Chapter 26
ROXIE
While the guys are out running errands, I curl up on the big leather couch in the living room, a blanket over my legs, and a mug of peppermint tea warming my hands. Madison’s face fills my phone screen.
She grins up at me. “Well, you look better than you did the last time we spoke,” she says. “I’m assuming things went well when you told them and that you’re happy now?”
“I am,” I admit, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face. “Things have been amazing, actually. Better than I ever expected. I’ve been spoiled more since then than in my entire life.”
She laughs. “Domestic goddess energy. I love it.”
I laugh, but my retort dies on my tongue as something flickers past the front window. Movement. A shape. I lean forward, squinting.
The wind pushes the snowfall sideways, and through it I see a silhouette near the edge of the porch lifting what looks a hell of a lot like a phone, snapping pictures.
“I gotta go,” I murmur.
“Rox? What’s—”
“I’ll call you later.” I hang up before she can say anything else and set my phone down.
My heart thuds but not with fear, exactly. Just that sudden, instinctive tension that tells me something isn’t right, even if it isn’t dangerous.
Besides, I recognize that silhouette. I’ve only seen it once, but the image is burned behind my eyelids, and the guys won’t be happy she’s here. Standing up, I tug on my boots by the door and step outside.
Cold slaps me in the face as snowflakes cling to my hair and eyelashes a second after I close the door behind me. Wind hums through the trees, but Tessa keeps snapping pictures of the house like a nature photographer stalking a lazy bird in summer.
Her pitch-black hair is perfectly curled despite the weather, her lips painted a deep red, and her phone is still raised. When she sees me, she looks me up and down, slow and disdainful.
“Well,” she says flatly, lowering the phone. “I’m surprised you came running out. I thought you might be hiding inside, rolling around in all their money.”
My stomach twists, but anger rises right behind it. “What are you doing here?”
She smirks. “Just checking in on Boone. Seeing where my husband lives these days.”
“He’s not your husband anymore,” I shoot back.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says with a laugh and a flick of her manicured hand. “Paperwork or not, men like Boone don’t just move on. It might look like he has, but it’s not real, and it’s certainly not permanent.”
I cross my arms. “You need to leave.”
She strides closer instead, her heeled boots sinking slightly into the snow. “Tell me, what’s your angle?”
“Excuse me?”
Her eyes rake over me again. “You’re sleeping with all of them, aren’t you? You’re one of those.”
The disgust in her voice hits me like a slap, but I stand my ground. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
She scoffs. “Please. Women like you always have an explanation they’re just dying to give, a poor-me sob story to hook the rich and gullible.”
“That’s enough,” I snap. “You know nothing about me, and we’re going to keep it that way. This is private property, and you are trespassing.”
Tessa tilts her head, a slow, cold smile spreading across her painted lips. “Do you think you’re special, sweetheart? Do you actually think Boone loves you?”
She sniffs and shakes her head, her eyes burning into mine. “You’re nothing but a phase. A distraction. A… what’s the word?”
Her eyes gleam viciously.
“A placeholder.”
The words punch the breath right out of me, not because I believe her, but because it stuns me that someone so beautiful can be so casually cruel.
Channeling my inner-city girl, I square my shoulders, the cold finally sinking in deep enough to feel like clarity. “You need to get off this property. Now.”
Tessa doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink. Instead, she smiles again, syrupy but poisonous.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, taking yet another step closer, snow crunching under her boots. “You don’t get to decide who belongs here. Boone will come back to me.”
My eyebrows pull together. “You’re divorced.”
She waves her hand like she’s brushing snowflakes from her perfect hair. “Once he knows I want him back, he’ll come running.”
I stare at her, genuinely wondering for a moment if she’s delusional.
“Do you have a hearing problem? I said you have to leave.”
She takes another step closer, her breath steaming in the cold. “Let me guess, you really believe they love you. All of them.”
I glare at her.
A sharp bark of laughter bursts out of her. “You’re not as special as you seem to think, honey. You’re just their latest toy. Do you know that you’re not even the first woman they’ve passed around like a pocket pussy in a frat house?”
A hot sting starts deep in my chest, but not from doubt. From anger. Deep, righteous, mama-bear anger. “That’s not what this is.”
“Oh, no?” Her eyebrows lift mockingly. “They do this, darling. It’s their thing. Their disgusting, kinky little game, but Boone isn’t really like them. He’s the kind of man who needs a real family, a real wife. Someone who knows how to keep his attention.”
Something in me snaps then. It’s small, but sharp and protective. My hand slides over my stomach without thinking. I’m only about eight weeks along and I’m not showing yet, but the babies are so, so real, and Boone promised to be there for us.
Tessa’s eyes flick downward and widen the instant she realizes where my palm is, and the world seems to freeze around her. When she slowly lifts her gaze back to mine, horror blooms behind her mascaraed lashes.
“No,” she whispers, then again, louder: “No.”
I don’t say anything.
“You—” She jabs her finger at my stomach. “You whore.”
I flinch, not because of the word but because of the venom behind it.
“There is no way,” she spits. “No way Boone or any of them would do that with you. They wouldn’t even think about starting a family with a gold-digging slut with nothing better to do than suck one cock after another.”
The fury in my veins turns molten, but somehow, I manage to keep my voice completely steady. “That’s not your business.”
But even as I say it, I watch realization and panic flash across her face. She understands. I didn’t back down so much as an inch, but my pulse was hammering.
My breath comes too fast, too shallow, and even though the winter air stings my cheeks, heat keeps crawling up my neck. “I’m going to tell you one last time to get the fuck off my property or I’m calling the police.”
Tessa takes a step toward me, her eyes flashing with something sharp and triumphant. “Go back to New York, little whore,” she says, her voice dripping poison. “Crawl back to whatever hole you came from. You don’t belong here and trust me when I tell you that they’re going to figure that out soon.”
My stomach drops. New York. I never told her where I was from. I hadn’t heard Dillon tell her, either.
Before I can react, she turns sharply on her heel, storming down the drive like she’d just delivered some decree. Her boots crunch through the snow in tight, angry strides until she reaches a sleek black SUV parked at the bottom, so shiny it looks like it has never seen a dirt road in its life.
She climbs in, slams the door, and speeds off, tires spitting snow. I let out the breath I’ve been holding only after she disappears around the bend, but my hands are still shaking.
A sick twist of dread coils in my gut. How the hell did she know I was from New York?
The cold finally seeps into my bones, so I go back inside, shutting the heavy front door behind me and locking it. Making a beeline for the living room, I stand in front of the fire, holding my hands out to the warmth as I try to steady my breathing.
My heartbeat eventually slows from its frantic pace, but that unsettled feeling stays lodged under my ribs. When I finally hear the rumble of the truck pulling up outside, relief hits me so hard, my knees almost give out.
The moment they walk through the door, I know keeping anything from them isn’t an option. I don’t even make them ask. I tell them everything.
“Tessa came by again,” I start. “She was taking pictures of the house, so I went outside to confront her and it got ugly.”
Every word Tessa had said spills out of me, every insecurity she’d disguised as a threat.
“She knows I’m from New York,” I say quietly. “I never told her that, and I’m pretty sure none of you did, either.”
The stunned silence that follows tells me I’m right.
The calm before the storm is finally over. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispers, well, time to buckle up, buttercup.