Online comment by CoffeeAddict22
Kate
This couldn’t be happening. Itcouldn’t.
And yet, it had. My fingers clenched around my phone, and I fought back tears. I stood frozen in place, a storm of anger, fear, and despair raging within me. Had Henry already seen the interview? Surely. Everyone seemed to have seen it. It explained Ethan’s grim smile and the stunned looks of the others. They had all heard what Randell had said about me—that I was a kleptomaniac sex worker with a possible drug problem who was just using Henry for his money.
Henry...
I had to go to him, but I couldn’t move. I was paralysed and couldn’t think clearly. It felt like someone was crushing my chest. No, notsomeone—Randell. I played the interview again, hoping that it would be less terrible the second time, but it was just as cruel. The last few seconds were interrupted by an incoming call. Grace.
I accepted the call but didn’t speak.
“Oh my god, Kate!” She sounded relieved. “Did you watch it?”
“Yes,” I answered. Was that my voice? I sounded cool and distant, as if the small world I had built with Henry’s help over the past few weeks wasn’t falling apart. He had asked me not to talk about my life, because he had anticipated the uproar it would cause. But now Randell had revealed it all—in the worst way possible, in a story filled with lies. Yet it was less my own reputation that I was worried about, and more Henry’s and The Darlington’s.
“How are you?” Grace asked cautiously.
“I don’t know,” I answered. I felt everything and nothing.
The line was silent for a moment, and I could practically hear Grace’s unspoken questions. My stomach was tied in a nervous knot that grew tighter by the second.
She cleared her throat. “Who is this Randell guy?”
“He’s my mum’s ex-boyfriend.”
“So that part was true?”
“Yes.”
“What about the rest? The stuff about the sex and drugs?” Grace pressed. She didn’t sound accusatory, just curious—and perhaps a little disappointed that I had kept it from her. I understood that. I would explain everything, but not now. First, I had to get to Henry and find out the extent of the damage Randell’s interview had caused.
“Can we talk about this later?” I asked, already half out of the door. “I really have to talk to Henry.”
“OK. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you, Grace.”
We hung up, and I made my way to Henry’s office. My heart was racing, and I felt like I might throw up. I took the stairs downand marched purposefully towards his door. My gaze fixed straight ahead, I ignored the people I passed in the corridor, even though their twisted mouths and disgusted expressions made it difficult.
My steps slowed the closer I got to Henry’s closed office door. I could hear angry voices shouting from inside.
I didn’t even have to make an effort to eavesdrop.
“I don’t want to issue a fucking statement,” Henry yelled. “I want us to file an injunction. Right now!”
“You can’t afford to be associated with theft, prostitution, and drugs. It would be the end of The Darlington,” a more measured voice reprimanded. “You have to distance yourself from that woman.”
“The only thing I have to do is silence that son of a bitch.”
“What good will that do? He’s already said everything.”
“You’re the crisis manager, Vivian. You know how these things go. Tomorrow at the latest, that prick will be on some talk show mouthing off about Kate again. I won’t let it happen. Either you support me, or you get out of my office.”
“Henry!” snapped a man. It was unmistakably his father. “Could you stop worrying about that whore for one second? We have bigger—”
“What did you say?” Henry interrupted.
