I read his lips. Love you .
Love you, I mouth back to him, and then I watch as the officers lead him out of the terminal presumably toward a car to take him down to the station. Most of the photographers gathered there follow them out, snapping pictures of him the whole way, but two stay behind to grab photos of me . I do what I can to shield Harper from this disaster.
This is going to be all over the news tomorrow. Tonight, even.
There’s nobody here to help me. To help us . To escort us through the airport as we make our way to baggage claim or out to Travis’s car so we can get home.
They dragged Harper’s father away in handcuffs, and she has no idea why. She’s crying, and I’m crying, and Owen stands there smirking at me.
He didn’t follow the officers out to the squad car to watch his handiwork at play. Instead, he hung around to gauge my reaction.
The nerve.
The fucking nerve of this guy.
How I spent three entire years with him is baffling to me.
Venom fills me. I don’t really care what Travis did to him. He had it coming, and the fact that he’s standing here smirking at me makes my blood boil.
I wish Travis could punch him again. I wish I could stand by watching.
I walk over to him, ready to slug him good and hard, my other arm still around Harper as she walks with me, but the second I get to him and lift my hand, he grabs my wrist just like he did not so long ago—in the place where the same wrist is still sore because of him.
“Ah ah ah,” he chides. “Careful or you’ll be next, darling.” He inclines his head in the direction the officers just hauled Travis, and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right.
I don’t need photographers catching me slap this asshole across the face. That would just give him evidence against me then.
I don’t need people listening in on us.
I don’t need to make this any worse than it already is.
My heart pounds in my chest as I make a split-second decision.
“I hate you,” I hiss. I want to say more words, but I have a little girl listening and watching. How I react here may pave the entire future of our relationship, and it’s with that in mind that I yank my wrist from his grip and tug Harper along with me toward baggage claim.
It’s not that long of a walk, but it feels endless. I find the carousel where our luggage will drop, but the belt isn’t moving yet. We stand back, waiting quietly in the crowd as we wait and try to blend in.
I reach over and put an arm around Harper’s little shoulders, and I bend down and whisper into her ear. “It’s going to be okay, Harps. Be strong for Travis, okay?”
She nods as she brushes away her tears, and I feel like I’m on the brink of crying, too.
Especially as I hear whispers and jeers all around me.
“Isn’t that the woman that was with him?”
“Is that his daughter?”
“What did he do?”
“Is she Travis Woods’s wife? I heard he got married. Is that true?”
“It’s so sad the daughter had to see him like that.”
“He sucks anyway.”
Chills run down my spine at everyone’s words. Some know I was with him, and others are just gossiping freely with no idea that the man’s wife and child are right here.
I feel very much alone as I move closer to the belt, ushering Harper with me. I want to protect her from this—from all of this, from the harsh words surrounding us, words I know she can hear, too, and from the people taking pictures of us. It isn’t just the paparazzi now. I see phones aimed in our direction from people who recognize us within the crowd, and I don’t know what to do.
I’ve not had any publicity training on how to deal with this sort of thing, but even if I did have training, I’m not sure anybody could ever really be prepared to hear someone whispering cruel things about the man they just married.
It wasn’t something I thought about when I jumped at the chance to marry the guy I’ve been banging for the last couple months. It wasn’t even a consideration as I said yes to the man who stood up for me and defended me when he got that ball back for me—something so precious and important to me. He knew that, and he did what he had to in order to get it back.
And now he’s paying the price.
I realize it’s so much more than that. Real feelings are involved now, and I have fallen in love with him and with his daughter, too…but I’m starting to think I bit off more than I can chew here.
Maybe this whole thing was a mistake.
I was so happy less than ten minutes ago. This is my life now.
“We never should’ve taken him. I knew he was a punk the second I saw him.”
Some old man wearing an Aces collared shirt says those words, and I hate this. I hate the man for thinking he could judge Travis just based on his looks. I hate that they think they know him just because they watch him on the field every Sunday.
A woman sidles up beside me. “What did he do?” she asks.
Well, she’s got balls, I’ll give her that. Bigger balls than the others who are whispering and gossiping all around us. Some aren’t bothering to whisper at all, like the man who called him a punk, while others shoot me sympathetic looks.
I walk away from the woman without responding, and I try to keep my eyes down on Harper. She’s stopped crying for now, but she looks so little and so, so scared.
I wish I could fix this for both of us, but I don’t know how. I have no idea what to do.
I drag her toward the restroom just to get away from the prying eyes. We can wait in here where it’s quiet and safe at least until the bags from our flight start to drop onto the carousel.
But there are women gathered at the sink gossiping in there, too. “What do you think he did?”
“I heard he was driving under the influence,” one of them says.
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Rumor has it he’s a big party guy,” another says.
A third says, “Someone was saying he hit his kid.”
“He didn’t hit me!” Harper screams. Her voice echoes all around the small room. “He’s a good dad and he would never!”
I usher her out of the bathroom. Even that apparently is not a safe space.
“What did he do?” she cries to me.
I don’t know what to say, but I do know that this isn’t the place to discuss it. “We’ll talk about it later.”
We should’ve braced her for what was coming, but how could we have known that Owen would set us up like this—with the police and paparazzi at the airport? The dick couldn’t even wait until we got home. Un—fucking-believable.
We stand as far away from people as we can, and eventually, blessedly, the luggage starts to make its way around the belt.
I grab my suitcase and Travis’s, and Harper gets her little one, and then together we struggle out the doors and beeline for Travis’s Mercedes.
I feel like someone’s following me. I can’t exactly move quickly with two large suitcases and a little girl beside me, but instinct tells me to walk faster.
I turn around and spot more people taking my picture or video footage…something they can use to try to make a buck off selling a picture of Travis Woods’s family, most likely. They’re following us, and despite my inner instinct to turn around and scream at them to stop, I don’t.
I don’t do anything at all. Instead, I walk as quickly as I can until we get to the car. I help Harper into the car first, and then I toss our suitcases in the back, slip into the driver’s seat, and peel out of the spot to head toward home.
Travis’s home.
My home.
Our home.
Without him.
Table of Contents
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