Page 108 of Play Dirty

“You got a date?”

“Yes. I’ll be back in New York for trial prep next week.”

I give her all of the pertinent information.

“I have to be there anyway, but I’ll just adjust my schedule so I can be with you the whole time.”

“I appreciate you,” I whisper.

“You want me to talk to Saylor and Effie?”

“I’ll reach out,” I say. “I don’t want everyone’s lives disrupted for me. Again.”

“This is different,” she says firmly. “We are going to be there for you, no matter what.”

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Love you too.” She pauses. “Really, Stevie. Consider unblocking him…reaching out. He needs you.”

“Has he asked about me?”

Another pause. “No.”

“Everything I did was for him,” I say quietly. “And it was all for nothing. I don’t know how we get past this.”

“You explain why you did what you did.”

“I didn’t do it just for him, though,” I admit. “It was partly for me, to protect myself from the negative fallout with the press. It was coming. And I couldn’t risk spiraling like that. The TRO was a wake-up call, reminding me that I can’t escape my past.”

“He understands that.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he cares about you.”

“His kids were more important.”

“He knows that too. He’s not happy about the way you did it, but deep down, he knows why you did what you did.”

“Then why hasn’t he reached out?” I demand.

“Because you blocked him!” she says in exasperation.

“All he had to do was ask Ivan to ask you to talk to me.”

She sighs. “Honey, you’re not the only one who has trauma, remember? It doesn’t help that a few days after you left he saw pictures of you online with L’il Barracuda.”

“Cassius?” I laugh. “What are you talking about? He’s been dating Marcie Franz. I introduced them. We were all together that night.”

“I know that, and you know that, but he doesn’t know that. Considering it’s the second time you’ve been in the news with him, I think he was hurt.”

I blow out a frustrated breath.

As usual, no matter what I’m doing—or how innocent it is—I wind up looking like the bad guy.

I’m so tired of the false narrative that seems to surround me.

“I told Marty ’Cuda and I were just friends. If he doesn’t believe me, that’s on him.”

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