Page 43 of Rivals and Liars

"You should've called me so I could find you somewhere better to stay. This place is pretty mediocre. I'll sort out a transfer for you later. Come on." He pushes open the door and holds it while she walks through. "I spotted a couple of good cafés nearby. Pick whichever one you like."

Leire doesn't like either of them, and in the end they walk nearly ten minutes in silence before she spots one that catches her eye.

"Okay, tell me what the hell is going on," Isaac says, once they've ordered and the food arrives and they can talk without being interrupted.

"Are you going to tell me you didn't know?" Leire's voice tightens. "That you're not in on this with my dad?"

The man frowns, so genuinely puzzled that the tennis player doubts herself for a few seconds.

"In on what, Leire? I swear I have no idea. All I know is that the other day your father left without a word, and then you switched hotels without telling me. Do you know how stupid I felt when people started asking me what had happened?"

"My dad sent photos of me and Kate to a journalist," Leire says flatly, watching his face for any flicker that might give him away.

"There are photos of you two everywhere. You're both elite athletes, you're always—"

"Intimate photos." Leire's brows are nearly touching as she says it, and Isaac nearly chokes on the pancake he was chewing.

"Wait, what kind of photos?" he asks, alarmed. "And who the hell did he send them to?"

The tennis player stares at him without answering for several seconds.

"Answer me, for God's sake. What the hell happened?" he asks, visibly rattled.

"You really don't know anything?" she presses, still not convinced—but if he's lying, Isaac is the best actor she's ever seen.

"No, damn it," he says, exasperated. "What did your father do?"

"What do you know about Kate and me?" she asks, trying to catch him in a lie.

Isaac sets down his fork, wipes his mouth with his napkin, and leans back in his chair.

"I know you're sleeping with her. I've known for over a year because a guy who edits a newspaper told me. He said one of his reporters had photos of you and Brogan being affectionate, but he never showed them to me."

Leire no longer knows what to think.

"If you knew, why didn't you say anything?"

"Because who you sleep with is none of my business. You do your job, you play brilliantly, and you make me good money—no offense, but as long as that doesn't change, what you do with your private life is not my concern. Now tell me what the hell your father did."

"Candela Valle came to see me a few days ago to warn me. She said someone had been sending her photos of me and Kate, and she showed them to me. One was taken in the locker room—I assume he shot it from the doorway—but the other one was inside my hotel room. He put a camera in there to record me with her."

Isaac scratches his jaw, thrown.

"Are you telling me your father planted the camera?" he asks, hesitant. "That's impossible. Bruno would never do something like that. It could be—"

"He admitted it."

Leire's words knock the air out of him. His face cycles through colors: first white, then red with rage, then pale again.

"Why the hell would he do that? If that journalist publishes it, it would only hurt you. Something like that is yours to share on your own terms—and it was obvious you had no plans to. Did he do it for money? Did Valle pay him for the photos?" he asks, increasingly lost.

"You're not understanding any of this. Candela hasn't published anything and she's not going to. The journalist they told you had photographed us was her, but she chose not to go public with it. That's exactly why my father went to her—he sent her the photos because he suspected she wouldn't publish them, that she'd end up coming to me to show me."

"Now I understand even less. If it wasn't about money—"

"He wanted to scare me. He wanted me to see the photos, freak out, and break things off with Kate."

He looks at her, confused.