Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
JADE
“Thanks.” I take the mug of coffee Mom slides across the table between my palms.
She was shocked when she walked out into the living room and found me curled up on the couch.
But not as I shocked as I was when Stephen walked out of the bedroom with the most obvious I-spent-all-night-fucking-hair I’ve ever seen.
I couldn’t even form words as he gave me a sheepish smile, walked over to kiss my forehead, and then left.
“Stephen, huh?” I take a sip, the hazelnut creamer hitting just right. “That’s new. You’ve never gone back for a repeat.”
“I know.” She pulls her robe tight around her slim body and sits down. “But he’s different. I’ve never stopped thinking about him.”
“Yeah.” I relate all too well.
She takes a sip of her coffee and looks me over with the careful attention of mother. “You want to talk about it?”
I pull my phone from my pocket and open it to the article.
She glances down as I wordlessly hand it over.
Her brow tries valiantly to furrow against the botox she gets regularly injected.
Aside from that there’s no reaction, no horrified exclamation.
Instead, she gives the phone back to me with a smile on her face.
“About time you two got back together.” She gives me a smug smile and takes another drink of her coffee.
“I—what?” I sputter. I never told her about Xander, and from what I understand, he didn’t tell Stephen. “What do you mean?”
Her head tilts. “Do you really think we didn’t have any idea of what went on between you two that summer?”
“No? Yes?” I’m really at a loss here. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“You were so insistent about never speaking to him again after I told you about the divorce, I just assumed something happened. That if you wanted me to know, I would.”
“Do you want to know?”
She leans forward. “Of course I do. I’ve only wondered for fifteen years.”
“Don’t tell Stephen. I don’t know what he knows or what Xander would want him to know.”
“Okay.”
Over the next couple hours, we cover everything from prom to the shit show I woke up to this morning. At one point we’re interrupted by a delivery of the city’s best cinnamon rolls and flowers from Stephen. I drag in a deep breath and get ready to tell her the biggest secret I’ve ever kept.
“Along with all of that, there’s one more thing I haven’t told you.” I fold my hands together and press them into my lap. “Early on in my first semester at UCLA, I found out I was pregnant.”
Mom’s fork stops in mid-air. She blinks a few times and then sets the utensil down. Her hands reach across the table. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” She squeezes both of my hands. “You could have told me, I would have been there for you.”
“I know you would have. I just couldn’t go into the Xander of it all, you know? I was still so hurt.” Tears sting my eyes. There was never any doubt in my mind that she would have supported me regardless of what choice I made.
“I understand. Did you have to have a procedure or?” Her fingers stroke the back of my hands.
“No.” I shake my head. “It was early enough that I could take a course of two medications. Ended up feeling like the worst period of my life.”
“Okay. Good.” She tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “The girls took care of you?”
“Yes. Shan, Steph, and Amber were amazing.” I look at her. “Are you disappointed in me?”
“Not at all. I could never be disappointed in you.”
The air whooshes out of my lungs in relief. More tears sting my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much it would mean to come fully clean to my mom. Eighteen-year-old me needed this conversation so badly.
A heavy knock sounds at the door, interrupting our conversation. We both look at each other when the knock comes quickly again. It’s too heavy and frantic to be another delivery.
“Jade?”
Mom’s eyes flare at the sound of Xander’s voice. I should have known he’d come here to look for me. I mouth to her that I’m going to hide and for her to pretend I’m not here.
I walk into the guest room and stand by the door, so I can eavesdrop on their conversation.
“Xander? Lovely to see you.”
“You, too. Is Jade here?”
“No. Do you need me to pass on a message? Is it about the band?”
“No, no. It’s just a personal thing.”
“Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”
Mom? What the fuck? I scowl at her through the wall.
“No, thank you.” His voice trails off as if he’s trying to develop x-ray vision and see through the walls.
“Do you want me to pass along a message if I speak to her?”
“She knows I’m looking for her.”
No shit. My mind flashes back to the video from my doorbell camera.
“Okay. Congratulations on the tour.”
“Thank you.” I can hear the warmth in his voice. “It was good seeing you.”
“Same to you.” I hear the jingle of her bracelets as her arms move, maybe giving him a hug. “Swing by any time.”
“I will. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you more in the future.”
He is confident, I’ll give him that. I wait to come out until Mom closes the door, and I hear the lock flip. Her brows lift as high as they can when we lock eyes.
“You can hide out here as long as you need to figure out what your plan is, but I think he’ll be coming back. He doesn’t seem remotely interested in giving you space or time.”
“I know.”
My heart twinges at the thought of him waking up alone today.
Especially after last night. It was shitty, but I didn’t want the paparazzi to get photos of me leaving.
I also just need space to think. There were already comments on the article I read suggesting I slept my way to the top.
It’s exactly what I didn’t want to have happen.
I do love Xander, but I also love my job and hate that this forces me to choose.
What would another possible employer think about this?
All it will take is one Google search for them to find this story.
I’ll be haunted by it for the rest of my life.
The question is what would haunt me more, losing Xander or my professional reputation?
I’m out on the balcony soaking up some sun and watching the traffic below while I wait for Darren to show up. I finally responded to his flurry of messages after taking a shower and thinking about how to approach this mess. I still don’t know, and that’s exactly why I needed to call him in.
My arms are braced on the railing when the glass door slides open behind me.
“No jumping until we get a statement released,” Darren says as he pulls the door shut behind him.
He’s wearing a sleek navy suit that makes his silvery gray eyes pop until he pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slides them on.
His lips are set in a firm line, but it’s not an indication of irritation with me, regardless of how callous his words are.
He dropped everything to come here when I called, even though this could have been a phone call.
“Falling twenty-four floors would change the narrative, though.” I cross the distance between us when he opens his arms.
His embrace is tight and lingers just a bit longer than any other hug we’ve shared before now. “Let’s explore other options first.” He releases me to study my face. “First and foremost, everything implied about your professionalism by that article is bullshit.”
I nod and look away. “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s out there now.”
“It doesn’t.”
We each take a seat on one of the striped lounge chairs.
“Xander’s a mess.” He pulls a cigarette out and puts it between his lips. “When did you two stop fighting and start fucking?”
“Fairly recently. Back half of the tour.”
He lights the cigarette and nods as he inhales the first drag. “There was a vibe shift,” he says, blowing the smoke downwind away from me. “I couldn’t care less what the two of you are doing behind closed doors, but a heads up would have been nice.”
“It was my idea to keep it a secret. I was worried about how it would look for me professionally.” I run a hand through my hair. “And I was fucking right, as usual.”
“Tale as old as time.” He takes another drag and holds it in his chest. “How do you think we play this?”
“The only thing for me to do is resign.”
His brows slam together, and he throws the cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with one of his Italian leather loafers. “Absolutely-the-fuck-not.”
“Darren, we’ve worked so hard to get the band’s reputation back in line with what the label wanted. They still have the international legs of the tour next year. The last thing they need is a scandal following them.”
“They’re rock stars. They could sniff lines of coke off the pope’s ass, and their fans would still line up and buy tickets.”
“But the label,” I begin.
“The label can get fucked,” he interrupts.
“I’m so sick of those god damned fuckwits lording the guys’ mistakes over them.
As if their C-suite isn’t full of legitimate criminals doing much, much worse.
” He points at me. “And when we leave the label, we need you. You are a cog in the machine we’ve made that cannot be replaced. ”
I blink away the tears threatening to rise. “Do you have a plan for leaving the label?”
“Working on it.”
“With outside counsel?”
He nods. “Yeah. As you know, the band’s contract is up at the end of this tour, and they haven’t resigned yet. There are already whispers of interest from other labels.”
“What about the studio time they’ve already had?”
He shrugs. “That’s easy enough to reimburse.”
My phone chirps with a text notification. I look down and see it’s from Drew, one of the reporters that I regularly blow off. My gut says not to open it, but I do anyway. I’m still employed by the band, and this is part of my job.
Drew
If I get on my knees for you, will I get an exclusive?
I eat pussy like a champ
Since that seems to be how you conduct business
My stomach hollows. Darren must notice the blood drain from my face because he plucks the phone from my hands. He growls with anger as he reads and rereads the message. I look away, needing a second to compose myself.
“Block him,” he hands the phone back.
“I can’t.” I turn the phone off and set it beside me. “He’s the lead music journalist for one of the biggest music publications in the world.”
“I don’t really give a fuck.” He leans forward, his eyes narrowed behind his aviators. “No one gets to speak to you like that. Ever.”
“This is why I have to resign. It’ll be a distraction.”
“No.”
“Darren,” I say his name with exasperation.
“Jade.” His tone is firm and final.
We sit there, staring each other down at a stalemate. “I’ve known how much music means to Xander since the moment we met. It’s the same for Stone. The band is the only thing keeping Tobias from spiraling out of control. I can’t, in good conscience, put any of that at risk.”
He shakes his head and stands. “I’m going to let you decide what kind of statement to release. The band is my job, and I assure you, you aren’t putting anything at risk.”
I stand up to walk him out. Mom must be in her room as we walk through the condo to the front door because she’s nowhere to be found. He sets his hand on my shoulder before I reach for the handle.
“I need you to dig deep, Jade. Remember who you are. The woman who won’t even let me have enough space to rest my balls when I sit down isn’t going to allow a bunch of misogynistic assholes to force her to abandon a job she loves. This is your life, and you make the rules.”
I nod as tears spring to my eyes.
He rears back. “For fuck’s sake, don’t cry.”
A watery laugh escapes me, and a tear rolls down my cheek. “Sorry. I’ll keep my humanity in check for you.”
“Thank you.” He adjusts the collar of his crisp, white shirt.
“Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with my vulnerability.” I give him a wan smile.
“Just don’t make it a habit.” He pats my head like he would a dog. “What do you want me to tell Xander? He knows I was meeting with you.”
“You didn’t tell him where I am, did you?”
“No, just that we were meeting to discuss our next steps.”
“Good. Tell him I need time to figure everything out, but that I’m fine.”
He leaves, and as I close the door behind him, I start running through options for the public statement I’ll release.
I grab a Diet Coke from the fridge and curl up on the couch with my laptop.
It takes multiple drafts and endless second-guessing each word and sentence before I settle on the perfect statement.