Chapter 24
Shocking Revelation: Henry Darlington Embroiled in a World of Drugs!
Secret Addiction Comes to Light!
INsider headline
Ethan
Grace had offered to come with me to the hotel for moral support, but I wasn’t the one who needed it.
Henry was. I couldn’t begin to imagine how he must be feeling right now.
These past few months, he’d given everything he had to keep the hotel running, and I was certain that The Darlington would be in a far worse state today were our dad still the one in charge.
Henry had sacrificed so much, given so much, risked so much—only for the media to tear him to pieces.
The article had been out for barely half an hour, but I was sure that at least a dozen news outlets had already picked up the INsider headline. This kind of news tended to spread like wildfire. How had they even caught wind of his addiction?
At the hotel, I headed straight for Henry’s office and knocked on the door.
“Get lost, Vivian!” he called out.
I pushed it open. “Can I come in?”
Henry, slumped in his chair, gave a nod.
I slipped into the room and closed the door behind me.
My brother looked devastated. His face was creased.
He had taken off his jacket and tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up.
His expression was dark, as if he had just returned from a funeral.
In a way, he had: the funeral of his squeaky-clean reputation.
Henry had always been the golden boy. His two biggest, and really only, scandals had been his breakup with Olivia Asterdam and his relationship with Kate.
There was no other drama in his past—or if there had been, it was long forgotten by now.
I ignored the tea and coffee station and went straight to the drinks trolley, where I poured a glass of scotch.
Not for me, but for Henry. I sat down and slid the glass across the desk to him.
He reached for it and downed it in one go.
Without a word, I got up again and fetched the whole bottle.
Henry poured himself a generous refill and took another sip.
“Why am I doing this to myself?” he asked, sounding resigned.
I didn’t reply, because it was clearly a rhetorical question. He wasn’t looking for an answer. He just needed someone to listen while he vented. And since I hadn’t been that person for far too long, I was glad I could be there for him now.
“For months, I’ve been busting a gut for this hotel.
The Pearl Gala was a huge success, despite all the setbacks.
We raised almost fourteen million pounds.
And even though The Darlington’s finances are worse than ever, I gave the entire staff a pay raise in January to reward their loyalty and commitment.
But do you think anyone reports on that?
No. No! Instead, those bastards find the only blot on my reputation and drag it into the public eye.
” He gulped down more of the scotch. “Have you read the article?”
I nodded. It was pretty devastating. There wasn’t a single mention of the fact that Henry was clean now, or clarification that he’d been addicted to prescription medication rather than hard, illegal drugs.
The article gave the impression that he was seriously hooked on heroin.
And they backed up this aspersion with unflattering photos supposedly showing him as a junkie, even though at least one of them was clearly AI-generated.
But that wouldn’t stop people from sharing the piece.
The worst thing about the article was that it linked his addiction to his relationship with Kate.
The media had once portrayed her as a drug addict too, after a friend of her late mother gave a scandalous interview.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
Henry shrugged. “Maybe I’ll drop everything and emigrate to Spain or southern Italy with Kate. I’m sick of this cold English weather anyway.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. He would never give up the hotel. “OK. But seriously?”
“I’ll put out a press statement setting the record straight as soon as I’ve calmed down and sobered up,” he said, topping up his scotch glass once again. “And then I’ll find out who was responsible for the leak and make their life a living hell, believe me.”
I believed him; the anger in his eyes was hard to miss. That said, it was nothing compared to Grace’s. I’d rarely seen rage so unbridled as hers was towards Detective Carter. It had looked like she might lunge at the investigator.
“Do you have any suspects yet?”
He shook his head. “Have you talked to anyone about it?”
“Only James,” I replied.
“Do you think he might have told someone?”
“No, he’s not like that,” I said, mentally running through the list of people who knew about Henry’s problem.
I could count them on two hands. “Could Marko have found out?” I didn’t know Marko Langston particularly well.
He’d been involved with Olivia for a while, and I knew he and Henry couldn’t stand each other.
Maybe this was his way of getting back at Henry.
Henry shook his head. “No, it definitely wasn’t him.”
“Are you sure? Maybe Olivia let it slip when he was around.”
“I’m sure,” he assured me, and after a short pause, he added, “Marko was the one who sold me the Vitalyn. He’d never tell the press, because then I’d out him as my dealer, and he knows that.”
This was the first I was hearing about Marko’s involvement. “Does Olivia know?”
“Yes, I told her at the beginning of the year.”
“Is that why she broke up with him?”
Henry nodded, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it right now. Understandably. There were more important things to focus on.
“Could Dad have sold you out?” I wondered aloud.
“No, he wouldn’t do that.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure?”
Henry’s hesitation spoke volumes. “OK, he might, but things are going pretty well for him in court at the moment. I just saw a poll where over forty percent of people now believe he’s innocent.
So why would he throw me under the bus? It would harm him the most, given the current situation.
I think he’d probably save that trump card until the next time he needs to divert attention from himself. ”
Duplicitous but not unlikely, coming from him.
“Perhaps Mum let it slip to her friends?” Henry suggested.
I shook my head. “No, she’d never share something like that.”
“You’re right. She values her reputation above all else. She wouldn’t gossip about something that makes her look bad.”
He was largely right—but not entirely. Yes, our mum cared about her reputation, but above all, she wanted to protect her family, both from gossip and from people who might do us harm.
Which was why she’d tried to sabotage Henry’s relationship with Kate at the start.
Admittedly, she could have found a different way to express her reservations and worries, but I knew deep down she only meant well.
“I’ll call Edgar later. Maybe he can find out more,” Henry said evenly. I didn’t know whether it was our conversation or the scotch, but he already seemed calmer.
“Who’s Edgar?”
“Edgar Hawthorne. He’s a private detective.
I hired him at the start of the year to keep an eye on that bastard Randell.
You know, the guy who sold all those lies about Kate to the press.
I wanted to make sure he doesn’t pull something like that again.
Maybe he can find out where the INsider got their information. ”
“Sounds like a plan. And I’ll definitely ask around too. Perhaps Charles or Nate know something that—”
I was cut off by a knock at the door, and before Henry could say anything, Kate came in.
Even though she now had a proper salary, not to mention the fact that Henry would have spent his entire fortune on her, she was still wearing the same old leather jacket she’d arrived at the hotel in all those months ago.
Henry’s eyes lit up when he saw his girlfriend.
“Hey,” Kate said, out of breath, as if she’d raced here.
My brother sprang to his feet as she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.
He held her tightly, clearly drawing comfort from her embrace.
I could practically see the stress of the past hour evaporate in Kate’s presence.
Watching them stirred a pang of envy in my chest, stronger than any I’d felt before.
I had never wished for a partner, but the thought of someone giving me as much inner peace as Kate brought my brother suddenly seemed like something worth wanting.
And if I was honest, I knew exactly what had brought about this change of heart.
And that terrified me. Because if the few moments I’d had with Grace were enough to make me feel like this, how would it be if I spent even more time with her?
I left Henry and Kate alone in his office and headed to the penthouse.
I was looking forward to a hot shower and some peace and quiet.
Today had felt like three days rolled into one.
I’d started off the morning still relaxed, attending the last lectures of the term—and then everything had escalated with Grace and Henry.
Once on the private floor, I headed to my flat, only to hear noises coming from inside. I frowned and unlocked the door. Nate and James were sitting on my sofa in front of the television, watching some trashy reality show.
“Ryder has to pick Juliette. Cindy’s just messing with him!” Nate commented.
“I think he should go for Alexis.”
“Uh, no! She’s super toxic. And just talks crap.”
“You’re the one talking crap,” James hissed.
I cleared my throat. “Hello?”
My friends turned to look at me. They had the audacity to look surprised, as if they were shocked to see me in my own flat.
I placed my key card—of which I had once given James a copy—in a bowl on the chest of drawers by the entrance. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” Nate said.
“I see that. Did we have plans?”