Six #2
“How often in life does anything meet expectation?” Roxie wrote, hoping they could be objective. “I’m only at the start of my journey, who knows what will happen next? Tell me what you’d look forward to if you’d won the prize.”
Some people logged off, others continued the negativity. At least a few people answered her.
“I’d be excited about Japan!”
“Italy! Definitely Rome. That’s a total dream.”
“The hotels, the high life, unlimited spending…”
“I should be taking notes,” Roxie wrote. “It’s going to be fun.”
“Aren’t you upset you were conned?” someone asked.
Roxie sighed. The fans were disappointed, so much for the enthusiasm. “I came into the situation with no expectations. It is what it is. Lomond is one man with his own life. I don’t think we’d get along anyway.”
More comments, questions, everyone seemed so confused.
“I thought it was the prize of a lifetime,” someone wrote.
“You’re being way too understanding,” another person typed. “You should demand what you’re due.”
“Yeah. You won fair and square.”
“We should message him. All of us.”
Someone posted an email address, and the users started to discuss bombarding it with demands.
“Seriously,” Roxie wrote. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time with him anyway.”
“Yeah, ‘cause he’s a liar.”
“He cheated you out of your prize!”
Someone knocked on her door. Rising from her chair, scanning the comments, Roxie reversed toward the knocking.
The words got too small for her to read as the knock came again. Someone needed to chill out, that knocking was way louder and more insistent. If the building was on fire, someone should pull the alarm… Maybe the server guy was back for his tip.
Opening the door, she revealed the slick errand boy who’d brought her purse the first night.
“What have you brought me this time?” she asked, sure he wouldn’t have anything.
“Ms. Kyst,” he said, casting a nervous glance down the corridor. “Have you been…? Are you…?”
Roxie frowned. “What’s wrong?” She backed up. “Come in. Come in.”
He entered and she let go of the door. It dropped toward its frame without the latch clicking into place.
“Where did you get the laptop?”
“My hotel before I went out last night.” Roxie had to pause and refigure her timeline. “I think that was just last night. Are we after midnight?” She laughed. “Feels like a lifetime ago. Would you like a drink?”
As Roxie started toward the minibar, her door flew open. Startled, she whirled around to witness a huffing, puffing Zairn Lomond come storming in.
“Where the hell is she?” he demanded of the slick guy. Lomond didn’t wait for an answer and adjusted his angle to charge at her. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Excuse me?” Roxie responded, cocking a hip. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“You have no right to say my name to anyone,” he barked, looming over her.
Asshole! “I haven’t and I won’t.”
“You won a prize on a talk show, that doesn’t open my inner circle to you.”
“Zairn,” someone said in the background.
It wasn’t Slick, which meant others had followed the hotshot in. The asshole was right up close, practically on top of her, so she couldn’t see past him.
The audience could go to hell, right along with him. “Good!” she responded. “I couldn’t care less about your ridiculous inner circle.”
“Oh, so you lie about me for kicks? You think I’d take that shit from someone like you?”
Ha. What a prick! “Someone like me? Who’s that? A peasant? A nobody?”
“A charlatan,” he snapped. “A lunatic charlatan.”
“I’m a lunatic? I am?” Roxie couldn’t believe her ears and let out a burst of laughter. “You probably spend your whole life surrounded by yes men and babes with really low self-esteem. You might fool them that you’re worthy of their adoration, I’m not so easily deceived.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me!”
“I could say the same to you about me!”
If he wanted her to acquiesce or pander, he’d be waiting a long time. Roxie would not blink first. No way.
“Mr. Lomond…”
That was Astrid’s voice; they definitely weren’t alone. Roxie didn’t flinch and neither did he.
He smelled good. Why did she notice that? Clean with just a hint of scotch and a whisper of cologne. His tie was gone; his shirt open a couple of buttons. His hair was relaxed, unlike the rest of him. This was Zairn Lomond casual. Angry, no furious Zairn Lomond casual, but casual all the same.
“Z, come on,” another new voice. “Don’t give media whores ammunition. You know better.”
Outraged, Roxie closed her eyes in a long, disbelieving blink, then sidestepped to see around the angry bear. “What did you call me?” she asked the older gentleman near the door. Except he was no gentleman if he went around insulting women he’d never met. “You better apologize.”
“Why?” he asked, sauntering a couple of steps closer.
There was another guy further away, but she ignored him to focus on the rude dude.
“Because if you’re talking about me, it’s a lie,” she said, going closer to him. “And you shouldn’t insult people who have a big microphone.”
“Now she’s threatening us,” the far away guy said.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asked, looking from one person to the next, stalling on Astrid. “Did everyone take crazy pills?”
“You were on the website,” Astrid explained. “You’ve been talking to users.”
Unable to believe that a few words could cause so much upset, Roxie was bewildered. “What? That’s what got the precious Lord Lomond in a snit?”
Her attention swung back to him. Lomond wasn’t any calmer, in fact the tightness in his jaw suggested he was close to breaking a molar.
Though their eyes were again locked, someone else spoke for him. “You were not given permission to—”
“I logged in,” Roxie countered. “If you didn’t want me there, why give me the logins?”
“We didn’t know you had your computer,” Slick said.
Tilting her head to the side, she narrowed her focus on Lomond. “Have you got a tongue in your head or do you always let others speak for you?” Licking her lips, she rolled her eyes upward, fake pondering. “Uh, let me help… I think the word you’re looking for is ‘sorry.’”
“Sorry?” Lomond snapped, marching closer. “You expect me to apologize to you?”
“Yes,” she said, matching his pace until they were up close again. “You came in here yelling at me, sent your little posse to scold me and I was only doing what I’m here to do.”
“You upset hundreds of people.”
“Hundreds?”
“Online,” he said, looming closer. “You have no idea the shit-storm you’ve stirred up. You had no right—”
“To tell the truth?” she asked. “They asked questions and I answered them.”
“There’s a process—”
“I don’t give a damn about your process.”
“Stop interrupting me!”
“I’ll do whatever I damn well please, Skippy. I am not your employee. I am not beholden to you.” She thrust her fists to her hips. “And I am definitely not afraid of you. Shout. Threaten. Stamp your feet. Whatever. You are in the wrong here.”
“Wrong?” he said, recoiling a fraction, incredulity written across his expression. “I am not—”
“Bet you’re not used to that. Anyone ever tell you you’re wrong before? ‘Cause you are. Right now. Drink it in, Tough Guy.”
“You had no right to talk about me.”
“I didn’t talk about you,” she said. “Your fans wanted me to talk about you, but I told the truth. Did I meet you before tonight?” He didn’t respond. “Did I?”
“No,” he growled in a deep, steady reply, tension still vibrating through him.
“So that’s what I said. I never met you.
I told them I never met you. What would you rather I said?
That we were best buds? That we were screwing and you’re the best I ever had?
Would you prefer me to lie? I can make up all kinds of shit.
Guarantee it won’t paint you in the best light… ” She exhaled. “Asshole.”
“Your comments have to be approved before—”
“No,” Roxie said, shaking her head. “I didn’t sign up for that. The point of my position is to tell the truth.”
“Your position?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? To show the world you had nothing to hide? Those were your words. Yours.”
“Your turn of phrase matters,” he said, dialing down a little. “You don’t strike me as a woman who considers her words before she uses them.”
Guy had some goddamn nerve. “You think I don’t know words have power?
” she asked, noting the fade of his rage.
“I know words have power. I also know the difference between truth and spin. I won’t spin my reality for you, I tell the truth.
I couldn’t answer their questions because we’d never met.
I don’t know you. And if they asked me that question again right now, I’d say you’re an impulsive hothead because that’s all I know about you. ”
“You don’t know me.”
“No.” Roxie folded her arms “I don’t think I want to either. You’re not the good kind of spontaneous, that much is obvious. What a disappointment.”
His tongue moved behind his lower lip.
He took one step back to switch his focus to the others. “Give us the space.”
“What?” the older guy by the door said. “Z, we’ve got—”
“Give us the room, Og.”
Mutterings dwindled and the door closed. Everyone was gone. They were alone.
“What now?” she asked. “You going to yell at me some more without witnesses?”