Ashford Jets had recently hired a new liaison to interface with the airport’s staff, but he’d been getting static from them when trying to set up our quarterly emergency preparedness drill. Safety was our top priority. It was why wetripledwhat was the industry standard, and I wasn’t about to let that fall through the cracks, even if it took me coming down in person to make it happen.
No surprise, the moment I arrived, the airport COO appeared like magic, making sure I was getting the attention I needed. The whole mess was wrapped up quickly, and I was back at our corporate office in under an hour, filled with the satisfaction of another problem decisively put to bed. I didn’t like pulling rank, but when it came to doing things the right way, there was no room for negotiation.
Which was why the whole Scarlet Rush debacle was such a nightmare.
I sighed as I headed for my office, faking smiles for the colleagues I passed. Lately, my wholelifewas a nightmare. Running into Gwen had made that all the more clear.
I could maybe admit she had a right to be mad at me, but that didn’t make it easier to see her aim that scowl at me. Should I have been the bigger person and refrained from taunting her? Probably. Did I regret what I’d done instead?
Nope, not even a little. If she was going to sharpen her claws on me, I was going to swipe back. That was just how I operated—for better or for worse.
“Thereyou are.”
I froze in place when I saw Susan and Denise standing at my office door.
I’d hired my assistant, Susan, right as I began my tenure with Ashford Jets, and she’d quickly become the most important person in our entire organization. More important thanme, if I was honest with myself, and she knew it. Thankfully, we had an excellent working partnership, despite her tendency to lean into our age difference and act like an over-involved mother. She always teased me that I gave her more gray hairs than her own children.
Our marketing manager Denise was Susan’s work bestie, and the two of them together were more powerful than a coven. But judging from Denise’s expression, she hadn’t just stopped by for a gossip session. She was wearing her “bad news” face.
“What?” I asked as I brushed past them. “You keep my calendar, Susan, you knew where I was.”
“I still think you should’ve sent Mark instead of going yourself,” she sniffed at me. “You have a staff more than capable of dealing with FBO issues.”
“But I like addressing those kinds of challenges,” I said over my shoulder as they followed me into my office uninvited. “All it takes is a face-to-face discussion andpoof, problem solved.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not always the solution,” Denise said in a dour voice. “We need to chat.”
I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her doom and gloom. “I wish I could, but I have?—”
“No you don’t,” Susan interrupted. “I cleared your next appointment so the two of you could talk.”
I paused with my hand on my chair. “It’s that bad?”
Denise’s mouth went tight. Between her blazer and tidy cropped haircut, she looked like a newscaster about to discuss a train derailment, which my life sort of was, lately.
“Yes. Things have been taking a turn.”
The tension headache I’d been fighting took root behind my eyes. “Okay. Have a seat.”
“Holler if you need backup,” Susan said conspiratorially to Denise as she walked out.
“What’s going on?” I asked as the door shut behind her.
“The Rushies. They’re not giving up. Our ‘wait it out’ strategy is backfiring.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. “Fuck.”
“They’rereallycreative,” Denise said, barely hiding her admiration for the teenagers currently attacking my business with the social media equivalent of pointy sticks. “They’re rewriting her songs with lyrics that make Ashford Jets sound like it’s the bad boyfriend.
“Scarlet herself liked a few of them, and now they’re going mega viral. Weekend Update onSaturday Night Livemade a joke about the whole thing. You’re a hashtag, Harrison. The TikTok algorithmlovesthe drama. It’s a story that won’t quit, thanks to her star power and Gen Z’s love of memes.”
I’d been convinced the fuss would die down quickly given the internet’s attention span. After all, it wasn’t like I’dintentionallybeefed the planet’s number-one celebrity.
I’d been caught off guard by a reporter outside the courthouse as I was closing an unfortunate chapter of my life, finally signing the divorce papers my ex, Miranda, had been weaponizing against me for two long years. I wasn’t heartbroken about the end of our relationship—our marriage had been dead long before the paperwork—but Iwaspretty damn ticked off at how she’d dragged things out for no discernible reason other than to make me miserable. If that really was her goal, then mission fucking accomplished.
Even beyond her petty grandstanding, signing the papers was a reminder of what had pushed us into marriage in the first place, and how different my life was now. I’d been feeling bruised and raw, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was a microphone shoved in my face. The breakup of my marriage wasn’t for public consumption. I hated talking about it.
When the reporter asked me my feelings about Scarlet Rush’s recent comments on the bad experience she’d had with Ashford Jets, I snapped.
