“Why?” She got off her stool and came closer. “Why wouldn’t she want to? She’s your mother, for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t she know you at all? Doesn’t she stand by her son?”
“Not when it comes to something like this.”
Devi crossed her arms, considering that. “Why, Dane?”
I gazed up at her, and suddenly I got a pretty vivid picture of the kind of mother she’d be. The kind who’d let the world tear her son apart only over her dead body.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get that kind of mother.
“Haven’t you got this yet?” I said. “My family cares more about their precious last name than they do about the heir who bears it. They’ve had enough problems with men in this family. Don’t even get me started on my dad.”
“Okay…”
“I’m fucked if I’m not what they want me to be. Plain and simple. And this,” I waved my phone in the air, “is not it.”
Devi just stood there, looking at me sprawled on the couch in my suit pants and nothing else, like a fucking wreck.
How was I supposed to walk into the agency office today? Just go about my day like this didn’t fucking happen?
How did you do that, when you knew you were innocent, but you also knew plenty of people would assume otherwise—and you hadn’t even had a chance to defend yourself yet?
“You really think they won’t believe you?” she asked me. “There’s no chance that they’ll take your side on this?”
“They’ll take my side, publicly. If it suits them. But believe me? I really don’t know.” My phone was going berserk with messages, buzzing in my hand. And I really did not want to have to deal with this shit. It was fucking unfair. I didn’t even do anything.
I looked at Devi. She was still just staring at me. But she looked like she believed me.
I wondered, though… How long wouldshestand by me on this?
And how long could I really expect her to?
“Devi…” I forced the words out. “You need to prepare yourself that this could be it.”
“It?”
“You know. The end.”
“The end of what?”
“The end… of everything. The end of Dane Davenport.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They could cut me off over this. It’s too much scandal. And this kind of shit… this could linger for years. False accusations coming out of the woodwork…” I dropped my phone on the couch and rubbed both hands over my face. “I’m truly fucked here.”
Yup. I was finally imploding.
I couldn’t take this shit anymore.
Being hated for who I was, who I’d always been, was one thing.
Being hated for shit, terrible shit, that I didn’t even do? Totally something else.
Whoever had it out for me, they’d chosen well. Hit me where it hurt. How better to ruin the male heir of a women-run empire than to make him an enemy of women in the media? And turn the women in his life against him.
“What does that mean?” Devi said. “What are you saying?”
I dropped my hands and looked at her. She deserved that much; for me to look her in the eye when I told her how badly I’d failed her.
