Has Fiore Hospitality Group lost its beauty along with its owner’s face?
The words hit like a second mauling.
He’s offering me an exclusive. A healing-journey piece. All I have to do is sit down for an interview. Let him document the recovery. Turn my trauma into content.
Over my dead fucking body.
I forward the email to Elena with a three-line response.
Shut the fucker down.
Her answer comes back in under a minute.
Understood. I’ll draft something neutral. Two sentences about staff-family supports and move on.
Good. Let Gianna handle the optics. Let Valentina throttle the requests. Let the business run like it’s supposed to.
While I hide in here like a coward.
Except I’m not hiding.
Not really.
I’mprotectingthem.
Yes.
Protecting Ben from seeing her father become a spectacle. Protecting Jess from having to defend me to vultures like Kells. Protecting the staff from having to watch their boss fall apart in public.
That’s what I tell myself anyway.
My phone rings. Jag.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Quick update,” he says. “That mommy blogger. Marlowe Pennington. She showed up at the curb yesterday. Tried toambush Jess.”
My grip tightens on the phone. Pain flares in my opposite hand. “And?”
“Jess handled it. No comment. Filepe got her off property. The video she posted has been removed per our takedown request.”
“Good.”
“Elena wants to know if you want to pursue further action. Legal pressure. Make an example of her.”
I think about Jess. About what she texted when I offered to destroy Marlowe.
Let her do her thing.
Compassion instead of vengeance. Grace instead of crushing someone who’s just trying to survive the same system that chewed Jess up and spit her out.
“No,” I tell Jag. “We do nothing more.”
“Nothing?”
“Jess doesn’t want her destroyed. So we don’t destroy her.”
Silence on the line. Then: “Understood. I’ll let Elena know.”
