“He had company,” Logan surmised with a grimace.
“So cliché it’s painful.” Tess rolled her eyes. “I stood there for a few seconds, trying to process what I was seeing. Then the Harrison in me took over.” Her slight grin was rueful, hollow. “First I went and grabbed my phone. I took a bunch of pictures. They were—excuse my word choice, but there’s no polite way to say it. They were mid-fuck, they were all caught up in it, so they didn’t know I was there. I got my evidence. Then I went all the way into the bathroom and started filling the sink with water. She saw me first, and she screamed. By the time they got out of the shower and he started trying his pathetic excuses, I’d gone back to the living room and gotten his phone.” Her brows arched with a hint of satisfaction. “While he watched, I dropped it into the sink.”
“Filled with water!” Logan barked out a stunned laugh. “Man, that’s hardcore.”
“He deserved that and more.”
“Damn right he did.”
“Needless to say, I found out later he had been cheating on me with three different women, all on a regular basis. I found that out because when I had Brady thrown out of the apartment and barred from any access to the building, he tried to sue me. My brother Charles had his personal private investigator do a full check.” Tess shrugged. “As for what he insinuated about my father messing with his career? Truth is, I always suspected the same thing. But I never asked him outright. We had one conversation . . . I tried to find out if he’d done something. Because I’d heard through the grapevine about Brady’s troubles and wondered at the coincidence in timing. You know: We broke up, then he was fired, no one would hire him in the upper circles . . .”
Her eyes grew distant, but a hint of a smile lifted her lips. “My father just took my face in his hands and said no one messes with the Harrisons and gets away with it. And no one messes with my little girl and gets away with it, that’s for damn sure. His little girl . . . I was thirty-one, for Pete’s sake.”
Tess smiled absently and reached for her water glass. “I dropped it after that. I know he did something. But the fewer details I knew, the better off we all were.”
Logan let out a low whistle. He knew the Harrisons were rich and connected, but that was a kind of power he couldn’t begin to grasp. That was another world.
She shrugged. “The whole thing was a disaster, and I’m glad it’s behind me. What can I say? Brady broke my heart. I was crazy in love with him. I thought we were going to get married, have a bunch of beautiful kids . . . now, I just thank God I found out before it was too late.”
“He’s a goddamn fool.” Logan leaned in and covered her hand with his. It was big and warm and made her feel good. “I know it must not have felt like it at the time, but you were lucky. Good riddance.”
“I know. Agreed, one hundred percent.” She took a deep, cleansing breath, then removed her red shell jacket and placed it over the back of her chair. She’d finally warmed up enough to start shedding layers. “It’s easy to talk about it now, because I don’t feel a thing. But it wasn’t for a long time. Took me a long time to heal.”
She smoothed out her fleece pullover, soft swirls of red and magenta. Her black ski pants made a crinkly noise as she shifted in her seat. She looked back up at Logan, who was staring thoughtfully at her. Ugh, she’d been talking too much, and probably making herself look like a sad sack. “I’m fine, Logan. Really. It’s all in the past, and I’m nothing but grateful for the way it worked out. You saw him for yourself, he’s a total jackass.”
“That he is,” Logan agreed. “I can’t even picture you with him.”
“It was a past life. A past me.”
“I get that. We all have a past life and different versions of ourselves, don’t we.” He leaned back and stroked his beard as he added, “I’m still sorry you were hurt so bad. You deserved better.”
“Again, agreed, a hundred percent. A hundred and ten!”
They smiled at each other.