Under His Obsession

by Cathryn Fox

  Fuck me.

  My gaze leaves hers, goes to her journal on the table. I’d caught her writing in it earlier this morning when I joined her for coffee. A sound crawls out of my throat as I gesture with a nod.

  “Have you been writing about me?”

  Her face pales. “I... Will... I...” She swallows hard. “Yes, but it’s not what you think.”

  “Of course not. Do you seriously take me for a fool?”

  “I don’t think you’re a fool at all,” she says.

  I consider that for a moment. “Yeah, well, then you’d be wrong. I am a fool.” I’m a goddamn dumb-ass who was duped by a reporter. Again. If she’s telling the truth about Avery, that is. I shut my eyes, my thoughts going to Naomi. “My life was ruined because of that article.”

  “I guess you can go and get her back now.” Her voice is low, pain edging her words.

  My lids open slowly, and when I see Khloe gripping the journal—clearly not wanting me to see what’s inside—my stomach plummets. “You should go.”

  “Go where?” she asks.

  “Back home. You should go, Khloe. No, you need to go. I’ll call for a car. It will take you to Granddad’s jet, and I’ll arrange to have you flown back to New York.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just sending me away?”

  Anger coloring my words, I say, “What choice do I have?”

  She goes quiet for a long time. “I guess you don’t have any. You see what you want to see. You hear what you want to hear. I obviously can’t change any of that.” She turns and is about to walk back inside the villa.

  “The journal stays,” I say in a hard voice that stills her. “It’s in the nondisclosure agreement you signed, remember?”

  She spins, gives me a long, hard glare, but in the depths of her eyes there’s a profound sadness. What? Is she sorry she’s not going to get the headline? For a second, I think she’s going to protest, but then she tosses the journal onto the table, and her face tightens. “Just so you know, Will. You’re not a cheater. You see, there is no cheating gene, and you do have staying power. You were just screwed over. Go ahead and take that information to Naomi. I’ll confirm it for her.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth about that?”

  “Spend a few minutes thinking about the events of that night,” she says.

  I blink, that night a blurry haze. “I don’t remember much.”

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  “It was my bachelor party. I drank a lot.”

  “Let me guess, you felt like hell the next morning.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Different than a regular hangover?”

  “Much worse,” I answer, and she opens her mouth, only to close it again. “Go ahead and say what you want.”

  “It’s none of my business, but why didn’t you look into it? Why did you so readily accept that you didn’t have staying power?”

  I scoff. “Because none of the men in my family do.”

  “What about Tate?” She arches a challenging brow. “What about your brother? What about James?”

  I laugh at that. “James had numerous women in his life over the years.”

  “Before your grandmother passed away?”

  I look down, search my memory. “Well, no, not that I remember.”

  She takes a big breath and lets it out slowly. “I think you need to spend some time asking yourself why you just accepted what the papers wrote about you.”

  I fold my arms, lean against the railing. “What are you trying to say, Khloe?”

  Her chin nudges upward, her intense gaze locked on mine, unwavering, challenging. “Maybe you didn’t really want to marry Naomi.”

  Before I can voice an argument, she steps into the house and disappears. I stare at the spot where she’d been standing, my blood draining to my toes. Jesus, could she be right? Yeah, sure, Granddad had been pressuring me into marriage, but I loved Naomi, didn’t I?

  Then why didn’t you fight?

  Doors slam inside, and my brain shifts direction. I pull my phone from my pocket and make a few calls to arrange for Khloe to be picked up and for the staff to be waiting for her on the plane. I’m about to shove my phone back into my pocket, but once again I’m thinking about Khloe’s parting words. Naomi was deeply hurt by my actions and deserves to know I wasn’t unfaithful. While this truth won’t change things between us—do I even want it to?—I pull up my contacts and find her number.

  I turn to face the ocean, my world a goddamn mess. I swallow as my phone vibrates against my ear. It rings three times before I hear her breathy voice. “Naomi,” I say, and spin when a bang reaches my ear. I turn to find Khloe standing there, staring at me. “What?” I ask.

  Glossy eyes meet mine. “Never mind,” she says, and as she darts toward the front door, I have half a mind to go after her. But she’s a reporter who went undercover to take me down, right? Why is it that I’m suddenly not sure of that now? Spending time with Khloe reminded me I hadn’t been living, only surviving. I loved talking to her, doing things with her, taking her to my bed and making sweet love to her, and she’d blossomed under my touch. She’d been so honest and open with me, and the look on her face after working at the school had been pure bliss. No one can fake that. And putting herself out there was all about her, not me. She was volunteering and helping out from the kindness of her heart.

  As that thought rings inside my brain, Naomi’s voice pulls me back. “Will,” she says. “It’s been a long time. I’m glad you called.”

  “We need to talk.” I drop down into the chair, and run my fingers over the leather binding of Khloe’s journal. A warm breeze washes over my damp skin as I tell her everything. We spend the next hour talking, getting caught up, and I hear a new lightness in her voice. As we talk I learn she’s engaged, and I’m genuinely happy for her. She asks me about my love life, but I gloss over it. The woman I’m in love with played me for a fool. After a long time, a ding alerts me that there is another call coming through. I glance at the screen to see that it’s Granddad. About time.

  “Naomi, there is a call coming in I have to take.”

  “It was good talking to you, Will.”

  “You, too.”

  “I hope you can come to the wedding.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “I’ll look forward to an invitation to yours when it happens.”

  I laugh at that, end the call and switch over to Granddad.

  “Granddad, finally.”

  “What’s going on, Will? I got a call that my plane is on its way back.”

  “I sent Khloe home.”

  A moment of silence, and then, “Why is that?”

  “Because she’s a reporter. She was here to do a story on me.”

  Ice rattles in a glass and then, “I think you’re mistaken, son.”

  “I have proof, Granddad.” I push to my feet and fist my hair, the gorgeous view below doing little to calm the storm raging inside me.

  “What kind of proof?”

  I turn, lean against the rail and catch my unkempt reflection in the glass door. “She’s been writing about me in a journal.”

  “Do you have the journal?”

  “In my hand.”

  “Open it.”

  “I’m not opening it. I don’t want to see the lies she’s written in there.” Restless, uneasy, I pace to the patio door and back to the rail. “How could you have hired her?” I ask, not wanting to make him feel old and senile but needing to get to the bottom of matters.

  “Because she’s perfect for you,” he says smugly.

  “Perfect for me?” As his words sink in, my mind takes me to our conversation about the French maid outfits. What was that she asked? If I made all my assistants wear them. My gut tightens. “Granddad, tell me you d
idn’t...”

  “Didn’t what, son?”

  I swallow. “Did you arrange for all those French maid outfits to be in Khloe’s closet?”

  A hoot of laughter follows my question, and then what sounds like him slapping his leg. “That was Summer’s idea. She’s a brilliant one.”

  Holy fuck.

  “You were...matchmaking?”

  “Of course I was.”

  “She’s a reporter. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, boy. I knew that.”

  I shake my head and try to wake myself up from this nightmare, but no, I’m not dreaming. This shit is really going down.

  “Then why did she keep it a secret?” I ask.

  “I asked her to. I know how you feel about reporters.”

  “Then why her, Granddad? Why hire her if you knew how I felt about reporters?”

  “She came to me to warn me that her boss wanted her to do an exposé on you, but she was fired because she refused. Just as well she left Starlight. Her dream is to write for the New Yorker. That place was only holding her back. But she’s too proud, too much like her father to let anyone give her a leg up, even though she’s talented.”

  My fuzzy brain spins. Wait, what was that she’d said about being out of work?

  My boss wanted me to do something, and when I refused, he canned me.

  Christ. I’d thought it was about sex. But it was because she’d refused to do a story on me? I grip the journal harder, my world sinking around me.

  “Open the journal, Will.”

  I slowly peel the cover back and begin to read. I skim the page and read faster. My heart leaps into my throat. “Jesus.”

  “What’s that, boy?”

  “It’s...it’s all about me, all about my kindness and the community services I do here on the island. She wrote a whole article on me.”

  The sound of Granddad slapping his knee again reverberates through the phone. “I knew it.”

  “But I don’t like my business known. You know that.”

  “Who says she was even going to publish it?”

  A knock on the door reaches my ears, and my heart leaps. Has she come back?

  “Someone’s at my door.”

  “Go check. Might be her.”

  I hurry down the hall, pull the door open and find Bevey standing there, a plateful of johnnycakes in her hands. “It’s Bevey,” I say.

  “Hey, don’t sound so disappointed,” Bevey says.

  Ice clinks in Granddad’s glass again before he says, “Tell her I said hello.”

  “I’m not disappointed. Come in. Granddad says hi,” I say, and turn back to my conversation with Granddad. Even though Bevey is listening, I say, “I...fucked up. I said cruel things. I sent her away, and I don’t think she’s coming back.”

  “Then go fix this.”

  “How?”

  “You’re a smart boy. You’ll figure it out.”

  Bevey follows me into the kitchen as I resume pacing. “But what if...what if she doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about her?”

  “Oh, she does,” Bevey says with a big smile.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Khloe

  IT’S BEEN A WEEK since I’ve returned from Saint Thomas, seven whole days that have felt more like four hundred and twenty-seven days and a whole bunch of hours and minutes. I haven’t been sleeping or eating very well since coming home, and forget about functioning properly. Only problem is, if I don’t pull myself together, I’m going to lose this temporary gig that’s going to keep me afloat until I can secure a permanent position. I refused to deposit the check that arrived at my apartment and refused to take James’s calls. The man had no right sticking his nose into our business. Around Town Magazine isn’t where I ultimately want to work, but I’ll take anything thrown my way. And I’m just filling in while one of the reporters is off on maternity leave.

  It’s funny, Will said to me that by the time I left Saint Thomas I’d know what I wanted and what I loved. He was right. It’s hard to believe how my priorities have shifted. I didn’t know what I wanted in life until I spent time in Saint Thomas. I think it would surprise everyone, Will included. But now Will thinks I was out to sabotage him, and he’s back with Naomi, which means my dreams will never be fulfilled. Not in this lifetime.

  Stupid tears prick as the bell over the front door jingles. I swipe the moisture away and glance up from my desk to see Steph bouncing in, a smile on her face as she checks the rows of desks in search of me.

  “Over here,” I say with a wave, and she bounds over to my side of the room. I lower my voice, not wanting to disturb those working close by. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to check out your new workplace.”

  “Well, I’m only here temporarily, so don’t get used to it.”

  “Look on the bright side, you’re not a pod person anymore.”

  I stand and take in her fashionable attire as I give her a hug. “Look at you. All dressed for your new position at the Cut. It’s always been your dream to write about fashion and trends. I’m so proud of you. I told you that, right?”

  “Only a million times.” She jabs her thumb into her chest. “And this girl with the fancy new clothes and office wants to go out to lunch with her best friend.”

  I crinkle my nose. “I can’t really—”

  She cuts me off. “It’s on me, girlfriend. When you’re rich and famous, you can buy.”

  I snort. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”

  “Maybe sooner than you realize,” she mumbles.

  I eye her. “Have you come off your meds?”

  She laughs out loud, and I close my laptop and reach for my purse. “I could eat. I think. One condition. We don’t talk about him.”

  At the mention of him, her eyes travel the length of me. “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I lie.

  “Okay, I’ll shut up, but you’re ordering one of everything.” I link my arm with hers, and we step out into the sunshine. People bustle by, one man with his face buried in his phone nearly mowing me down.

  “I sure miss Saint Thomas.”

  “I bet you do.” She steals a glance at me. “Do you think you’d ever go back?”

  I give her a look that suggests she’s insane. “Not now. What reason would I have?”

  “I don’t know. You said you loved working with the kids.” Her eyes light up. “Hey, maybe you could get a job here teaching.”

  “Since it doesn’t look like I’ll ever write for the New Yorker, maybe I should,” I say, even though, strangely enough, the New Yorker isn’t where my heart is anymore.

  “Why can’t you do both, part time?”

  I stop walking and stare at Steph. “Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?”

  She laughs. “Come on, before lunch I have to make a quick stop.”

  I glance at my watch. “I don’t have a long lunch hour.”

  “Yeah, well. I think it might be longer than you realize.”

  I grab her arm. “Oh my God, please don’t tell me I’m getting fired again.”

  “Come with me,” she says, and I once again go over the few bills left in my wallet. I ate the Mentos in the bottom of my purse, so there goes my backup.

  We step into a bookstore, and I furrow my brow. “What are we doing here?”

  “Oh, you’ll see.” She takes my hand and leads me to the stack of newspapers. “I wanted to check out the papers.”

  “Don’t you get like every newspaper known to mankind already?”

  “I do, but you don’t.”

  I grimace. How’s a girl supposed to write for the New Yorker when she had to cancel her subscription because she couldn’t afford it? Heck, I can’t even afford the cheaper digital versio
n. A saleslady walks by me, a grin on her face. Okay, why is she looking at me like that? I turn to see her switch the sign on the door from Open to Closed.

  I nudge Steph. “We need to go. She must be closing up for lunch.”

  “Hang on, I heard there was an article on Will Carson in today’s paper.”

  Blood drains to my toes. “Oh, God, no. Who wrote it?” Did Avery find him after I called her? If so then I’m the one responsible for whatever is written about him. I swallow and lean against the stack of books as my legs weaken.

  Steph blinks at me. “Khloe, you’ve gone white.”

  “What was written about him? Oh, Steph, please tell me it’s nothing bad. He’s a good guy. Yeah, okay, he was a jerk who accused me of some nasty things, but I can see how it all looked to him. He doesn’t deserve any of this.”

  “A jerk, huh?” The familiar voice comes from behind, and I gasp as I spin around and nearly sink to the floor. My gaze rakes over Will, who is dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, looking as handsome as he did the first day I met him on the plane.

  “Will, I didn’t—”

  “You’re right, though. I don’t deserve any of this,” he says.

  I point to the paper that Steph is riffling through. “I...I don’t know...anything about it.” Wait, why is Steph so calm, flipping pages without even acknowledging Will or my burst of panic. What is going on?

  “Will, it’s not what you think.”

  “You keep saying that to me, and I have to stop you because you need to know what I do think. But before I say anything, you should read the article.”

  Steph’s grin is wider than I’ve ever seen it when she folds the paper and hands it to me. My eyes go big when I skim the article—my article. Oh no, these are my words.

  “Will,” I croak out. “I never meant for anyone to see this. I have no idea how my journal ended up in the wrong hands, but—”

  “What I think is that I’m the world’s biggest idiot.” Feet shuffle behind him, and before I know it, there are numerous people lined up watching us—including James. I recognize Tate, Summer, Brianna, Luca, Alec and Megan from the tabloids. What the heck is this, a Carson family reunion?