Chapter 10
Clayton
I couldn't stop thinking about her.
The way she'd felt underneath me on that studio floor, her body arching into mine, her nails raking down my back through my soaked shirt.
The sounds she'd made when she came, desperate and broken and so fucking beautiful I'd nearly lost my mind.
The taste of her still lingered on my tongue, and I found myself licking my lips at random moments throughout the day, chasing the ghost of her.
My body still wants you, Clayton. But my heart doesn't trust you.
The words should have devastated me. And they did, in a way. But underneath the pain was something that felt dangerously like hope. She hadn't said never. She hadn't said it was over. She'd said not yet, and I was clinging to those two words like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood.
Dr. Bauer would probably tell me I was catastrophizing and hope-spiraling in equal measure. She'd be right.
I was sitting in my office, staring at my phone like it might spontaneously produce a message from Jennifer, when my assistant buzzed the intercom.
"Mr. Mayer? There's a Grace Shields here to see you. She doesn't have an appointment, but she says it's urgent."
My blood ran cold.
I'd been expecting this. Ever since I'd fired her in front of the entire board, I'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Grace wasn't the type to take humiliation lying down.
She was a PR consultant, for fuck's sake.
She knew exactly how to spin a narrative, how to destroy a reputation, how to make someone's life a living hell without ever getting her hands dirty.
"Send her in," I said, because refusing to see her would only make things worse.
The door opened, and Grace walked in like she owned the place.
She was wearing a cream-colored dress that probably cost more than my assistant made in a month, her dark-brown hair sleek and perfect, her blue eyes sharp with barely concealed fury.
She looked beautiful and deadly, like a snake coiled to strike.
"Clayton." Her voice was pleasant, almost friendly. The kind of tone that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "We need to talk."
"I don't think we do." I stayed seated behind my desk, refusing to give her the advantage of standing over me. "Whatever you have to say, you can say it through your lawyers."
"Oh, I don't think you want lawyers involved in this conversation.
" She crossed to the chair across from my desk and sat down without being invited, crossing her legs with deliberate elegance.
"Not unless you want your wife to find out about some very interesting recordings I have in my possession. "
My stomach dropped. "What recordings?"
Grace smiled, and there was nothing warm about it. "Remember that night at my apartment? About six months ago? You'd had a few too many scotches, and you were feeling particularly sorry for yourself."
I remembered. Barely. It had been one of my worst nights, right after Iverson's betrayal had come to light and my father had threatened to destroy me. I'd called Grace in a panic, and I’d gone over right after work with a bottle of expensive whiskey and she’d let me pour out my guts.
I'd said things. Things I shouldn't have said. Things I didn't even mean, not really, but in that moment, with the alcohol and the fear and the bone-deep exhaustion, I'd been weak.
"You recorded me." The words came out flat, hollow.
"I recorded you admitting that you felt trapped in your marriage." Grace's smile widened. "That you weren't sure you even loved Jennifer anymore. That sometimes you fantasized about what your life would be like if you'd never married her."
The floor tilted beneath me. I gripped the edge of my desk to steady myself, my knuckles going white.
"That's not... I didn't mean..."
"Oh, I know you didn't mean it." Grace waved a dismissive hand.
"You were drunk and stressed and feeling sorry for yourself.
But Jennifer doesn't know that, does she?
All she'll hear is her husband admitting that he felt trapped.
That he questioned whether he loved her. That he imagined a life without her."
I was going to be sick. Actually, physically sick. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, the cold sweat breaking out across my forehead.
"What do you want?" I managed.
"I want you to reinstate my contract." Grace's voice hardened. "I want a public apology for the way you humiliated me in front of your board. And I want you to admit, to everyone who will listen, that firing me was a mistake."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I send these recordings to Jennifer." Grace reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, tapping the screen a few times before holding it up. "Would you like to hear a preview?"
My own voice filled the room, slurred and pathetic: "I don't know, Grace. Sometimes I wonder if I even love her anymore. Sometimes I feel so fucking trapped, like I can't breathe, like marrying her was the biggest mistake of my life..."
I lunged across the desk and grabbed for the phone, but Grace was faster. She pulled it back with a laugh that made my skin crawl.
"Ah ah ah. Temper, temper." She tucked the phone back into her purse. "So what's it going to be, Clayton? Your pride, or your marriage?"
I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat. Wanted to shake her until her perfect teeth rattled. The rage that surged through me was so intense it nearly blinded me, a red haze descending over my vision like a curtain of blood.
But underneath the rage was something worse. Fear. Because Grace was right. If Jennifer heard those recordings, it would destroy her. It would destroy any chance I had of winning her back. It would confirm every horrible thing she already believed about me.
"Get out," I said quietly.
"Excuse me?"
"Get out of my office." I stood slowly, and something in my expression must have scared her because she actually took a step back. "I'm not going to negotiate with you. I'm not going to reinstate your contract. And I'm not going to apologize for finally seeing you for what you really are."
Grace's composure cracked, just for a moment. "You're making a mistake, Clayton."
"Maybe." I walked around the desk until I was standing directly in front of her, close enough to see the pulse fluttering in her throat. "But at least it'll be my mistake. Not one you manipulated me into."
"Fine." Her voice was ice cold. "Have it your way. But don't say I didn't warn you."
She walked out without looking back, and I stood there in the wreckage of my own office, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my skull.
I had to tell Jennifer. Before Grace got to her first.
I grabbed my keys and ran.
The drive to Jennifer's studio felt like it took hours, even though it was only across town. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel, my mind racing through every possible scenario, every way this could go wrong.
She wouldn't believe me. She'd think I was just trying to get ahead of the story. She'd hear those recordings and all the progress we'd made, all the fragile trust I'd been trying to rebuild, would shatter like glass.
My body still wants you, Clayton. But my heart doesn't trust you.
How could she trust me now? How could anyone trust me now?
I pulled up to her building just as Jennifer was walking out the front door. She was wearing jeans and a soft cream-colored sweater, her dark curls loose around her shoulders, and she looked so beautiful it made my chest ache.
Then I saw who was standing next to her.
Grace.
My blood turned to ice.
They were talking, Grace's hand on Jennifer's arm in a gesture that looked friendly but was anything but. I could see the shock on Jennifer's face, the way her body had gone rigid, the way her eyes were widening with each word Grace spoke.
I threw the car door open and sprinted across the street.
"Jennifer!"
Both women turned to look at me. Grace's expression was triumphant, a cat that had finally caught its mouse. Jennifer's face was... I couldn't read it. Blank. Empty. Like someone had reached inside her and carved out everything that made her human.
"Clayton." Grace's voice was sickly sweet. "Perfect timing. I was just sharing some interesting information with your wife."
"Jen." I ignored Grace completely, focusing all my attention on the woman I loved. "Whatever she told you, whatever she played for you, I can explain."
"Explain?" Jennifer's voice came out strange. Distant. "You can explain telling another woman that you felt trapped in our marriage? That you weren't sure you loved me anymore? That marrying me was the biggest mistake of your life?"
Each word was a knife, sliding between my ribs with surgical precision.
"I was drunk," I said desperately. "I was scared and overwhelmed and I didn't mean any of it. Jen, please, you have to believe me."
"Do I?" She laughed, and the sound was so hollow it made me flinch.
"Because I'm having a really hard time figuring out what I'm supposed to believe anymore, Clayton.
You say you love me, but you told her you weren't sure.
You say you want me, but you told her you felt trapped.
You say you're changed, but apparently you've been saying the opposite to her for months. "
"That was before." I stepped closer, and she stepped back, putting distance between us.
The rejection hit me like a punch to the gut.
"That was before I understood what I was doing.
Before I realized how badly I was fucking everything up.
I was a coward, Jen. A pathetic, terrified coward who didn't know how to deal with his own shit, so he vented to the wrong person. "
"The wrong person." Jennifer's eyes flickered to Grace, then back to me. "That's one way to put it."
"I should have talked to you." My voice cracked, and I didn't care.
Let her see me break. Let her see every ugly, desperate piece of me.
"I should have woken you up at two in the morning and told you I was having panic attacks.
I should have admitted I was scared of failing.
I should have trusted you with all of it instead of hiding behind walls and pretending I had everything under control. "
"But you didn't." The words were quiet, devastating. "You chose her instead."
"I know." I dropped to my knees right there on the sidewalk, not caring who saw, not caring about anything except the woman standing in front of me.
"I know I did. And I will spend the rest of my life regretting it.
But those recordings, Jen... those weren't the real me.
Those were the worst version of me, the most scared and broken and fucked up version, and I hate that you had to hear it. "
Grace made a sound of disgust. "This is pathetic."
"Shut up." Jennifer's voice was sharp enough to cut glass, and Grace actually took a step back. "You've done enough."
"I was trying to help you." Grace's tone shifted, wounded and innocent. "You deserved to know the truth about your husband."
"The truth?" Jennifer laughed bitterly. "You've been trying to steal my husband for twenty years, Grace. Don't pretend you suddenly developed a conscience."
Grace's face went pale, then red with fury. "I was his friend. His confidante. The person he actually trusted, unlike you."
"Get out of here." Jennifer's voice was low and dangerous. "Before I do something I'll regret."
For a moment, I thought Grace might push back. But something in Jennifer's expression must have convinced her otherwise, because she turned on her heel and walked away without another word.
Leaving me on my knees in front of my wife, waiting for judgment.
"Get up, Clayton."
I stood slowly, my legs shaking. Jennifer was staring at me with an expression I couldn't decipher, her dark eyes searching my face like she was looking for something specific.
"Did you mean it?" she asked quietly. "Any of it?"
"No." The word came out fierce, absolute. "I was scared and drunk and talking out of my ass. I have never, not for one single second, regretted marrying you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Jennifer. The only thing I regret is that I was too much of a coward to show you."
She was silent for a long moment.
Then she turned and walked away.
"Jen." I started after her, but she held up her hand without turning around.
"I need time, Clayton. I need to think." Her voice was steady, but I could hear the cracks underneath. "Don't follow me. Don't call me. Don't show up at my studio unannounced. Just... give me space."
I watched her disappear around the corner, my heart in pieces on the sidewalk where I'd been kneeling.
She hadn't said it was over.
But she hadn't said it wasn't, either.