Page 67 of The Man in the Cottage

"That I'm controlling. That I've isolated you from your family. That I quit my job right before we got together, which makes it look like I planned this." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "The irony is I didn't even know who you were. I thought you were a handyman."

"I know."

"But no one else knows that. To them, I'm just some woman who moved to Virginia and somehow landed a professional athlete. It looks bad, Travis. It looks exactly like what they're saying."

"Because that's how they spun it. They took the facts and twisted them into a story that makes you the villain." He runs a hand through his hair. "This is what they do. This is what the media always does. They take a few pieces of information and build a narrative, and it doesn't matter if it's true. It only matters if it sells."

"Have you dealt with this before? Stories about your personal life?"

"A few times. Nothing this bad." He pauses. "There was a girl, a few years ago. We dated for six months. When we broke up, some outlet ran a story about how I was difficult, emotionally unavailable. Her friends were the 'sources.' It was humiliating."

"What happened?"

"It blew over. Eventually. But for a few weeks, everyone had an opinion about my relationship, about who I was as a partner. People I'd never met, making judgments about my character." He looks at me. "It's one of the reasons I stopped dating. It wasn't worth the risk of having my private life turned into content."

"But you risked it with me."

"You were worth the risk." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "You still are."

I want to believe him. I want to believe that what we have is stronger than whatever his family can throw at us. But I keep thinking about those articles. About my mother, who I still haven't called. About my old coworkers, who are probably passing the links around right now, laughing about how quiet Kelly from marketing snagged a hockey player.

"I could walk away," I say quietly.

Travis goes still. "What?"

"From you. From us." The words hurt to say, but I make myself say them. "If I'm not in the picture, the story dies. Your family gets what they want, and I go back to being nobody. Maybe that's the easiest solution."

"Is that what you want?"

I look at him—this man who showed up at my grandmother's house with a secret and stayed because he couldn't make himself leave. This man who fixed my sink and helped with my book and kissed me at midnight on Valentine's Day. This man who chose me over his family, over his career, over everything.

"No," I say. "That's not what I want."

"Good. Because I'm not letting you go." He takes my hands in his. "Kelly, I know this is hard. I know it's unfair. But we're not going to let them win. We're not going to let a bunch of tabloid lies tear us apart."

"Easy for you to say. Your name isn't in the headline."

"My name's been in plenty of headlines. I know how much it sucks. But you survive it. You keep living your life, and eventually people move on to the next story."

“I hope you’re right.”

“That's how this works."

I want to believe him. I want to believe we can weather this, that the story will die down, that my name will eventually fade from the search results and I can go back to being anonymous. But right now, in this moment, it feels impossible.

"I need to call my mom," I say. "Before she sees it herself."

"Okay. Do you want me to stay while you do it?"

"No, I—" I take a breath. "I should do this alone. But can you come back later? I don't want to be by myself tonight."

"I'll come back whenever you want me. Just say the word."

He kisses me—soft, gentle, a promise more than a kiss—and then he's gone, the door closing quietly behind him.

I sit on the couch for a long time, staring at my phone. My mother's name is right there in my contacts. One tap and I'll be explaining to her why strangers on the internet are calling her daughter a gold digger.

This is not how I imagined my life going. When I quit my job and moved to Longshore, I thought I was choosing peace. Simplicity. A chance to write a book and figure out who I wanted to be.