Undeniably Married (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)
Undeniably Married: Chapter 35

I toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. All of this is my fault. I talked Mason into marrying me the same day I left Brody. I called out Brody and Eloise in front of a hell of a lot of people at the wedding that never happened. And because of me, tonight Mason got hurt. He got knocked down and knocked down hard. Add to that, he had to deal with Eloise showing up in his room and trying to seduce him. As it is, she heard him jerk off and recorded it.

Mason just finished his press conference and I watched it on my phone from bed as the press ripped him apart. I need to do something. I’ve been passive-aggressive with everything.

I married Mason to get back at Brody. I blocked both him and Eloise. Other than what I did in the church and our conversation in his apartment, I never held Brody responsible beyond that. Not with the pregnancy. Not with any of it. I’ve let him slide, and it’s wrong.

It’s somewhere just after midnight, but I roll over and find my phone. I don’t know where Mason is or what his deal is, but I need to do something.

“What can I do for you, Dr. Fritz?” Vander’s voice is even, but I think I catch a hint of amusement on the tail end. I’ve never called him before. Hell, I hardly know the guy. He seems… I don’t know. Quiet. Dark. Maybe even a little dangerous. At least that’s the vibe he gives off.

“I learned something about you tonight.”

“And I assume this call is in the hopes that you can use your newfound knowledge of me to your benefit?”

“Not my benefit. Mason’s.”

“Go on,” he says, his voice still low and flat. I tell him exactly what I’m thinking. And once that’s done, he follows that up with, “Are you sure? Mason told me you don’t relish the spotlight and try to hide from the press as much as you can. In fact, he wouldn’t let me do this originally.”

“But you have it?”

“I have it.”

“And the audio? Is it enough?”

“I don’t think so. Not without everything else.”

“Then I’d like to use it all if it needs to be done.”

“You must really love him.”

I laugh. It’s not even funny what he said, but it’s been a long night. A long week. A long couple of months.

“I really love him. So can you help me do this or not?”

“You’ve got it.”

Vander disconnects the call, and I dial the second number I need to reach tonight. I set it on speakerphone and place my phone on the pillow beside me. Mason’s pillow.

“I figured I’d hear from you tonight,” Brody says arrogantly as he answers, and how he can still be so cocky and surefire, I have no clue.

“Why? Because you tried to hurt Mason or because you thought I’d be stupid enough to believe Eloise got him to cheat?”

He’s silent for a moment. “Listen, I don’t know what Mason told you, but he’s full of shit.”

I roll onto my side and face my phone. “So you didn’t have that player intentionally try to hurt him?”

He huffs into the phone. “Jesus, Sorel, can you blame me? The guy fucking stole everything from me and then had the audacity to throw it in my face. Of course I was going to retaliate. You were supposed to be my fucking wife. Not his!”

“And Eloise?” I ask calmly because he still doesn’t get it. He thinks he’s justified in what he’s done. “What about what she tried to do?”

He laughs. “What did she do?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” I question.

“No, I don’t know.”

Except I know he’s lying. Stone told me about what Vander found, only I won’t out Vander.

“Allow me to educate you then. She snuck into his hotel room, got naked, and put on his shirt while he was in the shower. Then she took pictures of herself like that and of him in only a towel. It sounds like stalking and harassment and a massive invasion of privacy and likely other illegal things to me. Personally, I think Mason should go to the police and file a complaint over it.”

Brody clears his throat. “Sounds rather crafty of her.”

Now I gleam. “It does. It didn’t sound like something she’d think up all on her own, so I assumed you were her mastermind.”

He clears his throat. “I might have been. Let me guess, he told you nothing happened between them.”

“Actually, I haven’t talked to him yet. I figured out that nothing happened on my own. You see, when Eloise showed up tonight to return the shirt she stole from Mason, I looked over her photos and listened to the audio she had. None of it added up. He was in the shower. Her hair was dry. Not to mention, there was no one else on that audio. Just him.”

Displeasure colors his tone. “Hmm. Is that so?”

“Yep. But if Mason presses charges, the police will sort through her phone including her texts and call log as well as her pictures and audio. I’m sure they can tell me if I missed something.”

“What do you want, Sorel?” he practically barks. “What are you looking for me to admit to here?”

“Here’s what I know,” I start, ramping up to deliver the kill, feeling like the bad cop in a TV drama. “You already admitted to sleeping with Eloise behind my back while we were together. You just admitted to trying to hurt Mason and to having him framed by Eloise. The NFL has the audio from the game tonight, and once they investigate, I have no doubt there will be repercussions for you.”

“I heard the audio from the game tonight. They don’t have a leg to stand on with that. It was Tweo making the hit for me. Not from me. Tweo was just being a loyal player to a coach and former teammate. He’ll get fined for the hit. That’s all. As for the threat, well, I don’t know what he’s referring to. Perhaps I might have mentioned at one point wanting to get back at Reyes, but that was all. I never said anything specific, and quarterbacks get hit all the time in the NFL.”

Crafty. And unfortunately, true.

“What makes you think that’s the only evidence out there?”

His voice comes through the speaker on my phone like gravel, coarse and unrefined. “Because it is. Nice try though. What game are you trying to play here? All I’ve done from the second I met you is love you.”

I ignore that. “The way I see it, you have a few choices to make. But all of it hinges on your desire to be part of your child’s life.”

“What if I want you?”

“I’m not part of the bargain. I already told you that you and I are over. I’m married to Mason, and my possessive husband loves to tell me that he has no plans to change that. Not to mention, I love him like crazy.”

There’s a loud bang in the background, but that’s it. Brody rarely loses his cool and never in front of others. Not even on our wedding day when I called him out on what he did.

But this call isn’t about that. I need him to know that I know the truth. And I need to know where he stands on the baby.

“Brody, do you want to be a father to your child? I’ve given you plenty of time to make a decision. Take me out of the equation because that’s done. This is about the baby. But you will have to understand that Mason will also be there as one of its fathers, and after what you did tonight, I have serious reservations about you. Can you be a father and all that entails in a healthy and positive way?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. So long that I lift my phone to make sure he’s still there and didn’t hang up.

“Brody?” I prompt.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “I really lost you? There’s no chance for us?”

“No, there’s not.” I don’t apologize for it either. How he thought there was one after all this time boggles my mind. Then again, I’ve never had an ego like his. “You lost me months ago.”

“I thought for sure…” He trails off and curses again.

“The baby, Brody. I need to know where your head is with it.”

“I… I don’t know.” For the first time, I hear dejection. Maybe even remorse. “I don’t picture myself as a single dad. I’m not sure I ever wanted children. I mean, I guess I would have since I knew you wanted them, but I’m not an every-other-weekend, put-my-life-on-hold kind of guy. I don’t know the first thing about children. Not without you there to raise it.”

Meaning not without me being a stay-at-home mom and doing nothing else but raise our kids and have nothing for myself while he goes off and has his job and life. So glad I didn’t marry him.

At least he’s honest about that.

The irony of that? Mason has never once suggested I stop working after we have the baby. He knows what my job means to me just as I know what his means to him. Mason and I will figure it out, but it would never be one sacrificing everything for the other. It would be a partnership. It would be even since we’re both the parents.

“I don’t want to see you with Reyes,” he continues. “I don’t want to hand my kid back over to him. I’m not even sure how I’d be a father from New York with my schedule. Coaching is a year-round job. It’s not like when I was a player. Football is my life, Sorel. You know that. If you want me in the child’s life, you’d have to move back here.”

“That’s not going to happen, and I have no judgment with you not wanting to turn your life over for someone else. There’s no shocker there to me. But I need to hear you say the words.”

He sighs. It’s deep and heavy because I know a part of him feels like shit for it. “I don’t want to be a father to the baby. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“Okay. That’s fine.” I lick my lips and sit up, staring down at the phone on the pillow as I talk. My heart starts to pound, and my palms grow clammy with nerves as a sparkle of relief starts to glimmer inside me. “So here’s the deal. You need to apologize publicly to Mason and admit that you were in the wrong and jealous and upset or whatever else you need to say to put the blame on yourself.”

“No. Fuck that, I won’t do it,” he barks, and I go on as if he didn’t speak.

“You will legally relinquish your parental rights to our child as well as sign a contract that prohibits you from ever publicly saying the child is yours.”

“Why would I do that?” he says caustically. “What? And hand that over to him? Again, fuck that.”

I had a feeling he’d be petty like this.

“If you do all that,” I continue, “you won’t pay a dime of child support. You won’t be involved in the child’s life at all. And I won’t release the text stream between you and Eloise that I read on our wedding day or the one from the other night where you goaded her into seducing Mason to seek revenge on me and rekindle your affair with her. Plus, I won’t release this phone conversation where you admit to taking Mason down and helping Eloise try to frame him.”

“The fuck? Sorel, you’re recording this?” he snarls.

I smirk. “I learned how to play dirty from you. Do you agree to my terms?”

His voice grows cold. Sardonic. “You won’t go public with anything. You don’t want the press to read those texts or see what we tried to do. You don’t want anyone to know I’m the father of the baby either. You’re much happier staying quiet. You’ll do anything to continue to be a perfect Fritz princess, free of scandal and spotlight. So maybe there are a few things I want too.”

“You could try to negotiate this,” I admit. “Because you’re right, in the past, I would have done anything to prevent things from being public. But now it’s not just about me. It’s about Mason and my child, and they’re more important than my comfort.” I pick up my phone and send Vander the text he’s been waiting for. “You should be receiving an email now.”

He makes a shrill noise as likely the email comes through from Vander—though it’s untraceable and he’d never know it’s from him—with our various elements of proof against him. The texts between him and Eloise, both from the wedding and over the last week, the pictures of Eloise in Mason’s hotel room, and images from the hotel security of her bribing someone for the keycard and then leaving ten minutes later after Mason kicked her out.

“That, along with the audio of this call, are some pretty incriminating and damning evidence, don’t you think? I mean, that’s the sort of stuff that doesn’t just lose people their jobs or blackball them in an industry. That could bring about some real prison time if Mason felt the need to press charges. It would be difficult to pay child support without a job, don’t you think?”

“What the fuck are you doing, Sorel?!” he yells. “Goddammit!”

I brush my hair back from my face, sit cross-legged on my bed, and speak directly into the phone. “I want a public statement from you apologizing to Mason, signed legal documents that will stay confidential, and for you to leave us the fuck alone after that. That’s it. That’s your freedom, Brody. If you don’t do that, I will go public with everything and sue you for child support. I think it’s a nice deal, all things considered. Think it over. This time, you have twenty-four hours, or I go to the press with everything. And I think you know what as a Fritz I’m capable of.”

“This is how you want to be?”

“Not even close. You brought us to this. But this is what I have to do to protect my husband and my child. Twenty-four hours, Brody. Let me know.”

I disconnect the call and flop on my back. I hate playing dirty, but if I need to go public with everything, I will. If I have to put myself in the spotlight, I will. But I’m hoping Brody does what’s right for Mason and for the baby. I think he will because, ultimately, it benefits him too. The next twenty-four hours will tell.