The implication hit like a crate of bricks.
“Blackmail,” I said flatly.
I was going to murder Dante. He was the only mutual friend who would do something like this. He had good intentions, but his methods were questionable at best.
“Insurance,” Christian corrected. “Dante said you would be too morally pure to use it, but it never hurts to have leverage in your back pocket. I don’t care either way, but don’t say I never gave you anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my girlfriend. Enjoy the holidays.”
He hung up before I could answer.
“Everything okay?” Isabella asked when I returned to the living room with our snacks. “That took a long time.”
“Yes.” I settled next to her and banished Christian’s call to the back of my mind. It didn’t matter that he’d sent the equivalent of an information nuclear bomb; I was never going to use it.
“Everything’s fine.”
CHAPTER 25
Isabella
“If you type any faster, you’ll sprain your wrist,” Sloane said without looking up from her computer.
“Slow down.”
“I can’t slow down. I have less than a month to finish this book, and I only have”—I checked my word count—“forty two thousand, six hundred and four words, several hundred of which are placeholders.”
It was the week after New Year’s. People were back from the holidays, and the Upper West Side café where Sloane and I had set up camp buzzed with activity. She had a client meeting nearby in an hour, and I needed somewhere noisy where I could focus.
Normally, I used Vivian’s office as my writing space while she did admin work, but it was an offsite day for her. So here I was, my butt planted on a wooden stool, my heart racing, and my hands jittery from four cups of espresso as I attempted to wrangle my manuscript into shape.
The holidays had been a dream. I ate, slept, and floated through the city with Kai by my side and not a care in the world. But now that they were over and Manhattan had resumed its snarling, frenetic energy, the sheer impossibility of my task loomed before me like Mount Everest.
Forty thousand words in three weeks. God, why hadn’t I been more disciplined about my writing before?
Because you were distracted.
Because you always run from the hard stuff.
Because it’s easy to keep pushing the hard stuff to tomorrow until there are no tomorrows left.
Panic and self-loathing formed a tight knot in my throat.
Across from me, Sloane tapped away, her face a mask of cool efficiency. We were roughly the same age, and she owned her own super successful business. So did Vivian. How come they had their shit together and I didn’t? What was their secret?
I had a steady paycheck and a decent lifestyle, but I was merely surviving while they were thriving.
I didn’t begrudge my friends their success; however, the weight of my failures sat all too heavy on my chest. Why can’t I show up for myself where it really counts?
“How are things with Xavier?” I asked. I needed a distraction or I’d spiral into a wasteland of productivity. Nothing blocked my creativity more than creeping self-doubt. “Is he still alive, or have you murdered him and stashed his body in the trunk of your car?”
“Alive for now, but ask me again in twenty-four hours,” Sloane muttered. “I’m one irreverent quip away from hacking him to pieces with a butcher’s knife. It’ll be bad PR for me, but I can spin it. He’s insufferable.”
The Lululemon-wearing blonde next to us glanced up and slowly inched toward the other side of the long, communal table.
“Why did you take him on as your client if you hate him so much?” Sloane had been complaining about him since the day she picked him up from the airport. I thought they would’ve learned to get along by now, but her irritation seemed to expand by the day.
“Favor to his father.” Her curt tone disinvited further probing. “Don’t worry. I can handle Xavier Castillo. His stupid smile and dimples and joke gifts will not”—she jabbed at her keyboard—“deter me from my duties.”
My eyebrows skyrocketed. I had never, in all the years I’d known her, seen Sloane so heated.
“Of course not.” I paused. “What are your duties again?”
“Being a professional—” She sucked in a deep breath, held, and released before smoothing a hand over her perfect bun. Her voice leveled off. “Repairing, cultivating, and maintaining his reputation as a valuable member of society, not a spendthrift playboy with zero goals or ambition.”
“Well, if anyone can do it, it’s you,” I said cheerfully, wisely skipping over the reality that Xavier was, in fact, a spendthrift playboy with no discernible aspirations. “I have faith in you.”
“Thank you.”
Sloane and I lapsed into silence again.
I wasn’t sure whether my words were any good, but I kept typing.
Kai hadn’t said anything about the chapters I’d given him on Christmas, which didn’t help my anxiety. Had he read them yet? If yes, why hadn’t he mentioned it? Were they that bad? If no, why not? Maybe he wasn’t actually interested in reading them. Maybe I put him in an awkward position by foisting a half-finished, unedited manuscript on him. Should I ask him about it, or would that make things even more awkward?
“Isa.” There was a strange note in Sloane’s voice.
“Hmm?”
Ugh, I should’ve stopped with the dinosaur erotica. What was I thinking?
“Have you looked at the news?”
“No, why? Did Asher Donovan crash another car?” I asked distractedly.
No response.
I looked up. A cold sensation crawled down my spine at Sloane’s neutral expression. She only wore that look when something was very, very wrong.
She silently turned her laptop around so I could see her screen.
The National Star’s distinctive red and black text splashed across its website. Lurid headlines and unflattering celebrity photos dominated the page, which wasn’t unusual. The trashy tabloid was famous for…
Wait.
My eye snagged on a familiar dress. Long sleeves, emerald-green cashmere, a hem that skimmed the tops of my thighs. A fifteen-dollar steal from the depths of the Looking Glass boutique’s basement.
I’d worn it on a date with Kai two weeks ago.
My stomach bottomed out.
They weren’t photos of celebrities. They were photos of us. Kai and me on Coney Island. Us strolling through the New York Botanical Garden, our heads bent close in laughter. Him feeding me a custard tart at a dim sum restaurant in Queens. Me exiting his apartment building, looking thoroughly
mussed and slightly guilty.
Dozens of photos capturing some of our most intimate moments. We thought no one we knew would be in such out-of-the-way places, but obviously, we were wrong.
My skin flushed hot and cold. The muffin I ate for breakfast threatened to climb up my throat and ruin Sloane’s pristine MacBook.
I’m so dead.
Once the club saw this, it was over. I’d lose my job and probably get blacklisted from working at any bar within a fifty-mile radius. Even worse, if the reporters did any digging, they’d find out— “Breathe.” Sloane’s crisp voice sliced through my fog of panic. She slammed her laptop shut and pushed a glass of water in my hand. “Drink this. Count to ten. It’ll be okay.”