Page 126 of Knot Their Starlet

“Sure,” she bites out.

“Does he know? Beckham Knight? That you’re sneaking around with his publicist behind his back.”

She blinks at me.

A slow, drunk blink.

And then something twists in her expression.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know anything,” she hisses.

“I know what I saw,” I shrug. “And it can stay between us if you help me.”

Andromeda Sterling does something that surprises the hell out of me.

She throws her head back and laughs.

She laughs so hard she has to hold her belly, drawing attention to her slim waist and the flare of her hips.

Fuck, I need to get my head on straight. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that.

“So you’re blackmailing me? That’s how you want this to go?”

“I wouldn’t call it blackmailing,” I mutter, the words bitter on my tongue. Because it is most certainly blackmailing. But she doesn’t understand that it’s my career at stake here. And my career is the only fucking thing I have.

Like hell am I going to let a snobby, rich omega born with a silver spoon in her mouth ruin things for me.

“You know what’s funny?” she says, catching her breath. “You clearly think you know exactly who I am. What this is.” She gestures loosely between herself and the ceiling. “You’ve already written the story.”

“I haven’t written anything yet.”

“You wrote it before you walked in here,” she spits. “That’s how it always goes. You pick someone to defend and someone to shit on. I’m sure Beck’s the one you’ve oh so graciously decided to defend, right?”

I don’t answer, which is probably an answer in and of itself.

Something tells me she’s not as stupid as the media portrays her, and even though she’s clearly incredibly intoxicated, I’ve already revealed that I’m here to write a piece on male omegas.

“My mom does that too,” she mutters, almost to herself. “Decides what something is before she fucking looks at it.”

Her words make my brows draw down. That feels like far too intimate a piece of knowledge for her to reveal to me, considering how the rest of this shitshow of a conversation has gone. It only makes me feel guiltier. She obviously wouldn’t have shared that with me if she weren’t as drunk as she is.

“I feel sorry for the people you write about.” She meets my eyes, a fire in their dark depths that has my walls instantly flying up, stamping down the guilt immediately.

I’m sure it was a dig meant to hurt.

And it sure as fuck does.

“You don’t know anything about what I write,” I hiss, closing the distance between us.

“Oh, really? Look at how the tables have turned,” she scoffs, tilting her head back to meet my gaze. “Then we can agree, I don’t know you, and you certainly don’t know me.”

Footsteps sound at the end of the hallway.

I look up and freeze.

The publicist is standing there, his gaze darting between Andromeda and I, noticing the distance—or lack thereof—between us.

Her shoulders relax ever so slightly, and I’m hit with that gnawing guilt that got buried by my temper.