by Lily Hayden
According to our source, the rapper is explosive with jealous rage and security had to be called to the set to drag the five-foot-two star from physically assaulting Francis.
Venice’s Twitter has currently been shut down and a spokesperson for the 23-year-old star has declined to comment.”
Taylor felt her blood turn to ice as she scrolled back up to the accompanying pictures. She flicked through them and, yep, there she was.
Several shots of the party in full swing and then three zoomed-in shots of her and Deon on the bow of the boat kissing. His hand was on the strap of her bikini in the first shot, and then, ping, the red scrap was hanging around her neck with her full, high breasts on show for the world. The site had photo-shopped an emoji over the top of her exposed nipple, she noted. There was no denying it was her: whatever lens the paparazzi used, they had a high-definition image of her face.
“Noah saw this?” She forced her voice to sound calm, despite the nauseous feeling in her stomach. She handed Hanna back the phone.
Hanna nodded her head. “I’m really sorry, Taylor. We were just saying didn’t this girl look like you and…”
Taylor shook her head, cutting the girl off.
“It’s fine.” She said. “It is me. I wasn’t seeing Noah then.”
“Right.” Hanna pushed the phone into her pocket guiltily. “It says it was this weekend. I told him it couldn’t be you. Your sister was sick.”
It was Taylor’s turn to look shamefaced and she dropped onto the sofa, feeling like the worst person. True, she hadn’t been seeing Noah, but she had lied to him and she had failed to mention that she had literally fallen out of her ex’s bed that weekend and into Noah’s arms the very next day. If Noah was just a hook-up, she would think he was overreacting, but she knew how jealous she would feel if she had seen images of Noah with some half-naked chick.
She pulled out her own phone. She needed to call him, to explain, but her phone died in her hands and she tossed it onto the chair next to her in exasperation.
Fuck! She cursed herself. She should have told him about the weekend and how recent her split with Deon had been. She buried her head in her hands, feeling wretched and useless. She’d been so caught up in their bubble that it had all seemed like so long ago. The thought of Noah hurting was too much to bear and she got back to her feet.
“Can I use the van?” She turned to her colleagues. “I need to find him.”
She snatched the keys from a startled-looking Caitlyn and raced out to the van. Gravel flew up with the force of her footsteps, stinging the back of her legs, but she didn’t slow down. She threw herself into the driver’s seat and revved the engine, wheel-spinning in her haste to follow Noah. As she drove, she thought of the hurt he would have felt seeing those images.
God, it felt stupid to be racing after a man that she’d only known a few weeks, but somewhere in her heart she knew that if there was such a thing as a soulmate, he was it.
The roads here were narrow and winding, and she was forced to slow down to avoid careering into the ditches that lay alongside the verge. Doubt crept in, the longer she drove.
What am I doing? She questioned herself. Chasing after some guy.
He’s not just some guy though. Her heart argued back. He’s more than that. You owe him an explanation, if nothing else.
The road opened up onto the highway and she put her foot down. She had no idea where she was going. In reality, he could be anywhere, but she needed to do something. She was approaching the little town now and she slowed down, turning her head left and right as she passed the store and the gas station, eyes peeled for his car.
Just forget it. Her head ordered stubbornly, as she felt the sting of frustrated tears start to prickle at the back of her eyes. You’ve got bigger problems than some guy’s ego. You’re currently splashed topless over some trashy entertainment site, for God’s sake.
In a way, she was glad her phone was dead. Word was bound to have gotten out now and she could imagine how excited her sisters would have been to see their reluctant sibling trending. They were probably in talks with a network already for an East Coast, Kardashian-style spin-off. Taylor cringed at the thought, blinking away her tears and summoning her inner-cynic. She had to hold it together. She knew what she should do: drive back to the centre, laugh it off and if Noah wasn’t willing to give her chance to explain, well, screw him.
Yet she couldn’t.
He was out there, somewhere, thinking the worst of her. She couldn’t bear the thought of him feeling hurt or doubting what had been the most special few days of her life. She saw his street appear ahead and pulled a sharp left. Her chest tightened, and she bumped the van to a stop on the corner.
You really want to do this? You want to put your heart out there? Risk getting hurt? She leaned back in the driver seat and closed her eyes, listening to her head and her heart battle it out. You put those barriers up to protect yourself. We said we’d never be that broken girl again.
But this is different! Her heart cried, already aching.
Taylor opened her eyes and drummed her hands against the steering wheel in frustration. Chasing Noah and begging him to hear her out was against everything she stood for, yet somehow putting her heart on the line seemed easier than walking away and not trying to make things right.
Trapped
The building seemed different in the dark. Shauna felt a sense of uneasiness creep over her as she watched Aaron key in the security code and followed him across the foyer. Automatic lights flicked on as they moved across the darkened office floor, but Aaron remained silent until they were at his office.
Inside, he moved to a locked cabinet, taking out a heavy glass bottle and two crystal-cut tumblers. Shauna tried to disguise the surprise she felt. She thought that was only something people in movies did. She stood awkwardly against the door, her sandals clutched tightly in her hands, feeling uncomfortable and out-of-place in her fancy gown. Her ankle was still throbbing and now her eyes were starting to burn with tiredness. She had the beginnings of a tension headache. She just wanted to go home.
Wordlessly, Aaron passed her a glass of the amber-coloured liquid and she shook her head.
“Drink it.” He said in a voice that commanded no argument and she obediently sipped at the strong liquor, grimacing as the whiskey burned down her throat.
He threw back his own glass before refilling his glass.
“It’s good for the pain.” He said, his voice gentler now.
He gestured to his own plush leather chair.
“Please, Shauna. Sit down.”
She hesitated, looking from the glass of whiskey to her sore, bare feet. She didn’t want to sit down. She didn’t want to be here, talking about Armand to his colleague.
“Aaron,” She sighed softly. “Please, it’s been a long day. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
His hands tightened around the glass and his jaw set hard at her words.
“It’s been a very fucking long day.” He snapped, tossing back another shot of whiskey. “You have no idea.”
Shauna flinched at his tone, but despite her impatience, her natural response was to attempt to appease him.
“I can see.” She said gathering the folds of her dress and lowering herself carefully into the seat. “But there’s nothing I can do to help. I don’t know anything about the stolen plans…”
“We have footage.” Aaron interrupted. “All you need to do is admit you saw Armand taking those plans.”
“But, I didn’t.” She shook her head frustrated that he wouldn’t listen to her. “He had a sealed envelope. He put it in the car. I didn’t see anything.”
Aaron turned his back to her. His shoulders were tensed, and she could feel his impatience rising. He unlocked another cabinet and pulled out a stack of papers, shuffling through them. The room was silent except for the sound of the paper. Shauna felt herself growing uneasy. She cast her eyes to the glass window of his office at the deserted workplace, sudde
nly wishing someone, anyone was around.
Finally, he turned back to her and Shauna realised she’d been holding her breath. He took two single A4 sheets and laid them on the desk in front of her.
“All you need to do is sign these.” He said, uncapping a fancy black pen.
Shauna reached for the paper, picking them up and looking over the wordy documents. She blanched when she realised they were typed-up statements. With her name printed at the bottom.
She recoiled, dropping them onto the desk, feeling anger and confusion replace her discomfort.
“What the hell?” She held up the paper. “Aaron, I’m not going to sign this!”
Aaron’s face flushed red with indignation. “Shauna, you’re making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be. You do realise the guy used you?”
It was Shauna’s turn to redden with anger and she got to her feet, pushing the documents away.
“I didn’t know he was married.” She hissed between clenched teeth. “Yeah, he’s a douche, but I didn’t see him steal anything and he certainly didn’t sexually harass me. You get someone else to do your dirty work. I’m going home.”
She picked up her heels and stormed out of the office. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she could feel herself shaking from the confrontation. She reached the elevator and jabbed at the call button. She just wanted to get out of here. She wanted more than anything to go home, get her stuff and catch the next flight out of here.
In one night, her love life and her career had gone from sky-high to rock-bottom. There was no coming back from this, she realised as she stepped into the elevator, grateful that Aaron hadn’t followed her. She’d just shouted at one of the most senior executives in the company. All over some man who had played her for a fool. She hesitated as her finger hovered over the ground-floor button.
Was she an idiot to do this? She suddenly wondered. Maybe Armand had stolen the plans. After all, he had conned her into thinking he had feelings for her. If he was guilty then it would come out at some point. All her signature would be doing was speeding up the process and securing her own future.
She thought of all the work she had done with Rebecca and her chest ached with bitter disappointment that she would never get a chance to be part of the future of those projects. She could kiss goodbye to any reference, she warned herself, and she felt the blow hit her that this whole summer, working for a pittance for the experience, would have been all for nothing.
She hadn’t even got around to processing the hurt Armand had caused her, but, to her, that was just another heartache. She’d had enough to be used to them by now. More fool her for not expecting it. She looked at her reflection in the shiny mirrored walls. A curvy, redheaded girl looked back at her: make-up smudged under her eyes and hair starting to frizz and drop. It had felt so right to be in his arms, yet Aaron hadn’t been lying: Armand had used her. She felt so foolish and naïve, yet she just couldn’t bring herself to lie.
In the back of her head, she wondered what her friends would have done before shaking away the thought. Ella and Taylor would never have got themselves into a situation like this. They would have seen through Armand and his charms, and they wouldn’t have backed themselves into a corner where the only way of hanging onto the promise of a glittering career was to throw someone else to the lions.
Shauna pressed the button resolutely. The doors shut slowly, and the elevator made its descent. She turned her mind away from the mess and towards her next steps. She would call a cab, go home and book the next flight out of here. She’d hole up at her mom’s in Washington to lick her wounds and start sending out her CV to every company she could think of. Her cheeks blazed with the mortification of having to tell her mom and her friends that she had left the internship early.
The elevator doors sprang open and she stepped forward on auto-pilot, lost in her own thoughts. She moved towards the doors through the darkened foyer and, when the doors failed to spring open, she shoved them roughly. They remained stubbornly unyielding and the force she used caused her to stumble backwards.
For fuck’s sake.
She looked around the eerie reception area. She hadn’t noticed Aaron lock them and she tried the other doors to the side of the main entrance.
Nothing.
She was reluctant to go back up and, instead, she pulled her phone out of her purse to order a cab. She clicked into her app, selecting a cab and then waited awkwardly for Aaron to appear. She figured that he would have locked up the papers in annoyance and would follow her down shortly. Her foot was really throbbing now that the adrenaline had died away, and she hobbled over to the couch to wait. Staring up at the clock, watching the minutes tick by, brought back to her the agony of her first day and when five minutes had passed, she knew that she couldn’t wait any longer for fear of missing her cab. Reluctantly, she summoned the elevator once again.
As the doors opened onto the floor, she could hear Aaron’s voice, loud and angry, and she paused, unsure whether to interrupt his phone call.
“She won’t fucking do it!” He was barking. “The little fucking bitch was our last fucking chance.”
Shauna stepped back into the shadows, shocked at the aggression in his tone. Her phone buzzed in her hand, alerting her to her cab arriving outside. She looked down at it and squared her shoulders. She had no choice.
She cleared her throat loudly, hoping he would hear her and moved towards the office. She could see him moving frantically around the enclosed space. There were documents spread all over the desk and he looked as though he was emptying the entire contents of his cabinet.
“Aaron?” She called timidly into the darkness. “My cab is outside. Can you let me out?”
He startled and turned towards her. His appearance surprised her. He had removed his jacket and his tie; his shirt tails were untucked, and his sleeves rolled up. The office was a bombsite of papers and her eyes moved to the now half-empty bottle of whiskey.
“I’ll call you back.” He said into the phone, his calm voice eerily at odds with his panicked demeanour.
He tossed the phone onto the desk and sank into the leather seat, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“Look at this.” He said, slurring slightly. “All my fucking years of work. Fucking over.”
Shauna felt a sliver of pity for the man and she moved into the office.
“What are you doing?” She asked gently. “Whatever has happened, the audit will get to the bottom of it.”
He shook his head and laughed bitterly.
“Armand Landry will have seen to it that he comes out glowing. I know he’s implicated us all somehow. It’s my own fault for being so trusting. I’ve given him full access to the company accounts and I know Sylvie foolishly let him use her password. I know that he’s going to take us down.”
“Surely it can’t be that bad?” Shauna stopped a little way away from Aaron.
Gone was the assured, aggressive man of a few minutes ago and in his place, Aaron seemed broken and hopeless.
“I gave him the Finister account bid. I gave him the Goldberg bid.” Aaron moaned, more to himself than to Shauna. “I trusted him and now it’s my head that’ll roll.”
Shauna felt her heart twinge with empathy. Like it or not, she could actually relate to how broken Aaron looked.
“I’m sorry.” She said uselessly.
He didn’t respond but reached for the whiskey.
“Do you want to get a cab back?” She asked him, regarding the way he gulped back the liquid. “You’re over the limit. You can tidy this up in the morning.”
He lowered his glass and looked at her with cold, hard eyes.
“The only useful thing you can do is sign those papers.”
Shauna threw her hands up in exasperation. “I’m not going to sign anything. Please, you can sit here all night if you want, but I need to get my cab.”
“Shauna,” He got to his feet unsteadily. “Just sign the fucking things. It’ll ge
t Mal off my back for a couple of days and then we can deal with all this shit. You get a fucking job. I get my fucking life back. Can you?”
Shauna hesitated; she could feel her resolve start to waver. Aaron was starting to freak her out and she just wanted to go home.
She saw a light flicker across his eyes and she knew that he had sensed her indecision. He moved quickly, scooping up the document and the pen from the chaos of his desk. He moved to her side and, with his free hand, he drew her close to his body. She felt herself tense. Her bare arms were cool from the air-conditioned lobby and Aaron’s palms were hot and sticky against her skin. If he felt her shudder, he showed no signs of noticing it and he caressed her shoulder.
“It hurts me to think of him getting away with what he did to you.” Aaron said in a low voice. “You’re a very beautiful woman, Shauna. I understand why you don’t want to risk your own reputation, but I promise you, we will look after you.”
He pushed the paper into her hand and she stared at the words on the page. She tried to read the carefully-worded paragraphs, but all she could think about was Aaron’s hand, hot and overfamiliar, burning against her shoulder. He was so close that she could smell the whiskey he had been drinking and she tried to force her mind to concentrate on the document.
If she signed this, she could go home. Aaron had more or less promised her that there would be a job waiting for her at MLB Designs. Yet, the fact that Aaron, and most likely Sylvie, had gone to the trouble to write a statement was ringing alarm bells in her mind.
Gently, she pulled away from Aaron, laying the document and the pen back on the desk.
“I’ll look at it properly tomorrow.” She said, not meeting Aaron’s eyes.
“Shauna, please?” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her roughly back to him.
She stumbled over her injured ankle and bumped against his solid chest. His arms circled her waist, holding her tight against him, and she felt his hand on her cheek, brushing back a tendril of red hair from her face. He held her jaw between his finger and thumb, tilting her chin up and forcing her to look at him. She swallowed nervously as her heart started to race. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot from the whiskey. She squirmed, trying to put space between them. She could feel his heart quicken against her breasts and she realised, with a sudden horror, that he was aroused.
