Any Way You Want It (Brand Clan #2)(83)

Zandra glanced toward the snide voice. Her favorite reporter again.

He smirked. “By now we’ve all seen the photo of you leaving a public restroom with Remington Brand. What do you have to say about that?”

Zandra gave him a look of amused disbelief. “Have you seen Remington Brand?”

The room erupted with feminine laughter and lusty whistles.

Remy looked adorably embarrassed as his brothers teased him and playfully slapped him on the back.

The reporter frowned disparagingly at Zandra. “Come on, Miss Kennedy. As the owner of an escort agency, surely you can agree that your public conduct is a reflection of your business and your escorts?”

Zandra heaved a sigh of resignation. “Look, if it makes you feel better to call me a slut, a whore, a madam, then do what you must. If it makes you feel morally superior, or if it’ll help you sleep better at night, then by all means get out the pitchforks and burn me at the stake. I can’t concern myself with your opinion of me or what I do. I know what kind of business I’m running and the caliber of women working for me, and that’s all that matters.”

As murmurs of approval went around the room, the rebuked man turned a deep shade of red. Zandra hoped she’d shut him up for good this time.

“Any particular reason you’re wearing sunglasses, Miss Kennedy?” a reporter from the Tribune inquired curiously.

It was the question Zandra had been dreading, though she’d come prepared to answer it.

She glanced at Morgan, who gave her a subtle nod of encouragement.

She hesitated another moment, then slowly reached up and removed the sunglasses.

A collective gasp swept through the crowd when her bruised cheek was revealed. The shiner had darkened to purple over the past three days, and probably looked worse than it felt. She’d considered applying concealer that morning, but had changed her mind.

She’d spent her whole life hiding, trying to mask the scars of her past. Her mother had suffered in silence until the day she died.

No more hiding. No more silence.

“What happened to your face, Miss Kennedy?” the reporters shouted simultaneously.

Zandra smiled sadly. “I had a painful encounter with the past.”

“Could you elaborate?”

As an expectant hush fell over the room, she took a deep breath and forged ahead. “Since my father’s campaign surrogates have been making the rounds to put a revisionist spin on the nature of our estrangement, I thought it was time for me to tell my side of the story. Contrary to what you may have heard, I didn’t stop speaking to my father because he disapproved of my escort agency. He was out of my life long before the business even opened.”

She paused for a moment, meeting Remy’s gaze. The tender ferocity in his eyes brought an ache to her throat, forcing her to swallow hard before she glanced away and continued speaking. “I grew up in a house ruled by fear. Not fear of the violence that plagued my neighborhood. Fear of violence from my own father. He verbally and physically abused my mother, and because of that, I grew up afraid of him. I feared the sight of his car pulling into the driveway. The thump of his footsteps. The sound of his voice. As long as he was around, I knew that my mother wasn’t safe from his anger, and I never felt safe either.”

She paused to sip from the glass of water that had been poured before the press conference began. The room was deafeningly silent. So silent she could hear herself swallow.

Her hand trembled slightly as she set the glass down, but her voice was steady as she resumed speaking. “In my father’s house, femininity was something to be ashamed of, and beauty was a curse. He demanded modesty from me and my mother. Modesty to the point of invisibility. Not only should women not be seen, they shouldn’t be heard. It wasn’t until I left home for college that I realized just how warped this was, how dangerously oppressive.

“When I decided to open an escort agency, one of my goals was to ensure that the women I hired would be seen and heard. They aren’t arm candy. They’re strong, intelligent, capable women with voices that matter. I’m proud of them, and if my agency were to be shut down tomorrow, I’d have no regrets about the way I ran the business. If my father wants to publicly scold me for running what he deems a brothel...well,” she murmured, touching her bruised cheek, “I’ll let others decide whose sins are greater.”

At the end of her speech, a low murmur of sympathy ran through the audience. She could feel an undercurrent of shock and anger, could see several female reporters dabbing at the corners of their eyes.

“I just have to say something.”

Everyone turned to stare at Claudia, whose blue eyes were glistening with tears. She picked up Zandra’s hand and held it as she solemnly addressed the crowd. “Zandra is a very private person, so I know how difficult it was for her to share what she just did. The painful experience she so eloquently spoke of was my reality for the eight years I was married. My husband beat me, and he made me feel worthless and unattractive because I wasn’t a perfect size four...or six...or— Well, I think you guys get the point.”

This drew appreciative chuckles that brought some levity to the room.

“Anyway,” the petite blonde went on, “my husband preyed on my fears and insecurities and convinced me that he was the only man who would ever want me. We have two daughters, and when my oldest started having body-image issues—” Claudia’s voice hitched, and she rapidly blinked back tears and inhaled a shaky breath before continuing “—it broke my heart, but it was part of the wakeup call I’d been needing. When I finally found the courage to take my girls and leave their father, I honestly didn’t know whether we could make it on our own.”