29. Nate
NATE
Dove had prepared twelve pages of talking points.
She’d sent them to him the night before, brought him a printed copy today, and walked him through the key messages twice in the green room before the press conference began.
She’d been thorough and precise and had anticipated every likely question.
The answers she’d prepared were measured and strategic, and they’d been reviewed by both his lawyers and his communications team and signed off by Radha, who had the best instincts of anyone he employed.
Simply put, the plan was flawless. And simple.
Acknowledge the story. Express regret for any misrepresentation. Decline to confirm or deny specific details on legal grounds. Pivot to the company’s ongoing work. Thank the press for their time. Exit cleanly.
It was a good plan. Dove was good at her job. He’d paid for the best and gotten it.
Nate sat in the green room with the talking points in front of him and read them through one more time. He was having trouble concentrating, though, when all he could think about was how Jasmine was selling her house.
Radha had told him that morning, having gotten the information from a mutual contact in real estate. She’d mentioned it casually, probably hoping that would help soften the blow, and then moved on to the next item.
But Nate had sat with it all morning, a bad taste in his mouth. Since Jasmine was selling her house, did that mean she was planning on leaving LA? Was she burning her life here to the ground?
She loved that house. She’d described it to him in the softest voice, so much love there you would have thought she was talking about a kitten or a child.
A house with a lemon tree and climbing roses, hummingbirds in the garden.
Her oasis. The one place on earth, she’d said, where she didn’t have to be the celebrity she’d exploded into overnight, only Jasmine.
He knew she was selling it because of his emails. Because of his bet. Because of a decision he’d made that he shouldn’t have.
He put the talking points face-down on the table.
The press conference room held forty journalists. He could hear them from the green room, the low current of voices, the sound of cameras being positioned. Dove appeared in the doorway and gave him the nod. Show time.
He stood, straightened his jacket, and followed her out.
As he entered the conference room, the cacophony of voices dropped to a focused quiet.
He took his seat at the long table. The Dove-approved statement was on the podium.
Water glass to his right. His communications director at his left.
Forty journalists with their questions ready and their various angles.
Nate put his hand on the printed statement and looked out at the room.
“Thank you for being here,” he said. Standard opener, exactly on script. A few pens moved. “I have a prepared statement which I’ll read, and then I’ll take questions.”
He looked down at the statement.
This wasn’t right. These were Dove’s words, not his. And they wouldn’t bring Jasmine back — which was all that mattered to him anymore.
The only thing he could think of that even had a tiny chance of bringing her back was the truth. It wasn’t foolproof. He didn’t know for sure if it would work.
But he had to try.
He pushed the statement to one side.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Dove stiffen.
“I’m going to set this aside,” he said, “because I’ve found, fairly recently, that the most useful thing I can do in any situation is tell the truth. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
The room changed. He could feel it — people’s attention sharpening, pens stopping, reporters in the front row leaning forward slightly.
“The reports are accurate,” he said. “The arrangement was real. I made a bet with a business rival. A stupid, arrogant bet, made in a bar, fueled by whisky and competitive pride. I’m not going to dress it up as anything more flattering than what it is.
I bet that I could marry Jasmine Caulfield within a year.
Then I went and found her, and I offered her money to go along with it, because I believed, at the time, that the right number could make anything possible.
” He paused. “That’s on me. All of it. The bet, the offer, the emails that are now everywhere.
Those are the result of choices I made, and I own every one of them. ”
A hand went up in the front row. He ignored the hand and kept going.
“What I’m not going to do is let the story stand as it’s currently being told.
Because the internet’s story is that Jasmine is a calculating woman who agreed to marry a man because she’s greedy for money, and that’s not the whole story.
” He looked out at the journalists steadily.
“She agreed to help me. That’s what actually happened.
I put a number in front of a woman who had every reason to slam a door in my face and never open it again, because six years ago I treated her carelessly.
She had every right to still be angry about it, but instead, she sat across a table from me, negotiated fairly, and held up her end of an arrangement that I created and she inherited.
” He paused. “I won’t get into the personal details beyond that, but she didn’t do it for the money.
She did me a favor because she’s a good person. The scandal belongs to me. Not to her.”
The room was very quiet, forty journalists not moving.
“She’s also…” His voice caught, and he suddenly felt emotional, his chest tight.
“She’s also the most remarkable person I’ve ever met.
I went into this arrangement thinking it was a transaction.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped being able to convince myself it was just that.
She has more courage and more honesty and more genuine grace than anyone I’ve met, and she has shown all of those things consistently in circumstances that I put her in and that she didn’t deserve.
” He stopped. Let that land. “I made a drunken bet. I thought I could buy a marriage. I was wrong on every level that matters, and she was the one who paid for it, and that’s the truth. ”
He picked up the water glass, took a sip, then set it down and looked at the room.
“These past weeks with Jasmine,” he said, quietly now, almost to himself, even though he was being broadcast and streamed, millions of people probably soon to watch and listen, “have been the best of my life. That’s not something I expected to be able to say.
It’s also not something I’m willing to let get buried under the version of this story that lets me off easy and doesn’t extend her the same courtesy.
” He took his time looking into eyes, into cameras.
“She deserves better than that. She has always deserved better than that. And I intend, if she’ll allow it, to do something about that.
” He glanced down at the table. “I won’t be taking any questions at this time. ”
The room erupted in them anyway.
Dove walked him out through a side door and into a corridor. The door to the conference room swinging shut behind them, she turned to face him with an expression he’d never seen on her before. It was somewhere between professional devastation and something that might have been reluctant admiration.
“That was not the plan,” she said.
“No,” he agreed.
“The lawyers are going to have thoughts.”
“I imagine.”
“Your communications director looked like she was going to be sick.”
“She’ll recover.” He loosened his tie, the same gesture he’d watched himself make in a dozen mirrors after four very long days. “What’s the internet saying?”
Dove looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at her phone, where the alerts were already coming in, a continuous stream of them. She scrolled for a few seconds. Something shifted in her expression.
“It’s not bad,” she said with surprise. “The response is…” She kept scrolling. “It’s not bad at all, actually. The taking-the-blame angle is—” She looked up. “People are responding to it.”
“Good,” Nate said.
“You did this for her,” Dove said. It wasn’t a question.
Which was good, because he didn’t feel like answering any questions right now. He put his jacket back on and reached for his phone. No messages from Jasmine, which he hadn’t really expected, but his desire hadn’t stopped him from checking.
“What now?” Dove asked.
He slid the phone into his pocket. He knew what now. He’d known since the night he’d sat alone in the kitchen and made himself be honest about the thing he wanted and the man he needed to be to deserve it.
“Now,” he said, “I hope that what I did out there actually meant something.”
He walked out into the afternoon. There were cameras waiting on the steps, but he just kept walking.