70. Renee

I’ve been waiting forever for Weston to get home from the East Coast road trip. I’m glad I didn’t go with the team; I don’t think I would have wanted him to hear me get the phone call from Dr. Hayes.

Plus, now that I’m more used to the idea, I’m less freaked out, less nervous about the whole thing.

I’m actually—dare I say it—excited to tell him.

I was even more excited when he texted me to come over for dinner tonight. I get ready about an hour too early and end up anxiously scrolling on my phone while I wait for the time to arrive.

Finally, the clock strikes seven, and I step out of Sutton’s apartment with his present, the baby jersey, in a box tucked under my arm.

He answers right away when I knock and he cocks his head. “Why didn’t you just let yourself in? You know the code.” He says it with a tone. I can’t place what exactly it means, per se. Same with this smile that isn’t exactly a smile. There’s an undercurrent here I don’t understand.

Just like that, any excitement I have withers on the vine.

I slip past him and leave the gift on the table by the door. Now doesn’t seem like a good moment.

When I am within arm’s length—a distance he usually takes advantage of to pull me close—he turns and moves into the kitchen without touching me. He pours a glass of wine and pushes it across the counter at me.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you…” he says abruptly. “The middle of the blackout. I woke up and you were gone. Where’d you go?”

My throat is weirdly dry all of the sudden. “I-I told you,” I say, squeaky and hoarse. “I was checking the electricity in the building. Seeing if the elevator was working.”

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit.”

“Why would I lie?”

I feel frantic, jittery. The whole situation is spinning out control and I’m powerless to stop it. I don’t know how to bring it back around. I could tell him about talking to Jackson in the hallway, but that won’t help anything. It would only make his head explode with all the rage building. Sutton’s joke about that exact scenario doesn’t seem so funny anymore.

“You would lie because you’re a fucking liar and a goddamned thief.” He shakes his head, nostrils flared and fists balled. I’ve never seen him like this.

And as angry as he is, I’m now getting pretty pissed off myself. My heart is pounding and my skin is on fire. “How fucking dare you?”

I’m not as angry as I am hurt. He knows me. Knows more about me than anyone I’ve ever met since I left home.

“How dare me?” he spits. “How dare you? You come into my place, steal my shit, pretend to be outraged that I have the balls to accuse you—and don’t even fucking try those crocodile tears, Princess, because I ain’t falling for that shit twice.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of my tears.” But if I don’t get the fuck out of here, I won’t have a choice. I’m a hormonal wreck. Emotional. I cried yesterday at a commercial for chewing gum.

So this? This is far, far too much.

“Why don’t you take your lying ass back to Sutton’s place? I can’t fucking look at you.” He turns his back.

“Screw you, Weston Scott.” I walk to the door and fling it open, taking the wrapped gift out with me.

But when I step out into the hall, I see someone standing outside of Sutton’s apartment. A tall man in a suit with a perma-scowl on his face.

“Yes?” I ask as I approach warily.

I have a bad feeling rolling around in my stomach. An ache. It’s the one I get when I’m in the same place at the same time as my mother or my father. It’s the one I get when I know subconsciously that something bad is coming.

“Renee DuBois?”

“Can I help you?” I ask cautiously. That feeling in my belly is growing stronger.

“It’s been brought to my attention and that of the board of tenants that you’ve been accused of theft by another tenant and that you have been illegally housesitting for Sutton Medina without clearance or the required background check.”

My jaw drops. “Weston accused me of stealing?”

He clears his throat. “I’m not at liberty to divulge the name of the complaining tenant, but there has been a formal complaint. Regardless, your stay here is unauthorized. I’ll need for you to clear your belongings from Ms. Medina’s apartment and vacate the premises immediately.”

Clear my belongings? Vacate the premises? I have nowhere to go. No one to call. Nothing to do.

A quick tally of what’s in my savings is about all I have time for before my phone rings. I look at the screen and the ball in the pit of my belly starts bouncing harder and higher until it’s in my throat.

It’s Michelle.

“Renee?” she asks tentatively, as if she isn’t the one who called me.

“Yeah. What’s up?” I inject some false positivity in my voice.

She sighs and stays silent for a few long seconds. I can hear the hope draining from my life, swirling the drain. “We just got a call from a… oh, fuck, I won’t give you the bullshit. Weston has called the team. He’s saying you’re a thief. And that he won’t play as long as you’re working for us.”

I close my eyes against the onrushing of tears. So it’s their superstar player versus a new hire nobody in the social media department. “Yeah. That just about finishes it off, doesn’t it?”

“I’m so sorry, Renee. I’m going to try to talk to him. But…”

She doesn’t have to finish that thought. But it won’t do any good. He’s busy ruining my life, and like everything else he puts his mind to, he’s doing it very, very well.

“I didn’t steal from him,” I whisper.

“I know that, Renee.” Michelle’s sympathy almost kills me. “But my hands are tied here.”

“Ms. DuBois,” interrupts the superintendent, “I need you to leave immediately.”

I nod and swallow hard. “Okay then.”

Michelle is still talking, promising to do whatever she can, but I hang up anyway because I’m about to lose my shit. I won’t humiliate myself by begging her.

The super is tapping his foot as I search my pockets for the keys. I’m juggling the box with the baby jersey in it back and forth between hands, but I can’t find the keys, and then even when I do, I can’t stop my hands from shaking long enough to fit the key in the lock.

And so the box falls to the floor and busts open. The jersey spills out. It’s a sad mockery of the first day I moved here, full of hope for the future.

It’s not lingerie this time, though. There’s no handsome hockey star gazing down at me. There’s just a gaunt-faced superintendent kicking me to the curb.

I pack a hasty bag, leaving half my stuff behind because I can’t think straight enough to separate what’s mine from what’s Sutton’s. The superintendent keeps tapping his foot the whole time.

On my way back out the door, I shove the baby jersey and the bent box into my duffel. He escorts me to the elevator, muttering under his breath the whole way down.

When the doors open at the bottom, he gestures for me to go through first.

But I freeze in place.

“Ms. DuBois,” he growls. “I really must insist that you?—”

“I can’t go.”

I really can’t. Not because I’m about to have a rom-com moment of rushing back upstairs and telling Weston that he’s wrong and I love him.

But because, through the glass wall of the foyer, I see red and blue lights flashing on top of a police cruiser.

And I already know they’re coming for me.

Two burly cops in navy uniforms stride through the front doors. They beeline straight for me like this whole thing has been choreographed to perfection.

“Renee DuBois?” asks one, his mustache bristling. “You’re under arrest for the home invasion and theft of the apartment owned by Weston Scott.” He moves toward me. “Please put your hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…”