Page 48 of The Clinch
My calm irritates him. I see it in the tiny changes he can’t quite hide.
“Lillian,” he adds, like I need clarification. “You seem to have met her.”
“I know exactly who she is.” I can still taste her from last night, which makes hearing her name out of his mouth land even uglier.
His eyes move over me again. Slower this time. Measuring. Not my face—my shoulders, my stance, the way I’m planted.
“Yeah. She’s hard to miss. Always was.” He says it to get a reaction.
“You here to talk, or did you just come to hear yourself say her name?”
He pushes off the car, takes one step closer. Still outside my space, still careful.
“I’m here because I saw the coverage. And because two days ago, I watched my wife try to walk out of a bar on your arm.”
“She’s not married.”
“That’s not what our certificate says.”
I don’t bite.
“There’s no version of this,” I say evenly, “where this conversation goes where you want it to.”
“Oh, I think there is. You just don’t like the terms.”
I feel it then—the confidence. The calculation.
“You’ve got a lot riding on this,” he continues, gesturing vaguely. “Title. Sponsors. Image. You can’t afford the wrong kind of attention.”
I hold his gaze. “And you can?”
His smile returns. Smaller now. Meaner. “I’ve already lost what matters.”
That’s the truth of him. The dangerous part.
“This isn’t between us,” I say.
“It is now. Man-to-man.”
“There’s no man-to-man here. There’s a woman who left. And two men who need to respect that.”
His eyes darken. “She didn’t leave. She wandered.”
I step closer. “She chose. You don’t get to rewrite that.”
For a split second, I think he might swing.
Instead, he exhales slowly, like someone who’s confirmed what he came to confirm.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he says. “Men like you burn bright. The crowd loves you. Women love you.”
He steps back, opening the space himself.
“But don’t confuse attention with permanence,” he adds. “Lillian always comes back.”
I don’t answer.
He opens the driver’s door, pauses.
