Smoke billowed from Jack’s ears. He gritted his teeth.

“Keep it all inside,” Nick continued, taunting. “Because they don’t call me the Spin Doctor for nothing. You touch me, and I will find a way to make everyone hate you too.” Nick laughed, revealing perfect white teeth. “Or maybe, take your chances. Take a punch at me. I turned your girlfriend into garbage. You think I won’t find a way to pulverize you?”

Rage coursed through Jack’s veins and he grabbed the man by the shirt collar. “You can’t touch me. I run a fucking sex toy company. I sell dildos for a living. There is nothing you can do to me. My reputation doesn’t matter.”

“I know,” Nick said with an evil glint in his dark eyes. “You’re the fucking Teflon man, Jack. The press loves you. They love the grieving widower story. They love that you run a business with your sister. You’re impenetrable. No one gives a shit if you like it dirty. No one cares if you fuck a woman on the Met Life Tower. Same way with Henry. He runs BDSM clubs with his wife, who’s a cancer survivor. I can’t touch her. But you,” Nick said, poking Jack’s chest, and he was ready to throttle the man. He’d started this war by going after Henry’s business solely to knock down his brother-in-law. He’d already hit below the belt. Now he was firing bullets, by throwing around all the private times he’d learned about from their emails, “you gave us the perfect target.”

The anger burned Jack’s throat. He gripped Nick’s collar harder. “I gave you nothing.”

Nick cackled and shook his head. “You’re wrong. You gave us everything we needed to take down our opponent. Because you started screwing a shrink. An intimate relationship psychologist, at that. I couldn’t have planned it better. It was like taking candy from a baby. It was my easiest job ever. Because she takes herself so goddamn seriously. She’s so perfectly above board. She does nothing wrong. Never a professional misstep, until you. We already got to Denkler through his sister. The easiest way to take him all the way down was through you. And now you’re going to stop, aren’t you?”

“Stop what?”

“Oh, I suspect when you leave my doorstep in twenty seconds, you will go to Denkler’s and tell him to resign from the race. Or I will happily share all those emails and texts. My God, the things the two of you did.” Nick said, recoiling, as if he were disgusted with Jack. “She’s dirty. She likes it dirty, doesn’t she?”

The rage spread like wildfire in Jack’s blood. He twisted Nick’s collar, pushing the man who once called himself Clark against the railing of his stoop.

“Do it. Push me over. Break a bone. And I will find a way to call you a pedophile. You think you’re so fucking untouchable? No one is untouchable. For all I know, you might even sell child pornography.”