Chapter 34 Nick
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nick
The call comes just after six. Early enough to be serious. Late enough that Jonah has already had time to vet whatever’s landed on his desk.
I take it in the kitchen, phone pressed between shoulder and cheek, one hand braced on the counter.
“She’s moving,” he says. No greeting. No small talk. Just two words that settle in the pit of my stomach, heavy as stone.
“How bad?”
Jonah doesn’t answer immediately, which is answer enough.
“Talk to me.”
“She’s got a draft in queue for Thursday morning. Digital release, top of the front page, Edge’s biggest slot.”
My fingers tighten around the edge of the marble counter. “What does she have?”
“The pregnancy. That it’s triplets. That you and Sara are together, though she doesn’t use the word ‘together,’ she says, ‘embroiled in a high-profile liaison that’s raised more than a few eyebrows in elite circles.’”
I close my eyes. Exhale through my nose. “What else?”
“She refers to Sara as ‘the latest addition to the Ashford dynasty’ and implies you’ve kept her hidden for image control. She mentions your father, the estate. There’s vague but pointed reference to your ‘complicated lineage’ and speculation about a fractured relationship with extended family.”
My jaw tenses. I say nothing.
“She stops short of naming anyone outright,” Jonah adds. “But it’s enough. Anyone who’s followed your family for more than a decade will know where to look. What threads to pull.”
“And her source?”
“One. Anonymous. Cited as ‘close to the family,’ which could mean anything from an ex-gardener to someone who once stood next to you in a photograph.”
I stare out the window, watching the first edge of sunrise cut between buildings. It should feel steadying. It doesn’t.
“She wants comment?” I ask.
“She’s requested it. Says she’s holding the story for one business day to give you the opportunity. That she’s trying to be fair.”
I let out a humorless breath. “Fair.”
“She’s playing with theater,” Jonah says. “She wants a reaction.”
Yes. That’s the game. The story itself is bait. The reaction becomes the headline. Engagement validates her premise. Silence gives her less oxygen.
“Has it been sent to print partners?”
“Not yet. Edge will see how it performs digitally before allocating real estate.”
“So we have time.”
“A window. Narrow.”
I reach for the espresso pod, slotting it into the machine with a sharp click. The motions feel mechanical, grounding in their uselessness. I can’t fix this with caffeine, but I don’t trust myself to stand still, either.
“What’s your recommendation?” I ask.
“No engagement, in my opinion” Jonah says. “Complete blackout. Legal threats will only escalate it. Comms can reinforce the firewall, redirect press traffic, and manage any board-level concerns. But I guess that depends on how you want to handle it.”
“You don’t think I should just make the announcement?” I sigh heavily. “Just tell the world that me and Sara are together?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Jonah answers.
“I’ve thought about it,” he admits. “I mean, in a normal world, sure. You’ve got the babies, you’ve got a relationship that’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
It’s not like you’re trying to hide an ex-wife or a scandalous affair.
You could spin it, say you wanted to keep things quiet until it was really serious, and now you’re ready to share. But… what about Sara?”
I lean back against the counter, letting the silence hang for a moment. It feels suffocating, and my mind is racing through every possible angle.
“What about the board?” I murmur.
“Well, I guess Sara could quit…”
It’s like a vice-like grip on my chest. I can hardly breathe. I just can’t stop thinking that Sara isn’t ready, and that if I tell the world about us now, then everything changes. It’s not just us anymore.
“I would rather do this in my own time, so I can deal with the board,” I declare. “I need to think about this. I don’t want to tank Sara’s chance to get another job because of the scandal.”
I can’t see a way out. No matter which way I turn, Sara gets hurt, which is the last thing I want to do.
He hesitates. “Then we contain. And protect the people who didn’t ask for any of this.”
My gaze drifts to the closed bedroom door. The soft hush of quiet on the other side of it. I can picture her, still asleep, one hand resting on her stomach, the way she does without realizing. It’s become instinct now.
She doesn’t know. Not yet.
And I don’t know how to tell her.
Not just because of the article, but because of what it might bring with it. Old ghosts. Old names. Threads I’ve worked my entire adult life to sever.
I’ve kept my past out of the press for a reason. Not for lack of interest, but by deliberate design. And now Isla Vale wants to drag it into the light because it suits her editorial calendar.
“And I’m going to see if I can put a stop to this before Sara even needs to find out. She doesn’t need any more pressure on top of what she’s going through.”
Jonah’s voice softens. “Understood.”
I sip the espresso. It burns, but I need the jolt.
“We’ll reinforce the internal firewall today,” I continue. “Review every external partner, vendor, and staff member with access to sensitive data. If there’s a leak, I want it traced. Comms reviews every narrative channel. Nothing moves without my approval.”
“And if Vale follows up again?”
“She gets silence. Let her print the piece. Let her speculate. I’m not going to dignify it.”
“And the board?”
I glance at the clock. It’s just past six-thirty. I’ll have a full inbox by eight.
“I’ll handle them.”
Somehow.
Jonah pauses, then says, “You sure you want to absorb this whole thing yourself?”
“No one else has the context. And no one else has the incentive to bury it as deeply as I do.”
He hesitates. “This might pull things to the surface, Nick. Things you’ve kept buried for a long time.”
“I know.”
“She’s not just coming for the story. She’s coming for your legacy.”
I look back toward the bedroom.
“She can take mine,” I say. “She doesn’t get to touch theirs.”
I end the call with Jonah and stare at my phone, then the espresso, now half-cold in my hand. I drain it anyway.
The day is already decided.
Not by her. By me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to put out a fire before breakfast. But it’s the first time the collateral could touch the only part of my life I’m not willing to compromise.
I walk down the hall, basically on my tiptoes, past the bedroom door. I don’t stop. I don’t open it. If I do, I’ll wake her. And if I wake her, I’ll have to lie.
It’s not that I’ve never lied before. It’s that I don’t want to lie to her.
Instead, I grab my laptop from the den, bring it to the small study, and lock the door behind me. I log in, pull up the internal comms directory, and start drafting a list.
Every vendor, every assistant, every freelance contractor who’s touched anything under NDAs in the last six months. I include the digital service teams, those who’ve scheduled press releases, scrubbed metadata, handled inbox triage.
Someone talked.
I don’t believe for a second that Isla Vale found her way here by accident. Someone handed her the map.
I create a secure task thread and loop Jonah in, marking it priority one. He’ll know what to do with the list once it’s complete.
Then I open a new document. This one isn’t for Jonah. It’s for me.
A full inventory of leverage.
Everyone Vale has burned before. Every reputation she’s sliced open for clicks and ad revenue.
I start making calls. Quiet ones. Discreet. I don’t ask for favors. I offer insulation. A future buffer.
Because if Vale wants to wield narrative as a weapon, then she should know she’s not the only one who understands how stories can be shaped, or dismantled, or buried.
But even as I plan, my mind drifts—once, and without permission—to the last time someone I loved ended up in the headlines.
It had started with a photograph. A grainy image, taken outside a courthouse. She wasn’t the subject, not really. Just background noise to someone else’s scandal.
But that didn’t matter. They made their mids up.
She’d made one mistake, one, and they devoured her for it.
They called her unstable and a liability. A cautionary tale, a symptom of the so called “Ashford rot.”
And when she stopped answering the phone, when she disappeared from the society columns and cut ties with anyone who sold even a whisper, they labeled that, too.
Mysterious. Erratic. Possibly institutionalized.
I remember the look on her face when I told her it was over. That I’d taken care of it. That the press wouldn’t touch her again.
She didn’t thank me. She didn’t cry.
She’d just said, “Too late.”
That was fifteen years ago.
I keep the photo. It sits in the bottom drawer of my desk, tucked behind a stack of quarterly briefs no one ever reads.
Sometimes I take it out. Not to remember. To make sure I don’t forget.
That’s what the press does. It strips people for parts.
Sara doesn’t know any of this. She’s never asked about the woman in the photograph, and I’ve never volunteered.
Because some stories don’t belong in the daylight. Some are better left where they were buried.
But this morning, with Isla Vale circling like a hawk, I feel the same cold pressure in my chest I felt then. The same tightening at the base of my throat.
I won’t let it happen again.
No matter what I have to do.