by Jane Henry
The way he looked at me with such hatred.
I try to focus on the conversation at hand, forcing myself to speak through the pain. “Yes. She’s a jealous ex of Darius’s from back home. Though I’ve no idea what she’s jealous for, she’s twice as pretty as me—a beauty queen, as she reminded me several times—and didn’t want him in the first place.”
“Katie, you’re a true gem. Everyone that meets you falls in love with you. You’re kind and sweet and funny and those are qualities that can’t be bought. This bitch sounds fake as shit. And mean.”
“She is mean. Really mean.” Tiffany’s hatred for carbs plays back in my mind… sweetness and cellulite. I almost feel sorry for her, to be so hateful, so bitter.
She may have thought Darius was a pervert, but of all the women I can think of that need a Daddy to spank their ass—she’s on the top of my list. “I know she did it. She had access to my computer. She must have added that chapter on my computer, then downloaded the file and shared parts of my book with the press.”
The sound of Sarah tapping her pen on her desk comes over the line. “Katie Ann Davis. How many times have I told you? Do not under any circumstances send me a book without doing a final read through of the entire thing before you send it over?”
Giving a groan, I put my palm to my forehead. “I know, I know, but Darius was just so… distracting. And I had to make the deadline. And I read through everything before I went to his hometown and I read everything I wrote after that, too. But didn’t go back to the beginning and her slipped in chapter was an earlier one.”
“Yes, but now we can’t deny that you sent the book in with that passage, because you did send us the book with that passage, straight from your personal email account. And the story of a jealous ex breaking into your computer and adding it to ruin you just doesn’t sound feasible.”
“But it’s true!”
“I know that. And you know that. But when has the truth ever mattered to the gossip-centric media? You know they’ll do anything to print a juicy article on a billionaire bachelor. Especially one with a daddy kink.” Her tone softens and she begins to murmur, as if talking to herself, not me. “Speaking of… by the way, that thing in Chapter Four that he does over his lap… did that really happen? I need that in my life…”
I let out a long moan. What was I thinking, sharing that with the world? “Yes?”
“Oh my God. That was soooo hot. I mean, like sooo hot.” I can picture Sarah removing her glasses and fanning herself at her desk. “How do I get a daddy of my own? Does Darius happen to have any single friends? Hmm?”
I wave my hand to an empty apartment. “Sarah, Earth to Sarah. Can we please focus on the task at hand? Saving my crumbling life and fixing this terrible mistake?”
Her no-nonsense business tone returns. She must have put her glasses back on. “I’ll work with the editing department on my side. You start with Darius. I’m sure if you explain the whole thing to him, he’ll believe you, especially if Tiffany is as bad as she sounds.”
We say our goodbyes, and I flop back down on my sofa, flipping my cell over in my hands, trying to make sense of that last conversation with Darius.
The way he looked at me, disgust in his eyes. His cutting words, “Did you?” His voice was low and dangerous, laced with furious accusations. The way he tossed that money at me, trying to get me to leave as quickly as possible.
He didn’t even want me in his sight.
I’d never told him I’d come to his hotel that night looking for inspiration, but I’d been pretty open about the fact I’d included a lot about our sex life in that book. And he didn’t seem to mind. While I was busy looking at my phone, sinking down onto my knees, reading and re-reading Sarah’s texts—this book will sell like crazy, best one yet, you made me laugh, you made me cry—what had he been reading on his screen?
It must have been this article. The one about the chapter that I didn’t, that I would never write. The one written by his bitter ex. No wonder he was so hurt, so angry.
But why did he send me away so fast? Why didn’t he trust me enough to ask me about the article, before paying me off and kicking me out.
If he loved me, if he really loved me, wouldn’t he have demanded we ‘talk this out’ as he always does?
Why was it so easy for him to let me go?
Chapter 18
Darius
It’s been three days since the news station did their exposé on Katie and her book. On day two, I got a certified mail package with every single dime I gave Katie, every stitch of clothing, every item of jewelry. I search it, furiously, looking for some shred of an apology.
No note. Nothing.
I whip it in a closet and stomp away.
On the fourth day, I can’t take it anymore. Everything reminds me of her. The clothing I bought her, hanging in my closet, her toothbrush and body wash. Even her scent lingers on my pillow. I leave the penthouse with strict orders for the cleaners to give it a thorough cleaning and to box up anything even remotely feminine.
To scrub my home of every memory of her.
I consider actually fucking moving. Everything is here, everything is her. The hot tub where I first touched her, the sofa where she straddled my lap and I made her climax, the barstool where she perched, happily eating anything I ordered her.
I was smitten with the woman. And now, she’s crushed me.
I’m angry with myself for letting myself fall so hard.
So I pack a bag, I get a ride, and I head back home to Georgia. I need some clean air and a change of pace. I call Gran on the way.
“Darius, how are you?”
I sigh and don’t reply at first.
“Coming home for a bit.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Oh, dear,” she says sorrowfully. “Did something happen with Katie?”
“How do you know from a sigh?”
“Oh, you don’t raise a man like you without getting to know when he isn’t himself anymore. But I also had some help. Just wanted to hear straight from the horse’s mouth.”
A pang hits my chest. I swallow hard. “Guess you didn’t watch the news, then?”
“Of course I did,” she says with a huff. “You know I despise the things, but wouldn’t you know, Rawley and Tiffany showed up the night it aired to tell me what happened.”
Suspicion rises in my chest. Did they?
“Oh?”
“Yep. But I’m surprised to hear you sound upset, son. Surely that didn’t really impact your relationship with Katie?”
Anger rises in me, but I quickly stifle it. “Of course it did. How could it not?”
Now it’s Gran’s turn to sigh. “Come home, Darius. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“One request, Gran.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want Tiffany and Rawley there when I arrive.”
“You have my word.”
I mull things over as I take a flight back. I order a completely different private jet to take me home, so none of the memories of Katie resurface like they do at my penthouse. It doesn’t work, though. I remember the way she held my hand when we took off, her head on my shoulder, her fear that I soothed for her when we landed.
Where is she now? What’s going on in her head?
How could I have been so mistaken about her?
And does Gran know something I don’t?
I get a ride to her farmhouse, trying to find comfort in the fields we pass, the late summer flowers, and the distance between me and the Vegas drama. But it doesn’t work. There’s a heavy weight on my chest I can’t push off. I pinch the bridge of my nose. My phone dings—my secretary waiting on signatures for a contract—but I’m too drained to look down. I look at it a hundred times a day, hoping to hear from Katie.
I need Katie.
Can I forgive her for what she did?
Work will take my mind off this... nonsense. Grabbing my phone, I look down at my screen expecting
a message from work. There’s a text. But it’s in no way work related.
It’s from... Katie.
Darius. I know you’re hurt. I don’t blame you. I didn’t know what you were referring to when you were upset that night. We need to talk. Call me.
Just seeing a text from her has my heart pounding, my breath holding. I frown at the phone. I don’t want to call her. I’m apt to say something cruel and harsh if I do right now. I shove my phone in my pocket.
When I arrive, the sun’s setting low, casting golden fingers of light on the house, the fields, and the porch. I sigh. Katie would wax eloquent on something so grand but simple.
Katie, Katie, Katie.
She’s in my thoughts and in my dreams. I envision her here on the porch, sitting with a cup of cool lemonade and a plate of Gran’s cookies, telling Gran how delicious carbs are and how picture perfect her home is. I remember our time in the barn, how we acted like sneaky teens whose parents were about to catch them. I remember everything.
Gran meets me at the door, beaming. She holds the door open and lets me in. I drop the bags by the door, my stomach rumbling at the smell of her cooking.
“Is that beef stew?” I ask.
She chuckles. “How’d you know?”
It’s my favorite comfort food of hers, and she knows it.
“…And your biscuits?” I ask hopefully.
She waves a dish towel at me. “Don’t you know it.”
I bend low and kiss her paper-thin cheek. Her mere presence brings a small measure of comfort.
“Now,” she says. “You sit your citified backside at the kitchen table, and while we eat our dinner you tell me what happened.”
So we do. She ladles large bowls of steaming hot stew, laced with her thick-cut potatoes and green beans plucked straight from the garden. I tuck in, feeling better after only a few bites. When was the last time I ate?
She clucks her tongue. “Darius Morrow, I declare you’ve lost your heart for this woman.”
I don’t respond.
She sighs. “You look haggard, like you haven’t slept in days, and when was the last time you ate a decent meal?” I shrug.
The days blend when you’re grieving.
Am I grieving?
I’m absolutely fucking grieving.
Finally, Gran pushes her bowl to the center of the table, leans back, and laces her fingers on her knee.
“Now, Darius. Tell me what happened.”
So I do. I tell her everything. How Katie was writing a book and I thought I was her inspiration, how I actually felt honored that I was. But how the day she sent it to her publisher the news caught wind of every private detail of my personal life.
Gran frowns and holds up her palm to stop me. “Okay, now,” she says thoughtfully. “Let’s backtrack. Was she sending her editor chapter by chapter?”
I shake my head. “Well, no. She said that night it was time to send the completed manuscript.”
She shakes her head. “Well, unless her editor or publisher had a direct line to the press the second that manuscript hit her inbox, that seems sort of far-fetched, doesn’t it?”
It does. I nod slowly.
“She confirmed it, though, Gran. She admitted she did it.”
Gran tips her head to the side. “Did she?”
I think back to our conversation, trying to remember the details.
“I asked her if she… wrote about me. And she confessed that she did.”
Gran rolls her eyes. “And really, Darius. I’m sure you’re not happy if you feel she betrayed you, but even if she did put in the details of your past, is it anything someone researching your history wouldn’t have found out?”
She has a point.
“And didn’t she say, or I heard on the news, it was a Beauty and the Beast story? Well, she’s a beauty, but you’re no beast. Clearly, this is fiction.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she shakes her head.
Gran goes on. “And I may have only spent a brief time with Katie, but I’m an excellent judge of character. And I know there’s no way a girl like Katie would use you like that.”
I know it, too. God, I know it in the very core of my being. “Then what other explanation is there?”
Gran shrugs. “Who knows? I don’t know much about the Internet and publishing and how these things work, but I know a few things.” She gives me a stern look. “And you should know them, too.”
“Yeah?”
“When someone acts inconsistently with their character, you find out more. Don’t assume the worst. Ask questions.” Her voice grows more vehement. “Find the truth.”
She shakes her head. “For God’s sake, Darius, Tiffany’s the type that would use you for her own means. Not Katie.”
Tiffany.
Tiffany.
I get to my feet and pace the floor. “Could Tiffany have actually done something?”
“When they left that night of the party, I heard Tiffany rustling around upstairs. I figured she was just applying her makeup before they left, but looking back, why wouldn’t she have used the downstairs bathroom?” Gran purses her lips. “I wouldn’t put anything past that woman.”
I whip out my phone. “I have some phone calls to make.”
Gran gets up and clears our bowls. “You do that, and so help me, one of the first calls better be to Katie, or I will personally box your ears.”
I’m chuckling as the door swings closed behind me. I dial Katie.
She answers on the first ring.
“Darius.”
She sounds as distraught as I feel. I walk out into the field lit by moonlight.
“Katie.”
We don’t say anything at first then both start talking at once.
“It wasn’t me—”
“I misunderstood, and I acted rashly—”
“I didn’t think you were talking about actual details—”
“I had a lapse in judgment—”
Finally, we both stop. “Go on,” I tell her. “You first.”
She lets out a deep breath on the other side of the phone. “After dinner, that night in your penthouse. My editor was messaging me, telling me how great the book was. And so I was smiling about that, and when you accused me of using us as inspiration… well, I told you the truth. I did.” Her voice catches. “How could I not? I love you. And I’ve lived a fairytale-come-true with you.”
My heart softens. I wish I could hold her, gather her up in my arms and rock her on the porch swing while the lightning bugs light up the night sky.
“You didn’t write the personal parts, did you?”
“No. Oh, God, Darius, why would I betray your trust like that?”
Of course she wouldn’t. How could I have ever thought she did?
“Then who did?”
She releases a shuddering breath.
“When I was writing at your Gran’s, I left my computer out on the nightstand. Remember? I… don’t use a password or any protection.”
I groan. “I ought to spank your ass for that.”
She giggles, like she’s laughing through tears. “And I would gladly bend over. I ought to be spanked for that.”
I’m smiling now, the first real smile in days.
“And when I went to make sure I had everything, the computer was put away in a pocket I don’t use. It didn’t dawn on me I’d left it on the nightstand, not in the bag. So it’s likely someone there manipulated my manuscript.”
Her voice is hard and angry when she tells me this.
“I knew Gran was up to something,” I say, which makes her laugh out loud.
I sober. “It was Tiffany. I’d bet you anything.”
“I would, too. You know why?”
“Why?”
“The injury they described. You never told me what it was. However, whoever wrote this was very specific. I saw the lines myself. Only someone in the know would write that.”
I growl. “True.” I shake my head. “And you tried to tell me, th
ere’s no way reporters would have been able to break a story less than twenty-four hours after you turned your book in. They wouldn’t have those details so quickly unless someone leaked them earlier. Right?”
“Absolutely.”
I sigh. “Katie, I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Darius. I’m sorry, too.”
Hope rises in my chest. “I want you here with me.”
“Where are you?”
“Gran’s. But I’ll come home in the morning and straight to you.”
She sighs. “Thank you, Darius. I hated thinking you were hurt by anything I did. I did use you for inspiration, I’m not going to lie.”
“Yes,” I say. “And I was honored by that.”
“Then be honored still, Darius. My editor said it was the best book I’ve ever written. She said it’s going to fly off the shelves. And it’s because you gave me real love. You inspired me to write from the heart.”
I swallow hard. “I’m honored, baby.”
Her voice is soft and gentle. Like her. “Come home to me, daddy.”
“I will, Katie Kat. But first, you have a job to do…”
I give her detailed instructions about time stamps and emails sent to her editor, and she tells me she knows how to go back through her version history to see when changes were made to her document.
The next morning, I leave with a paper napkin filled with Gran’s homemade blueberry muffins and a kiss on my cheek. “You go make this right, Darius. And when you do, you bring that girl back here for a proper wedding before this old lady kicks the can, hmm?”
I chuckle but promise her. I absolutely will.
I have a text from Katie.
Did everything you said last night. Sarah got ahold of the emails that were sent to some of the media companies. After reading over them, she confirmed that the emails sent by me didn’t sound like me, and when they sent Sarah the time stamps she requested, it isn’t possible it was me. I was with you in the barn when she sent that, and her language doesn’t sound like me at all. She said ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’ and ‘there’ instead of ‘their.’ And not a capital letter in sight. It’s an embarrassment!!!!!
