From Rags to Riches: The Discarded Wife's Revenge

Damage Control

Dominic

The clip had sixty-two million views now. I knew because my agent kept a running count like it was a stock ticker, updating me every few hours like I gave a damn about the number.

The problem is I gave a damn about the number.

I sat in my apartment and watched my name scroll across the bottom of a news channel I'd muted two weeks ago. I kept the TV on because turning it off felt like hiding and I wasn't built for hiding.

I watched as they ran the clip again and again. The same ten seconds, looped, zoomed in, slowed down. A shaky phone angle from someone standing thirty feet away. All you could see was Vanessa's back, my silhouette, and then her scream cutting through the tunnel noise.

What the clip didn't show was the three minutes before it.

She'd been waiting outside the locker room. I didn't know how she got past security at that time but I would later find out that she'd told them she was picking something up for my agent. When I came around the corner she was standing against the wall in a dress that was too short to belong in an arena tunnel, arms folded, and a bright smile like we had plans.

"We need to talk," she said.

"No, we don't."

"Dom, I made a mistake. I know that but we were good together. You know we were."

"We were done three months ago, Vanessa. That hasn't changed."

When she reached for my arm, I stepped back. She reached again and I caught her wrist and firmly said, "Don't."

I should have let go of her hand the moment her smile vanished but I didn't think she was capable of harm.

"You're really going to do this? In front of everyone?"

"What do you mean? There's nobody here."

"There's always somebody here."

She looked past me and when my eyes followed her, I saw the phone. It was some kid in a staff jacket, thirty feet down the tunnel, already recording. I didn't know how long he'd been filming or the angle he had but I let go of her wrist that second and stepped back.

"Go home, Vanessa."

I turned and was about walking away when she screamed.

And it was the worst word she could have chosen. It bounced off the concrete walls and the kid with the phone caught every sound of it.

I didn't stop walking because I thought it was just one of the many tantrums she threw each time I rejected her.

By the time I reached the locker room, the clip was already online. By the time I showered and checked my phone, it already had four million views. By the time I got home, my agent had left six voicemails and Vanessa had posted a tearful story about "speaking her truth."

The security cameras in the tunnel had captured everything and my lawyers had the footage within twenty-four hours but they wouldn't release it.

"It's all about timing," Ackerman said every time I asked. "If we release it now, it looks like a cheap defense. We need the public narrative to settle first and let the investigation run. That footage is our closing argument, not our opening statement."

Meanwhile the world had already delivered its verdict.

The phone on the counter buzzed, it was my agent, Rick.

"Meridian is out," he said as soon as I picked up.

That was the sportswear deal of three years, worth $40 million, all gone in a sentence.

"That's four," I sighed, caressing my forehead.

"Five actually. Apex pulled the watch campaign this morning. I just didn't want to stack them on you."

"Don't do that, give me all of it at once."

He was quiet for a second. "Dom..."

"Who's next?"

"Nobody yet. But the foundation got a call from the city parks department. They're asking questions about the youth program. Phrasing it as a 'review of community partnerships.' You know what that means."

I knew exactly what that meant. The youth hockey program was the one thing I'd built that had nothing to do with my name on a jersey. I had built twelve rinks in neighborhoods where kids who had never touched a pair of skates could do so. I'd hired the coaches personally and all the equipment I'd paid for out of my pocket because I didn't want a sponsor's logo on a six-year-old's helmet.

"They can't touch the program. It's a registered nonprofit. My name is on the paperwork but the board operates independently."

"Your name is the problem, Dom. Your name is the only thing anyone sees right now."

I hung up and stood at the window and looked at a city I'd played in for nine years. A city that used to chant my name so loud the glass in the press box would rattle. Now the same people were writing op-eds about what kind of man I really was.

I knew what kind of man I was, the footage knew too but nobody would see it until my lawyers decided the moment was right.

The door buzzed but I didn't move until I heard Nina's voice through the intercom.

"Open the door, Dominic. I'm not having this conversation in your lobby."

Nina Lao had been my publicist for six years. Five foot three, sharper than anyone I'd ever met, and completely incapable of bullshit. She was the only person left in my life who didn't talk to me like I was a situation to be managed.

She walked in with a folder and a coffee she didn't offer to share.

"You might want to sit for this."

"I'm fine standing," I replied.

She opened the folder and laid out three photographs on my kitchen table. There were headshots of women attached to short bios.

"What is this?"

"Solutions."

"Solutions to what, Nina?"

"The foundation is going to lose its city partnership within the month. You'll survive the sponsors leaving. What you won't survive is the kids losing their rinks because your face is toxic."

That landed exactly where she aimed it.

"You need a girlfriend."

"Are you insane?"

"Hear me out. It's not a real one, just someone the public can look at and think, okay, maybe he's not what that clip says he is. Maybe there's more to the story. A woman who's normal, relatable, someone who softens the picture."

"You want me to use someone?"

Of all the ideas Nina had suggested in all her years of working with me, this was by far the craziest.

"I want you to enter a mutually beneficial arrangement with a consenting adult who gets compensated for her time."

"I've already been accused of using a woman. You want me to actually do it?"

She looked at me for a long time. "I want the kids to actually keep their rinks."

I hated that she was right. I hated it more that I couldn't argue with it.

"I'm not doing this."

"Fine. Then tell me your plan. Because right now you're sitting in a penthouse watching your life disintegrate on mute and the only thing standing between those kids and a locked rink is a narrative you refuse to control."

I looked at the three photographs on the counter. Women who'd be performing for cameras, holding my hand at events, pretending I mattered to them in exchange for money. The thought of that alone made my skin crawl.

"I'll think about it," I whispered.

"Think fast. The parks department meets on Friday."

She left the folder on the counter and walked out.

I stood there for a while before I did what I always do when everything outside the ice stops making sense.

I went to practice.

The locker room was the same as it always was. Tape, sweat, too much cologne, and Javi Reyes talking loud enough to be heard in the parking garage.

"There he is." Javi slapped my shoulder. "Captain America. You look like shit."

"Thanks."

"I'm serious. Are you eating?"

"Yes Javi, I'm eating," I said through gritted teeth.

"You're lying but I respect the effort."

Javi was the only person on the team who hadn't changed around me since the accusation. Everyone else was supportive but I could see underneath the pretense. Javi just kept being Javi.

Practice was hard and I wanted it that way. Two hours of drills, scrimmage, bag skate at the end because the coach felt like punishing us. My shoulder had been tight for a week, something in the rotator cuff that I'd been ignoring.

After practice the trainer told me to get it looked at so I went to the clinic that was still open. It was sport centered so it stayed open late into the night for players who needed work after sessions.

I walked in expecting one of the usual staff but the woman behind the table wasn't usual.

Dark hair pulled back. No makeup or not enough to notice. She looked up from a chart when I walked in and her expression didn't change. Not the flicker of recognition I'd gotten used to. Not the slight tension that meant someone had an opinion about me they were trying to hide. Nothing.

"Where's my other therapist? She always knows what I need..." I started.

"Sit down and let me do my job."

She didn't introduce herself or ask for my name. She put her hands on my shoulder and started working through the joint. The way she applied pressure on it told me she'd done this a thousand times before.

"How long has this been bothering you?"

"Week. Maybe two."

"It's been more than two." She rotated my arm and I felt it stiffen. "You've been compensating with your trap. That's why your neck is tight too."

I didn't say anything because she was right.

She worked on it for fifteen minutes. When she finished, she handed me an ice pack.

"Twenty minutes on, twenty off. Twice tonight and don't sleep on that side."

"That's it?"

"Yep, you should be better by next week."

She was already writing notes on the chart, done with me before I'd left the room. I couldn't remember the last time someone in my orbit had treated me like I was just a body instead of a headline.

I walked out and almost ran into Nina, who was leaning against the wall in the corridor like she'd been waiting.

"Who is she?"

"The new physiotherapist. She's really good, started this week."

Nina was looking past me through the clinic door with an expression I'd seen before. The same expression she got when a strategy came together before she'd finished building it.

"She didn't know who you were?"

"I don't think so. Maybe she did but she just didn't care."

Nina smiled and it wasn't a warm smile. It was the smile of someone who'd just found what she was looking for.

"Dominic Ashford, I think we just found your girlfriend."