Yael rolls her eyes. “Then for fuck’s sake, Georgia, let us in.”
* * *
At least these two appreciate a good cup of hand-brewed black coffee. They hum into their mugs, quietly complimenting the flavor. It unspools my memories of my morning here with Alec, his unapologetic sweet tooth, the signing later that day, his proposition that I stay with him at the hotel, Yael’s warnings…
I have to admit I don’t entirely feel like Yael Miller is Team Alec right now. I don’t understand her motives at all. Why isn’t she with him? Alec may be right, and Yael may be in love with Sunny, but Yael is his personal assistant. She handles everything for him but lets him fly back to London alone in the middle of a crisis? Heat creeps up my neck.
“How are you holding up?” Sunny asks me.
“It seems like the more important question is how you’re holding up,” I say, turning my gentler attention her way.
She laughs humorlessly. “It’s been a terrible few months, but I suppose the silver lining is that instead of constantly worrying that the other shoe is going to drop, the other shoe has actually dropped.”
“Yes, I think even if Alec hadn’t been photographed outside of the club, your and his association with Anders would have eventually come out anyway.”
“Exactly.” We stare at each other for several long beats, and finally our smiles break out in unison. “God, it’s so good to see you,” she says. “You became the most perfect version of your future self. And you’re just right in front of me.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” My heart does a heavy, contented squeeze behind my breastbone.
With a small smile, Sunny sets her coffee down on the table and tucks her legs beneath her. We’re the same age—our birthdays are only one week apart—but engulfed as she is by the cushions of our big yellow sofa, she seems so much younger. Her posture, her energy—it all feels very youthful. How could anyone hurt this person? A wave of heat passes over me, and I relate very intensely to Alec’s protective streak.
“You did an amazing job with the story,” Sunny says. “I’m very grateful.”
I watch her, unsure what to say other than “Thank you.” I want to say that I’m sorry it exploded the way it did, but if the people who are behind the crimes end up being held accountable, we’ll probably all admit that it was worth it.
“We all have a bit of a mess to sort out,” she says, “but I didn’t want you to wonder whether it was worth breaking it. It was.”
Much like her brother, Sunny has capably read my thoughts. “I know that’s why Alec wanted to fly home to London,” I say. “To make a plan with you about how to handle the fallout.”
“He struggled to leave LA because of his feelings for you,” she says, “and so I felt the need to take charge of this. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Alexander’s tendency is to want to shelter me from the pain of this situation, and I appreciate it. I really do. But I don’t want to be coddled anymore. I don’t want to be protected. And like you said, it’s only so long before my own association with Josef is going to come out.” She picks up her mug again. “So, not that it isn’t amazing to see you for the sake of seeing you, but I have a proposition.”
Thunder rumbles beneath my ribs. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“Word on the street is you’re unemployed.” She grins. “How’d you like to put your journalist cap back on and help me make some waves?”
Twenty-Two
Sitting across a table from Kim Min-sun, it’s hard to ignore the intensity of her beauty. The newest face of Dior is all angles and precision. She speaks with careful forethought and taps shell-pink nails against her full lips when she’s weighing how to best put something into words. It’s easy to see how she managed to get offers from eight luxury brands in only the past two months. There isn’t another face like hers out there, anywhere.
But then a smile will crash across her features, and the dramatically playful Kim family dimples appear. It’s startling, in those moments, how much she looks like her brother.
“Alexander is six years older,” she says. “He’s always been a caretaker. He would rather die than give the impression he can’t handle something.”
She says all this like these qualities explain everything. Which, I guess, they do. They explain why he feels responsible for the way she was brought up, why he can sometimes be an overprotective drag, and why, on Valentine’s Day this year, he stormed into a nightclub, pulled his sister’s drugged and unconscious body from a VIP room, and sat on a bathroom floor with her in his arms until she was able to stand on her own feet and leave with him.