A few minutes past noon, I sat nervously at the De Maupassant Hotel bar, waiting for Grant to come down. I checked my purse and tried not to fidget. Amy had lent me makeup she kept in her purse, and I’d kept my hair down, just the way Grant liked it. I wasn’t wearing the cutest outfit ever, but it was tight, and the tank was low-cut.

I had arrived earlier than we had arranged, and after picking my seat because it was right in front of the security camera, I made seemingly innocuous conversation with the bartender, being sure to repeat my first and last name and leave an impression on him.

I took a sip of my soda water with lime and turned to the entrance to see Grant walking toward me with that cocky smirk on his face, the same smirk that once upon a time Jake had punched right off. I’d wasted so much of my time on him. Had I ever wondered what our kids would look like? What kind of father he’d make? I couldn’t recall. All I could picture was Jake and how he was with the boys he coached, and how much Tate looked up to him. I already knew what kind of father Jake would make. I knew the kind of man he was, and he was a better man than the one walking towards me. That gave me strength.

He took a seat next to me.

“Hi, handsome,” I said in my best flirty voice.

He looked at me suspiciously, squinting his blue eyes in my direction. “What’s up with you? Why’d you invite me down here?”

“Well, I’ve been doing some thinking,” I said. “And, I went through a rough patch there, but I’m ready to forgive you.”

Grant ordered a beer from the bartender and turned his attention back to me. “What on earth would you be forgiving me for?” he asked with a laugh.

“Oh please.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “You used to hit me. And here you are, trying to slander my good name and ruin Jake’s reputation? I don’t think so. If word got out about what you did to me, I doubt you’d find that very funny.”

Grant didn’t even flinch.

“So what if I did hit you? You deserved it. Besides, you could never prove anything.” His expression turned ugly. “And you wouldn’t dare tell anyone about that,” he said. “You know what the social repercussions would be. You’d forever be known as ‘the victim girl.’ I still text with your mom on a regular basis. She loves me. You’re going to marry me, Andrea. You know it.”

I looked into his eyes, the windows to his soul, and I saw an empty vessel staring back at me. The man was delusional. I wasn’t sure how he’d arrived at that conclusion or why he had chosen me to be his Southern belle trophy wife. I felt sorry for him, because he was living in a world separate from reality. Maybe he had never been turned down by someone he’d wanted, and I’d have to spell it out for him. “You hit me when I confronted you about your cheating, and when I wouldn’t sleep with you. You hit me so hard sometimes that I thought I needed to go to the hospital. I’m saying I forgive you. This isn’t even for you, it’s for me. I need to let go of the angst I’ve been holding onto. And you won’t even accept my forgiveness.”

“I would, except for the fact that I don’t need to say anything. I did nothing wrong. I was just putting you in your place.”

I stared at him. Initially, I’d been angry, but now I truly felt sorry for him. He believed what he was saying. Anxiety built in my stomach. “You’re saying you never hit me or cheated on me?”

“Who cares? Men cheat. That’s what we do. Especially someone like me, who has options,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you’re blowing that other thing out of proportion. A couple slaps aren’t anything to whine about. When we’re married, telling me no won’t be an option, Andrea.”

I stared at him, horrified. “Married? To you? Never. Never…” I whispered sharply, beyond shocked and numbed by his words. Grant truly was a monster.

“Yes, we’re going to get married. That’s going to happen. And if you’re not used to it yet honey, get used to it.”

As he said the words, his expression changed from grin to grim. He took a nice long sip of beer and looked into my eyes. I wanted to see something good—God knows I tried—but all I saw was a man whose soul had been taken over by greed and entitlement. He would never truly love a woman the way she deserved. And perhaps even more tragically, Grant seemed to not love himself at all.

He put his hand on my wrist and gripped it tightly. It reminded me of the night at McBanners, and his touch sickened me. I wished Jake were here to punch him in the jaw again.

Calmly, I took out my phone with my other hand, pressed the “end audio recording” button, and fired the file off in an attachment to Amy, as we had agreed. This had almost been too easy, but as Amy had pointed out, Grant was so arrogant and egotistical that he thought he was above it all. The mighty, I knew, usually fell the hardest.

Grant put his hand on the back of my neck, tight enough that it was slightly uncomfortable.

I grabbed his hand, pushed it away, and looked him in the eye with the bitchiest face I’d ever made.

“This. Stops. Now,” I said loudly.

“Why don’t you just pipe down, woman,” Grant remarked.

I hadn’t planned it, but my right hand came up, and I slapped his cheek so hard that he let out a little yell.

“Hey!” he said. His eyes flashed. “You cut that out.”

The bartender noticed our argument and briskly moved toward us before Grant could retaliate. The bartender was a pretty big guy and looked like he could be a bouncer.

“There a problem here, Andrea?” he asked me. He eyed Grant, who was holding onto his cheek.

“Sorry,” I said. “We were just having a heated discussion, and he suggested that the Jaguars weren’t the best team in the league.”

The big bartender narrowed his eyes at us. “Well, you just let me know if you need anything,” he said. Then he walked to the other end of the bar once more.

“You listen up,” I said in a stern voice. “I recorded our whole conversation and sent it to a PR friend who knows exactly what to do with it if you force my hand. This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to revoke the whole sensationalist story that you had your friends at Yawper make up about Jake. You’re going to do that right now, before we leave here. And then, you’re going to text my mother and tell her that we’ve been broken up for over a year, and that you’ve been lying, trying to lead her on to stay in her good graces.”

His jaw dropped.

“Here.” I scribbled the number for Yawper down on a napkin. Amy had used one of her media connections to find a direct line to one of the associate producers.

“And if you don’t make this call, you’re going to be outed for what you really are. A sad, tragic man who controls women through physical means. I’m sure the league won’t really care about that, especially given its recent campaign against domestic violence. But do you really want to take that chance?”

His scowl turned into a slight, forced grin. “You wouldn’t do that.”

I arched an eyebrow his way and pointed to the number he needed to call. “Try me.”

He ground his teeth and sneered. I relished in the bitchy grin I gave him right back.

“Grant Newman, you are done controlling me. Don’t you see? It’s really over.”

He gave me a nasty look as he dialed the number into his phone.

“Hello, I’d like to speak with Carla Bornsberry.”

My lips curved upward in a slight smile.

For once, I liked being the bad girl.