"I would never, ever do something like that to you. Or to anyone, really. But especially not you."
I open my eyes. Find him staring straight at me, his expression still as deadly serious as ever. I nod, and blink hard as my eyes sting once more, threatening tears again. "But … "
He shakes his head, squeezes my fingers tighter. "We're going to fix this, Clove."
"How?" The tears threaten to sting at my eyes again. "My company is already trying to track down this person. Whoever did this, they were smart. Really smart. They covered their tracks, and if a professional in the industry can't find them, there's no way we can."
"Sure we can." His eyes go hard and distant, focused on the window outside instead of me now. "Because I know who it is."
I tug at my hand, freeing my fingers from his, startled by the sudden fierce anger in his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"There's only one person who would do this. One person who's already done this before."
"What are you talking about?" I shake my head. "Zayne, you're scaring me a little bit." I've never seen him look like this, so intense and furious. It's not directed at me, but still. Who knew what kind of anger was hiding underneath his bright, smiling exterior?
"There's … This has happened to women I've dated before."
My shoulders tense. Now I feel some of that anger flooding over into me. "Wait. You're saying you knew this was a possibility?"
"I didn't know that-"
"Women who have sent you sexts before have had their photos leaked publicly?" I press on, leaning into the table, eyes on his.
He meets my gaze reluctantly. "A couple of times, yes."
"And you didn't think you should tell me that before you asked me to send you a half-naked selfie in a bar bathroom the other night?" I lower my voice to a hiss, all too aware of the other customers in here, the stares we're already starting to attract, because even at whisper-volume, I can't contain the fury in my tone.
"It hasn't happened in years, so I thought-"
"Who is it?" I interrupt.
"Clove, I can't-"
"Who is doing this to me? You must know, if you're the one the leak is coming from. Did they hack into your phone, whoever it is?" A sudden, horrible realization sinks into my stomach. "Oh, god. Are you involved with someone? Are you cheating on them, is that why?"
"What? Clove, no, of course not, you saw my apartment."
True. That was a bachelor pad if ever I've set foot in one.
"How can you accuse me of that?" He shakes his head, genuine hurt in his eyes.
But I can't sit here and listen to this from the man who just knowingly let me walk straight into a trap. Whether the person doing this to him is in the wrong or not, he knew about it all along. He knew and let me fall for it.
I push my chair back and surge to my feet. "If you won't tell me what's going on, I'm going to have to find out myself."
"Clove, please, let me handle it. I'll talk to her."
"Her, huh?" I lift an eyebrow and skewer him with another glower. "Well, while you're doing that, why don't you have a long think about why you don't even trust me enough to tell me about my new stalker, too." Without another word, I snatch up my purse and sweep out of the restaurant, shoulders squared against the outside air.
8
It's a nice day outside, balmy and just warm enough, but not so hot that the pavement feels like it's going to cook me from below. The kind of day I'd normally enjoy at an outdoor café for lunch with Andy and Celeste. Instead, I've been banished from my company, relegated to the backseat, moping around my home while trying to figure out how to fix my trash fire of a life.
I make a beeline for my apartment and ignore another pang of latent, frustrated sexual tension as I cross the threshold and pass the doorman's desk. Paul is still there, of course, waiting for Zayne to start his shift. Tonight, if I have any reason to leave my building, I'll have to walk straight past him. Stare at his smug expression, those knowing eyes, that smirk of his, all the while knowing that he helped ruin my life. And worst of all, he won't even tell me why.
Her.
Some woman is doing this. Some woman connected to him. He says it's not a current lover, and I believe that, if for no other reason than that he's right, I'd have seen some evidence of another woman around his place. A toothbrush, possessions lying around, something.
But who else would want to destroy him so badly? A scorned ex? Maybe someone he did something similar to? Did he ever put up revenge porn of another woman?
Or is he a much better liar than I think? Maybe this is all him. Maybe it's all part of his fucked-up plan to ruin women's lives. To fuck them senseless, make them fall for him, and then cut them down … Why?
For fun?
I think of the words on the website. Slut. He called me that, but in fun, sexy, possessive tones that made it sound hot as hell. I liked it when he called me that in that setting, when it was just me and him. Is this his real kink, though, getting off on sleeping with women and then humiliating them in public?
There are a lot of screwed up men in this city, after all. I should know. I've gone on dates with more than a few of them.
I ball my hands into fists, dig my nails in to keep myself alert as the elevator doors ding open on my floor. There's something stuck to my door, a note about a package delivery it looks like. I ignore it. No time for that right now. I sweep inside and head straight to my computer. First things first, I need to start doing some damage control.
I check the policies section of the dating app's website first. There's nothing about what to do if someone leaks photos sent via the app without your permission, but I write a long email to their contact person anyway, just in case it helps. If nothing else, maybe they can beef up their security in the meantime and help stop this happening to some other poor, innocent girl.
I have to click into Zayne's profile to send them all the details on what happened, who I sent the photo to and how it was leaked. Doing that sets off a riot of feelings in my gut all over again. Because right there on the cover photo is him, gazing at me with those damn blue eyes, so impossible to tear mine away from. Even pixelated on a screen, he's hot as hell.
I'd thought, crazy as it seemed, about deleting this app after this weekend. I'd thought, why do I need it? I've already found a guy who's way better than any of the other losers, and it turns out I already knew him in person. I didn't need this stupid app to help us hook up.
But now? I don't even know how to feel. A crazy person stole my image from his app, is threatening me, publicly harassing me, and he doesn't even trust me enough to tell me what's going on. How can I reconcile that with the guy I thought I was falling for?
My heart sinks into my stomach. I read this all wrong. I misread all the signals. He's not into this, not the way that I am.
My throat clenches hard as I click away from his profile. But closing the window doesn't help remove the memories. They surge up again, brought to the surface by the sight of that image all over again. Yesterday, it was only yesterday. It feels like a different era. A completely different life.
We'd finished lunch and we were playing a game at his dining room table. Poker. He was trying to teach me the rules, but I was abysmal. I kept betting on nothing hands, going all in on a pair of twos. So he changed the rules.
"Strip poker now," he'd said with a grin, gaze fixed hungrily on me.
"Okay," I agreed, and I didn't tell him that I already planned to continue sucking. Even more so now.
He dealt another hand, but this time, for once, I had decent cards. I hesitated, double-checking. But no. I was right. I had a good hand. So I placed a bet. Zayne rolled his eyes and matched it.
"You have to fold sometimes," he pointed out. "You can't go all-in on every hand and expect me to believe you've got something when the last five times you didn't."
I shrug and raise again. "Never know," I said. "The tides could have turned in my favor."
"Poker isn't the only thing you need to practice, Clove," he admonished with a wink. "You need to work on lying, too."
"But isn't that what you love about me? My innocent guile?" I raised again, and he matched again, and I could feel the win creeping up on me.
"I suppose. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all along you've been pretending to be innocent and slow at this game, building me up, so you can sweep in like a shark at the right moment and claim victory once and for all."
My heart skipped a beat. "Oh? Is that so?"
"Maybe." His gaze caught mine. Held firm. That smirk of his widened. "So tell you what, Clove. Why don't we raise the stakes even higher? Why don't we make this truly interesting?"