“What picture?” I say, louder this time.
“No,” she says looking me dead in the eye. “Fuck no, I’m not falling for that.”
“Goddammit, Violet, what picture?” I say, stepping forward, clenching my teeth so I don’t shout. Violet stands her ground, crying and glaring.
“What picture, Violet?” I ask, my voice deadly calm.
“The picture of me in the wedding barn, Eli,” she says, like I’m an idiot, her voice so quiet I can barely hear her. “The one you sent to Montgomery.”
Black tendrils curl around my windpipe, choking me.
Montgomery has a naked picture of Violet.
I feel like the wind’s been knocked out of me.
“The one I let you take when we were drunk last weekend?” she says. Now her voice has a mocking edge to it, lashing out. “The one I told you wouldn’t work as blackmail? Tell me, did I give you the idea myself?”
“I swear to God I didn’t send Montgomery anything,” I tell her. The panic knife turns, opens a hole in my chest. “I promise you I would never —”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she hisses, her eyes wide. “Did you think you’d just win and he’d never tell me and we would just keep fucking until you got bored of me and moved on? Or did you not mind that I’d find out?”
“I didn’t fucking do anything.”
“You made up this whole Martin story,” she whispers. “You fucked with the cranes, you made shit go missing, you put the bull in the pool and I fucking believed you about all of it because you’re hot now and Martin’s always been a douche.”
I turn away from her. I have to. I want to punch something: the door, the wall, a side of beef, throw fifty pounds of potatoes at the wall. I want to absolutely wreck some shit right now.
“You really think I did this?” I ask, my own voice shaking.
“I think you fucked me over for twenty grand? Yeah, it tracks,” she says like she’s spitting daggers.
“Two months,” I say, turning back toward her. I feel like I’m crumbling. Turning to rubble.
She swallows, sniffles, her face furious, her arms still locked in front of her.
“We were together for two months and you don’t believe me?” I ask. My voice rises.
“We weren’t together.”
It stings. It shouldn’t, but it does.
“I don’t get the benefit of the doubt for one second.”
“Not you, no.”
I just stare at her, because I feel like I’ve been thrown into a pit with no rope, no ladder, no way out.
“You think that’s who I am?” I ask. “I did all that in some plot to win money?”
“I don’t think you minded the sex.”
“I can’t fucking believe you,” I say. I turn away again. I can’t look at her right now.
“A naked picture of me magically gets transported from your phone to my boss, you win twenty grand, and after all the shit you did to me for years and years I’m supposed to think that it wasn’t you?” she says.
Fuck this. Fuck her. Fuck me for thinking there was something between us.
“Yeah, I thought maybe I’d earned two seconds of trust,” I say, walking for the door. “I forgot you only like people when you think you’re better than them. Fuck you, Violet.”
I open the door, warm air hitting me in the face.
“Fuck you, Eli!” I hear as it closes.
I storm back through the kitchen, rage radiating through my bones from a black supernova somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. I want to to smash every piece of glass in this place, knock over every appliance, throw every pot. I want to shout at Violet until she hears reason.
And I want to kill whoever sent that picture. It never once occurred to me that someone might find my phone and go through it, even though I don’t have it on me most of the day. Jesus Christ, it’s not even locked.
Fuck me, this is all my fault.
I shove through the kitchen doors. I know everyone’s watching me. I know they probably just heard the fight Violet and I got into, but see if I give a damn.
I’m at Montgomery’s office door in thirty seconds flat. I ignore his secretary and push it open.
“Who sent it?” I ask, not bothering with preamble.
He goes red. There’s a woman sitting across his desk from him, her mouth a small O of surprise.
“Excuse me —”
“Who sent the picture of Violet?” I ask.
“Elijah, you can’t just barge in here —"
“I took it,” I tell him, stepping to the desk, both my palms flat on it. “In the barn. Last Saturday. We were drunk. You want to see the rest?”
“No,” he says, his face bright and his voice cold. “I’m not interested in your lovers’ quarrel, Elijah.”
“This is not a lovers’ quarrel,” I say, fighting to keep control of myself. “This is someone stealing a private photo from me —”