They both turned sharply and instinctively stepped apart but it seemed a moment too late.

The courthouse’s massive glass doors had become a stage, the horde of reporters outside buzzing like flies on a carcass. Cameras clicked and flashed like strobe lights, voices shouting over one another.

“Carlos! Blair! Are you back together?”

“Is this a rematch or a reunion?”

“Blair, any comments on your last divorce?”

“Carlos, have you considered going back to the NFL?”

Carlos took a single step forward, his eyes scanning the crowd with that eerie calm he always had when he knew people were watching. Blair hated that about him, how he could control the narrative just by standing still.

He was born to be in front of a camera, he was born to command attention, and she refused to feel grateful that he was blocking her with his body.

Why had they been standing so close? She could have sworn she started arguing with him from the far end of the room. The reporters were going to have a field day with this one.

A reporter screamed from somewhere near the front, “Is it true you’re the reason Celeste and Rafael split, Blair? Did you sleep with Rafael?”

That one made her flinch. She didn’t sleep with Rafael! He was a sleazebag that came onto her with the ruse of wanting to divorce his wife, Celeste. She had barely won that case with her head intact, her reputation almost getting dragged in the mud.

Her jaw locked and her fingers squeezed around the leather of her purse until the straps groaned in protest. Carlos’s gaze flicked toward her, just for a second, and she knew he’d caught it.

‘Don’t react. Don’t give them anything,’ his glance seemed to say. Blair hated that he was still protecting her, reminding her of how they used to be five years ago.

But the crowd surged with renewed energy. Phones came out and microphones pushed closer.

Carlos gestured behind him, waving his hand a subtle but decisive movement, and in an instant, Roman appeared at her elbow like a hawk in a tailored suit. He barely spared a glance at the frenzied reporters, his focus solely on Blair. “Time to go,” he muttered in a voice that brooked no argument.

The air around her felt thick with anticipation, the reporters practically salivating for any crumb of drama they could devour. Her mind was numb to the questions being thrown at her, the flashes of light blinding her with their intensity. It wasn’t the first time she’d been under scrutiny, but it still felt like she was suffocating in the noise.

She let him steer her past the doors, ignoring the questions, the flashes, and the headlines she could imagine that were already beginning to write themselves in real time.

‘De Leon vs Kensington: Divorce Wars Round Two.’‘

Heated Exchange Outside Court. Old Sparks or New Battle?’‘

Blair Kensington: Homewrecker or Hero?’

She didn’t speak again until they were in the underground garage, her heels clicking violently against the concrete as she walked. Roman stayed behind, talking to a clerk or a junior associate. She didn’t care. She needed air.

Her car was parked at the far end of the level, tucked between two concrete columns. She leaned back against the door and finally let out a breath.

Then her phone buzzed.

Blair frowned and checked the screen. She expected that her assistant or her best friend had sent her a link or a text. But it wasn’t a number she knew.

It was a private number.

She should’ve ignored it. She should’ve tossed it back in her bag and driven away, increased the volume of the radio, and let herself scream on the highway if she had to.

But she didn’t.

She opened the message.

It was a video.

She tapped play, expecting maybe footage from the courtroom, or some new tabloid montage pairing her with Carlos. She was used to that kind of trash.

The media was surprisingly fast with cooking things they were not supposed to.

But this wasn’t from court. The grainy footage showed a much younger Blair. About three years younger. Her hair was longer, her smile small but less sharp.

And she was in Dante’s penthouse.

Pouring drinks.

Pulling him onto her lap.,

There was music in the background. Loud. Something from a party that neither of them had ever confirmed to the press they’d hosted. The kind of night that was supposed to be private.

But then the video cut abruptly and the screen went black.

Text began to appear in red, one word at a time:

“I know everything you’ve ever done”.

Another buzz. Another message.“

Drop the Woodsen case, Blair. Or something worse than this goes public. Tomorrow morning. Headlines and all.

”Her breath hitched.

It wasn’t the video itself. It wasn’t even the idea of the world seeing her like she imagined the worse one would be. She could weather a scandal.

It was what came next in that footage that scared her.

Because she knew what happened after that video ended.

Nobody else did.

Nobody except Dante, the man she had done it with. She knew she would come to regret it eventually but who had such a bad vendetta against her?

Dante was her very hot, very public boyfriend of three months who had been a bit too much for Blair to handle. She had met him two years after her divorce with Carlos and had hoped he would be the one to replace the memory of Carlos in her heart, but he wasn’t. He was far from it, and she had broken up with him.

Why was a video of them together in private being used to threaten her against defending Serena Woodsen?

She glanced back toward the courthouse entrance where Roman was now talking to a client.

And she could feel Carlos watching her from the upper level, away from the reporters he had somehow managed to dodge, because of course he was.

She pocketed her phone and slid into her car, slamming the door shut.

She didn’t cry.

Not yet.

But she drove like she was being chased.

Because maybe she was. Her past was now being used to blackmail her.