Chapter 32
Scarlett
“I need to tell you something, but I don’t want you to panic.”
My coffee cup—well, Ryan’s since I’m standing in his kitchen—stops halfway to my mouth as Trina’s words sink in. She’s speaking quietly, almost whispering, and she sounds exactly as panicked as she’s telling me not to be.
“That is not how you get someone to remain calm.” I indulge in a long sip of coffee. If shit is going to hit the fan, I may as well be caffeinated.
She makes a noncommittal noise, then comes right out with it. “Someone outed you to JMP, and they’re super pissed Anastasios let you sign with them. I got called in this morning for damage control, and they want you to come in, too.”
I check the time on the microwave clock. It’s barely nine in the morning. “How did you get there so fast?”
Trina makes another noise—this one sounding like it’s accompanied by an epic eye roll. “Scarlett, focus. This is very bad. They could force Anastasios to rescind your deal. This is already on social media. Ryan could lose his job—”
“Wait. What does Ryan have to do with it?”
She’s uncharacteristically silent for longer than I would like. Just when I am about to start panicking, she speaks. “Very few people knew about this. You didn’t out yourself. You’re dumb, but you’re not insane. Martis was waiting to tell JMP for obvious reasons. Your publicity team has been working overtime to figure out how to release the information within the constraints we set out for them, so there’s no way they’d want to undo all that work. It wasn’t me. I actually care about you. And it wasn’t Casey. He left JMP for a lot of the same reasons you did.” She stops there, but she doesn’t have to say what’s next.
“Ryan didn’t do this.”
“I don’t know if he did, honey.” Oh, great. Now she’s placating me. “But you didn’t see him when you left before. He was…beside himself.”
“And you haven’t seen him with me now. There’s no way,” I insist, but my mind is working overtime. I left him high and dry. To hear him tell it, I took his love of literature with me. I disappeared from his life for five years. And yesterday I told him I lost our baby, which I had kept from him for so long. I did think I heard him get up in the middle of the night last night. Could he have been secretly so angry that he plotted some kind of revenge?
No. No. That’s not like Ryan at all. If he had wanted vengeance, he wouldn’t have brought me tacos or washed my hair or held me while I sobbed in his parking lot. He would have let me fester in my own depression. Or he would have gone to JMP straight away.
“Listen, he’s on his way in,” Trina is saying. “We’re going to talk to him and hopefully set this whole thing straight. Can you get here quick?”
I sigh heavily, wishing I could jump in a time machine and go back five hours to when Ryan and I were snuggled up together, our skin touching at every point of contact we could manage, his leg possessively intertwined between mine as I rocked back to feel him against me.
Scratch that. I wish I could go back five years and do literally everything differently to save everyone from this mess.
“Yeah,” I say, dejected. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I’m led into the conference room at Anastasios by a sweet-looking college kid. She introduced herself as Maggie or Marlee or something like that. And not for the first time in my life, I wish I was better at remembering people’s names in the middle of crisis moments.
The minute the door opens, Ryan practically jumps out of his seat. Distress is etched all over his features. “Scarlett, I’m so sorry,” he says.
I don’t know what he has to be sorry for. I won’t allow the little seed of doubt Trina planted earlier to take root. Ryan couldn’t have done this. Not after everything he said yesterday.
“Mr. Whitlock, sit down,” Anastasios says, his voice even but edged with frustration. “Ms. Frye, please, come in.”
There isn’t an open seat next to Ryan, though I wish there were. The only chair available is on the other side of Trina, sandwiched between her and Anastasios. It sure feels like this placement is by design, though I can’t imagine why. No one knows about my relationship with Ryan. Unless…
“Thank you for coming,” Anastasios interrupts my thoughts as I sink, shaking, into the open chair. “I’m sure Ms. McBryde has apprised you of the situation?”
I nod, resisting the urge to gulp audibly. The tension in the room is almost tangible.
Careful not to look in Ryan’s direction, I ask, “Do you know who did this?”
“We do not,” Anastasios says, not unkindly. “Unless someone in this room is lying, it was someone on the outside. But rest assured, Ms. Frye, we have a plan to get out in front of this thing and mitigate the damage.”
My guess is that he’s talking about mitigating the damage done to the imprint—and to him personally. They are likely not talking about the damage they’re going to do to me. I know how this works. In cases like this, more publicity is inevitable. I’m going to need to tell my side of the story over and over again until my narrative becomes the accepted one.
A glance in Trina’s direction confirms it. Her red lips are pressed into a thin line, and she’s clutching her hands together on top of the table so hard that her knuckles are turning white. She fought for me before I got here. That, I’m sure of.
Just like my first meeting here—and my last at JMP—everyone seemingly starts talking at once. Phrases filter in and out of my consciousness as if the words themselves were floating in front of me, out of reach.
“We can get her on at least a couple major talk shows…”
“No guarantee about book clubs until the book is out, but we’ll start asking around…”
“Anything we can do. The more popular this thing is, the more JMP will look the other way…”
“Rush the release. Get it out while people are paying attention…”
“What about that daytime show with those women? They seemed to like her last time…”
My gaze shifts to Ryan. He’s staring at me intensely, almost as if he has been willing me to look at him. When I do, he blinks, and his face crumples. He shakes his head slightly, but all I can do is look away. I don’t have the energy for the depth of emotion he’s displaying. This all feels so familiar that I can feel myself shutting down as they all talk around me.
“People would probably show up for signings again out of curiosity…”
“We could put a call out for people who had tickets to her last tour. Let them come for free…”
“Six weeks. Maybe ten. A break to write the new book, then back for another five…”
How am I possibly going to write and edit and do all this press again? Not to mention people showing up potentially still angry about the canceled tour last time. Can I take being shit on to my face by angry readers who don’t know any better?
I understand what this team is trying to do, or at least I think I do. From the snippets of conversation, it’s clear they think selling a ton of books will appease JMP. It’s not a bad plan, actually. JMP has always been all about the money. It would probably work, if it weren’t for one thing.
I can’t go back to that grueling schedule. I can barely handle writing, and if it weren’t for Ryan forcing me away from the work each night, I wouldn’t be able to handle that, either.
But I also can’t walk out of here right now. If I did, it would only serve to show that I didn’t change, that I’m not different. It would put the nail in the coffin of my career. There wouldn’t be any coming back from this.
No, I need to let them talk over me and about me like I’m not even here, and then I need to take all the information and figure out how to make it work. That’s all I can do if I ever want to write again.
So I sit there for the next thirty minutes as they come up with a plan. Trina asks me questions every once in a while, but all I can do is shrug. Ryan continues to stare at me as if he could hold me together with his eyes, but I can’t look at him. He would have ruined his career five years ago, and I believe that if he saw even a hint of doubt in me, he’d do it now, too. And I can’t let him.
As soon as they wrap up, I stand on shaky legs and silently make my way toward the door. I need to get somewhere where I can lose my shit in private, and I need to do it fast.
“Scarlett—” Ryan moves toward me at almost lighting speed, taking my hand in his.
“I just want to be alone,” I say quietly, looking ahead and not directly at him. “I’m okay. I just…need some space.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Trina stand and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Let her go,” she whispers. “Today has been a lot.”
Ryan pauses but ultimately drops my hand and steps back. Now, I absolutely cannot look at him because if I do, I’ll see how much it hurt him to do that. But it doesn’t change the fact that right now, I need to get the fuck out of here. Fast.
Putting my head down, I push the door to the conference room open. I make it all the way to the elevator but then decide to take the stairs. A small space would feel confining right now, and I don’t need that on top of everything else. As if a little Dianne is sitting on my shoulder, her voice stops me before I can rush down the stairs and outside. Take your time , she reminds me. Use each step as a way to ground yourself. Don’t shut down. Use your emotions.
What do I have to lose? Nothing, I guess, so I start my descent carefully, noting the feel of the hard tile under my flat shoes, the cold metal of the railing, the way my steps echo against the walls. And with each step, I do come back into my body. It almost feels like my heart is there, waiting for me, opening its arms and welcoming me back.
And with each step after that, I have questions. Who would do this? Why? Is there someone out there who hates me that much—who is that angry at me—who also knew I was writing again? Why do these things keep happening to me? Am I just meant to be Scarlett Frye, best-selling author and a commodity for my publisher to throw around as they see fit?
Dianne also often asks me to name my emotions. She says that when I shut them out and don’t talk about them, that’s when they grow into unmanageable beasts. So by the time I hit that last step on the ground level, I try to give what I’m feeling a name.
Confusion. But also anger. I don’t want to do this again. I wasn’t supposed to have to do this again. When does it all fucking end ?
That’s where I find myself when I open the door to the stairwell and two things happen at once. First, the elevator door across the lobby opens and Ryan steps out. Second, Charles Hall and his annoying swagger passes between us.
Just my luck, Charles turns his head to me and smiles, though it’s really more of a sneer, and it takes all my power not to sigh in exasperation. The last thing I want to do right now is make small talk with this asshole, but he stops to face me fully, his back to Ryan as if he didn’t see him or he doesn’t matter.
“Hello, Scarlett.” He curls his lip when he says it. It takes a second, but something about the way he emphasizes my name—my real name—stokes the little flame that sparked in my belly on my way down the stairs.
The realization slams into me hard enough that I take an involuntary step back as I gasp. “It was you.”
Charles folds his arms across his bulky chest and chuckles without any humor whatsoever. “What? Did you think I was too stupid to figure it out?”
Ryan takes a few steps forward as if he’s going to come to my defense, but he stops when I tilt my head and blink at Charles a few times, considering what to do next. I could do the demure thing and walk away. Considering everything that just happened upstairs, that’s definitely what I should do—smile, play nice, take it on the chin. But as it turns out, I’m pissed, and I left the last of my fucks in that conference room.
“Honestly, I didn’t think you were paying enough attention to come to the obvious conclusion,” I say, thanking everything that is and ever was holy that my voice is even and cool. And then, because I just can’t help myself now that I know exactly how much of a jackass this guy is, I add, “It’s not like my best-selling face hasn’t been all over the place in the past.”
Charles narrows his eyes at me, and his biceps flex a bit as he tenses. He doesn’t say anything, which isn’t a surprise. He’s not quick enough to come up with something witty or cutting.
“Why did you do it?” I have to know, and if I know anything about his type, I know he’s just dying to tell me anyway.
Sure enough, his lips curl into a sinister smile again. “I’ve been secretly meeting with JMP, too. Remember? I thought they might be interested in the information that their imprint signed an author who fucked them over. Turns out I was right. They were very interested.” He removes one of his hands from where it’s folded in his arm and rubs his thumb and fingers together. I take that to mean they offered him a lot of money for his book in return.
“Hmm.” I nod slowly. “Turns out I was right, too. You are exactly as self-centered as I originally thought.”
I could swear I see Ryan’s jaw drop, but Charles scoffs. “Whatever gets me the money, sweetheart. I was just here in a meeting to see if Anastasios would counter. Seems like they might.”
Oh, gag me. I have to force myself not to physically lose my breakfast at his demeaning nickname. “Fine.” I shrug. “I’ll bite. If you got the money, why’d you put it on social media?” I saw that caption. Only someone who can’t string a sentence together with his two remaining brain cells would have written that garbage.
“Ahh.” And that insufferable smile is back. “That one was extra because you left me high and dry at that restaurant. For your editor boyfriend, no less. God, I hope you both are in such deep shit for that.”
“Oh, please.” I laugh at his audacity. “You were sucking face with some young thing when I came back. Maybe if you had given a shit about anything I had to say, I would have stuck around until a polite time to leave.”
“Nah, Scarlett.” He makes an expression that tells me he thinks he’s won. “Leaving is kind of your thing.”
A knife. That’s what his comment feels like. Ryan would mock the cliché, but there’s no other way to describe it. It fucking hurt. Because he’s right.
And yet, I can’t let him have the last word. I lick my lips and narrow my eyes at him. “You know what, Charles? You’re right—that is my thing. And you’re lucky it is. You’re the kind of trash that takes itself out, so I am going to leave now so I can stand by and watch it happen.”
With that, I turn on my heel and walk right out the door and to my car, pulling out of the parking lot and putting as much distance between myself and Charles and Anastasios Press as I can.