And then what? You already broke his nose. What else is there?
“I’m going to figure out what he did to make you so terrified.”
He snatched the frozen mask off the floor and headed for the door. Vivienne stayed perfectly still and let him leave, listening to his footsteps recede down the hall. The moment he was gone, she sank onto the tiled floor. Burying her face in her hands, she let out a single, soundless scream.
She wondered what Thomas would think if he knew the horrible truth.
If he knew that it was Jesse Grayson who was terrified of her.
His name was Jesse Grayson.
And if Thomas ran into him again, he was going to do a whole lot more than break his nose.
It hadn’t taken him all that long to parse out the identity of Vivienne’s unwelcome visitor. Relatively, anyway. He’d sat awake until just before dawn—his computer in his lap, the guestroom lit in a blue-light cast—and panned through Vivienne’s endless posts.
He’d found what he was looking for in a candid shot of Vivienne and Hadley Appelbaum laughing up at the photographer, prom dresses glittering and corsages wilting. The comment from Grayson had been one of a dozen:keep that corsage on tonight.
It was none of his business. Thomas knew it objectively. Rationally. Logically.
It burned a hole through him all the same.
Clicking over to Grayson’s account, he’d found the photos wiped. Only an old profile picture remained—a faraway shot of a man standing atop a rocky outcrop, the sun streaming in around him.
But it was the man he was looking for, Thomas had been sure of it.
In his pocket, his phone rang. It was the second call he’d received from his fraternity president in nearly as many hours. The ringtone rattled through the hall where he stood now, braced against the wide wainscoting. He silenced it just as the door to Philip’s office flew open. With his thinning hair mussed and a steaming mug of coffee in hand, Philip looked as though he’d gotten even less sleep than Thomas.
“Come in,” he said. “Let’s make this quick.”
Thomas tailed after him into the office, sitting where indicated. Philip dropped into the executive chair across from him and set his coffee on his desk. For several moments, he sat with a finger balanced along his lip, regarding Thomas as though he were sizing him up for slaughter.
Just when Thomas was about to give in and break the silence himself, Philip sat forward and pushed a thick manila file across the desk.
“Read through this. Sign it.”
Wary, Thomas scooped the file toward him and lifted the front cover. Several paragraphs of legal jargon spanned the length of the very first page.
“Uh—what is it?”
“A simple nondisclosure agreement,” said Philip, with a dismissive wave. “It’s all boilerplate.”
“Oh.” Thomas let the file fall shut. “Is there a reason you’re giving this to me now?”
“There is, in fact.” Philip leaned back and laced his fingers over his stomach. His mouth looked as though he’d bitten into something sour. “Tonight, the Turner family is hosting their annual cotillion. It’s an extremely exclusive event. My colleagues will be there and, regrettably, so will the press.”
“Oh,” said Thomas, who felt there was something critical he was missing.
“I’m not sure if Vivienne told you,” said Philip, “but one of my longtime clients lost his son this past weekend. You met him briefly. Bryce Donahue.”
“I saw the news,” said Thomas. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yes, it’s a real tragedy,” agreed Philip. “Unfortunately, reporters are sharks. They get a whiff of blood in the water, they come circling. Isaac Shaw from theDaily Talkis one of them. He’s a hack journalist—the sort that thinks everything is a conspiracy. There’s not a soul that takes him seriously, but he thinks he can get a quote off Vivienne, and that makes him a problem.”
“Got it,” said Thomas. “You want me to run interference?”
Philip beamed. “You’re a smart kid. Shaw doesn’t know a lick of sign. If they encounter one another—and they likely will—I’d rest easier knowing you were there to help her navigate the interaction with grace.”
“I can do that,” said Thomas, flipping again through the document. “Although—if you don’t mind me saying so—I was already doing that. I’m not sure what the NDA is for.”
