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“I’ll ask them, but call Kenneth too and see if he can tell you who brought the girl to the interview,” Karl demands.
“But—”
“You have his number, right?” he interjects again, his voice so loud that I flinch and hold the phone away from my ear. “Then call him! Now!”
I can feel tears of frustration pricking the corner of my eyes, and it makes me glad we aren’t having this fight in person.
“Fuck you, Karl!” I yell right back, hanging up right before a single sob escapes my throat.
I hear Poppy softly asking if I’m alright, but I have tunnel vision, and I slam my office door in her face so I can be alone. My breaths are ragged as I sit down, holding my head in my hands and trying to compose myself. This isn’t happening. Thiscan’tbe happening.
But it is, and if I don’t want to lose my agency before I even have the chance to sell it, I need to act now.
Kenneth’s business card is buried deep in my desk, but I find it after some time. I would have sworn yesterday that I would never dare to call him, but now I don’t have much of a choice. I dial on the office phone, holding it between my ear and shoulder.
He must be able to see my business name on his caller ID, because as soon as he answers he sounds smug.
“Are you calling me to congratulate me on my biggest interview yet? I’m ready to hear it if so.”
“Who the fuck set that interview up, Kenneth?”
“Oh, you don’t know who it was?” he chuckles to himself, and I can feel my blood pressure rising. “Well, that’s quite interesting.”
“What do you mean?” I demand, reclining on my chair as I hold the phone to my cheek. “Why would I know who set it up? Is it someone I know?”
“Yes, actually, you know them very, very well.”
I fly through everyone I know that could also know Patricia, and no one fits. “Was it Elise? My PA, Poppy?”
He hums. “No, no. It isn’t anyone at your agency, rest assured.”
I slam my fist down on my desk, wishing that it was Kenneth’s face. “Tell me who it is, dammit!”
“Have a good day, Ms. Feng,” Kenneth quips, hanging up before I can say another word.
I shoot up from my seat, pacing the floor, so full of anxious energy that I don’t know what to do with myself. In the space of less than an hour, I have seen Patricia blow everything about my agency out of the water and then been blamed for the entire ordeal by Karl who, for all intents and purposes, is the actual source of the problem! I have done everything he asked; found an escort, a virgin one at that, and trusted him with her. He had fucked everything up, and now had the nerve to blame it all on me. It’s inconceivable.
There is a soft knock on my office door followed by Poppy peeking her head in, her expression guarded. “Is everything okay?”
“No, Poppy. Nothing is okay.” I let myself fall back into my chair, throwing my head back in misery. “Someone I know did this to screw over both Karl and my agency at the same time. I made this one single mistake with Patricia, and now it feels like my world is falling apart.”
She comes behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders, rubbing gently to ease the tension there. “It will be okay, Roxanne. The interview won’t hurt anything. All the men who come here know what hiring an escort entails… Some negative press isn’t going to be the end for us.”
“You don’t understand. Clients will stop booking our girls if they know the girls can just break NDA’s like they are nothing. Especially if they go to the media. We need to keep our VIP list happy. They count on our discretion.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand that it’s an isolated situation. Our clients know that. They have to!”
“Yeah, maybe some of them will understand, or consider it worth the risk, but Karl isn’t happy, and he knows a lot of my other clients. What if that means he’ll scare the hell out of them,so they don’t book?” I shrug my shoulders to brush her off, and dejected, she takes a few steps back, clearly uncertain of how to comfort me. “Someone had to set this up, Poppy. Someone I know.”
As if the universe has heard me, my phone pings. I lift it and unlock the screen, seeing that it’s a message from Karl. My pulse kicks up as I read it:
I know who did it. My boss’s daughter told us. Call me back.
30
Amsterdam, March 9, 2022
Andries
