STRIPPED (The Slate Brothers 3)

That’s how we’re positioned when someone pounds on the door the following morning.

Chapter 17

“What the hell?” Tyson says, frowning. We make brief eye contact, and I shrug— maybe it’s housekeeping? He rises, throws on the bathrobe I’d been wearing last night (it barely covers him), and goes to the door. His body goes still when he looks out the peephole to see our visitor.

“Who is it?” I whisper.

He turns back to me, meeting my eyes but then surveying the room. The food from last night, my few belongings, the empty pack of lube and the condom on the counter. He moves fast, grabbing my things, the sex paraphernalia, then tossing them all into the closet. My eyes widen, but then Tyson grabs for my hand.

“You need to hide,” he says in a cool, steely voice— not at all like the voice he used with me last night.

“What? Who is it?” I ask, a little too loudly, because he gives me a hard look.

“It’s the press— or at least, one member of the press.”

“What does he want?

“I have no clue. If there’s one here, there are more on the way. This will be my only chance to get out of here without there being a thousand photos. I can slow things down with a quick interview, and—“

“Wait,” I say, stumbling as he ushers me toward the closet door. “What about me? How will I get out?”

“I’ll send a car for you, we’ll figure it out. It’s got to be me they’re after— they don’t know who you are. You aren’t anyone, so they should follow me out and leave you alone.”

I know what he means— I’m not a cheerleader, or famous, or relevant in any way to the press. They care about Tyson Slate, he’s the important one.

Still, his words— you aren’t anyone— slice me every bit as cruelly as Trishelle’s did last night. It’s Tyson, the man I let have my body in every way, the man who somehow got my heart while he was at it, and I’m not anyone. Not his girlfriend, not his friend, not his hookup. I’m not anyone.

“But—“

“Please, Anna. Just hide,” Tyson says, now sounding almost angry. I don’t know if he doesn’t see or simply doesn’t care about the tears that well in my eyes as I finally step into the closet. He shuts the door behind me without even looking back, his gaze already on the front door as the thread of light narrows and I’m finally left in total darkness. I squeeze my lips together, violating my own rule of letting myself cry when the need arises— because if I cry, whomever is at the door will hear me. They’ll hear me, and they’ll know I’m in here, and Tyson will be furious, and—

Why are you protecting the man who just shoved you into the closet? I ask myself angrily. Moreover, why hadn’t I listened to Trishelle last night? She was angry, sure, but she was right— Tyson refuses to be seen with me.

I hear the door open, and Tyson’s voice is steely and calm with the reporter on the other side.

“Mr. Slate! I’m so glad I found you,” the man says.

“In a private hotel room. I hope you paid bellhop who told you my room number enough to cover his salary, since he’ll lose his job over this,” Tyson said stiffly.

The reporter doesn’t respond to this, and I hear his feet shuffle into the room. “I won’t take up much of your time— I just wanted to get your thoughts. You know how the rest of the media is, all focused on Sebastian and Carson, but I think you’re the one who really counts where your father is concerned.”

“My father?” Tyson asks. I hear a camera shutter click, and then a brief skirmish— “No photos,” Tyson says, and I realize he met have forcibly taken the camera from the reporters hands. There’s a clunk as he sets it down on a hard surface.

“Yes,” the reporter says, discouraged but not defeated. “Did you convince him to change his plea to guilty? Or did your mother?”

Tyson is silent for a moment; I listen in shock, stunned to hear this news. Tyson couldn’t have known about his father changing his plea— he’d have told me, I’m sure of it. I swallow, throat still tight from the few tears which have finally won out and are slipping down my cheeks.

“My father’s plea is his business,” Tyson says curtly, after a long pause.

“Does this change your own opinion of his guilt or innocence?” the reporter presses.

“My opinion doesn’t matter. It’s for the courts to decide,” Tyson says. There’s footsteps— two sets. I recognize Tyson’s confident footfalls, and when paired with the scrambling sound of the reporter’s feet I’m left suspecting that Tyson is backing the man to the door.