Tasha had handed me an opportunity, and I’d turned it into a cliché. The twenty-three-year-old junior who couldn’t keep it professional when a powerful man paid attention to her. Every stereotype, every assumption, every quiet doubt anyone had ever had about whether I was ready—I’d just confirmed all of it on a pool table.
When I came out of the bathroom, Maddox was awake. Sitting up against the headboard, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. His eyes dropped to my blouse, buttoned to the collar, and came back to my face.
“You’re leaving,” he said. Not a question.
“I have a ten o’clock.”
“That’s not why you’re leaving.”
My fingers were tight around my phone. “Maddox, last night was?—”
“Don’t.”
The word landed hard. His voice was quiet but the warmth from last night was gone. Something colder had replaced it—not anger. Recognition. He was watching me put the mask on and he knew exactly what it looked like because he’d spent his entire career refusing to wear one.
“You’re going to tell me it was a mistake,” he said. “That you’re my publicist and this can’t happen again and it’s nothing personal.” His jaw was set. “Go ahead. Say the version that sounds right instead of the version that’s true. That’s what everyone does.”
“That’s not?—”
“It is. You’re putting on a show, Saylor.”
The words hit hard. I opened my mouth to argue and nothing came out, because he was right. I was standing in his bedroom rehearsing the professional version of myself—the one who’d never let this happen, the one who had it together, the one Tasha could trust. A careful, palatable, professional version of the woman who’d challenged a stranger to strip pool just hours ago.
I left anyway.
The walk from Reboot to Pixel Lofts was eleven blocks in the early morning heat. I didn’t call a car. My heels hit the sidewalk in a rhythm that felt like punishment and my eyes burned the entire way. By the time I reached the lobby, my blouse was damp with sweat and my throat was tight with something I refused to let become crying.
I took the stairs to 3C. Closed the door. Sat on the edge of my bed in the apartment I loved, in the building I loved, on the floor where I’d been planning a Friday happy hour to bring my neighbors together, and pressed my palms flat against my knees.
Find the piece of the truth the clip cut out.
My own words. The advice I’d given to a stranger in a coffee shop and then built an entire crisis strategy around. The whole point—the entire thesis of the sizzle reel, of my approach to Maddox’s account, of everything I believed about PR—was that the truth was better than the performance. That audiences could always tell the difference. That you never put someone in front of a camera to say something they didn’t mean.
And I’d just walked out of his condo pretending I didn’t mean any of it.
Because of how it would look. To Tasha. To Dennis. To the industry. To anyone watching a twenty-three-year-old junior publicist fall for the client she was supposed to be managing.
I was doing the exact thing I’d been coaching Maddox not to do—hiding behind a curated version of myself instead of letting anyone see what was real.
You’re putting on a show, Saylor.
I picked up my phone and called Tasha.
She answered on the second ring. “Saylor. I was about to?—”
“I need to tell you something about the Juniper account.” My voice was steady. I didn’t know how. “I’ve developed a personal relationship with Maddox Vale. It started during the intake process and it’s become romantic. I’m telling you because you trusted me with this account and you deserve honesty, not because I’m asking permission.”
Silence. Long enough that I could hear the hum of her office AC through the phone.
“I appreciate you telling me,” Tasha said. Her tone was unreadable. “We’ll talk about it when you come in.”
“Okay.”
“Saylor?”
“Yes?”
A pause. “Thank you for not making me find out from someone else.”
