I was sitting at my desk when my phone lit up with a text message.

Your panties are sitting in my pocket.

I cocked an eyebrow when I looked at the message from Hunt. But, of course, I smiled too. How did they wind up there?

I took them.

Perv.

Only for you.

He stopped texting me, and I went back to work, doing my best to not think about the man waiting for me as soon as the day was over. Now that my life had changed so much, it was hard to remember how it used to be. Arrangements seemed like a thing of the past. I didn’t need rules to have good sex, to feel safe with my partner.

Hunt made me feel safe on his own.

An hour went by, and I finished a phone call with one of my suppliers in China. I filtered through a few emails, trying to multitask and get as much done as possible. My assistants couldn’t do everything since I was the one who had to make all the final decisions.

My phone rang, and Thorn’s name appeared on the screen.

I took it without stopping my email. “Hey, what’s up? Hunt told me he had fun with you yesterday.”

Angry silence.

I picked up on all of Thorn’s moods because I knew them better than anyone. “What’s wrong?”

He sighed.

This was bad. He usually spat out his thoughts by now. “Thorn…what is it?”

“I don’t know how to say this. It’s bad, Titan. Fucking bad.”

My hands pulled away from the keyboard, and I turned into the phone. Everything on my checklist faded to the background when I heard the bitterness in his voice. He was so angry, he wasn’t even yelling.

And that was the deepest level of anger. “What?”

He sighed again before he spoke. “Google yourself.”

“What…?”

“There’s an article about you in the Times. Hunt told them about Jeremy.”

Now I was the one who turned silent, thinking so many things that I couldn’t form words. My breathing picked up, and I could hear it echo back at me. When the phone rang on my landline, I immediately yanked the wire out. If this was article was true, I was about to be bombarded with reporters.

“Titan?” Thorn’s angry voice came through the phone. “Say something.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“The article just appeared five minutes ago. Give it thirty minutes, and the whole world is going to know about it.”

God, I couldn’t believe this was happening.

I moved to my computer, typed in my name, and right at the top, the article appeared. The headline alone made me want to hurl.

Tatum Titan: Victim of Domestic Abuse.

No. No. No.

The article was long, and that didn’t bode well either.

“Titan?” Thorn repeated.

“I…” I couldn’t think of anything better to say. “Fuck.”

“There’s no mention of Jeremy’s death being suspicious. But that could change if people keep digging.”

“This can’t be happening…”

“I’m gonna kill Hunt. That fucking prick sat across from me yesterday like everything was fine. He’d probably already talked to the reporter by then.” He screamed into the phone, something crashing off his desk and hitting the floor.

“What makes you so certain it was Hunt?” Right now, anyone was a suspect. But Hunt wasn’t the first person who came to mind. Only Thorn and I knew about the incident with Jeremy. Hunt was the first person we told. But still…I couldn’t believe he would do that to me.

“The reporter named him as the source.”

My heart sank. It plummeted into my stomach. When it reached the floor of my belly, it exploded into dozens of pieces. I was nauseated, sick, and weak. I didn’t even feel rage because I was so stunned. Betrayal had never hurt this much, had never stabbed me so deeply. There was a knife in my back, and it kept turning and twisting even though I was already dead. “My god…”

“Fucking asshole. I can’t believe he would fuck with us like this.”

“Why did he do this…?”

“I don’t fucking know. Maybe to hurt both of us. We’re contenders on the Forbes list.”

“But Hunt isn’t psycho like that.”

“Obviously, he is. You don’t know him…I don’t know him.”

My hand was shaking as I held the phone to my ear. Now that all the evidence was stacked against Hunt, there was nothing I could do but accept the painful truth. He was the only person I told about Jeremy, and the reporter mentioned him by name.

He did this.

He did this on purpose.

“I have to go…”

“What are you doing?” Thorn asked. “Do you want me to come to you?”

“No. I’m going to Hunt’s office. I’m giving that son of a bitch a piece of my mind.”