ANNASOPHIA
Biting my lower lip deflects my awareness of my aching foot, and I follow Maverick as he walks on the grass around the pool’s perimeter. His hands hang at his sides. His broad shoulders hunch forward—as if waiting for a blow from behind. He offers no comment on the shimmering water lit by underwater lights. He makes no small talk. He voices no deep thought in his own defense.
My brain veers away from the fury I want to hurl at him and focuses on his persistent toe walking. Up on his toes like a toddler learning to walk. Is the condition muscular? Neurological? Idiopathic? Does he feel anxious? Afraid? Apprehensive?
Disgusted with my low attention span, I inhale, releasing my breath in a slow, steady exhale. The lack of breeze intensifies his body odor of sweat and testosterone. My pulse pounds. God, what I’d give to trip him. Easy to do with his disjointed gait. He must’ve grown up with bullies sticking a foot in front of him. Hearing laughs when he stumbled. Hoots when he fell. He must’ve fallen a lot.
“I should’ve known she wasn’t twenty-three.” His self-loathing shatters the silence. “But I was horny, and she—”
“Was just another lay?” The urge to slap him tingles in my fingertips.
“I guess.” He misses a step but does some kind of fast tap dance and recovers. “I could bullshit you and say she was special, but the truth is I was horny. Too much beer. Music too loud. My brain went AWOL. Not that I’m a genius, but sometimes I do think before I—”
“Have you ever raped a woman before?”
“Raped?” He stops and faces me. In the moonlight, his skin goes pale as the moon. He shakes his head, swallows convulsively, shakes his head harder.
“High-school jocks, frat guys, men of the world—you all think girls and women are dying for your big cocks.” The words shoot out of my mouth hard and fast as bullets.
He jumps back as if he’s under fire.
I advance on him.
He inches backward.
Closer to the edge of the pool.
He glances over his shoulder, faces me again, and meets my gaze. “How deep is the water at this end?”
“Shallow. A couple of feet.”
“If I—if I fall in, I could break my neck.”
“Might save us all a lot of trouble.”
“I guess …” His voice breaks. Another swallow, but he speaks in a stronger voice. “I don’t guess. I know. I’d rather go to prison than live crippled for the rest of my life.”
“Prison means a trial. Lots of publicity. You’d probably get a book deal. Maybe a movie starring—” Breathing hard, I exhale through my teeth.
His eyes pop.
Must think I’ve lost my mind.
And he’s not far wrong. My legs are shaking so hard I flop in a pool chair as if I’ve torn a muscle. Invisible hypodermic needles dance on my cuneiform I press my face into my cupped hands and hear the staccato drum of my dead husband’s mantra. Eyes are everywhere, AnnaSophia. Bad PR can ruin our lives.
“I’ll go get Detec—”
“No.” I drop my hands. “Have you ever heard of Monica Lewinsky?”
“Is this a … test?” He shuffles from one foot to the other like a little boy too far from a bathroom. “Is she the chick with Lexi at Leather’s?”
His ignorance is so sincere, I bite back a laugh. “No, Alexandra doesn’t know Monica.”
“’Kay.”
I stand. My face goes numb, and my neck prickles with heat. “Alexandra has an advantage over Monica. She’s underage.”
“I get that.”
“Do you get her age gives the tabloids more fuel? Excuses to resurrect the headlines?” I open an imaginary newspaper and pull my index finger across an imaginary headline. “Silicon Valley Magnate Assassinated.
“Her name will leak out before, during, and after a trial.”
His eyes widen. Is he tracking what I’m saying? He licks his lips. “A trial.”
“When my husband was murdered, none of my family was on trial. The sleazeratti harassed us day and night, month after month after month.” My voice rises to a shriek.
What’s going on? I read the question in his repeated eye-blinks and the tension around his mouth.
“A sex scandal will make even bigger headlines. Talk shows. Local newscasts. National cable lead-ins. They’ll run the story long enough to mess up Alexandra’s life for—” My breath is so shallow I have to stop or suffocate in memories.
“You okay?” Maverick takes a step toward me, stops, holds up his palms. “You look sorta like my mom when she’s about to cry because I’ve screwed up.”
His admission hammers my heart. Fingers numb, I reach for the chair, miss it, flap at space. He leaps forward, pulls the chair behind my knees, and holds it steady while I collapse into the seat as gracelessly as an old woman.
“I think I should get De—”
“What would you say if I told you to take off, Maverick? Right now.” Pressure crushes my brain as I crane my neck to look up at him. “What if I don’t prosecute?”
His forehead wrinkles as if he’s deep in thought. “I’d say, why?”
Because I don’t want to dig up the dead. Hands clammy, I rub them down my sides. Get this over. “Alexandra will blame you.”
“She should. I don’t deserve a break.” Despite—because of?—the toe walking—more pronounced than I originally realized—he’s developed a thick skin.
“Who says Alexandra gets to call all the shots?” I whisper.
His shrug is small. Nervous the question will spring a trap?
“Alexandra’s father thought he called all the shots.” He ridiculed our son for walking on the balls of his feet. Michael set expectations of perfection for a toddler. Toe walking fell below acceptable. His ridicule continued—despite assurances from me, three pediatricians, and two orthopedic surgeons that Magnus would in all likelihood outgrow his slow-to-develop gait.
He did. Maverick did not.
Against my will, I feel an odd—misplaced?—sadness. The shuffle of approaching footsteps causes my heart to gyrate. Get this over.
My mind’s twists and turns slow, and I go with the truth. “Why tell you to take off? Because going to court and sending you to prison remind me I’m an absolute failure.”