“Well, if I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets anymore, would they?”
She rises, then lets out a deep exhale. Instead of moving to the front door like I suggested, she settles into the sofa chair, making herself comfortable. “I asked you what you wanted, and I didn’t give you a chance to answer. I’m sorry. It’s been a very stressful couple days for all of us. Charlie especially.”
Finally allowed to speak, the question on my mind barrels out like a river breaking through a dam. “How is she doing?”
“You’re worried about her?”
“Well, I caused this, right? I mean that hug was the extent of it. Charlie and I didn’t… Even if they find out who I am and what I do, I can honestly say Charlie never hired me. If I need to make a public statement, I will.” Or, at least I didn’tlether hire me, but we can keep that tidbit out of the media.
Sage doesn’t move. She studies me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “You’d do that? There’d be implications. You know that much attention would have law enforcement looking into your client history, just to make an example out of you. Everybody who gets close to Charlie falls under extreme scrutiny. It’s why she prefers to be alone.”
I shrug. “I’m nearly at rock bottom. What’s dropping one more foot, you know? If it helps her, I’ll do it.”
Something shifts in Sage’s face. The attack-dog posture softens, just slightly. She looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time—not as a threat to be neutralized, but as an actual person. “She won’t get out of bed,” Sage admits. “She’s still herein New York, still in that penthouse, afraid to leave. Yesterday there was a small mob outside of the hotel with signs. The internet is demanding a public apology. They want her to grovel, to admit she’s a cheater, to confirm every terrible thing they’ve decided she is.” She pauses. “Except they don’t know the truth.”
“Even the truth isn’t the truth,” I say, lowering myself back onto the couch. “Her relationship with Grayson—that’s fake too. A PR scheme. One you cooked up, I’m guessing.”
Sage doesn’t deny it. “That’s how this industry works. Narrative is everything. Truth is whatever we can sell.”
“And right now you can’t sell anything that helps her?”
“I had an idea yesterday, but I thought I’d be confronting a slimy escort with blackmail and extortion on his heart. I had no idea you’d be such a…”
I narrow my eyes. “Such a what?”
“Simp,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “And the insults continue,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No, I meant it in a good way. You could be a real asshole, but instead you want to help? I?—”
“Should maybe stop assuming everybody is the enemy?” I jump in.
“Taio—when it comes to fame? Everybodyisthe enemy. Until they’re not. So, you really want to help? Because that idea I mentioned…”
“All right, I’m all ears. Let’s hear it.”
She reaches into her briefcase and pulls out a stack of papers, sliding them across the coffee table toward me.
“What’s this?”
“An employment contract.” She taps the top page. “Effective five weeks ago. It says you were hired as Charlie Riley’s personal bodyguard.”
I pick up the papers, scanning the official-looking letterhead, the dense blocks of legal text. “I was?”
“You were. That’s why you were alone with her in the penthouse that night. That’s why the cameras caught you embracing—you’re paid to protect her, to be close to her. Was it a tender moment? Perhaps. But it was strictly professional. A bodyguard comforting his client after a difficult evening.”
It’s clever. I have to admit that. It explains everything without requiring anyone to believe anything scandalous.
“This might actually work,” I say slowly.
“It will work. But only if you sell it.” Sage leans forward. “If we release this story and then you disappear, people will assume it’s a cover-up and we cooked this story up?—”
“Which you did.”
“—which we did, yes. But we need it to look organic. Which means we need you to actually play the part.”
“Play the bodyguard?"
