“Thank you.”
Sloane and I lapsed into silence again.
I wasn’t sure whether my words were any good, but I kept typing.
Kai hadn’t said anything about the chapters I’d given him on Christmas, which didn’t help my anxiety. Had he read them yet? If yes, why hadn’t he mentioned it? Were they that bad? If no, why not? Maybe he wasn’t actually interested in reading them. Maybe I put him in an awkward position by foisting a half-finished, unedited manuscript on him. Should I ask him about it, or would that make things even more awkward?
“Isa.” There was a strange note in Sloane’s voice.
“Hmm?”
Ugh, I should’ve stopped with the dinosaur erotica. What was I thinking?
“Have you looked at the news?”
“No, why? Did Asher Donovan crash another car?” I asked distractedly.
No response.
I looked up. A cold sensation crawled down my spine at Sloane’s neutral expression. She only wore that look when something was very, very wrong.
She silently turned her laptop around so I could see her screen.
The National Star’s distinctive red and black text splashed across its website. Lurid headlines and unflattering celebrity photos dominated the page, which wasn’t unusual. The trashy tabloid was famous for…
Wait.
My eye snagged on a familiar dress. Long sleeves, emerald-green cashmere, a hem that skimmed the tops of my thighs. A fifteen-dollar steal from the depths of the Looking Glass boutique’s basement.
I’d worn it on a date with Kai two weeks ago.
My stomach bottomed out.
They weren’t photos of celebrities. They were photos of us. Kai and me on Coney Island. Us strolling through the New York Botanical Garden, our heads bent close in laughter. Him feeding me a custard tart at a dim sum restaurant in Queens. Me exiting his apartment building, looking thoroughly mussed and slightly guilty.
Dozens of photos capturing some of our most intimate moments. We thought no one we knew would be in such out-of-the-way places, but obviously, we were wrong.
My skin flushed hot and cold. The muffin I ate for breakfast threatened to climb up my throat and ruin Sloane’s pristine MacBook.
I’m so dead.
Once the club saw this, it was over. I’d lose my job and probably get blacklisted from working at any bar within a fifty-mile radius. Even worse, if the reporters did any digging, they’d find out—
“Breathe.” Sloane’s crisp voice sliced through my fog of panic. She slammed her laptop shut and pushed a glass of water in my hand. “Drink this. Count to ten. It’ll be okay.”
“But…”
“Do it.”
In terms of comfort and warmth, she wasn’t the greatest. She was, however, excellent at crisis management. By the time I gulped down the water, she’d already typed up a ten-point bullet plan for defusing the bombshell.
Step one: discredit the source.
“It’s the National Star, which helps,” she said. “No one takes that rag seriously. Still, it’ll be good to—”
“Aren’t you mad?” I interrupted. Liquid sloshed in my stomach, making me queasy. “About me keeping the Kai thing a secret from you and Viv?”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “Isa, please. Anyone with a working brain can see you two have the hots for each other. I’m only surprised it took you so long to do something about it. Besides, I understand why you didn’t tell us. It’s a delicate situation, given your job. That brings me to my second point. Valhalla will—”
She was interrupted again, this time by the buzz of my phone.
Parker.Speak of the devil.
My stomach plummeted further. “Hold that thought.” I sucked in a lungful of air and braced myself. “Hello?”
So. Dead.
“Isabella.” My supervisor’s voice clinked over the line like jagged ice cubes. There wasn’t a trace of her usual warmth. “Please report to Valhalla as soon as possible. We need to talk.”
Half an hour later, I walked into the Valhalla Club’s executive office with a pile of concrete blocks in my stomach.
Reserved for the reigning head of the managing committee, which rotated between sitting members every three years, the mahogany-paneled office resembled a cross between a Georgian library and a cathedral. A massive dark desk dominated the far end of the room.
Vuk Markovic sat behind it with the stiff posture of a displeased general surveying his troops. He must be the current head of the committee. I didn’t pay attention to club politics, so I didn’t even know who the committee members were besides Kai and Dante—both of whom, I noticed with a jolt, were seated across the desk from Vuk. They occupied the chairs on the right; Parker sat on the left, her face tight.
Every pair of eyes swiveled toward me when I entered.
Self-consciousness prickled my skin. I avoided Kai’s gaze as I walked over, afraid any eye contact would unleash the pressure building in my chest.
“Isabella.” Parker nodded at the chair next to her. “Sit.” She was the lowest-ranked person in the room, but she kicked off the meeting by cutting straight to the chase. “Do you know why you’re here?”
I tucked my hands beneath my thighs and swallowed a lump of dread. There was no use playing dumb. “Because of the photos in the National Star.”
Parker glanced at Vuk. Those pale, eerie eyes watched me with unnerving focus, but he didn’t say a word.
“The club has a strict non-fraternization rule between members and employees,” Parker said when he didn’t speak up. “It is clearly stated in your employment contract, which you signed upon being hired. Any violation of said rule—”
“We weren’t fraternizing.” Kai’s even voice cut off the rest of her sentence. “Isabella and I have mutual friends. We see each other often outside the club. Dante can attest to that.”
My head jerked, unbidden, in his direction. He kept his attention on Parker, but I could practically feel the tendrils of comfort wrapping around me.
A messy knot of emotion tangled in my throat.
“It’s true.” Dante sounded bored. “Kai and I are friends. Isabella and my wife are best friends. You do the math.”
I wasn’t sure why he was here. Kai, I could understand since this involved him too. Maybe Dante was a character witness? We technically weren’t on trial, though I felt like we were.
Either way, I was grateful for his support, even as guilt wormed through my gut. Kai and I had wittingly broken the rules, and now other people were being dragged into it.
Parker paused, clearly trying to figure out how to respond without being taken for an idiot—the photos revealed far more intimacy than that between casual acquaintances—or pissing off her employers.
“With all due respect, Mr. Young, you and Isabella were alone in those photos,” she said carefully. “You were spotted holding hands—”
“I was simply guiding her over a rough patch of ground,” Kai said, his tone so smooth and confident it almost concealed the absurdity of his excuse. “We met several times over the holidays to plan a surprise party for Vivian’s birthday.”
“You were planning a surprise party for Vivian Russo on Coney Island?” Parker asked doubtfully.
A short but pregnant pause saturated the room.
“She likes Ferris wheels,” Dante said.
Another, longer pause.
Parker glanced at Vuk again in an obvious plea for help. He didn’t answer. Now that I thought about it, I’d never heard the man utter a single word.
It didn’t escape my notice that I was the one in the hot seat even though Kai and I were both in the wrong. But he was a rich, powerful VIP and I wasn’t. The difference in treatment was expected, if not necessarily fair.
“The photos aren’t proof we broke the non-fraternization rule,” Kai said. “It’s the National Star, not the New York Times. Their last issue claimed the government is harvesting alien eggs in Nebraska. They have no credibility.”
Parker’s mouth thinned.
My guilt thickened into sludge. I liked my supervisor. She’d always been good to me, and she’d kept my secret all this time. I hated putting her in such a tough position.
“I understand, sir,” she said. “But we simply can’t let the matter go unaddressed. The other members—”
“Let me worry about the other members,” Kai said. “I’ll—”
“No. She’s right.” My quiet interruption ground their argument to a halt. My heartbeat clanged with uncertainty, but I forged ahead before I lost my nerve. “I knew the rules, and the details don’t matter. What matters is how it looks, and it doesn’t look good, for us or the club.”
Kai stared at me. What are you doing?
The silent message echoed loud and clear in my head. I ignored it, though a warm ache twisted my heart at how adamantly he was trying to defend me. He didn’t lie, but he had. For me.
“What I’m trying to say is, I know what I did,” I said, focusing on Parker. It’s just a job. I could get another one. It probably wouldn’t have the same benefits, hours, and pay, but I’d survive. And if Gabriel gave me shit for changing employers again…well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. “And I’m willing to accept the consequences.”
There was a time when I would’ve been happy to let others fight my battles for me, but it was time I took responsibility for my actions.
Kai’s stare burned a hole in my cheek. Next to him, Dante straightened, revealing a spark of intrigue for the first time since I entered the room. His presence was clearly out of loyalty to Kai and not any particular interest in my future at Valhalla.
Parker sighed, the sound laced with regret. I was one of her best employees, but she was a stickler for the rules. As my manager, she took the heat for my fuckups.
She looked to Vuk for confirmation. His chin dipped, and though I’d been expecting it, asking for it, her next words still punched a hole in my gut.
“Isabella, you’re fired.”
KAI
Ididn’t follow Isabella after she left. Instinct screamed at me to comfort her, but reason stayed my hand. There were too many eyes on us right now; I didn’t want to risk dragging her deeper into this mess.
Plus, I had about a hundred other people to placate before I could focus on my personal life.
Reporters, board members, company execs, friends and family…my phone had been ringing off the hook since the photos exploded across the internet that morning. I wasn’t a movie star or rock star, but there were still plenty of people interested in the lives of the rich and scandalous. Bonus points if the scandal affected the future of one of the world’s largest and most famous corporations.
“What were you thinking?” My mother’s fury roared across the line, undeterred by the thousands of miles separating New York and London. “Do you understand what you’ve done? We’re weeks out from the vote. This could destroy everything.”
A migraine crawled over my skull and squeezed. I stared out the window of Valhalla’s conference room, my stomach churning with a cocktail of emotions.
I had no doubt Victor Black was behind this mess. The National Star was his publication, and the bastard was petty and vindictive enough to send someone to tail me after I bruised his ego.
“They’re innocent photos,” I said. “And it’s the National Star. No one takes the Star seriously.”
It was the same excuse I’d used earlier. Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t as easily swayed as Parker.
“Innocent would be photos of you reading to children on World Book Day, not cavorting around New York with that woman,” my mother said coldly. “A bartender? Really, Kai? I set you up with someone like Clarissa and you choose a run-of-the-mill gold digger? She has purple hair, for heaven’s sake. And tattoos.”
Anger chased behind my shame, incinerating it in one fiery burst. “Don’t talk about her like that,” I said, my voice lethally quiet.
My mother fell silent for a moment. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her.” A hint of derision tainted her words.
Of course not.
The denial sat on the tip of my tongue, but no matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn’t budge.
I liked Isabella. I liked her more than anyone I could remember. But there was a vast ocean of difference between like and fallen. The former was a safe, clearly marked path. The latter was an abrupt, potentially fatal crash off the side of a cliff, and I wasn’t ready to take that leap.
I didn’t know how to categorize my feelings for Isabella. All I knew was the thought of never seeing her again felt like a serrated blade slicing through my chest.
“We can still salvage this. Like you said, it’s the Star.” My mother moved on from her original line of questioning. She didn’t press the Isabella issue, likely because she was afraid she’d get an answer she wouldn’t like. “Lean in on its unreliability. Reassure the board. And, for God’s sake, stop seeing that woman.”
My grip strangled my phone. “I’m not breaking up with her.”
The past few months had been a shitshow. Isabella was the only bright spot in my life right now. Remove her, and…
Fuck.
I loosened my tie, trying to ease the sudden pressure in my chest.
“Be serious.” My mother switched from English to Cantonese, a sure sign she was pissed. “You’re willing to throw your future away over a girl? Everything you’ve worked for. Your career, your family, your legacy.”
My teeth clenched. “You’re blowing this out of proportion. They’re just photos.” Not even risqué ones, at that.
Dammit, I should’ve taken more precautions. I’d been arrogant, careless. So sure no one would ever catch on.
What had I been thinking?
That’s the problem. You weren’t.
I’d been too distracted by Isabella, and it’d come back to bite us both in the ass.
My mind flashed back to the note I’d received at the Saxon Gallery. I’d brushed it off as a prank, but perhaps there was more to it than I originally thought. The timing seemed awfully suspicious.
Be careful. Not everyone is who they seem.