Chapter 19
AUGUST
Every atom in my body screamed for me to take her home tonight and show her we’re not letting her get away from us at the slightest crack in the glass. I know Theo will eventually prove that the whole lingerie store nonsense was carefully orchestrated by Georgina.
I also know that deep down Phoebe suspects he’s innocent.
“She can be so stubborn,” he says, sitting in one of the guest chairs by the window in my office. “All she had to do was give us, give me a minute to explain.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not hers, either,” I reply. “She’s overwhelmed by the attacks. In private, online… they’re coming at her from every possible angle, and Phoebe isn’t used to this kind of attention.”
“All the more reason for her to lean on us,” Dominic chimes in.
He’s seated on the sofa, sulking over a mug of luke-warm coffee. He’s been nursing it for the past thirty minutes while I’ve been going over company emails at my desk. It’s been a quiet morning, so there isn’t much for me to do to keep my mind off of what we could’ve done differently last night.
“Phoebe expressed her wishes. We owe it to her to respect them, whether we like it or not,” I remind Theo and my brother. “She’ll come around. But first, she needs to process and work through her emotions on her own.”
“I thought we were supposed to shield her from the bullshit,” Theo says. “How the hell are we going to do that if we didn’t even see Georgina’s play coming?”
“Let’s just face it, fellas,” I reply. “We fell short. Each in our own way. We focused more on being with her and less on the multitude of threats now targeting her.”
“Hey, we did discover that her mother’s got a bit of a gambling problem,” Dominic points out. “It wasn’t all for naught.”
“Agreed. At the same time, Georgina caught us with our pants down, so to speak. It left Theo exposed. That totally came out wrong,” I say as soon as I see the grimace on Theo’s face. “But you know what I meant.”
“How did we allow ourselves to become so vulnerable in front of someone like Georgina?” he asks.
I shake my head. “We didn’t perceive her as a capable adversary, obviously. That mean girl energy she and Crystal have was masking something far more insidious, as we now know.”
“And now Phoebe won’t talk to us.”
“Not today, Theo. But she will, eventually. She’ll mull things over, and then she’ll reach out,” I tell him. “Phoebe is a capable and highly intelligent woman. It’s one of the things that drew us to her in the first place. In the meantime, we’ve got things to do.”
Dominic releases a heavy sigh before taking another sip of his coffee. “Where do we start?”
I take a moment to go through the social media threads discussing the lingerie store scandal and Crystal’s hashtag campaign against Phoebe. From what I’m reading, the pro-Phoebe camp seems pretty determined to support her. Crystal and Georgina’s fans, however, seem hell bent on ostracizing Phoebe.
“He without sin shall cast the first stone,” I mutter.
“I’m listening,” Theo replies with a skeptical raise of his eyebrow.
“Crystal keeps painting Phoebe as a sinner, a harlot, a floozy. Yet her mother gambles. And Helen isn’t exactly playing small, either.
Those are some dangerous people she’s mingling with.
How much do you want to bet that if we dig a little deeper, there’s enough dirt to divert attention from Phoebe to her mother. ”
“We could do the same with Crystal,” Dominic suggests. “She’s anything but innocent, and everybody in this fucking city knows it.”
Theo nods. “So we fight back with smear campaigns of our own. It sounds a little petty.”
“Hey, all is fair in love and war. Except we’d actually be delivering real seeds of scandal.
Not intimacy or romantic preferences, because that’s all Crystal has against Phoebe,” I say.
“A gambling addiction, a coke addiction, and whatever else we find in the Baldwin ladies’ closets will be way worse than Phoebe’s relationship with us. ”
Dominic gives me a curious look. “We’ll be able to weather this storm, right?”
“Oh, absolutely. Our PR manager is already firing off the engines on social media, publishing progress reports and blog articles about our most recent ventures. I green lit an article with Times Magazine discussing our green energy projects in New Mexico and the proposal we put together with Efron Tech about those orbit-based solar panels for next year’s World Economic Forum,” I say.
“We’ve got enough to keep the public focused on our successes and upcoming projects to not bother with our personal lives. ”
“Truth be told, we’ve never been shy about our personal lives,” Theo replies. “I think that’s why the saints of social media could never damage us. We went right out with it day one, long before Phoebe ever came along.”
“What irks me most is the double standard,” Dominic says.
“That’s mostly because of Crystal and Georgina. But like I said, we can handle those two differently. If we have to stoop to their level, so be it.”
There’s a knock on my office door. Sarah, my assistant, pops her head in. “August, I’ve got a Penelope here to talk to you. She says it’s important.”
“Show her in, please.”
She nods then vanishes. A moment later, Penny walks in. She’s been out on one of her morning runs, judging by the black leggings, long sleeved tee, worn sneakers, and runner’s backpack hanging from her shoulder.
“Sorry for the outfit, gentlemen. I had an idea and I needed to come here before I lost my nerve,” she says.
Dominic pours her a glass of water. She gulps it down quickly as if she’s just returned from a hike in the desert. “Thanks,” she says, the color slowly returning to her cheeks.
“What brings you here, Penny?” I ask.
“How’s Phoebe?” Theo adds, giving her a worried look.
“Pouting, crying, sleeping a lot and eating a bit more than usual, but she’s working through it like a soldier,” she replies with a half-smile. “Give her a couple more days and I’m sure she’ll bounce right back.”
“I just wish she would’ve let us talk to her last night.”
“I know, Theo. But she can be hardheaded sometimes,” Penny sighs. “Trust me, she’s thinking about you, about your relationship. She’ll come around. Unless what happened with Georgina—”
“It was total bullshit!”
“Good. Which brings me to why I’m here, actually,” she replies. “I think I can prove it was staged, but I need your help.”
I stand up, suddenly energized by the prospect. “I’m all ears, Penny. What do you need from us?”
“Well, this is where it gets a little hairy,” she says, taking one of the seats in front of my desk.
“I don’t think there’s a legal, ethical way to do it.
The Perle Noire flagship store is part of the Broadway Mall.
I keep looking at those photos, and I may have figured out the angle from which they were taken.
There’s got to be security cameras all over the place, particularly in the common areas, right? ”
Dominic nods and immediately gets on his phone, searching for something. “It’s the same security company that handles our building. I think I’ve got a reliable contact on their executive board.”
“Executive board,” Penny repeats after him. “That means he’d be high enough on the totem pole to get you access to the mall’s security footage.”
“That’s the idea,” Dominic says. “I might have to throw in something to sweeten the deal, though. I doubt he’ll settle for a favor from the Coates brothers.”
“Whatever he wants, give it to him,” I reply with a firm nod.
“Awesome,” Penny says. “Already glad I came here. The idea is to get a visual of the photographer. TMZ works with a lot of paparazzi, and they would never divulge their sources, especially to private citizens. They barely cooperate with the cops or the Feds, so we need a different approach.”
Theo picks up on her train of thought, sitting straighter in his chair. “If we can identify the photographer, we can track him down. Lure him out somehow.”
“And then pressure him to tell us who ordered the mall gig,” Penny says.
“Someone called him to make sure he’d be there on that day and at that specific time.
I’d love to have the authority to bust open every social media account of Georgina’s, but alas, we have to go about it the old-fashioned way. ”
“That’s okay. You’re definitely on to something,” Dominic replies. “My security guy just confirmed a meeting. Drinks tonight at the Palo Negro Lounge in SoHo. I’ll book us a private table for this particular conversation.”
Penny nods with newfound excitement. “Guys, if we pull this off, it’ll be game over for Georgina. But I think we can do one even better. I remember you once told me about some private eyes you worked with to gauge your competition, and later, some of your less reliable board members.”
“Ah, you mean the Great Cleanse from two years ago,” I chuckle dryly, remembering the step-by-step process we undertook to make sure we wouldn’t lose our company and all of our hard work to a handful of jackals who thought they could knock us off our own board.
“Yes. We worked with a couple of brilliant private investigators. Worth every penny.”
“We should get one of them on Georgina,” Penny suggests.
“I know she’s up to something. She often brags about how designers hustle to get her on their runways, but I can’t remember the last time I saw her walking for any of the big labels or the high-end boutique stuff.
I’m trying to figure out where she keeps getting her ridiculously large revenue from. ”
“You think she’s up to something illegal?” Dominic asks.
“Or at the very least, unsavory. I’m not sure. But I wouldn’t put anything past that bitch, certainly not after everything she’s done to hurt Phoebe. I’d like to see Georgina crash and burn, but—”
“Say no more,” I laugh. “We were actually considering similar possibilities before you walked in. Putting a tail on both Georgina and Crystal to see what we can find out. Once we’ve got a decent starting point, we can shake the tree a little bit harder and see what falls.
Either way, you’re right about one thing.
These women must have dirt hidden somewhere. They’re anything but saints.”
Penny nods in agreement and proceeds to pour herself another glass of water. “They’ve been playing dirty this whole time, guys. We can’t win if we don’t get our hands in the mud too. For Phoebe.”
I couldn’t agree more.
We’ll keep digging into Helen’s life, too. Something rotten is bound to fall out from somewhere. Somebody will slip up and make a mistake, and we’ll be right around the corner, making sure it’s a fatal one.
Helen, Crystal, and Georgina seem determined to destroy Phoebe.
It’s only fair we answer in kind.