“Lucy?”
I looked over at Karla. She held herself tight, but in her face, I saw genuine concern shimmering under that careful facade. She felt sorry for me, but she couldn’t afford to. I wasn’t her client. I wasn’t her boss. I didn’t pay for that BlackBerry in her hand or the diamond studs in her ears.
I could be indignant about it, but I wasn’t. This was her career, and I would never expect her to risk it for an eighteen-year-old who had willingly gotten into a hot tub with her client.
Karlawasbeing kind, more than she needed to be, more than I’d have expected. She was withdrawing money for me, proper compensation for lost wages, not an insulting payoff. She would put cash in my pocket, set me on my feet, offer what advice she could, and then give me a gentle push into the world, where I’d need to fend for myself. I didn’t deserve that consideration, and I would not forget her kindness.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice as calm and mature as I could make it. “I understand, and I appreciate any advice you can give.”
“Well, with any luck, you won’t need it because this will all be over by morning, and you’ll have the rest of the summer free, along with an excellent reference from me and from Colt.”
A note in her voice said he’d be writing it with her standing at his shoulder if necessary.
“Now, let’s talk strategy,” she said.
Chapter Nineteen
New York, 2019
I stare down at the photo on my phone. It’s the one I’d seen on Karla’s browser all those years ago. It didn’t go away that night. Karla had been so certain it would, and that seems ridiculously naive now, but it’d been 2005. Scandals hit the papers, not the Internet. No one had ever seen such a thing before… until me. The first major Internet-driven celebrity scandal. Not exactly an achievement for my resume.
Every time I’ve caught an accidental glimpse of this photo, I’ve turned away in mortification. Now, though, I look at it with the eyes of an adult, and I am angry. I see a girl who was drunk, possibly drugged. An eighteen-year-old virgin in a hot tub with a gorgeous, famous older man who wanted her,reallywanted her.
I’d dated before that. Had a couple of boyfriends. Made out and fooled around, but it always felt not-quite-right. Like cakes baked in a toy oven. Those few minutes with Colt had been my first mature sexual experience, and as much as I hate the thought, I can’t deny it.
This is what enrages me about the photo. It has taken that moment and thrown it to the world for titillation and ridicule. I would always have regretted what happened, but I should have been allowed the memory of a regrettable experience, one I’ve learned from. Instead, that private moment is forever public, online for the world to see.
What makes it worse is Colt’s expression. He’s looking up at me like a quarterback who just scored the winning touchdown. Pleased with himself. Utterly and confidently and smugly pleased, grinning at my pleasure as if to say, “I did this.”
It’s a self-satisfied grin, and it’s a proprietary one, too.
I won this girl. I’m going to have this girl, and I’m going to enjoy her, and I deserve this. By God, I deserve it.
Someone jostles me, and I glance up, startled. It’s just a passerby, but as soon as my gaze tears from that photo, I remember where I am and what I was doing.
I scroll past the photo and continue reading the article. It resumes to say that I’d been at Isabella’s hotel this morning, where I claimed to have been invited for breakfast.
Claimed? My hackles rise, but I smooth them down. This is CNR. Take everything with a ten-pound block of salt. I’ll get this sorted as soon as I show those texts to a lawyer.
I read the next line and almost continue past it. Then I stop and reread.
Callahan claims to have left Isabella Morales’s suite on finding the door open, but sources within the hotel say the police have evidence that she was inside when the hotel staff responded to an urgent call from Isabella.
The temperature plummets, goosebumps rising.
The police know I was in the room.
Did I really think I’d get away with that?
I didn’t think. Couldn’t, at the time, the primitive part of my brain screaming for me to flee. What I’d forgotten is that someone went to the trouble of luring me to the scene, which meant they’d find a way to prove I’d been in the room.
I need to admit to being inside before the police accuse me of it. Control the narrative.
As bad as this looks, I must remember that I was in my own hotel room when Isabella died. I arrived hours later after being lured to her hotel, which I can prove.
I’ve screwed up, and I may face criminal charges for my mistakes, but the murder allegations will be withdrawn.
I read the next line.
