Chapter 5 Ella
ELLA
Ihead into the conference room the PR team uses as an office, and everyone’s eyes land on me.
Immediately, it’s painfully clear that the team is trying to be quiet and professional, but they aren’t succeeding.
The vibe in the room is stiff and awkward, and instinctively, I start to shrink into myself, embarrassed.
But then I shake myself out of it, remembering Asher’s words.
His words make me realize that he’s right.
I have nothing to be ashamed of. The only thing I’m guilty of is staying with Kyle for too long—of getting caught up in that woman’s role as old as time—thinking I could fix him.
Thinking that if I just became more of what he wanted, that he would somehow be happier and magically become a better partner.
Spoiler alert, it didn’t work. And when I broke up with him, all his worst traits seemed to multiply to the point where, months later, he was willing to threaten me at gunpoint.
None of that is on me. Those were Kyle’s decisions.
I straighten my shoulders as another epiphany hits me: I need to let go and face the fears I was so desperate to protect four days ago.
When I found out Kyle was going to release a story with RTZ about our breakup, I wanted to bury it.
I wanted to make sure his violent behavior toward me never came to light because I didn’t want to face the public scrutiny.
I didn’t want to be forever labeled as a victim of domestic violence—but now I realize that that was a narrow view.
With a little distance and perspective, I now see how lucky I am to have made it out of that situation safely when so many women don’t.
It’s still difficult to swallow the fact that my private life is being highlighted in the media, but if this story shines a light on domestic abuse, on toxic relationship dynamics, who am I to deny that it might be beneficial to some woman somewhere in the world?
This is the price to pay for being with Asher.
And in this case, maybe that price helps someone.
I can’t hate that. So, I will hold my head up high and write my own story, and I will show the world that I may have been a victim, but I refuse to stay one.
“How are you?” Heather asks as I set my bag down on my desk.
“I’ve been better, but I’m glad to be back in the office.”
She gives me a hug. “We’re glad to have you back.”
I can tell she wants to say more, but she doesn’t, though the subtext of her thoughts is clear. If things had gone horribly wrong and I hadn’t made it out of that room with Kyle, I wouldn’t be here in the office. I’m lucky to be here. I can’t forget that today.
Emily directs the team to the table in the corner, and we all head there and take our seats.
“It looks like we have two separate battles to fight,” she says, after we’re all settled.
“One is the cheating, and the other is the domestic violence. We need to prove, concretely, that Ella never cheated on Kyle, because for reasons I don’t understand, many men on the internet feel Kyle was justified in his actions.
Now, normally I wouldn’t worry over some dude-bro trolls and their Neanderthal take on how a man is justified in domestic violence, but this story is a mess, and the more we can clean it up, the better. ”
“I’ll release my videos and texts,” I say, firmly. “That will prove everything in one fell swoop.”
Emily looks at me with surprise and what also looks like pity. “I thought you were against releasing them.”
“I was. But a lot has changed over the last few days. Everyone now knows what Kyle is like, so it’s not something I can keep quiet anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily says after a long pause. “I hate to expose your personal life like this, but I do think it’s our best weapon in this case.”
I nod in agreement and grab my old phone out of my purse.
I forward everything to Emily while the rest of the team discusses more strategies.
When I’m done, I reach out to the editor in chief of RTZ and tell him that the deal with the beach and engagement photos I had negotiated with him is off.
He may not have released the article that was the catalyst to this entire fiasco as it was, but he still released most of it.
And I refuse to make nice and do business with someone who doesn’t keep their word.
“Got them,” Emily tells me after waiting a bit for the texts to download.
Then she turns to address the team. “Josh and Michael, I want you to help me put this timeline of videos and texts together with a narrative of Kyle’s past behavior.
Daphne and Heather, I want you to put together a statement about domestic violence that we can incorporate into it.
Ella and Mr. Langford will have the final say on everything before it goes out, but I want to be well-rounded in our approach.
We can’t just paint Ella as a victim, we need to also highlight her resiliency and strength.
I want to keep Mr. Langford out of the discussion as much as possible, other than to show that once he knew Ella was in trouble, he rushed to help her.
We can’t disclose the details of what went on in that room as they are under an official investigation, but we can work with what the NYPD already released in their statements. ”
Everyone nods and gets to work, but since there isn’t much for me to do, I head to the bathroom—I need a minute to collect myself.
I open the last stall and take some deep breaths.
Talking about that night is bringing up flashes of it in my mind, and the shock of having a gun pointed at me is still messing with me, making my heart race and my palms sweat.
I can’t get over not knowing if Kyle would have pulled that trigger or not.
The fear of feeling so blindsided by someone I once trusted is a shock that has yet to wear off, even days later.
After a few minutes, I feel marginally better and I’m about to exit the stall when footsteps click-clack against the marble floors.
“I bet Mr. Langford is regretting choosing Ella,” Daphne’s voice filters from the other side of the bathroom. “This is such a mess. She should have told him about her crazy ex.”
I grit my teeth. I did tell Asher about Kyle before we signed the papers for our arrangement.
Hell, we broke into Kyle’s apartment to get what remained of my things back before we signed the papers.
Asher knew what an asshole Kyle was from the beginning; we just both thought Asher’s threats would be enough to dissuade him from doing anything else to me.
But Kyle is clearly a moron and unstable.
When he came forward to RTZ about his farce of a story, I was only partially surprised, considering his past narcissistic and delusional behavior, but even I couldn’t have predicted that Kyle would go as crazy as he did. Pulling a gun on someone is not normal.
“If I were you, I’d keep my opinions to myself,” Heather’s voice says in a warning tone. The water turns on at the sinks, and she raises her voice to speak over it. “Mr. Langford is very protective when it comes to Ella. If he heard you talking like this, he’d probably fire you.”
Daphne scoffs. “He’s only putting on a show. He’s the big bad boss, so he has to act like a tyrant when it comes to Ella because that’s what people expect.”
“And how do you know that?”
“It’s obvious.”
“Is it? Because if I didn’t know this was an arrangement, I’d swear he was crazy about her.”
“Exactly. He’s a good actor. He’s been in the spotlight his whole life; he knows how to turn on the charm when he needs to. But there’s no way any of it is real. He’s Asher Langford. He can have any woman he wants. He was forced to take on Ella.”
“He was forced into this situation, but he chose Ella.”
“Yeah, after she clearly set her sights on him. The night we all went to the club, she showed up looking like a slut. Remember how they were just holding hands out of nowhere? She rode in his car that night, and I’d bet anything she sucked him off on the way there.”
“Shh! God, Daphne, do you have a death wish? You can’t just say shit like that.”
“No one can hear me in here.”
“Why do you care about this so much? While I highly doubt anything like that happened with Ella, he still chose her.”
“I care because this is supposed to be a PR improvement for his image, and it’s been nothing but a nightmare.”
“That’s not true. Their trip to London was one slam dunk after another. Asher even said the executives at Lennox Rose were so taken with Ella that it was a huge factor in their agreement to sign with Langford Holdings. There was also the movie premiere. That was another huge hit.”
“What are you, Ella’s little bitch? Why are you defending her?”
“Because that’s my job, and in case you forgot, it’s yours too. Whatever this petty jealousy is you have with Ella, you’d better figure out how to forget it, or it’s going to cost you your job.”
Daphne scoffs. “I’m not jealous.”
“Please. You’re so jealous, and you’re barely even quiet about it. We can all see it, and I’m sure Emily’s about at the end of her rope.”
“I’m not jealous, I’m annoyed. If Asher had chosen an heiress like he was supposed to, our jobs would be a lot easier.”
“Who’s to say? All those heiresses had major skeletons in their closets. We would be fighting stories like this no matter what. It comes with the territory of dating Mr. Langford.”
“Yeah, well neither of them would have had a psycho ex-boyfriend come for them with a gun. This isn’t just PR, this is like a trashy cop show.” Her voice is slightly distorted as she speaks, then she finishes with a popping sound, like she’s just finished applying lipstick or something.