The elevator doors opened into Clay’s apartment to reveal a brusque-looking woman Zia recognized as Lana, Clay’s publicist, flanked by two younger women, a guy in a suit, and Dave, all huddled around the kitchen island, which was covered with open laptops. A tinny voice was speaking from a phone. “… absolutely a violation of statute and total invasion, even for Clay’s reduced expectation. We’re still figuring out if it constitutes revenge porn, but it may not even matter if—”
“Hang on, Kien.” Dave cut the voice off.
Five sets of eyes landed on Zia. Five people whose entire jobs were now managing her epic, unforgivable screwup. She felt exactly ten years old.
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Lana pointed at her. “I need to talk to you.”
Clay walked in from the bedroom, dressed in black jeans and a black sweater. As soon as he saw Zia, he pulled up short. “What’s she doing here?”
Coldness slammed Zia in the chest. She. She’d been reduced to she.
Dave hesitated. “I let her in.”
“Can we talk?” Zia begged Clay. “Please?”
Everyone looked at Clay. He ran a hand through his hair, his mouth tight. “Yeah, sure,” he said eventually, in a way that sounded like, May as well get this over with.
Clay shut the doors to the windowless media room. A C-shaped leather sectional faced a TV screen the size of a dining room table. His man cave. His space. Zia shivered. Even in the hoodie, she was freezing.
Clay faced her with an expression she hadn’t seen before. Disbelief. Derision. He spread his arms wide, showman-like. “What the hell, Zia?”
Instinctively she moved toward him, needing contact. “Clay, I’m—”
He raised both hands and took a step back. Don’t. Touch me.
She stood in the middle of the room, wringing the bottom of the hoodie. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “M-my sister—”
“Your sister, posing as you, sold the photograph for fifty thousand dollars, yes, we know.” His voice was curt. This Clay wasn’t kind and gentle. He was powerful, and he was pissed. “Why did you take a photo of me naked?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I didn’t think—”
“Are there others?”
“What?”
“Other pictures?” he clarified impatiently. “How many others are there, and does she have them?”
“No.” Zia shook her head, stunned at the question, which, of course, made perfect sense. “No, that was… there’s no other photos like that.”
His eyes were narrowed, arms folded over his chest. He wasn’t sure whether he believed her. “So, what: you wanted to sell it and your sister got there first?”
“What? No!” She took another step forward.
Clay’s hands shot up again. “Don’t come near me.”
Anger lashed through her. “Jesus, Clay. I’m your girlfriend, and I took a picture of us. A picture for me. My sister stole it. I didn’t show it to her. You were leaving for six weeks—I wanted something to remember us, to keep us safe.”
“Safe? You wanted to keep us safe?” Clay was shouting. “My cock is on the internet. Forever. Do you have any idea how degrading that is? Anyone can see my penis anytime they want. That’s a sex crime.”
Zia started crying hard, overwhelmed with revulsion and humiliation. She was a survivor of an abusive relationship. But Clay was right: this was a sex crime. “I’m sorry. You don’t know how h-hard it’s been.” She was shaking. “You keep me so far away.”
“We’re together all the time!”
“But I can’t talk about you to anyone; I can’t go anywhere with you. We never talk about the future. I make myself constantly available for you. I plan my life around you, your needs, your schedule, your rules. You have complete control over me.” And only as she said the words out loud did she realize how true they were, how she’d repeated the same pattern: let a powerful man call the shots, telling herself it was okay because they were in love.
In love.
They hadn’t said it to each other yet. But she did love him, and she thought he loved her, and what an awful time to fully realize it all. “I needed to take something back. So, I took a picture. For me, just for me.”
“A picture that now the whole world has seen.” Clay sat on the back of the sectional, his eyes burning with suspicion. “It just seems kind of… calculated.”
Zia tried to swallow. There was something nightmarishly recognizable about all this: being distrusted, being accused. “Calculated?”
“Yeah. You always say family comes first. I bet fifty grand really helped your sister out.”
The ugliness of it made her gasp. Her shame boiled into outrage. “You don’t believe me? I’m telling you the truth, Clay. I’ve always told you the truth.”
He looked back at her with cool eyes and the fact he was still trying to figure it out made her want to break something. When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. “Zia, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I need to be around people I can trust. I don’t trust you anymore.”
It was so painfully absurd, she almost laughed in disbelief. “You’re breaking up with me?”
“I’m sorry. But this is goodbye.”
The smile he gave her was sad and full of remorse. And, final. Without another word, Clay turned and walked out of the room.
70
Once Darlene allowed herself the pleasure of fantasizing about a future with Zach, it was hard to stop. So easy to imagine.
It’d start with sex in a plush Hamptons hotel room. In a mountain of pillows, his body on top of hers, her legs wrapped around him, undulating in rhythm, their eyes locked on each other. “I love you, Zach,” she’d gasp, close to climax.
“Oh, Dee,” he’d sort-of-groan-sort-of-moan. “I love you too.”
Moving in together, white bridal tulle, fat brown babies: it was all impossibly possible.
But there was no two ways about it: her fake boyfriend was acting very strangely.
Darlene phoned Zach back after leaving the bookstore in Cobble Hill, to finish setting up the dinner he
