"So, what are the options?"
"Bury it, and do it quickly. Deny everything, and continue as normal."
"That's not going to work."
Sash looks at her stepbrother. "Dante, tell her that's not going to work."
"Five hundred million, Dante. Say it was a one off affair, that you regret it and you won't do it again."
"Fuck you", Sash spits.
Dante puts a hand on his stepsister's arm, just to cool her down. Sash misreads it as condescending, believing that if anyone should be calmed down it's definitely not her.
"And what about the images?" Dante asks.
"They are out there now, Dante. What isn't, is you two. You can control that if you tell them there is nothing going on between you. We have investors, shareholders, businesses and projects all over the world. This is everything you own."
"And these?"
Dante holds up the new images.
"Pay them off. Pay them off, now. A hundred million dollars is nothing when you are talking about your whole empire, Dante. You should have done it in the first place and I have no idea why you didn't. You and I both know it makes sense. Caulder knows it makes sense."
Caulder nods his head gently.
"Sash", Alex says, trying to reason with her. "This is bigger than you both."
"Dante, for fuck sake."
Sash has her hand flat out and pointed accusingly at Alex. "Tell her. Tell her we are already in a relationship, and we don't give a fuck about what other people think about us."
"Sash, wait one sec. I told you this would happen if they knew, it's important we make the right decision now to lessen the impact later on."
Sash shakes her head, shocked that Dante of all people wouldn't immediately defend their love for one another, especially now their secret was out.
"Lessen the impact? Dante, we're not some kind of meteorite from space, threatening other people's lives. It's just you and me."
She reaches over to take his hand. "We can't deny we are together, not now it's already out."
"You have to-", Alex buts in. "-And if you have any sense, Dante, you will."
"And then what do you expect us to do? I can't go back to being secret, not now."
"Then go back to nothing at all."
Sash's jaw drops open so far it nearly hits the floor. Undeterred, Alex continues. "This is not going to die down immediately, but your relationship, whatever it is beyond what it looks like here, which I have to admit isn't very much at all, will have to. After that, when enough time has elapsed, if that ever happens, I for one don't think it ever will, then you might have a chance again. But, if you ask me, I'd quit before you get anywhere near being serious. That's my personal and professional opinion."
"Huh."
Dante regards his personal assistant for a while, his head cocked to the side like a dog. He has never been spoken to before in that way, and when all of this has died down he'll deal with Alex in the way she deserves. How dare she disregard his relationship with Sash and make comments about his private life, even if she feels her own position to be in danger because of it.
"Whether she is right or not, no one has earned the right to speak to him like that, especially not Alex. Sash can see the storm brewing in Dante's eyes, but she can't see him speaking up for her. She doesn't get it. Alex's increased pulse rate indicates that she knows she might have gone too far with her comments. Stubbornness, however, means she won't retract them, nor change her stance either.
"Is there no other way?"
Dante is happy to continue to play the passive role, like a predator playing dead, waiting for the propitious moment to strike.
"What other way?"
Alex refuses to sit down. Half of the time she stands in front of Dante and Sash, leering down at them both, the other half propped against his desk, her arms folded angrily. She's the only one of the four of them who has refused to take a seat to deal with the matter calmly.
Sash doesn't know why Dante is deferring to this woman. It's almost as if he likes seeing her angry, or just likes the game of trying to work out how to solve the problem they've both been handed.
Whatever it is, she doesn't like it. This morning her stepbrother was stressed out and distant, now he seems completely relaxed and almost in his element. It's almost as if he's already made up his mind what to do, and this is just the game that's necessary to play in order to get them there. A fucking detective in the sum up, leading his suspects into the frame.
"Make a bigger story", Dante says, his arms up and his eyes sparkling.
"Bigger than this? Impossible. You need a natural disaster, and even that's not going to help you. You are one of the richest people in America. People know you. People want to be you, and a lot of people want to hurt you. This is huge. Aliens would have to take over and reduce everything to dust to make this even think about going away. The pope would have to fuck the Queen of England for you to get out of this fucking hole."
Dante regards her again. He likes her passion, it was one of the reasons he employed her in the first place. He'll miss that.
Out of her depth, like a Yorkshire terrier yapping at a great Dane.
"And if we admit it. If I stand there and admit that Sash and I are in a relationship, and we're not doing anything wrong, what then?"
Finally he's defending us, Sash thinks. She reaches over and grabs his hand again, but although he lets her sit it in her lap and stroke it affectionately, he won't take his gaze off Alex.
"Are you fucking serious?"
She has one hand on her hip, while the other hangs loosely by her side.
"Stop being so dramatic and answer the question, Alex. What is the worst case scenario?"
Her eyes go wide. She cannot believe that Dante is being this stupid. To her, the answer is obvious.
"Career suicide. You say that, what you've just said right now, you are fucked for the rest of your life. Bye bye private jets and thousand dollar lunches, bye bye credit cards and holidays to California at a moments notice. Bye Bye Hix industries, forever. And if you are seriously considering that, you are not the Dante Hix I know."
Silence spreads throughout the office again. You could hear a pin drop as Alex and Dante regard each other. Sash wants her stepbrother to look at her, but he's quite deliberately choosing not to. Even Caulder has stopped filing his nails to look, for a rare occasion, directly at his boss and his colleague.
Dante is the first to look away. He takes his hand away from Sash and adjusts himself in his seat.
"Well that's that then, isn't it?"
He raises his palms defensively. "I guess that leaves me with no choice."
Sash turns to him, just to make sure she's heard him right.
"Are you serious?"
Her blood is about to boil over. "You're going to do what she says, you're going to deny that we're together? That we ever were?"
Now Dante turns to her.
"Sash."
He pinches her chin. "I'm going to do the only thing I can."
Sash shakes herself away from him, swatting his hand away when he puts it up again.
"You're going to put your fucking business ahead of our relationship? I can't believe I'm hearing this, Dante. After everything that we've been through, after everything that I've done for you."
Her hands go back to her belly. "After this? I thought I knew you."
Alex towers over them with her arms folded smugly. As far as she is concerned, she's won.
"I'll notify the press", she says confidently, before striding back out to her desk.
Tears are running freely from Sash's swelling eyes, rolling and tumbling across her cheeks.
"Sash, please. It's going to be ok."
He tries to touch her, but she pulls herself away quickly. A moment later, she's up on her feet.
"Sash, where are you going?"
"I don't know you."
She shakes her head. "I don't know you at all."
A second later,
she's flashed past Alex, who isn't even bothered enough to look up to her, and is halfway down the stairs before Dante is even out of his seat. In Alex's office, he stares at the main door, yawning at his stepsister's absence.
"Don't", he says to Alex, when he sees her about to say something.
Back in his office, he closes the double doors, flops back down into the sofa, sighs heavily and begins to pull his tie off.
"What the fuck are you looking at?", he says angrily to Caulder.
"Can you book me a flight to L.A.?", Caulder asks. "I have a feeling I know who did it."
Chapter 41
Sash has no idea where she is going. All she knows is she needs to get away. She takes the stairs two at a time, falling into a rhythm that helps her send everything that has happened in the last few hours, to the very back of her mind.
If she doesn't think about it, she can't let it affect her. Jason Walker, her pregnancy, the stepbrother she thought she knew. None of it matters if she's just Sash, dancing down the stairs, running to get away.
There is a moment of silence as she bursts through the double doors to Dante's granite black office tower, when the stationed security guards, the row of police and the half a dozen camera wielding journalists collected outside look at her with a shared expression of confusion.
This is not at all what they expected to see.
In her haste to leave, Sash had forgotten completely that they would be there. With everything else going on, it hadn't even crossed her mind. Outside now, faced with an impenetrable wall of people trapping her exit, she feels like she has no where left to turn. She can't go back inside, and the crowd in front of her looks like the last thing it wants to do is part and let her through.
Finally, a snap second after the penny drops, they realize it's her. It's Sash, the woman at the center of all of this. Cameras flash and journalist barge each other out of the way to try and get as close to her as possible.
"Is it true?"
"Look at me."
"Is it about money?"
"Are you in love?"
"Where is Dante?"
The questions mash together and form an incoherent reticulation of noise that leaves Sash hollow and desperate. Everywhere she turns there is a camera pointed at her, or a finger of accusation, or a placard registering disgust.
The security guards don't know what to do, the police either. One of them radios up to the office above, just to see if this is some kind of publicity stunt they haven't yet been advised of. They all wonder if Dante will burst out of the still swinging doors behind her, as though the building itself is giving birth to its celebrity owner, and save her.
Sash doesn't know where to turn. Everything is a whirling chaos of lights and noise she can't even begin to imagine how to take control of. She's on the edge of being consumed by it, ready to sit down and let it swallow her and her baby up, until there is nothing left but a pair of footprints slowly dissolving in the post cataclysmic wind, when out of the blurred confusion that surrounds her, comes a distinct and familiar voice.
"Sash."
Before she can see who it is, a hand goes under her arm, while the other stays extended out in front of her, both to clear the path in front and force back overeager cameramen. Sash no longer has control of her body, but when she finally sees who does, she is both surprised, and extremely happy to see her.
Abbey glares at the police officers who stand and watch as though observing a curious example of contemporary street theater.
None of them seem to know how to deal with what's going on. Eventually they understand that Abbey isn't so much as stealing Sash away, but doing everything to save the poor girl from a mauling at the hands of both journalists and fervent members of the general public, and finally step in to help, forming a protective barrier either side to push people back to where they belong, and chaperone the two girls back to Abbey's car.
Sash is so overwhelmed by what's going on, she can barely form words necessary to describe or control her situation. Instead, with heart racing and eyes wide, she just lets Abbey take control - like she has done before on a number of occasions - and save her from a situation she would otherwise have let completely debilitate her.
Once in the car, the hood up and the windows sealed, Abbey slams her Manolo Blahnik down on the accelerator. In another moment, and if she wasn't looking up past the crowd outside to the office on the top of the tallest building in New York, where she knows Dante will be sat, planning the demise of their relationship the moment after taking her virginity, she might have recognized the shoes.
With the back wheels spinning noisily against the tarmac, they zoom off as quickly as the car will allow them, several members of the general public left on the floor in their wake, having had to dive quickly out of the way to avoid them.
Behind, some journalists decide to take to motorbikes, in order to follow Abbey's car, while others decide to wait, hoping Dante will be the next to burst unexpectedly through the doors.
Sash has her hands held protectively over her belly, while Abbey weaves expertly in and out of traffic, one eye on her best friend, the other on the road ahead.
She can see the journalists swarming in behind her, but she's a better driver and her car is a lot faster. Two of them she loses by jumping through traffic lights, another she sends in a different direction by turning late at an intersection, and the six or so others she leaves for dust as they exit the city and take to the freeway.
In all that time, Sash still hasn't moved her hands away from her belly, she hasn't stopped weeping silently, and she hasn't spoken. With a little bit more time to concentrate on her now the chaos has been left behind, and more than concerned by her best friend's appearance, Abbey decides to break the silence.
"Are you ok, Sash?"
Sash struggles to find the words to respond. Instead, all she seems like she can do at the moment is cry, communicate in little nods or shakes of the head and try to control her breathing. Abbey sweeps her hand through Sash's hair, tucking the waviness behind one ear. She's seen her friend hurt a number of times before, but nothing on this scale.
"I'm going to take you home, ok?"
Sash nods and looks away. She's ashamed that her best friend is seeing her like this again. She's embarrassed that Abbey knows about her and Dante, and that what she knows is what the papers have decided to publish and not the truth.
If she had enough energy to tell her the real story she would, and she's angry with herself that she can't even bring herself to begin to think about how to start. Abbey is the first person she wanted to know, but definitely not in this way. Like this, it feels like the worst kind of deception.
She's staring at it for a long while, not even knowing what it is until it angrily dawns on her. Fifteen minutes from the city and there it still is like a thorn in her side, Dante's long black tower piercing the sky above like a poisonous needle from earth.
"He's a fucking liar", she says finally. "A fucking worthless, piece of shit liar."
Chapter 42
There are journalists as close to the house as they can get.
"Fucking animals", Abbey comments.
When they get close enough, she leans out of the window to berate them within ear shot. "Go and get a real job. Go on, fuck off and find another story, there isn't one here."
Henry's on the doorstep drinking a cup of coffee, and as Abbey pulls the car alongside the house, he waves at Sash. If Sash was looking at his waving hand and not the comforting familiarity of his face, she'd notice the lightly tarnished rope bind marks on his wrists.
Just to have him look at her, his sweet smile, his caring eyes, she feels a hollow in her stomach like someone's carved out her soul. She doesn't know why, but she feels like she's done something wrong, like she's just confessed to a heinous crime or admitted a catalog of wrongdoing, even though neither Abbey on the car journey over, nor the look her dad is still giving her would make her feel that way.
If anything, what she
should feel is acceptance, and the horrible thing is that because they are giving it to her, it almost makes her feel worse. They know about her and Dante, everyone does.
That news has negatively affected their lives and now she needs to explain both what happened in the first instance, and why now she's on her own and not by his side. More than the sense of feeling like she's just confessed to a heinous crime, she feels like she is about to, and everyone else is happy because they already know what's coming, ready to point the accusatory finger and say, 'I told you so'.
"Moving back home?" Henry says, when Sash is up alongside him.
"Thinking about it", she says back, her eyes jammed up with tears.
"Hello, Sash."
"Hello, Dad."
There is nothing like the feeling of coming back home. Her bedroom may be an office, the other one may remind her so much of her stepbrother it hurts just to think about it, but her dad is here, Tracy is here, Ghost is here and so are all of her memories.
There is a tense silence while Henry observes his daughter, while he rubs the tears away from her cheek with a tobacco stained thumb, while Tracy stands in shadow by the sink unsure how to begin, and Abbey wonders whether now she's brought their daughter home, that she should be here at all.
"I didn't know you were in California?" Tracy says, when too much time has passed and she can't cope with the discomfort.
"I wanted to call-", Sash begins, welling up again in the process and unable to finish her sentence.
Henry puts his hand on her shoulder.
"Hey. There's no need for that. You're home now. Listen, you don't need to explain anything to us, seriously. If you want to talk about what's going on, that's absolutely fine, but if you don't, that's fine with us too. This is your house as much as it is ours and there are no judgments here. You're our daughter and we love you, whatever you do."
Sash feels completely useless. She feels like she's spent the last hour doing nothing but crying.
Heated: A Stepbrother Romance (Full Length Novel) Page 21
