge, my left leg grazing his right.
“What time is it in DC? You could call the kids?” he suggested feebly.
“I don’t want them seeing me like this.” I collapsed back, staring at the coffered ceiling.
I should have been panicking over the field day that social media was likely having, the ways this tempest would inevitably bias any divorce court judge, but—as had been the case during every cataclysmic crash I’d endured—a resigned paralysis had settled over my body.
By contrast, anxiety radiated from Shawn, who stretched out alongside me. “I’m so sorry, I should have guaranteed every camera was gone,” he said. “This is all my fault.”
“Don’t say that. None of this changes how I feel about you, all right?”
I turned over to discover him softly crying. “Luke… is everything going to be okay?”
“I wish I knew.”
But I did know. It absolutely was not. With Barnes here, I’d never truly atone for my old mistakes, but I might achieve something I’d not even considered. Revenge.