Chapter Two #2
Lexie felt like Alice down the rabbit’s hole, but everyone else seemed to know what was going on.
Her brothers were looking at her just as fiercely as her father, although Lowery had more shock on his face.
Tara appeared to be enjoying Lexie’s discomfort, but Blaire was worrying a divot in the carpeting with her heel.
Lexie summoned her calm. “Cam says this has something to do with billboard advertising we did?”
“We did?” her father snapped. He gestured jerkily at Landers, who tossed the morning newspaper onto the desk. It slid unopened towards her, coming to a stop at a cockeyed angle. “That’s all you, my dear.”
Lexie scanned the paper, but the headline on the front page only confused her more…
something about a billboard along the interstate causing controversy.
She turned the paper so she could read it better.
They hadn’t done any billboard advertising for over a year, and the longest their ads remained on display was usually sixty days.
To her knowledge, all of Underhill’s ads had been papered over long ago.
She looked at the grainy, black-and-white photograph.
It didn’t even come close to their branding. It was—
Her.
She blinked and looked again.
It was her.
She snatched up the paper. The billboard advertised The Ruckus, a biker bar on the other side of the river. She’d heard of it but had never been there. She didn’t tend to frequent the bar scene, and this one had a reputation that kept her away.
Yet there she was in all her glory.
In the shot, she was looking sultrily at the drivers passing by along the highway.
Kohl eyeliner made her eyes smoky, and her hair hung like a dark waterfall over her shoulders.
Her lips were parted, red and glossy. As seductive as the expression was, though, it clearly wasn’t what was generating all the hoopla.
It was what she—or the model—was wearing.
The bustier didn’t cover much, but it certainly…
boosted. Her breasts nearly spilled out over the top right onto the roadway.
Only they weren’t her breasts. Lexie shook her head. The billboard couldn’t look this much like her in real life.
“This isn’t me.” Although every time she looked at the shot, she thought it was. No wonder everyone else did too. “It’s not,” she insisted. “Or…maybe it is, but somebody Photoshopped it. But…it can’t be. I’ve never posed like this.”
She wouldn’t even know how. The woman on the page was the embodiment of sex. Mystery and intrigue. Definitely the forbidden. If she tried to act like that, people would turn away laughing.
Nobody was laughing now.
“Alexandra Marie, don’t you dare lie to me.”
“Father, I’m not.”
Tara planted her hands on her hips. “She’s been locked in her office the last few weeks, working on something. None of us knows what it is.”
“So this is our new marketing campaign?” Landers asked incredulously. “You’re farming yourself out as a T&A model?”
Lexie’s breath caught, so offended she didn’t know how to respond.
“Watch it.” The snarl in Cameron Rowe’s voice made everyone pull back.
Lexie forced her shoulders not to hunch, but she shrank a little inside. As much as she tried to fit in, she always felt like the oddity, but she’d never had her entire family against her. For God’s sake, the hatchet man was the only one siding with her.
She trailed her fingers over the newspaper until the ink stained her fingertips. How could she explain this? How had this happened? Why? Her touch stilled against the newsprint.
Maybe the real question was who?
Her gaze slid upwards.
Which one of them had done did this?
Her lungs pumped hard as she stared at the Underhills one by one.
The restructuring activity had stirred things up over the past months.
Ruthless Rowe had come down hard on all of them, analyzing their processes and productivity.
Her marketing department had taken its hits, but it had fared better than others. Was this some sort of childish payback?
Her father stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Lexie concentrated on him rather than how far up they were. His blond hair seemed nearly white against the redness in his face.
“What were you thinking?” he asked. “Plastering your painted face and exposed body along the most highly traveled freeway in the city? Do you know how many accounts we’re going to lose because of this? We make educational children’s games, for God’s sake.”
Lexie pushed the newspaper away from her. “I didn’t do this.”
“And your mother…” Julian raked a hand through that thick shock of hair, and his shoulders slumped. “Anne Marie is sick about this. You know I don’t like her upset. I had to tell her what kind of place that dive is…what kind of things happen there…”
Lexie threw another look at her siblings, but not one of them stepped up to defend her. Not one of them came forward to admit it was a prank…their fault… Blaire was crying now, but the rest were watching the whole thing unfold with some kind of bizarre fascination.
What was going on?
Her father finally turned to face her. “I want this mess cleaned up, Alexandra, and I want it cleaned up now.”
“So do I.” There were pranks, and then there was cruelty. This went way past the line. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise.”
“Good. Get on it.”
What, right now? “But—”
His blue gaze swung up to meet hers, and it was as hard as a sapphire. “This company can’t afford that kind of bad exposure. Not now. This needs to be handled.”
Bad exposure from her face…
Lexie tried to let the backhand slide. For some inane reason, her proposal was still of prime importance to her.
It could help. “I’ll find out what happened, I swear, but I have an idea that I think will gain us some new business.
If we could just get back to the quarterly meeting and show everyone we’re still strong together—”
“I don’t want the kind of business your kind of marketing is going to bring.” Her father’s voice lifted again, and Lexie realized his pale hands were shaking. He pushed away the paper on the desk as if it repulsed him. The family name was everything to him. His legacy.
And someone had smeared it using her.
Rowe stepped between them. “This isn’t productive, Julian.”
Her father stared at his right-hand man for a long, long moment. The old guard facing off against the new. “She’s up there for the whole world to see, Cam.”
Rowe picked up the newspaper, studied it and finally shook his head. “She said she didn’t do it, and look at the damn thing. It’s not even her.”
Yes, Lexie thought. Just look at it. Couldn’t Julian see that wasn’t her? Didn’t he know her better than that?
Her hopes fell when her father’s chest puffed out and his jaw stiffened. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being soft. He might trust Rowe’s recommendations regarding the company, but he wouldn’t put up with a direct challenge of authority.
“It doesn’t matter,” Julian said in a clipped voice. “Whether she did it or not, it’s her face up there—and we have to give our report to our investors in two weeks. You know that pornographic billboard will be all anyone wants to talk about.”
It didn’t matter…
This time the verbal backhand was harder to ignore. Lexie flinched as if she’d been struck.
“I’ll go,” she said, her throat constricted.
Without thinking, she caught Rowe’s arm.
This wasn’t worth him fighting over. At her touch, his biceps clenched.
For some reason, the reaction made her lungs, heart and stomach squeeze together, trying to crowd into the same aching spot inside her chest. “I’ll fix it. ”
She went to gather up her things but was surprised to find them still in the crook of her arm.
Spinning away from everyone, she nearly ran right into Cam.
She pulled up short but kept her gaze at tie level.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she circled around him and headed towards the door.
“Julian,” Rowe growled.
If there was a response, Lexie didn’t hear it.
She closed the door behind her but found herself right back in the mix of things.
People stood in the hallway like statues, frozen when she caught them watching her.
This time, there was no cover under which she could hide.
She wove her way in and out of them, wishing she had a clear path to her office.
No wonder everyone had stared at her before. How many of them had seen the paper? How many of them had driven by that train-wreck billboard?
Which was not pornographic.
It was beautiful, in a stark, sexual way.
As horrified as she was, she kept her head high and her footsteps even. It took forever for her to get to the privacy of her office, but when she did, she closed the door behind her.
Air. It was the topmost thing on her mind. Leaning back against the door, she sucked oxygen into her lungs. It hurt.
Everything hurt.
Away from all the hot looks and disapproving frowns, her composure threatened to crumble.
She’d spent her life trying so hard to gain her father’s approval.
And for what? He hadn’t even been willing to listen to her.
It didn’t matter if it was her on that billboard or not.
She bet it would have mattered if it was Tara or Blaire. The lawyers would already be on it.
Besides, Tara would have loved to have her pouty puss up there.
Sounds from the offices crept through the door, making Lexie grimace. People were still talking. Everyone had witnessed her humiliation. Even the computers and printers were hissing and clacking away about it. Only it wasn’t her! Why wouldn’t anyone believe her?
She jumped when a knock sounded just opposite of her head.
“Lexie?”
Oh God. The voice drifted practically into her ear. Cameron Rowe. Damn it all to high heaven. She fumbled for the lock, but the handle was turning. The door started to swing open but instead thumped against her.