At the ass crack of dawn the next day, I drove nearly three hours to meet with Stewart, Dallas’s litigator father. He not only fit me in last minute, but he refused to charge me for his time. Hell, I’d gladly pay his insane thousand dollars-an-hour rate or whatever he charged if he had a legal magic wand to make this all go away.
I needed to talk to Bailey. Would talk to Bailey eventually. But first I needed to get a handle on the situation and what the possible fallout could be. At least then I’d have more information when I did tell her.
After barely squeezing my truck into the heated underground parking garage, I took the elevator up to the thirty-first floor. A stainless-steel sign mounted on the wall that read Ward, Myers, and Trenton LLP greeted me.
I hadn’t been to a lawyer’s office since we had to handle all the legal matters relating to my dad’s death. It had been a media shitstorm back then. Paparazzi camped outside our house, my school, even my friends’ houses.
The constant, low-level nausea I’d had since last night surged. I didn’t want to relive that again, but I might if this got out.
Fuck. Maybe I should talk to my mom, but that conversation had the possibility of being even worse than the one I needed to have with Bailey.
Stewart’s assistant led me into his massive corner office. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed a panoramic view of the city and beyond. Clad in a suit, Stewart’s imposing figure was seated behind his glass desk. He waved me in without glancing up from the paperwork fanned out in front of him.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.” I settled into the sleek leather chair across from his desk and crossed an ankle over my knee.
“Not a problem.” Stewart shuffled the papers on his desk and set them aside. He glanced up at me and steepled his thick fingers, leaning over the desk with his brow furrowed. “Dallas said you had a nine-one-one situation on your hands. What’s going on?”
If only I knew.
“I’m not sure. There might be…pictures. Of me. Compromising pictures. Or a video maybe.” My stomach lurched, like speaking the words somehow made it more real.
He nodded. “Do they contain any non-consensual acts? Because if they do, you’ll need a different kind of lawyer. I can refer you out to a criminal attorney.”
I flinched. Was he seriously asking me that? At my physical response, his expression softened, turning from businesslike to sympathetic.
“I have to ask,” Stewart placated. “Covering the bases. It’s nothing against you, son. I would ask Dallas the same thing.”
“Nothing like that,” I said. “But I didn’t consent to the recording, if that counts.”
My phone chimed in my hand. It was a text from Bailey. Guilt flooded me. I dismissed the message and flipped the ringer to silent.
“Were you aware of it at the time?”
“Kind of. I caught the girl with her phone’s camera on and got mad. She said she deleted it. I thought she did. But I was pretty, uh, intoxicated.”
Stewart made notes on a pad of paper in front of him, then looked back up. “It’s a criminal offense to record someone engaging in sexual acts without their permission.”
This confirmed what I had gathered based on my internet research, but it was of little comfort right now. I didn’t want to press charges after my life exploded; I wanted to defuse the bomb.
“What if they pass it around?” I swallowed, mouth suddenly desert dry.
“The state doesn’t have specific laws that govern revenge porn. But blackmailing you about releasing would be an offense. Those are criminal matters. For those, you’d have to go to the police and file a statement to press charges.”
Cops. Great. If there was a group of people that didn’t like me, it was them.
And like a big-ass hockey player filing charges against a chick half his size would go over well. Great optics there in terms of my career.
“Okay.”
“I have to caution you, though, that it would be messy and public. If a civil suit arises, or you want to initiate one, that’s where I come in. Also messy and public.” He scanned my face. “But I assume you don’t want to poke the hornet’s nest right now.”
“Correct.”
“Generally speaking, that is what I would advise,” Stewart said. “Wait until we have a better handle on what the situation is.”
“I’m trying to figure it out, but I think she’s lying to me. She says the video doesn’t exist, but there are rumors circulating that have me worried. Seems like a smoke-fire kind of thing.”
“We work with excellent private investigators. It might be worth seeing what they can dig up.”
How was this my life? Hiring a fucking PI?
“As long as they don’t draw more attention to it.”
“They won’t.” Stewart shook his head. “They won’t approach anyone without your okay, but they’ll do a lot of legwork—discreetly—and background research.” He paused, giving me a meaningful look. “And maybe some electronic device investigation, for the right price.”
“Electronic device investigation?” What the hell did that mean?
He lowered his voice. “Hacking. But that would be illegal, so I never said that, nor do I condone it. This is all alleged, hypothetical, you get the drift.”
There’s an idea. Hack into Kristen’s phone. Maybe her email too.
“Problem is, I think she sent it to someone else.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say there is something out there. What would it contain? I know it’s an uncomfortable subject, but give me the gist so I can gauge the extent of the damage. How compromising are we talking?” He picked up his mug and sipped, watching me over the top.
“I don’t know when Kristen took out her phone.” I sighed. “I was having sex with this girl, Nikki. She was on top of me. Then I stopped her, and she was blowing me while we smoked a joint.”
“So the consent should be pretty easy to establish.”
“I should hope so.” Consent hadn’t even occurred to me as a potential issue.
“That’s positive, as it’s one of your biggest potential problems. A sex scandal isn’t nearly as bad as sexual assault allegations.”
Bile climbed up the back of my throat. He was right; the video was better than a fake rape charge. If we were comparing the lesser of the evils, anyway.
“What about the joint?”
“That’s the least of your problems right now,” he said. “It could be a homemade cigarette. Really neither here nor there in the scheme of things. But there was a third party who took the photos?”
“Right. Kristen. We were fooling around too, but as far as I know, it isn’t on camera.” But fuck if I knew at this point. Kristen may have had her phone out for a while before I realized it. I was obliterated.
“Unlike that situation, recording audio with one-party consent is legal. If you speak to anyone about this, record the conversation and get them to talk as much as possible. Then we can gauge whether there is any evidence you can use for criminal or civil proceedings.”
Great. But what I really wanted was to avoid proceedings altogether.
“Will do,” I said. “What about my contract with the league? Do you think…?” I trailed off, unable to force out the rest of the words. Would they drop me? There were morality clauses in my contract.
“This is entirely different from when that NHL player taped women without their consent. I don’t think they’ll be inclined to punish you, the victim, in this scenario. Especially not with me in the picture.” His voice took on an edge.
I hoped not. If this tanked my career, my life was over. There was no plan B.
“What if it does leak?”
“One step at a time,” he said. “But if it does, the parties responsible will wish it hadn’t. I assure you.”
Not as much as I will.
He looked at me sympathetically. “Take some time. I never want my clients to act when they’re under acute distress. Sleep on it. Spend some time with your girlfriend. Talk it over with someone you can trust.”
That wouldn’t work. No one else knew. I wanted to keep it that way.
I swallowed. “What would you tell Dallas to do?”
“Bury it.” Stewart gestured emphatically with his pudgy hands. “Find it, bury it, and throw a fucking funeral.”
“How?”
“We find out whether there’s a copy, and if there is, get some NDAs in place immediately. Then we properly destroy the files.”
I sighed. “Okay. That makes sense.”
“Look,” he said, “ninety-five percent of the time, clients throw money at this type of thing to sweeten the NDAs, and the issues disappear completely. We both know you can afford to do that.”
Yeah. But I shouldn’t fucking have to.
“You want me to pay to keep it quiet? Even though I wasn’t in the wrong here? You said what she did was a crime.”
“Speaking as both a lawyer and your friend, in situations like this, I recommend you do what you need to do.” He raised his eyebrows. “Think about how much it could cost you if you don’t.”
I shook my head, gaze fixed on the glossy black tile flooring. “This is brutal.”
Christ. Not exactly what my dad expected when he set me up financially, I’m sure. That I’d have to use the money for something like this. Fucking awesome. He would be so proud.
If he were still here, I could talk to him. Get his advice. I wanted him back more than anything. The ever-present ache of missing him was almost intolerable right now. I was lost. I needed him. Needed someone in my corner more than anything—someone to tell me what the fuck to do, because I sure as hell didn’t know.
“I know, son.” Stewart planted his elbows on the desk, fixing me with a fatherly look—stern but somehow gentle. “Do you want to be right, or do you want to make this go away?”
“Guessing I can’t have both.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You can’t.”
My mind was spinning on the drive home. Song after song played on the radio, but I didn’t hear a single word.
I’d quickly responded to Bailey’s text when I got into my truck, but we had plans tonight and I had no idea how to drop this bomb on her. I was still processing it myself.
Once I got back into town, I made a quick detour. Didn’t want to, but I needed to know for sure.
I walked up the sidewalk to the townhouse with green siding and rang the doorbell of unit twenty-two. Then I switched on my phone’s voice recorder.
Forgive me, James.
Kristen opened her front door wearing a coy smile. “Hi.” She was in a tank top so low-cut I could almost see nipple and yoga pants that were nearly painted on. Had she changed when I texted her, or did she always lounge around dressed like that? Fuck if I knew.
“I have practice soon, so I can’t stay long,” I said, stepping inside the entry. “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”
“What about it?” She looked at me suspiciously as she shut the door behind me and locked it.
I leaned against the wall, trying hard to affect calm. “Maybe I was too hasty. I was in a bad mood. But you were right. That night with you and Nikki was pretty hot.” I choked down my nausea so I didn’t dry heave in front of her.
“I know, right?” Kristen batted her lashes at me.
God, she was easy to play.
“Too bad I never got to see the video for myself,” I added.
She sniffed. “I thought you were all about your girlfriend these days.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t reminisce about the past a little.” The words were hard to force out, bitter in my mouth.
“Guess you shouldn’t have made me delete it.”
In the background, her roommate Charlotte walked by. Did she know?
I lowered my voice in hopes that Charlotte couldn’t hear. “Come on, Kristen. I bet you could find it for me.”
“Hmm.” She shrugged, playing with a strand of her dark hair. “I might be able to dig it up if I tried.”
I knew it. I fucking knew it.
“Try?” I gave her a flirty smile while hating myself inside. “For old times’ sake?”
“Fine.” Kristen rolled her eyes. “Hang on.” She pulled out her phone and tapped at the screen.
My heart raced while I waited. After a minute, she handed her phone to me—and there it was. I watched the whole clip with the volume on low, feigning interest. I fought the instinct to smash her phone into pieces. I couldn’t show my hand. Not yet.
As I had suspected, the video was four minutes of me banging Nikki, then her blowing me while we smoked a joint. The clip stopped before the moment I’d caught Kristen and told her to stop recording, conveniently painting me as a willing participant and eliminating all references to her.
She’d cropped the video. Shit. I needed the original. Somehow. It was the only thing that might exonerate my ass.
“Is this it?” I glanced up at her, eyebrows raised, and passed the phone back. Her hand brushed mine in the process, and I fought the urge to yank it away.
Her perfectly arched brows pulled together. “What do you mean?”
Careful, Carter.
“I was hoping it would be longer.” I shrugged. “You’re not in the video.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Maybe.” Never fucking ever. “No one else knows about this, do they?”
She blinked rapidly, taking a small step back. “No…”
Lie.
“Do me a solid and keep it that way, okay? It’s hotter that way anyway, right?”
“Totally.” She smirked.
“Thanks, Kris. I have to get to practice, but I’ll text you,” I lied.
I stalked back to my truck, climbed inside, and turned the ignition. Then I slumped against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. My thoughts were a tangled mess. How would I break this to Bailey? What could I even say to her?
Part of me thought she might hear me out. But what if she didn’t? The contents of the video were damning—me with two girls, one of whom was someone else’s girlfriend. At the time, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, but it still looked bad. Bailey had been so upset about Derek and Jillian. Would she lose respect for me over this? Decide I wasn’t who she thought I was after all?
Not to mention the catastrophic effect this could have on my life—and Bailey’s, by association. Her reputation as the girlfriend of that guy could jeopardize her scholarship, her internship, her career. Would she resent me for dragging her into the vicious gossip and the trash talk?
Good god, I hadn’t even met her parents, and now they would hate me. And so much for any headway I’d made with Derek.
A sharp rap on my window startled me. I glanced up, expecting to find Kristen.
It wasn’t.
