Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 293

Chapter 293

I could have driven them myself. That had been the original plan. But the thought of sitting in traffic with Tasha’s perfume filling the car, watching her in the rearview mirror, knowing where she was going and who she was going to be with, was more than my already frayed patience could tolerate. Better to let the professionals handle the transportation while I stayed here and tried not to imagine what was happening in Dominic Ford’s penthouse.

The waiting was the worst part.

I paced the apartment like a caged animal, checking my watch every few minutes, calculating the timeline in my head. Ten minutes to get there. A few minutes of conversation, of drinks, of the careful seduction that Scarlett had perfected to an art form. Then the sex itself, which Dominic seemed to prefer in multiple rounds based on Scarlett’s report from the previous night, two rounds, maybe three, and then the aftermath, the excuses, the extraction. If everything went according to plan, they would be back within three hours, four at the most, and I would have the footage that would finally, finally bring Dominic Ford to his knees.

Three hours. I could wait three hours.

I poured myself a drink. Then another. The whiskey burned going down, but it took the edge off the anxiety that was gnawing at my insides like a hungry rat, and by the time I settled onto the couch with my third glass, I had almost convinced myself that everything was going to work out perfectly. Sometime after my third drink, I drifted

off.

I woke up to my phone ringing.

For a disoriented moment, I had no idea where I was or why the lights were still on or why my mouth tasted like I’d been licking the bottom of a whiskey barrel. Then the memory of the evening came flooding back, and I snatched the phone off the coffee table with a speed that sent my empty glass clattering to the floor.

The name on the screen was my lawyer, Marcus Hale, and the fact that he was calling me at this hour sent a cold spike of adrenaline straight through my chest.

“What happened?” I said, my voice still rough with sleep.

“Julian. I have bad news.” Marcus had the kind of voice that made bad news sound even worse, a deep, deliberate baritone that seemed designed by God specifically for the delivery of life-altering catastrophes. “I received some information through my connections at the courthouse. Your wife has filed for divorce.”

The words hung in the air like a foreign language, sounds without meaning, syllables that refused to assemble themselves into a coherent statement. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she has retained legal counsel and submitted the appropriate paperwork to the family court. But that is not the worst part, Julian. The worst part is who is backing her.”

I didn’t need him to say the name. I already knew. “Dominic Ford.

“Dominic Ford has hired the best divorce attorney in the country for your wife. Do you know who she is? She’s never lost a case. Not one.

In so many years of practice, her record is unblemished, and she charges more per hour than most people make in a month. Dominic Ford is footing the entire bill, and with your viral sex video still fresh in the public memory, that attorney has more than enough ammunition to make sure you walk away from this marriage with nothing.”

I felt a tightness in my chest, a physical constriction that made it difficult to draw a full breath. “There has to be something we can do. A delay. A counter-filing. Something.”

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