Page 23

Zoe

It wasn’t a long drive back to Miami.

But I swear each mile I drove had my stomach twisting tighter and tighter until it was just one big knot with no hope of untangling.

I tried to keep my mind on the current moment. But it wasn’t long before I was the woman I had been just two years ago.

So young.

So inexperienced.

So hopeful.

And wholly, indisputably, unbearably freaking naive.

I could see how I’d been tapping on the steering wheel, belting out some pop song I would quickly grow to hate. How I would keep checking my reflection in the mirror at red lights, fixing any flyaway hairs or smudged makeup, wanting to make my best possible first impression.

Growing up with a single mom who’d just barely been getting by, all I knew were the lower-class suburbs of my hometown.

So as the navigation had me turning onto a street of mini-mansions, I’d been full of wonder.

So wide-eyed.

So easily impressed.

Too starstruck not to know it was all smoke and mirrors, that everything was an illusion, a carefully curated image.

This time, driving down that same road, all I felt was a sick sort of disgust. For all the time I’d spent there, for running myself ragged for someone else, for allowing someone to whittle me down until I was the exact shape they wanted.

Then the second I could no longer fit that picture-perfect image, I was useless. As easily discarded as last week’s trash.

Even if the man throwing me away was the father of the damn baby growing in my stomach.

“God, I hate this place,” I told Lainey as I turned into the driveway.

I hated that as I drove over them, I knew the pavers that made up the horseshoe drive cost fifty thousand dollars. That the gardener who kept all the hedges shaped and the weeds at bay received a wad of cash each week from Travis while he refused to send a dime my way.

I hated the lush green lawn.

The bright spotlights, so people could admire the grandeur even at night.

The crystal-clear pool out back.

The endless hours of my life I would never get back, standing near that pool, getting screamed at by the man who was supposed to care about me.

I shook those thoughts away.

I choked back the sick feeling in my throat.

I squashed my pride.

This wasn’t about me .

This was about Lainey.

I could do anything for her.

Run for our lives. Twice.

Run over a man.

Beg her father for help.

Of all of them, though, that last one was the worst.

A chill was making its way down my spine as I carried Lainey toward the towering house. I couldn’t help but wonder if someone was watching me right then. None of the windows in the house had blinds, let alone curtains.

Heaven forbid the ‘perfect light’ wasn’t spilling in at all times.

As I stepped up to the front door, I looked down at Lainey. She was watching me with those big, trusting eyes.

Normally, I was sure I was doing what was best for her, for us. Right then, though, everything in me was saying this was a bad idea.

The problem was, it was my only one.

Sucking in a steadying breath, I pressed my finger into the doorbell.

I listened to it sing through the house, and there were several long moments of silence before the front door slid open.

But it wasn’t Travis.

It was Jake.

Travis’s assistant.

He was everything you would expect a yes-man to be: harried, fast-talking, sleep-deprived, caffeine-addicted. Though, I’d long had suspicions that it was more than caffeine keeping him darting around at Travis’s whim.

He was on the shorter and slighter side, perpetually dressed in brand merch, and always in need of a trim of his sandy hair.

“Zoe. This is dumb,” Jake said, brown eyes moving over me, the baby, then back.

“I need to see him.”

“You two have an agreement.”

“If by ‘agreement’ you mean he kicked me out and refused to have anything to do with me, then, sure, we have an agreement . I still need to talk to him.”

“He’s busy.”

“I don’t care.”

There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to stand up to Jake. He was who Travis used to deliver bad news to me, to give a list of demands to me. It was just expected for me to follow instructions.

And being so young, so out of my element, so reliant on Travis, I just… did.

That was a different person.

I wasn’t that girl anymore.

A muscle ticked in Jake’s jaw.

“I think we both know I could take all this,” I said, waving up at the mansion, “away if I want to. Don’t fuck with me right now.”

His eyes widened at that.

But there was no denying the paternity of my baby. We both knew that. And we also knew that courts didn’t like when fathers didn’t want to take care of their kids.

The only reason I hadn’t taken Travis to court was that I didn’t want him in my life anymore. And I damn sure didn’t want him to have any sort of claim on Lainey.

Desperate times, though.

“He’s out back,” Jake said, moving out of my way.

I stepped across the threshold I swore I would never cross again.

The last time I’d been inside this house, everything had been blurry with tears. I was clear-eyed right then.

And, damn, my motel room felt more homey than this place did. It was all sprawling marble floors and white walls. Not a single bit of decor on the walls, barely any furniture in the rooms.

Everything had to be empty and pristine so it would look good as the background for content. No room in the house was off limits. You weren’t even allowed to leave a towel out in the bathroom after a shower.

I walked through to the kitchen I’d once fawned over, thinking I would be allowed to cook and bake in.

Only to find that there weren’t even any pots or pans in the cabinets.

Hell, there weren’t even any glasses. Everything was paper and plastic so it could be tossed and gotten out of the house.

No clutter. No accidental junk in the background of a video.

I pressed a kiss to the side of Lainey’s head as I pulled open the sliding door to the backyard.

The yard was gorgeous; I had to give that to Travis. And, of course, the overworked groundskeeper.

It wasn’t a huge space, but thanks to some clever landscaping (and clever camera angles), it seemed lush and private.

The focal point of the yard was, of course, the pool. Even though no one ever got to go in it.

The scene was exactly what I was expecting. All the floodlights and up-tree lights were on. There were two cell phones on tripods and one man with a professional camera standing between them.

All the lenses were pointed at the woman standing on the other side of the pool, her body moving to a choreographed dance as she lip-synced to the music coming from one of the phones.

She was pretty. Young. Blonde.

This was my replacement.

In fact, I was pretty sure she was wearing my old baby-blue swimsuit.

Because nothing belonged to me when I was with Travis. Everything was his: my clothes, my time, my mind, my body.

“For fuck’s sake, Sadie,” a familiar voice snapped, making the girl jump and turn to look over toward Travis. “Your timing was off again.”

My gaze followed Sadie as I tried to ignore the way my stomach still clenched at his angry reprimands—even when they weren’t directed at me.

“I—” Sadie tried to defend herself.

“What the fuck is the matter with you today?”

I knew what was wrong.

I’d been her.

Doing endless takes over the course of three or four hours to get one single ten to thirty-second video finished. Shower, rinse, repeat. All day. Half the night. Every single day of the week.

She was exhausted.

Her body hurt.

She needed a break.

But he wouldn’t give her one.

“Trav,” Jake called, dragging his attention away from Sadie.

He looked mostly how I remembered. Tall, broad, built like a linebacker, a somewhat broad nose, brown eyes.

The only difference was his hair. When I’d left, it had been cropped short. He’d grown it out since. And in my opinion, it gave him a sleazy ‘70s porn star kind of look.

“What?” Travis barked. Jake nodded his head toward where I was standing.

Travis’s gaze followed. And I watched a whole lot of nothing cross his face. Even as his eyes moved over his daughter.

“I told you we’re done.”

“Oh, my God. You’re Zo2.0!” Sadie gasped as her gaze skimmed over me. “There have been so many people online wondering what happened to you.”

“He happened to me,” I said, looking at Travis, who refused to glance in my direction.

“Get her out of here, Jake.”

“I, uh, I think you might need to hear her out,” Jake said, shifting his feet, uncomfortable at having to disobey a direct order.

I couldn’t even blame him.

I’d once seen Travis slam him against a wall, his forearm across Jake’s throat, as he screamed in his face.

“Fucking fine. The girl is being fucking useless today anyway. Inside,” he barked as he passed me by.

In my arms, Lainey jumped, and I had to give her a wiggle and a kiss to calm her back down.

That was why I’d been willing to walk away, not to take him to court, and to let him wash his hands of us.

Because he was toxic.

Because I couldn’t let my little girl be around her cruel, selfish, demanding father.

My worst fear was she would be a super cute toddler. Who he would then exploit for views and money.

It was safer to try to make my way on my own.

Yet here I was.

I turned back to Sadie, who seemed to be fighting a battle against tears.

“Get yourself on birth control,” I told her, watching as her gaze moved to me, to my daughter, then back. Realization was clear on her face. And grief.

She wasn’t the first.

She wouldn’t be the last.

Travis wasn’t a boyfriend.

He was a content farm.

And he would continue to use, exploit, and discard women the second they lost their worth. Or the views dropped.

“And make an escape plan,” I added before turning and walking back into the house.

I knew exactly where to find Travis.

In the library—complete with fake books on the built-in shelves—pouring himself some whiskey into a red plastic cup.

“I told you never to come back here again.”

“Trust me, it’s the last place I want to be.”

“Say what you came to say. I have two more videos to film before bed tonight.”

“I didn’t come to say anything.”

He finally turned back to me, his gaze moving over me. Once, that lip curl of disgust would have shattered me. Now, it just made my chin raise.

“You’re not getting shit from me,” he said. “We agreed on that.”

There was no agreement at all.

Just a scared pregnant girl who had no idea that she actually had more power than he did in the situation.

“Travis, I know you will probably combust from trying to hold in all your asshole-ness for two minutes, but give it a try, would you?”

“Ooh,” Lainey hooted in agreement.

She wasn’t looking at her father the way she looked at Coast. She offered the biker her wide-eyed wonder, her big, gummy smiles. She almost seemed to be frowning at Travis.

“Well, look who developed a spine.”

“It’s amazing what being homeless and pregnant will do to build character,” I snapped back.

“Your choices aren’t my problem.”

“I could make them your problem, so stop being such a dick.”

His eyes flashed at me.

“You want me gone and gone for good, I just need—”

“Money,” he cut me off, gaze moving over my shorts and tee.

“I need to get out of my current place right now.”

“It’s always fucking money.”

“Says the guy who earned, what? A couple hundred grand off of me?” The eye roll he did made me think it might be significantly more than that.

Honestly, when I’d been driving to his house, I’d been trying to gear myself up to ask to stay for a night or two. Just until I figured out my next move.

But just five minutes in his presence made it clear I couldn’t stay.

So I would swallow my pride and take the money.

“Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet, then tossing a couple hundreds on the table. Not all of the hundreds in his wallet, mind you. Greedy to the bitter end, he was. “Now get the fuck out.”

Again, Lainey jumped at the sound of his voice, at the bite behind it.

God, I hated him.

More now than I did then.

But then he opened his mouth and made it even worse.

“You know, you should have gotten rid of it,” he said, gaze flicking over our daughter. “You could still be living here, making your little dance videos, enjoying living in the lap of luxury.”

“It,” I repeated, voice venomous, “is a she. And she is the only good thing your selfish, arrogant, evil, ugly ass ever gave to me. Keep your money. I don’t need anything from you.”

I did.

I desperately did.

But I’d be damned if I took it.

If tonight was the night of swallowing my pride for the sake of my daughter, I knew somewhere else I could take her.

Somewhere that she would be cared for and appreciated.

Somewhere that wouldn’t make me feel like dirt on the bottom of a shoe.

“Don’t ever come back here,” Travis called as I reached to open the front door.

He always liked to have the last word.

But just this once, it was mine.

“If I ever come back here again, I’m taking all of this from you,” I said, watching his face fall, knowing it was possible.

I didn’t mean it.

I never wanted to see him again.

But I wanted those words to roll around in his head every night before he fell asleep. I wanted them to haunt his dreams. I wanted him to forever be looking over his shoulder in fear that I would make good on that threat.

Because we both knew it wasn’t just his daughter’s care and keeping and schooling I could make him pay for.

It was every shady, underhanded deal I knew about. Every time he lied to a collaborator. Every dirty little secret he kept. Every carefully stacked lie he built his little empire on.

I could expose it all.

I could burn it all down.

And the only thing keeping me from doing it was the fear of him leveraging custody or visitation with Lainey against me.

But still.

I wanted him to sweat.

I wanted him to know what it was like to be under someone else’s thumb.

I wanted him to be afraid each time he thought of me and what he put me through.

And I never, ever wanted to see him again.

“Well, that was the closure I didn’t know I needed,” I told Lainey as I strapped her back into her seat.

I climbed over from the passenger side seat into the driver’s, worried that if I slammed the driver’s side door too many times, that spiderwebbing on the glass might fully shatter.

Then I reversed away from my old life for the last time.

And drove all the way back to Golden Glades.

And the one person I knew, despite whatever might be going on between us, would help me and my daughter.

No questions.

No demands.

No guilt.

“Want to see Coast again, baby?” I asked Lainey.

“Ooh,” she hooted back.

“Yeah, me too.”