I slip off the mattress to the floor and hug my legs to my chest. This is how it starts. This is how it feels to lose control of a situation. Nothing screams career-ending move like your name plastered all over a sex tape on the internet. This type of stunt might work for some, but not for me and the industry I’m in.
My name linked to a scandal. Again. How many iterations of Alexandra am I going to go through in life? I drop my face to my palm to stifle a sob.
“Lexi? You’re still there?”
I breathe out a shaky breath. “Yes.” But the Earth can spew me out to space, and I’d be glad to wave goodbye.
“Any chance they’ve reached out to you? The hackers, that is? Mr. McIntyre asked me to phone you to find out.”
“I don’t know. How would they reach out?”
“Social media? Phone? Your personal email? Anything really. They’ll have the information we had for you in our system, so whatever you used when you filled in the employee forms ages ago plus the New York updates. I can send you what we have? You can check.”
I’m hot and cold and feel utterly helpless. The only thing left to rise in me is anger. “Are they going to pay?” I ask. “Is St Chalamet going to pay to keep my name out of their security scandal? They’ve already gotten rid of me with a wrongfuldismissal, which I could sue them for—” I break off. I shouldn’t say anything more. Not without a lawyer. For all I know, this call is being recorded. “I’ve got to go.” I kill the call and switch my phone off, certain I don’t want to see what’s going on in my email or social media notifications.
I drop my head back against the bed and go limp. It’s way too early in the morning to deal with this level of drama. To feel this drained. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet. It’s hardly eight o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake.
The temptation to curl into a ball and stay right here on the floor is big, but I’m better than this. My name is worth at least a million dollars. And St Chalamet will pay if I have any say in it. I’ll do anything to keep my face from being plastered all over the news. Ultimately, it’s their reputation to protect. If they expose me, I’ll expose them. For a long moment, I let the consequences play out in my head. My anxiety pops right back like a jack-in-the-box—as if I could ever really contain it.
This is a freaking nightmare. And I don’t want to deal. Not with St Chalamet, which is about to show its true colors, and not with lawyers who might not be able to fight a big corporation once all the details come out in court. I was in the wrong by not reporting the Mia Reed incident immediately. I was also in the wrong by having an offsite sex fest with Brent Fisherman, which, if it came out, would char my reputation black. Bottom line: company policy will serve my ass on a platter.
Rule #2 in the Lexi O’Reilly rulebook for staying happily employed and avoiding nasty lawsuits:stick to company policy and obey the rules.
Fuck it. That should probably be rule number one.
But a lawsuit is a different ballgame altogether. Once The Head gets a name—which it will if this ends up in court—I’ll just become the poor girl nobody cares to protect, barely good enough for Brent Fisherman to use as a final up-yoursto StChalamet before he made his exit for a GM position at another hotel group. He gave up on being promoted to GM atSt Chalamet. I can see it now. Nobody is going to spend a sleepless night worrying about me, that’s for sure. Worst of all is, anybody who watches that video would only smirk and thinkwho would wantthatif Mia Reed is spreading her legs.
I wipe my cheeks as kitchen noises come through my bedroom door.
Tristan.
I close my eyes and draw in a haggard breath. He’s making coffee. The life source. I need some of that. Preferably with a double shot of brandy.
Dealing with my first me-men-idiocy trifecta and teenage disappointment seems like a joke now that this other tsunami is rolling in. I heave myself off the floor and reach for a T-shirt to pull over my head. This silk cami leaves just enough to the imagination—to think I bought it to impress Brent Fucking Fisherman. I hope he grows fin rot on his junk.
I drag a brush through my hair, eye my phone, and leave it right there on the floor like an amputated limb. Evan is going to have to help here. My brain is too messy to make any decisions, but I’m going to have to, and soon.
With my head held high, I pad out of my bedroom. Faking it all the way. As soon as I step out of the short hallway into the open-concept living space, my gaze connects with Tristan’s.
His mug is halfway to his lips, but he stops as he takes me in. “I think you need this more than I do,” he says as I clamber onto a barstool by the kitchen island. His eyes are on me, chestnut brown, with lighter flecks of amber shining like rays from his irises. “You still like it with double cream and one sugar? This one’s close enough.”
That he can recall this detail years down the line is enough to make me ache. “Yes.” I groan as I reach for the mug he’s pushing in my direction. “Thank you.”
“What’s wrong, Lexi? If it’s about earlier?—”
“God,” I cut him off.Earlier like in-the-bathroom earlier or like five-years-ago earlier?We’re going to have that conversation at some point. I feel it in my gut. But not today. Please. “No. I spoke to a colleague—an ex-colleague.” I cup the mug between my hands and lift it to my nose for a slow inhale. I take a sip.Ugh. Tristan still makes the best coffee—something he does with the mix of evaporated milk and condensed milk that’s on the counter. “I am so fucked I don’t know if I’m coming or going.” Well, I’m not coming. And going somewhere seems like the only solution right now. Going somewhere very, very far away.
“Okay.” He pops another pod into the coffee machine and puts a mug under the spout. “Care to share more details?”
I glare at him over the rim of the mug, and he smiles that smile that always melted me on the spot.
“No worries,” he says on a chuckle. “Have your coffee first.”
It falls quiet between us—not uncomfortably quiet, thank God.
Five years is a long time to cradle a broken heart. Thank the universe that we all get to grow up. For years I used to be crazy, madly, blindly in love with Tristan. Just look at him, for starters. As if the bathroom scene wasn’t enough, dressed Tristan somehow seems even sexier. Nobody looks like that in a white T-shirt. His tan. His hair, now a dry crop of tangled curls. The cut of his clean-shaven jaw. The fit of his shirt over his broad shoulders and the way his biceps fill the sleeves without wanting to show off?—
I groan inwardly. Obviously, there was more to my teenage infatuation than his looks, but it didn’t matter. In the end, I meant nothing to him.
