“You’re gonna need to make an exception this time bro.” He threw a printout on my desk.
I looked at it long enough to see that they were digging into her pass.
They’d even touched on something that I had shied away from, her past in laws. Here it said that they’d rejected her.
I read on to see that…his family had been wealthy, not as wealthy as mine, but wealthy enough. They’d rejected the orphan girl, but their son had forsaken everything to marry her anyway.
No wonder she was holding on to those memories. Jealousy still raged in my gut, and it hurt that he’d loved her that much. How the fuck am I supposed to deal with this shit when it never seems to fade?
29
“What is this shit? Who wrote this?” It wasn’t so much the story about her past that bothered me but the asshole went on to cast doubt on our relationship.
If that wasn’t bad enough there were pictures of her everywhere. “Who the fuck authorized them to use her face?”
“I thought you might want to know so I have the investigative department working on it right now.”
“Has she seen this?”
“I’m not sure but if she hasn’t it won’t be too long before she does.”
“Fine, you take care of this I’ll see to her. Call legal, I want her pictures off of there before end of day.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Bury this fuck.” I was beyond pissed when I went to her office. I knew right away that she’d seen it. “Come ‘ere baby it’s okay.”
I pulled her up from the chair and into my arms holding her close to my chest. “I was afraid of something like this, didn’t I tell you?”
“Didn’t you tell me what? If you tell me that we shouldn’t be together because of shit like this you’ll only piss me the fuck off.”
“That’s easy for you to say. It’s not your name being dragged through the mud. I don’t want any of this…”
“Giavanna!”
My harsh retort shut her up and my slight shaking of her got her attention. “We’re not doing this. I’ll do what I can to have the story removed and your pictures erased, as to the rest of it, you and I know the truth, I refuse to let you hide behind this.”
“I came in here to see if you were okay. Where is my strong opinionated woman? You’re always ready to spit in my eye and defy me, but this is how you handle others?”
She pouted and looked down at my chest. “I see, you can only be that bold with me. It’s a wonder you don’t understand what that means.”
“What do you mean by that?” I studied her for a long minute before taking her head in my hands and kissing her forehead. I released her and headed for the door.
“Think about it. Think about why you’re able to confront me, go head to head with me at every turn, but you hide from everyone else.”
Hopefully she’ll come to the truth on her own without any help from me. But if I needed any more proof of her feelings for me that was it. She already felt safe with me and she didn’t even know it.
Back in my office I sat in deep contemplation of this turn of events. The news was bound to spread and though it had been a while since I battle the tabloids over my privacy, I well remember how they work.
As I sat there a plan began to form in my mind. Maybe I could use this to my advantage after all. There’s nothing better than turning a negative into a positive.
I waited until end of day, after I’d made some follow up calls to make sure that the story and her illegally taken photos would be removed to make my move.
Since she isn’t a public figure and had given no one the right to take let alone post her photos online, it wasn’t going to be too hard to take care of.
Now I had to convince her that it was for the best if she let Amber stay at my place while we were gone. I still haven’t grown fond of her neighborhood.
I went to her office an hour after everyone else had left because I knew we would be the only two left here. Sure enough she was still at her desk making last minute adjustments to her plans for the hotel.
