Chapter 22
Landry’s office on the forty-second floor doesn’t necessarily rank as a safe space for me.
I mean, granted, I’ve never actually been invited this high up in the Soundbites office before—they like to keep me in the basement in the damp, hot-dog-generated humidity—but I still have a rising level of apprehension as the elevator climbs the floors.
Which is ridiculous. Landry got it, she understood where I was coming from when we talked at the fundraiser, even if William wasn’t on the same page.
If nothing else, this is a strategic planning meeting on how to pivot our refreshed engagement toward other avenues.
I shouldn’t be stressed, I should be relieved she’s actually willing to talk things out further and come to an even firmer understanding.
But dread still trickles through me as I step off the elevator and give Landry’s assistant my name.
There’s something about the twitch of his lips, the flash of recognition in his eyes as he types on his computer—alerting Landry of my arrival—that sets my teeth on edge.
I sit in one of the straight-back chairs outside of the executive suites, leg jiggling as the seconds tick by.
“Can I get you any water or coffee?” the assistant asks without looking at me, making it very apparent that saying yes isn’t actually an option.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Another stretch of silence.
“You’ve become quite the Soundbites celebrity, huh?” he says, still not bothering to look away from his computer screen. His voice is as smooth and cutting as a razor.
“Um, that’s definitely overstating things, but I’ve had a few recent hits on my segment.” I can’t tell if he’s a loud breather or if he just laughed at me.
He finally looks at me, eyes flicking down my body in lengthy appraisal. His smile makes me think he’s tasted human flesh and didn’t hate it. “I mean, after this morning’s big reveal, I don’t think I am overstating things.”
I stare at him blankly. “This morning’s what?”
He tilts his head, smile growing. The computer dings, and he doesn’t bother to look at the screen. “Landry will see you now.”
“What did you mean by that?” I say, standing up on shaky legs.
He ignores me, slipping in AirPods and turning back to his work.
I have the urgent desire to dart to the bathroom, scour my phone for whatever the hell he’s alluding to.
But I can’t. I’m on such thin ice with Landry and William, I can’t start chipping at it by making them wait.
With an unsteady hand, I knock gently on the door then let myself into her office.
Landry doesn’t say anything when I step inside or bother to look up as I take the seat in front of her.
I wonder if her assistant learned the trick from her or vice versa.
William leans against the bookshelves behind her desk, suit jacket slung on one of the chairs, the sleeves of his crisp, white button-down rolled up to his elbows.
He sweeps an unimpressed glance up my body, toying with the end of his black tie.
“Good morning,” I say, trying to make my voice pleasant. It cracks like I swallowed a hot pepper.
Landry’s gaze finally flicks up to mine.
She stares at me, expression as impassive as her son’s.
With a slow, assured movement, she leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her.
The only sound in the room is the ticking of her expensive-looking wall clock as the Doughrights pin me with their dark eyes.
When it becomes so tense my skin starts to crawl, I clear my throat. “Is now still a good time to talk?”
William scoffs, adjusting his fancy watch, and my heart rabbits in my chest.
Landry’s nod is slow and self-possessed. “I was giving you an opportunity to explain yourself first.”
“I’m sorry?”
Her eyebrows rise mockingly, and she shares a look with William. “That’s a start, I suppose. Although I would have delivered it with a bit more conviction and less of a question if I were in your position.”
“My position?” I’m sweating now, palms damp and sticky as I grip the edges of the chair.
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
I stare at her with wide, terrified eyes, trying to formulate a sentence while my throat feels too tight and tongue too swollen to get words out. “I’m… I’m a bit confused on what’s happening here.”
Landry’s look is a combination of bored and surly, and she rubs her fingers along her forehead with a sigh.
“Allow me to clarify things for you, Miss Kitt,” William says, pushing away from the shelves and planting his palms on the large desk, leaning toward me. “You have this thing called a job. I have one too. And my job is to be your boss. Are you keeping up with me so far?”
I’m horrified to feel myself nodding.
“Good. I was worried even that would be too complex for you.” His smile is cold.
“Your job is, in essence, to make money for this company. And the best way you can do that is dress in your trendy little clothes and make your sarcastic little comments and shove hot dogs in your mouth to attract male viewers. Your job is also to do as I tell you. And I told you to see this thing through with Rylie Cooper. Why? To make this company money. Still with me?”
The force of his calm anger sucks the air from the room, and I feel lightheaded with how tight my breaths are.
“But you have apparently decided that you are too good to do the job we pay you for,” he continues softly.
“You flouted our directions in favor of your precious feelings. Not only that, but you lied , Eva. You made a fool of me, and in a public place, no less. Do you have any concept of how unflattering it is to have an employee talk back to me at a charity event I’ve donated tremendous money to on behalf of the company I’m in charge of? ”
Heat floods my cheeks, my heart pounding so hard against my sternum I’m scared I’m going to pass out. “I’m sorry,” I choke. “I’m so, so sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I didn’t—”
“But you were disrespectful,” Landry chimes in.
Her voice isn’t raised or even harsh, just dripping with disappointment.
“Everything about this, from your lies to your gall at the fundraiser to initiating a tawdry affair with someone you were engaged in business with and letting it interfere with your work, was disrespectful.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, tears pricking my eyes.
Landry acknowledges them with a pitying purse of her lips, but a flash of satisfaction alights on William’s face.
“I see where you’re coming from and I’m sorry.
I never intended for anything to happen with Rylie.
I swear. But things have started to become real, and I—”
“Things are real , are they?” William doesn’t use air quotes, but I sense them.
“How Pollyanna and adorable. So glad you’re going steady and sporting his letterman jacket.
But I’d also like to remind you this is the real world.
You signed up for transparency around this and that’s what you were expected to give us.
If you had any journalistic integrity and hope of making a name for yourself, that is. ”
“I do have journalistic integrity,” I sob, feeling close to getting to my knees to beg for mercy.
I know I’m the smallest fish in the vastest ocean, I know how insignificant I am, but I can’t lose this job, I can’t lose this chance to actually make something of myself.
I’m too attached to the only dream I’ve ever had to see it shatter to pieces like this.
“I want nothing more than to build a long, meaningful career in journalism,” I say, turning to Landry.
“But this pop culture beat isn’t for me.
I’m sorry I messed things up the way I did, but I promise, if given the chance to apply my passion to something I’m interested in, something I really care about, I can do so much more. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Oh, Eva, don’t you get it?” William’s voice is scalding, his smile a hot knife that slices through me when my eyes slide to him. “You’re fired.”
My blank stare makes him laugh.
“Oh my god, did you not know that? Did you actually think this was a legitimate conversation about you lying to us that you could bargain your way out of?” His laugh is cold and empty. “Stop pretending to be some puppet master when you are, in fact, the strings we pull.”
“W-why are you doing this?” My lips tingle, a high-pitched buzzing growing in my ears as I struggle to process everything. “Why did you make me think this would be civil?”
His look of disgust makes me flinch. “It’s solely your own naivety that made you think this would be anything other than a well-deserved termination. You lied. You proved yourself financially useless. You are dismissed.”
“You can’t let him do this,” I beg, splaying my palms to Landry in surrender. “Please. Woman to woman here, you have to understand where I’m coming from, right?”
Landry’s expression shifts from pitying to patent disbelief. She shakes her head, letting out a cool laugh that matches her son’s. “Please don’t make this more embarrassing than it needs to be.”
“Landry, please . You said you saw potential in me. Saw some of yourself in me. I can prove it to you. Please, please, just don’t fire me.”
“My god, what do you expect me to say?” she says, face twisting.
William snorts. “Are you expecting me to chant girl power while throwing my fist in the air? This is a business , Miss Kitt. Does that not compute? It doesn’t have feelings or qualms or guilt about whether you’re up to the task of doing what it takes to get ahead.
You have proven you are not. We have proven that we are.
And that is why we are leading and you are about to file for unemployment.
But don’t worry, HR will be sending you a severance agreement with a reminder not to share private company information.
I’m sure that will ease any difficulties as you look for a new position. Perhaps TMZ is hiring.”
I stare at them, tears streaming down my face. William’s focus back on his watch, Landry’s eyes slipping to her computer.
“Are you—”
“You are dismissed ,” Landry snaps, leaving no room for argument. I scramble to the exit.
“Been a real treat working with you, Eva,” William says dryly right before the office door closes behind me.
I stand there for a moment, world spinning, vision swimming. I’m going to be sick, pass out, dissolve right into the floor. It travels to me from a distance, but I register a laugh disguised as a cough from Landry’s assistant.
Somehow—as my insides crumble and the scaffolding of my identity crashes down—I manage to walk to the elevators and get in without collapsing to my knees and crying.
I’m frozen as the elevator glides down to the bottom floor. How am I supposed to get off it? Where am I supposed to go? Home? And do what? What am I supposed to do with the endless, empty vastness of my life that now stretches before me?
My phone vibrates in my purse as I step out of the building’s beautiful, grand doors for the last time. In a daze, I fish my phone out, not processing the sheer number of notifications popping up.
A ton of missed calls from Rylie. And Ray. And Aida. Texts from them too.
Where are you?
Are you okay?
Please don’t panic
We’ll figure this out.
Seriously, let me know you’re okay.
How do they know? Embarrassment hooks in my chest, threatening to crack me open rib by rib. Was I truly the only one who didn’t realize I was being fired this morning?
Another text buzzes through. This ones from Rylie.
Eva, honey, please let me know where you are and that you’re okay? I have my team looking into things, but we need to talk. Let me come to you.
His team? What would his team have to do with my firing?
In a horrible burst of memory, I remember what Landry’s assistant said to me before I went in.
With trembling fingers and hands so slick with sweat that I drop my phone to the sidewalk twice, I search my name and Rylie’s.
A series of recently released posts and stories pop up, each thumbnail showing the same image.
Despite knowing what will happen when I click on the linked video, the way it will destroy me, I tap it.
It’s me. It’s Rylie. It’s the elevators of the beautiful hotel.
It’s his body caging mine against the wall, the arch of my back and desperate thrust of my hips as I press into him.
The way he kisses me like he’ll consume me.
The whimper of need like I hope he will.
The way he maneuvers me into the elevator and the greedy way I can’t stop touching him.
It’s our private moment caught on camera.
And it’s trending on the internet.