Scandalize Me

There was a small, intense silence. Then Jason laughed again, a bigger laugh than before and nothing kind about it, and turned toward the door, dismissing her as if she was beneath his notice. Beneath contempt. Zoe waited until he had his hand on the door handle.

“And if you don’t go of your own volition,” she warned him with a great relish she made no attempt to hide, “you’ll force me to have you kicked out.”

That sparked the response she’d thought it would. Another laugh and then Jason turned back to look at her, cold and amused. Nothing but a nasty challenge in that flat gaze of his.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Chapter Ten

Jason didn’t actually say the word bitch this time but it hung there anyway, oily and vicious, polluting the air of the conference room, connecting with that reservoir of shame inside Zoe like a harsh kick to the belly.

She breathed through it, refusing to let him see he’d gotten to her.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Hunter said. He straightened then, and made a show of glancing at his remarkably expensive watch. “I’m meeting with the firm’s equity partners in fifteen minutes. Given the number of lawsuits I generate, as I’m sure you know, I’m considered something of a cash cow. They like to keep me happy. All those billable hours and the personal fortune to keep on paying for them.”

“Are you threatening to sue me?” Jason rolled his eyes. As if all of this bored him. “You can’t simply wave your hands and create a lawsuit from thin air, Hunter. The courts tend to frown on that.”

“I know I’m just a dumb jock,” Hunter replied with the genial grin he’d trotted out a million times before, in any number of press conferences over the years, and Zoe loved him, deep and hard and frightening, “but I can still read. You remember the terms you drew up in the firm’s partnership agreement, don’t you? It takes a majority vote among equity partners to remove one of their own. I read it all by myself.”

Jason wasn’t smiling anymore. “That will never happen.”

“Oh, it will,” Zoe assured him. “I suspect the partners here are well aware of your little side business. I’m confident that none of them would like Hunter to make that business the cornerstone of his image rehabilitation tour, as discussing the firm’s connection to your moonlighting as a pimp is unlikely to make the bar association happy. To say nothing of the firm’s clientele, none of whom would enjoy having their relationship to a pimp speculated about in the press.” Her lips crooked. “I’m just guessing.”

“Who do you imagine would believe you?” Jason wasn’t hiding anymore. The truth of who he was stamped on his twisted, furious, ugly face, and he took a step toward Zoe as if this was a decade back and he’d use his hands if he wanted. Some part of her wished he would. He’d find things had changed. “In case you’ve forgotten, Zoe, you’re nothing but a whore. As I’ll be more than happy to tell the entire world.”

Hunter tensed again, harder, and his blue gaze went homicidal, but Zoe stepped forward, because it all came down to this moment. She’d fantasized about it for years. She’d schemed and she’d plotted and she’d gone over it in her head a thousand times. More.

And it was still better than she’d imagined.

“I’m not afraid of you any longer,” she told the architect of her deepest, darkest shame. The monster beneath her bed. This small, pathetic man who preyed upon the weak—but she wasn’t weak anymore. “I’m not the one who’s about to receive a lifetime achievement award. I’m not the one who’s built up such a shining reputation, based entirely on the perception that I’m good and kind and deeply committed to charity. I can have Hunter tell the world your entire sordid story, and what will it matter to me? No one will connect me to it, and even if they do, you’ll still be tarnished.” She leaned forward slightly. “Tainted. Forever.”

“No one will listen to a word you say.” But Jason didn’t look as calm as he had before, or anything like amused.

“But they might listen to me.” Hunter smiled then, and launched into his spiel, deeply earnest and sincere, as if he was playing it to the cameras. “The thing is, I’m changing my life. I’ve seen the light. I’m not a superstar football player anymore. I’ve let my family down and I’ve betrayed all my fans. I’m just a guy who’s only good at one thing, and that’s why I’ve decided to work as a football coach at Edgarton High. For free, until we win a state championship.”