Chapter 15
EVIE
Chloe is in my bed without ever having entered the room.
Her photograph glows on Keegan’s phone beside the interview, proof paired with accusation until no stranger will care which image was manufactured and which intimacy was real.
My sheets smell like him. His bruised mouth still burns against mine.
Below the window, camera shutters begin their dry mechanical chatter.
Keegan stands barefoot with his shirt in one hand. “I can call security.”
“For the sidewalk?”
“For the building entrance.”
“The bakery needs customers to enter.” I gather my old team shirt from the floor and pull it over my head beneath the sheet. “You cannot turn this place into your arena tunnel.”
“They’re here because of me.”
“Yes.”
He absorbs the word without defense. That almost makes it worse. Last night his body knew when to stop. This morning the world attached to him has no such instinct.
Keegan buttons his shirt with hands that look wrong doing anything delicate. One button misses its hole. I reach toward it from habit and close my hand before contact.
His gaze catches the movement. “Evie.”
“Fix your shirt.”
He looks down and corrects it. “The article lies about the photograph.”
“I know.”
“It lies about me wanting out.”
“I know that too.” I fold the sheet across the bed because I need one flat surface in the room. “It does not lie about the relationship.”
“No.” Keegan holds the answer without reaching for an explanation.
“Then what do you expect me to say when they ask whether I believe you?”
“Nothing. You say nothing.”
My hands stop on the cotton. “You don’t hear it.”
“Hear what?” He abandons the next button and faces me.
“You are still assigning me silence.” My anger lowers until even I have to listen for it. “Chloe speaks. The team speaks. You speak when counsel approves. I am told to stay away from windows and say nothing while everyone decides what happened in my marriage.”
Keegan puts on his jacket but leaves it open. “What do you want to say?”
“I don’t know.” The admission scrapes on the way out.
“Then nobody gets to force an answer out of you.” Keegan’s weight shifts toward me, but his feet remain planted.
“That is not the same as you giving me one.”
He crosses half the room and stops. “You’re right.”
The words land without strategy. He has said them before, but this time they cost him movement. He remains where I can refuse the rest.
My phone vibrates again. Sienna sends a photograph taken from the studio’s back room: two camera crews on the opposite sidewalk, one person trying the locked front door. Beneath it: I’m staying inside. Don’t come here.
I turn the screen toward Keegan. His face changes with frightening speed. “Give me the address of whoever is touching that door.”
“And you will do what?”
“Make sure they understand trespass law.” The words come through his teeth.
“Through your calm educational manner?”
“Through counsel.” He drags one hand over his hair, forcing the violence down. “And security that answers to the building owner, not me.”
The correction is immediate. So is my exhaustion. “My work is closed because your former confidante gave an interview.”
“I will cover every lost appointment.”
“No.” I leave the refusal between us.
“Evie, this is direct damage?—”
“And your first answer is still money.” I drop the phone on the bed. “You cannot reimburse me for becoming the wife in a scandal. You cannot buy the hours back. You cannot pay Sienna enough to make strangers stop testing my studio door.”
His jaw works before he answers. “Then tell me what helps.”
“Leave.”
The word alters his posture. Not dramatically. Keegan simply becomes more careful inside his own body.
“I can take you with me,” he says.
“I am not hiding in your car.”
“I can stay until they clear out.” His attention cuts toward the window again.
“You staying is the photograph they want.” The cameras below punctuate the sentence with another burst of shutters.
He glances toward the blinds. A camera cannot see this room clearly, but patience and a long lens can turn any shadow into a headline. “I'll take the fire stair at the back.”
“The latch sticks. Pull up before you push.” I hate that the warning comes automatically.
“You remembered to tell me something about your building.” His mouth almost softens.
“Do not make it romantic.”
“I’m trying not to make anything worse.” The almost-smile disappears.
“Then go handle your life.” I pick up his shoes and press them against his chest. “The team. The cameras. The lie wrapped around the truth. Handle it without asking me to stand beside you and prove you are worth forgiving.”
Keegan takes the shoes. “I will not use you as a character witness.”
“And don’t deny what was real.”
“I won’t.” His grip shifts on the shoes, careful even now not to crush the leather.
“If you say there was no affair because there was no sex, I will finish the divorce just to correct the record.”
His pale eyes lock on mine. “I will tell the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“That Chloe staged the photograph. That I did not consent. That I spent six months betraying my wife anyway.” His voice roughens but does not soften the sentence. “And that none of it was your fault.”
The answer reaches for the part of me still wearing his number. I fold my arms over it. “Do not talk directly to me through a camera.”
Keegan looks away for the first time. “I don’t know if I can promise that.”
“Then don’t perform an apology and call it intimacy.”
“I can promise that.” He sits on the edge of the chair to pull on his shoes.
The domestic absurdity cuts through the spectacle: the most recognized man in the building tying one lace while my coffeemaker clicks off in the other room.
“Whatever I say publicly, the part that matters comes back here without an audience.”
I lead him toward the rear stair. At the kitchen threshold, he pauses beside the counter where last night’s water glass stands near his things.
“Last night was real,” he says.
“So was the morning in our kitchen.” I brace my hip against the counter rather than move closer.
“I remember.” His gaze drops to the water glass between us.
“Both have to fit.”
“They do.” His hand rises, then falls without touching me. “I’m not asking you to choose one.”
At the rear door, I show him the stubborn latch. He lifts, pushes, and cold air cuts into the apartment. The metal stairs descend into an alley screened from the street.
“Keegan.”
He turns.
“Do not destroy your career because destruction feels like proof.”
His expression changes, too private for the cameras waiting beyond the brick. “I’m going to stop letting it own what belongs to me.”
“Your career?”
He steps onto the landing and looks back at the apartment, the shirt, my bare feet. “The mess.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
Then he pulls the door closed between us.