23. Gavin
GAVIN
The boardroom smells like tension and cologne and power, rotting at the edges.
Twelve people sit around the table, most of them too angry to pretend they’re calm. Edison is seated three spots down from me, hands folded on the table like he’s hosting a goddamn brunch.
“Jack resigning during a livestream,” someone says, loud and sharp, “was a PR disaster.”
“He didn’t even go through proper channels,” another board member adds. “It looked spontaneous. Desperate.”
“It was desperate,” Edison cuts in smoothly, eyes on me. “He panicked. Got emotional. You let this entire…situation fester for too long.”
I breathe through my nose. Don’t blink. Don’t flinch.
“You want to explain how it got this far?” someone else snaps.
“We’ve had more drama in the last month than we had in the last five years,” another voice chimes in. “Sex scandals, HR complaints, public resignations?—”
“Unstable leadership,” Edison says, almost pleasantly. “And let’s be honest, things weren’t this chaotic when Vivian was running the firm.”
He’s had this job for an hour. What the actual fuck. I clench my jaw.
“Vivian’s personal life was in shambles when she started,” Edison continues, “and she still managed to keep this business on track.”
I lean forward slowly. My voice is low. “Heather already resigned. Would you like to do the same?”
The room stills. Dead quiet.
I sweep my gaze across the table. “Any of you. There’s the door. You don’t like how I’m handling it? Leave. Now.”
Silence.
Edison’s smile doesn’t slip, but the light behind his eyes flickers. He wasn’t expecting that. He thought I’d play diplomat. Take the jab. Swallow the blood. Not today.
Harrison’s voice cuts through the tension. “I’m with you, Gavin.”
Everyone turns.
He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t shift in his seat. He just says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I always have been. I always will be.”
That cools the room.
A few board members look away, suddenly very interested in their notepads or their phones. One clears her throat and asks about quarterly forecast alignment. The tension doesn’t vanish. But it simmers down enough to keep the roof on.
We go through the motions after that—how to replace Jack, the hiring freeze now that Edison’s settled in, whatever.
I’m not really in the room anymore. Because all I can hear is Edison’s voice echoing in my head. Things weren’t this chaotic when Vivian was in charge.
That part sticks in my teeth like gristle.
And I know exactly what I need to do next. I get up without a word, feeling too many eyes on me. Only one pair of them matter—Harrison. But he can’t help me right now.
By the time I pull up to the gate, my jaw’s still tight and my hands are stiff on the wheel. I haven’t been here in twenty years.
Twenty-five? I can’t remember.
The last time I saw this house, I was a teenager. Vivian had just finalized a divorce that had dragged on for years. My father had moved out—public enemy number one in a scandal he never defended himself against. Not publicly. Not to me.
All I knew then was the headlines and what Mom told me. Hollywood heartthrob cheats on powerhouse publicist with aspiring actress. Photos of him leaving someone’s apartment. Vivian’s dignified statements. Me sitting on the stairs with my fists balled up, wondering how he could do that to us.
But now? Now I’m not so sure what I know anymore. With Vivian investing in Icon PR, none of it makes sense. At the moment, nothing feels like it makes sense. Not Mom. Not Parker. Not me.
The gate opens automatically when I pull forward. Security must’ve cleared my name after I called from the road. I hadn’t expected Jamison to answer himself, but he did—calm, amused, curious. Told me to come by.
I wasn’t expecting that either.
The estate is immaculate. Stucco and terracotta with a view that eats the city whole. Perfect landscaping. Expensive silence. It all feels smaller than I remember. But then again, I’m not a kid anymore.
Odette greets me at the door. She’s wearing white linen, her hair swept back, glass of something citrusy in her hand like she’s permanently on the third day of vacation. “Gavin,” she says, smiling like she didn’t help blow up my childhood.
I nod politely. “Odette.”
“Come in. He’s on the back patio. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
The inside is cool and sunlit, full of open spaces and warm tones and furniture I know cost more than Parker’s car. Maybe mine too. I wait in the hallway, hands in my pockets, trying not to grind my teeth.
Then I hear his voice.
“Gavin.”
I turn.
Jamison Thatcher hasn’t changed much. A little more gray at the temples. A little more sun in his skin. He’s still tall. Still walks like he used to stand in front of cameras instead of boardrooms.
I don’t say anything at first. Neither does he.
Then he gives a small smile. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
“I wasn’t either.”
We shake hands.
“You look good,” he says.
I nod. “So do you.”
He gestures toward the patio. “Come on. Let’s sit.”
The table out back is surrounded by orange trees and sunflowers. I sit, and he pours iced tea like we’re catching up on a casual Thursday afternoon.
To get the ball rolling, I start. “Thank you for agreeing to this.”
“You said you had questions. I’ll try to give you answers.”
I nod. “I need the truth.”
He sits back. Doesn’t ask what I mean. Just waits.
So I say it. “What actually happened with you and Mom and the divorce?”
His face tightens just slightly. He’s quiet for a moment. “Nothing like what the press says.”
I blink. “What does that mean?”
“Viv and I…by the time those pictures ran, we were already separated. I’d moved out of the house. We were weeks from finalizing everything.”
“But the scandal?—”
“She made it one. Not me. Not us.”
That hits harder than I expect. “She leaked the story? She’s allergic to scandals of her own. Why would she do that?”
He nods. “She needed public sympathy.”
“What the hell for?”
“She had started her firm two years before. It wasn’t going well. She needed traction. She needed a villain for her narrative.” He shrugs.
But I’m seeing red. “And that was you.”
He smiles, but it’s tired. “Better me than her, in her eyes.”
“What about the affair with Odette?”
His sigh is deep. “That didn’t start until me and your mom were separated, Gavin.”
I lean back, reeling. “I thought—” I stop. Breathe. “I spent years thinking you left because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”
“I left because we were already over. We had been for a long time. She just made sure it looked worse.”
I stare at the orange tree, not seeing it anymore. Something inside of me cracks. The orange tree’s leaves sway in the breeze, quiet and indifferent to the storm rolling through my head.
I don’t say anything for a while. Just sit back in the patio chair and stare at the bright sky, trying to stitch a thousand broken threads together into something that makes sense.
Jamison doesn’t push. Doesn’t rush. He pours more tea. He doesn’t try to fill the silence with apology.
Eventually, I find my voice. “She always said you tanked your career by chasing women.”
He raises an eyebrow. A small smirk pinches the corner of his mouth.
“That you were unreliable. Self-destructive. That you blew every shot you had and blamed her when it fell apart.”
He smiles faintly. “And you believed her.”
I hesitate. “I did.”
“I figured you would,” he says, tone not unkind. “She was always better at PR than I ever was.”
“She was your publicist.”
“And my wife. That got messy.”
“Was it true?”
“That I blew it?” He shrugs. “Somewhat. I was tired. Disillusioned. I didn’t want to act anymore. She hated that. Said I was wasting the name she helped build.”
I stare at him. “So, she spun a scandal out of your exit.”
“She didn’t just spin it. She scripted it.
” He leans forward now, elbows on the table, voice softer.
“She leaked the photos. Made sure they’d run on a Tuesday before the fall premieres.
Gave the papers exclusive statements about my ‘affair’ and her ‘dignified silence.’ You were in school that day, remember?
She told me to stay away, let the fire burn, and keep my mouth shut. ”
I do remember.
I remember walking into school and everyone—even my teachers—went silent as soon as I walked in. I remember a girl I liked asking if my mom was going to divorce “the cheating actor.”
“You knew it would hurt me,” I say, voice tight.
“I didn’t expect it to reach you like that. I told her to leave you out of it.”
“She didn’t.”
“I know.” He looks genuinely regretful.
But regret doesn’t put years back on the clock.
I cross my arms. “You could’ve reached out. Told me the truth.”
“You told me not to. Said you never wanted to see me again.”
“I was a teenager.”
More regret heaps onto the lines on his face. “I thought staying away was doing you a favor. I thought, if she could win the public over, maybe she could convince you to hate me and you’d still have your mom.”
“A mom who lied to me? That’s what you were preserving?”
He pauses. “I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“You didn’t make it better.”
“No.” He says it with weight. Not just guilt— grief.
I sit back again, trying to breathe through the pressure building behind my eyes. And then something clicks. “She didn’t want me to be like you.”
Jamison glances over. “She wanted you to be famous, yes. But on her terms.”
“I loved acting.”
“I know.”
“She said casting directors didn’t want to work with me because of you. That your reputation tanked my career before it could ever get off the ground.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, frustrated.
“I was there at the start of your career, Gavin. She canceled callbacks. Blacklisted people she didn’t approve of.
Remember all those scheduling conflicts?
I figured out it was her. When I confronted her about it, she said your talent was being wasted in front of the camera, and she was doing you a favor. ”