Chaos & Heartbreak
Morgan
The glow of my laptop screen was the only light in my co-working space, casting long shadows across a cluttered coffee table.
Papers were strewn everywhere—scribbled notes, printed stats, half-finished slides for the GWL pitch I’d been obsessing over for the past week as Jax’s agent got me a meeting with someone in the organization My place smelled of stale coffee and the faint citrus of the candle I’d lit hours ago, now burned down to a waxy puddle.
My phone buzzed insistently on the corner of the couch cushion, vibrating against a stack of folders.
I ignored it, just like I’d ignored the last dozen calls.
The deadline loomed, and I was in the zone, fingers flying across the keyboard as I refined my argument: Stevens Marketing is the solution to your crisis PR needs—agile, creative, proven.
The GWL’s recent string of scandals—player arrests, doping rumors, fan backlash—needed a firm hand, and I was damn well going to prove that I was it.
I was told that the organization was looking for a fresh face to partner with and I felt that could be me.
A knock rattles my small office area, but I didn’t look up. “Not now,” I mutter to myself. The knock came again, louder, and before I could snap a proper refusal, the my front door flew open with a bang that made me jump.
Jax stands in the entryway, filling the frame with his broad shoulders and that wild energy he carried like a storm cloud.
His dark hair was mussed, like he’d been raking his hands through it, and his jaw was set tight, eyes blazing with something I couldn’t place—anger, panic, maybe both.
He wore a black hoodie and jeans, a stark contrast to the polished suits we’d donned for the awards show a few weeks ago.
My heart stuttered, not just from the interruption but from the raw intensity rolling off him.
“Jax, what the hell?” I stare at him with confusion. “I’m on a deadline. You can’t just—”
“We’ve got a problem,” he cut in, voice low and rough. He steps inside, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the walls. I wince, hoping none of my neighbors complain. It was late, and this community was generally pretty quiet at night.
“I don’t have time for problems,” I said, forcing my tone to stay sharp despite the unease creeping up my spine. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”
“No, Morgan, it can’t.” He crossed my living room in three strides, stopping just short of the coffee table. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and the look on his face—God, it was like he’d been punched and was still reeling. “It’s out. All of it.”
I frowned, irritation warring with confusion. “What’s out? Jax, I’m in the middle of—”
“The leak,” he said, and the word hit me like a slap. “That bastard Simmons—he didn’t just poke at it with the press. He’s saying our relationship’s fake,he didn’t specifically say it was us, but it’s pretty clear with his words.”
The air sucked out of the room. My hands froze over the keyboard, the half-finished sentence on my screen blurring as his words sank in. Fake. Exposure. Tearing you apart. I pushed my laptop shut with a soft click, leaning back in my chair as a cold wave of dread washed over me.
“Show me,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest.
Jax hesitated, then pulled out his phone, swiping to a news site before shoving it into my hands.
The headline screamed in bold: “Jax Carr’s Romance a Sham?
PR Pro Morgan Stevens Caught in Scandal.
” Below it, a photo of us from the charity gala —me smiling, him whispering in my ear—now captioned with venom: “All an act: Stevens Marketing cashes in on Carr’s bad boy image.
” I scrolled, my stomach twisting. Tweets called me a fraud, a manipulator.
A sports blog questioned my ethics, hinting I’d used Jax in hopes to land bigger clients.
And there, buried in the mess, was Simmons’ smug byline, claiming “sources” had confirmed our relationship was a calculated ploy.
I drop the phone onto the desk, the clatter echoing in the silence. My mind raced, piecing it together—Simmons, Jax’s rival reporter with a vendetta, had been sniffing around since the red carpet. I’d brushed it off as noise, but this?
This was a bomb, and it had detonated right in the middle of my career. I can’t be known as the PR person who dates her clients.
“How did this happen?” I asked, my voice rising despite my effort to stay calm.
“Who leaked it? Your agent?”
“I don’t know!” Jax threw his hands up, pacing the small space like a caged lion.
“Simmons has it out for me. He’s been digging since that fight in Vegas last year. Maybe he hacked something, maybe he paid someone off. I don’t know how he got it, but he’s got enough to make it stick.”
“Fuck. I don’t know what to think!” I shout, my voice cracking.
“You storm in here, drop this on me, and expect me to just—what? Fix it? Like I always do? I’m not your PR puppet, Jax.
I’m a person, and this hurts me just as much as it hurts you.
Fuck, the GWL is going to think I fuck all my clients. ”
He flinches, and for a moment, I see something raw flicker in his eyes—guilt, maybe, or regret. But it vanishes as fast as it came, replaced by that stubborn defensiveness I knew too well.
“I’m not asking you to fix it. I’m telling you because you deserve to know. Simmons is a snake, but I didn’t feed him this. I wouldn’t do that to you. To us.”
“I know” I stepped closer, my hands trembling at my sides. ““Hey.” I cup Jax’s jaw, thumb brushing across his cheek. “We’re a team, remember? Fake start, real finish. Let’s figure out how to bury this louder than he screamed it.”
He stares at me, his breath coming fast, and for a second.
He reaches for me, his hand hovering near my arm before dropping back to his side. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he admitted, and the vulnerability in his tone cut through my anger, leaving a hollow ache in its place. “But I’m not walking away. Not from you.”
I turned away, pressing my hands to my face as I tried to steady myself.
The room felt too small, the air too thick.
Outside, the city hummed—cars honking, lights flickering through the glass—but in here, it was just us, trapped in this mess.
I thought of the pitch, the hours I’d poured into it, now tainted by this scandal.
I thought of my friends, who’d cheered me on as #MorJax trended, unaware of how it’d unravel.
And I thought of Jax, the man I’d let myself care about, standing there with no answers.
“Say something,” he said, his voice rough with desperation. “Please, Morgan.”
I lowered my hands, meeting his gaze. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, each word heavy. “Not right now. I need time—to think, to figure out how to salvage this pitch, my reputation, everything. And you—you need to figure out what you want. Because I can’t keep guessing.”
He nodded, slow and pained, like he’d expected it but still hated hearing it.
“Okay. Time. I can give you that. I love you, Morgs. For real, I mean that. Between you and me, it’s real. It’s not a lie, it hasn’t been since the night in the park. Since we agreed to make this real.”
“No more surprises,” I added, pointing a finger at him. “No more storming in, no more bombshells. If we’re going to get through this, we need to be level-headed.”
“I will,” he promised.
He lingered a moment longer, then turned and walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.
I sank back into my chair, staring at the closed laptop, the scattered papers, the life I’d built now teetering on the edge.
The phone buzzed again—another call, probably a reporteR.
I let it ring, my mind too full, my heart too heavy.
Tomorrow, I’d face the GWL, the media, the fallout.
Tonight, I just needed to breathe.