Despite the awful things he said to the media today, despite how much I hate him right now, I have memory flashes of being held in his arms. Fantasies that he’ll come to me. He’ll wake me up. He’ll tell me this has all been a nightmare, a sick joke. I’m in an endless loop going back and forth between angry and agony.
He won’t come to me. He won’t forgive me and even if he did, I couldn’t forgive him now. I may not be able to find it at this exact moment, but I know I have a small scrap of dignity deep inside that wouldn’t let me take back a cheater. I can’t take back someone who could hurt me so badly and so deliberately.
The Paddock Playboy, what was I thinking? He was never going to change.
It’s over. There will be no happy ever after, no leaping into his arms and being carried off into the sunset. But that doesn’t keep the thoughts away when I have to see him. I wish there was a switch to turn it off loving someone, but there isn’t.
Between fractured thoughts of Lennox, I have Digby to deal with. I’m so tired and disoriented I can’t even keep coming up with nasty names for him. He is a horrible human on every conceivable level. He is vicious to his own personnel, terrible to any Celeritas staff he finds beneath him, and yet when he goes before the media he acts like a prince. Prince of darkness is more like it.
Fucking fraud.
He has me launching brand new social media pages for him in some twisted pissing contest to outdo Lennox. The idiot never had any personal pages but now it’s suddenly priority number one. Well, it may fall secondary only to his priority to get into my pants. Oddly, I feel better knowing that he only wants me to destroy Lennox. His preoccupation isn’t really about me.
On the wrong side of the garage today, I’m working on Digby’s new Facebook page and grinding my teeth trying to dream up anything positive to say about this piece of trash pervert. He can’t stop to answer my questions for thirty seconds without yelling at William, his poor beaten down assistant. Everything and anything William does is seemingly unacceptable.
“Do you have personal photos from Monaco you want me to use?” I squeeze my eyes closed and force my mouth to speak the words to Digby. I need to get through this godforsaken Facebook page and leave the garage before Lennox shows up and makes me cry again.
“Of course I do, Mallory. I live there. William! How many times do I have to tell you? Take this back and bring me an Evian!” Digby sends the battered William away again. He must jog a hundred miles a day on these demeaning errands.
“Now then, where were we? Monaco, yes?” He turns back to me and blathers.
Yes, Monaco. Where Lennox borrowed a boat one night and just the two of us went out alone onto the sea, far enough to be away from telephoto lenses, and he made love to me and whispered sweet things in my ear.
Like he’s done with half the free world, you naive girl.
I clear my throat and try to concentrate. “Yes, I need photos if you want me to backfill your feed from all the earlier races this season.”
“If you’d have listened to me and left that uncultured lout in Melbourne, you would have had all that you need by now, wouldn’t you?” His lips flatten into a line. I have never punched a human in my life, but he’s going to be the first one. This is all his fault.
“Why do you hate him so much?” How much hatred and jealousy can live inside one person?
“Oh Ms. Mitchell, I don’t think I hate him as much as I imagine you do these days after he humiliated you in such spectacular fashion!”
“Why?” I ask again, my voice getting growly.
“It’s simply sport at this point, darling,” he puts a finger under my chin and I close my eyes, try to keep my fists from connecting with his face. “I’ll take everything from him, even his women!” He laughs like the maniacal bastard he is.
I grit my teeth and shake my head.
“You’ll come around, Mallory, they all do. The sooner you forget that unrefined dolt, the better off you’ll be. I can take you places, you know. Sky’s the limit.”
Before I can respond to Digby’s asinine comments, Lennox, Matty, and Jack stroll into their side of the garage and the air leaves my lungs. Lennox is leaning up against his car acting so calm and cool, so unaffected, like I was nothing to him. I guess I was. And those two friends of his that do his bidding, they can eat a bag of dicks, too.
“Just give me the photos, Digby.” I try not to look at Lennox.
William has returned with a warm bottle of Evian. I don’t know if William is so abused his brain no longer functions, if he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, or if he’s just being spiteful. They’re all valid possibilities.
Digby takes the warm bottle of water from William and shoves it in his face. “You absolute imbecile. Why do I pay you? I’ll g
et my own water, like a peasant! Do something useful and send her the Monaco photos!” Digby points his head at me then slithers his way out of the garage. God forbid he get his own fucking drink.
William reaches into his pocket and hands me an iPhone, “I guess they’d be on here?”
I swipe and open up the phone as William steps back and enjoys his moment of silence from his tyrannical boss. Is this Digby’s phone? Are the photos he took of me on here? I look around nervously and find the photo folder, my fingers going as fast as they can. I can’t find the photos of me, damn it. Pictures of yachts, pictures of women in bikinis on yachts, oh my god he’s such a douche.
Maybe they’re in the Recently Deleted album if he’s as stupid as I think he is. Scroll, scroll, scroll. I don’t see them. More yachts, parties, and several videos. My thumb hits one of them and it blows up on the screen and starts playing.
A party? No wait, there’s a half-naked girl on a table. Is this sick fuck recording other unsuspecting women? The phone is propped on a surface and I have to crane my head to keep the perspective. A shirtless Digby comes into view on camera he bends over the girl, taps a vial of something onto her abdomen, then - oh my god. He’s doing coke off her!