“Sterling!” Catherine hisses.
“Sorry, Mom.” He gives her a side-eyed glance. “But it’s not like you shouldn’t be used to it. That word is thrown around a lot more in the UK than it is here, as you’re well aware.”
She shoots him an admonishing look. “We’re not in the UK at the moment, are we, darling?”
He lifts his hands in surrender and turns back to me. “You got Maya out of the dorms and into a nice flat, but I told her it probably wasn’t secure enough and tried to convince her to move somewhere else, but she refused. Within a week of moving, the paparazzi found her flat and contacted her neighbors with bribes. Two of her neighbors took those bribes. She’shad a hidden camera set up outside her door and microphones recording near it.”
“What?” I shout, then I shrink in my seat when family members from the other side of our bubble shoot glares my way.
“Yes. So, I’m trying again to convince her to move to a much more secure location. With no close neighbors.”
“You mean your house,” Asher says.
Sterling shrugs. “I have plenty of guest rooms to choose from. And security is always on site. As well as a driver. But Maya is being difficult.”
“Maya,” my mother says. “You didn’t tell me your neighbors had agreed to spy on you. That is extremely disturbing. Not to mention unsafe. You’re already alone in a foreign country, and now this makes it a hundred times worse. The paparazzi in London are known to be some of the most aggressive in the world.”
“They are, believe me,” Catherine says in a hard tone. A ghost of vulnerability flashes across her face, and Harrington reaches out and rubs a comforting hand down her back. She leans into the touch for a second before clearing her throat and straightening her shoulders.
“Thank you for backing my case, Mrs. Hale,” Sterling says. Then he takes out his phone and begins texting someone while ignoring Maya’s weak arguments that she’s fine.
“Done,” he says after a moment.
“What’s done?” Maya asks, giving him a hard look.
“You know.”
“Sterling, don’t you dare?—”
“What’s done?” I ask.
“My staff is on their way as we speak to Maya’s apartment. She’ll be all moved out by nightfall.”
“You can’t just have your staff go into my apartment and move my things out!”
“I can, and I did.”
“How are they going to get in?”
Sterling snorts then chuckles darkly. “If you think I don’t have a key to your apartment?—”
“What? How long have you had a key? And how did you get it?”
“I’ve had a key for as long as you’ve had a key. I was with you and Ella when you signed the lease.”
“And you just took one of the keys? How? I have both.”
“I paid for a third.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“No.”
“That’s illegal. And it’s also illegal for your staff to enter my apartment without my permission.”
“Sue me.”
Maya huffs and shoves a bite of eggs into her mouth, chewing angrily.
