I raise a brow as I sit. “Sexy?”
She lifts her glass. “Not always—but in the right moment? It’s undeniably sexy.”
God, I love her.
I glance at the tasting menu spread out between us, trying to focus on it, but my eyes keep drifting back to her.
“How was your day?” I ask, settling in and catching my breath—for real this time.
She doesn’t answer right away, and there’s a small pause, long enough to set every nerve in my body on alert. I know that pause. I’ve lived through it. It’s the pause that means something’s wrong.
My jaw tightens. “What is it? Did he do something else?”
She sets her glass down, fingers still curled around the stem. “I need to tell you something. It’s a lot to take in.”
My pulse kicks. “Okay.”
“I had lunch with Celeste.”
Not what I was expecting to hear. “How did that happen?”
“Well, technically, we didn’t have lunch. I lured her to a restaurant under false pretenses. I had Krishna set it up. She wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
I stare at her, blinking. “Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to tell her to back off. To draw the line for good and dare her to cross it.”
I lean back, a little stunned. “Damn, my girl’s a baddie.”
“She showed up, and to my surprise, sat down. Then she said something I never saw coming.”
My stomach knots.
“Celeste said she doesn’t want you. The things she’s done recently weren’t about you. It was all Tyson.”
Now I’m fully upright. “What the hell does that mean?”
Magnolia’s voice softens. “They dated for a while, long enough for her to trust it was real. But he was using her the whole time to get information about you. He recorded interactions between them… private moments, nudes, sex tapes. And he’s been holding it over her ever since. Alex, he’s been blackmailing her.”
I try to process her words. “Bloody hell. There’s no end to his tyranny.”
“She said he told her to cause problems, to wedge herself between us. Everything she did—Soul Sync, the party, the dress—he told her to do it. Said if she didn’t, he’d ruin her.”
I shake my head, the words sinking in. “What the actual fuck?”
My thoughts splinter. Tyson. Again. He’s always lurking, always finding a new way to poison the well.
“Celeste is afraid of him, Alex. You should’ve seen her—she was trembling. Said he’s not just manipulative… he’s dangerous.”
“I knew he was bitter and hated me. But sex tapes and blackmail? What kind of monster does that?” I shake my head, trying to wrap my mind around it. “I wasn’t aware they dated, but it sounds like the same thing he tried with you… except he made it a hell of a lot further with her.”
“Alex, his obsession with you goes deeper than any of us realized.”
She’s right. This isn’t just hate. It’s obsession.
And suddenly, I’m not thinking about rugby or wedding tastings or anything except the one question I can’t shake: how the hell do we stop him?
I lean back in my chair, jaw clenched, hand fisted on the table. Because everything else? It’s tilting. Warping. Becoming something darker than I imagined.
