3. Tess #2
“You were backing straight into my car,” the woman said. “Stay right there a second.”
“I’m all right.”
“You don’t look all right.” The woman glanced toward the clinic doors. “You just came out of there, didn’t you? I can run back inside and get somebody.”
Tess looked down.
Her phone was still open to Chloe’s post.
The image felt obscene now in the middle of this ordinary parking lot, surrounded by grocery bags and sun-faded cars. Camden’s smile sat frozen behind the glass while a stranger held Tess upright because she had forgotten where she was standing.
“No.” Tess let the screen go black. “Thank you, but I don’t need a doctor.”
The woman kept her hand in place. “You sure? You went pale on me.”
“I’m steady.” Tess caught her balance and stepped clear of the open tailgate. “Something urgent came up at home. I just need to get there.”
The explanation sounded stiff, but it worked. The woman released her arm and watched her for another moment.
“All right. Just don’t try driving yet if you’re still dizzy.”
“I won’t. Thank you.”
Tess turned toward her sedan.
Her hand slipped off the handle once before she managed to wrench the door open. Heat rolled out of the sealed cabin, carrying the stale smell of upholstery and whatever coffee Camden had spilled in the cup holder the week before.
Camden.
The thought of him almost made her look at the picture again.
She shoved the phone into the center console instead.
She pulled the purse off her shoulder next. Tess placed it on the passenger seat, then stopped when it tipped sideways.
The envelope was inside.
She reached across and righted the bag.
For one moment, the noise of the parking lot vanished, replaced entirely by the memory of that galloping rhythm in the clinic room. The tiny flicker on the monitor. The photographs she had handled by their edges because bending them had seemed unthinkable.
He’s going to explain it.
He had to.
Marcus had staged ridiculous campaigns before. Chloe knew exactly how to turn a camera toward herself. Camden would look at the photograph, understand what it had done, and tell Tess why he had allowed it.
Then he would apologize.
Then she could take the envelope out.
Tess climbed behind the wheel and pulled the door shut, cutting off the parking-lot noise. The phone remained facedown in the console. Her purse sat upright on the passenger seat with their child hidden inside it.
She closed both hands around the steering wheel.
The house had been still long enough for Tess to notice every small sound it made. The refrigerator cycled on behind her. Somewhere beyond the kitchen, air hissed softly through the vents in the long hallway. Her purse sat on the stool beside her, the envelope inside untouched since the clinic.
She had left the phone on the island with Chloe’s post open.
The front door opened.
Tess stayed where she was.
Camden’s footsteps carried through the foyer, followed by the scrape of something against the entry table. A moment later he appeared in the kitchen doorway with his keys in one hand and the team-issued playbook tablet tucked beneath his arm.
He stopped when he noticed her.
“You leave the kitchen lights off on purpose?”
“Long enough.”
His brows drew together, but he crossed to the island instead of asking what she meant. He dropped his keys, then slapped the tablet onto the stone beside them.
“Marcus kept me under studio lights for four hours after practice.” Camden rolled one shoulder and glanced toward the hallway. “Taking hits Sunday was easier than standing there while they reset the same campaign shot twenty times. My back is wrecked.”
Tess waited for him to look at her again.
He didn’t.
For one stupid second, she had imagined the front door opening and Camden recognizing something was wrong before she said a word. He would take one look at her face, drop whatever he was carrying, and ask what happened.
Instead, he was complaining about lights.
Give him the chance.
Tess reached for the phone.
“Put the tablet down and look at this.”
“It is down.” Camden rubbed the back of his neck. “Tess, I just walked through the door.”
“I know.”
She turned the phone so the screen faced him.
Chloe’s photograph filled the display again.
Camden looked down at it.
Tess slid the phone across the island until it stopped near his keys.
He studied the screen for a moment.
No panic.
No immediate curse. No startled demand to know where Chloe had posted it. No reach for his own phone to call Marcus and have the image removed.
Camden only looked tired.
Tess kept one hand against the edge of the island because reaching for the purse would be too easy. The envelope waited inside. Nothing but a slip of paper between her and the news she had spent the whole drive home rehearsing.
“Your brand partner is sitting between your knees.”
Camden lifted his gaze.
“She’s practically in your lap, Camden.”
“It was a content shoot.”
“I can see that.”
“Then what are we doing?”
The question landed flatter than she expected.
Tess pointed toward the phone. “We’re talking about why Chloe Kensington can use your body like furniture while the entire sports timeline loses its mind over your chemistry.”
Camden glanced back at the photograph.
“She walked into the rehab room with her phone out.”
“And that made your knees stop working?”
His mouth tightened.
“You’re smiling at the camera.”
“I smile for cameras. That’s part of the job.”
“She has her hip against you.”
“Tess.”
“No. Look at it.” She pushed the phone another inch toward him. “Look at what everyone else gets to look at and tell me why I’m supposed to pretend this is normal.”
Camden’s gaze stayed on the screen.
For half a second, she let herself believe he finally understood.
Maybe now he would see it.
Maybe he only needed the photograph placed in front of him without Marcus narrating over his shoulder. Maybe he would understand what it looked like from outside the campaign room, from the position of the wife nobody knew existed.
Tess’s fingers shifted toward the purse.
The envelope was right there.
All he had to do was acknowledge the line.
Camden lifted his eyes from the phone.
“You are twisting a standard PR shoot into something personal.”
Tess went still.
“A woman is sitting between your legs.”
“It was a staged shot.”
“For whose benefit?”
“The campaign.”
“And what am I supposed to do when the campaign sells you like you’re available?”
Camden pushed the phone back toward the middle of the island.
“We are not turning this into a crisis because Chloe posted one picture.”
Tess stared at him across the stone.
His expression held no alarm. No embarrassment. No sign that he understood why she had been waiting in this kitchen with their child hidden inside a closed purse.
Camden tapped the edge of the phone with one finger.
“It’s a promotional still, Tess. It’s a promotional still.”
Camden rubbed two fingers against his temple and looked back at the phone as though repetition might make the problem smaller. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion, but Tess couldn’t find an apology anywhere in his face.
“I’m not asking what the photographer called it.” She kept her place across the island. “I’m asking why you let her take it.”
“Because it was work.”
“Work doesn’t erase the fact that you’re married.”
Camden let out a breath, then motioned toward the phone. “You know how these campaigns operate. Marcus controls the media timeline. I control the playbook. That’s the division of labor.”
There it was.
Marcus.
Tess glanced at the purse beside her. The envelope inside held three grainy images of a life Camden didn’t even know existed yet. She had spent the drive home imagining his hands around those photographs, his grin breaking open when she told him what the tiny flicker meant.
All he had to do was stop defending this.
“She is wedged between your knees in that picture, Camden.”
“It was staged.”
“You didn’t move.”
“For a photograph.”
“You guarded a shoe campaign instead of your wife.”
Camden’s expression hardened. “That is not what happened.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I finished a game. I was trying to get treatment. Chloe came in with a phone because PR wanted another campaign shot. They took the picture. End of story.”
He answered with the same tone he used when explaining a busted protection call after a game. Clean. Practical. Finished.
Tess stared at him.
He really thinks that explains it.
Camden picked up the phone and looked at the photograph again, then set it back on the island. “You’re taking tabloid bait and turning it into something it isn’t.”
“The tabloids don’t know I exist.”
“That’s the point.”
The words stopped her.
Camden rubbed at his temple again. “Keeping you out of that circus was the agreement. We decided that together.”
“We decided to protect our marriage.”
“And this protects it.”
“No, Camden.” Tess stepped back from the island. “This protects your brand.”
His hand dropped from his face.
“Those contracts pay for this house. They pay for our security. They secure our future.”
“I didn’t marry your endorsement portfolio.”
“Tess, come on.”