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“You must have done something,” Theo, the only person brave enough to contradict me, says.
“I didn’t,” I tell him, an edge in my voice. There’s no way on earth that Georgina’s reason for hunting me down is not entirely an imaginary situation that she made up in her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pam cuts in. “All that matters is that shethinksyou did something. And so, you must do what everyone does when they offend people.”
“What?” I ask, already knowing I’m going to hate her idea.
“Apologize,” she says.
A chuckle wrenches itself out of my mouth. “That’s not going to happen,” I tell her flatly. I would rather walk into a volcano than weed out the little spitfire and make her believe I am concerned about the shitshow she is putting on.
A murmur starts up in the room. Theo turns to me, taking a few steps closer, so no one else can hear us. “Really, Bran?” he says. “It’s just a few words. Get over yourself.”
I raise my brows at him. “You don’t even care about her. You still think her articles aren’t doing any harm.”
“Yeah, but she’s like an annoying, persistent bug,” Theo says. “If you could squash her, why not? And it’s way cheaper than having to buy up an entire company.”
“Not going to happen,” I tell him as Pam approaches us.
“This is the onlyway you can get her off our backs,” she says. “That is, unless you have some other idea about dealing with a woman that’s this furious with you.”
The idea hits me like a punch to the stomach.
Of course, I think, feeling the darkness fade away as a sensation close to elation takes hold. Over the years, I have encountered a few cantankerous women. Women who were determined to bring me down or, failing that, provoke me as much as possible.
And I’d always won them over the sameway.
I think back to the lust I felt when touching and talking to Georgina at the wedding. I longed for nothing more than to be inside her at that moment. I had assumed the chances of that happening were gone for good. And, with each article, my anger toward her intensified.
But, right now…
A smile tugs the corner of my lips.
I’m going to enjoy this.
CHAPTER4
GIGI
“You’re going to have to stop this, Gigi.”
I roll my eyes as I push through dozens of people milling out of the subway station and onto the already crowded escalators. “Really?” I say, raising my voice so Andrea can hear me over the bustle of the crowd around me. “Why, am I hurting his feelings?”
“You’re hurting myhusband,” Andrea says, and even though she’s phoning to talk about my smear campaign, I can hear the glee in her voice when she says the word ‘husband.’
I couldn't be happier for Andrea. I was just as ecstatic as she was during the wedding planning. Since her parents are both gone, I had asked my father to walk her down the aisle. As I watched them grinning as if it were the happiest day of their lives, I pictured myself in Andrea's shoes, walking down the aisle to a man whom I would vow to spend the rest of my life with.
And all I could think was,ew.
“Brandon is hisfriend,” Andrea says. I want to kick myself. It’s been tenwhole days since Andrea’s wedding. And still, after writing eight articles about Brandon, I couldnotstop feeling jittery whenever I thought of him in any light other than as an annoyingly obnoxious billionaire. Even thinking of him the way Andrea does, like a benign family friend, causes me to remember our encounter at the wedding.
I clamp down on my self-loathing as I finally step out from the subway station and onto the busy New York sidewalk. “So?” I say to Andrea.
“So, you shouldn’t keep going after him!” she screeches so loudly that I almost forget she’s continents away on her honeymoon in Fiji and not right beside me.
“He’s a politician’s brother,” I say, shrugging as I weave my way through the crowd toward the building whereEnchantéis located. “He’s fair game. Also, Idohave a right to report the truth.”
She lets out an aggravated sigh. “Georgina,” she says, her tone low with warning, “stop lying to yourself and to me. You don’t care about the truth.”
