Manwhore (Manwhore #1)(89)

28

TRUTH AND LOYALTY

“Wake up, Livingston.”

I tuck my face into my pillow while someone who sounds a lot like Gina keeps knocking on my door. I groan, “I’m going to kick your ass when I get out of this bed.”

“You’re going to be too busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Rachel, the door’s freaking locked.”

“So?”

“So open up.”

Hmm. Don’t think so. My life’s a mess. My life’s a mess and I need to fix it and I need to think of how to fix it. And the only pleasure I can derive anymore is in thinking and remembering, remembering talking on the phone only a few nights ago; I dreamed he said some things, and that I said some other things, then I remember that, yes, I think it’s true—I said I loved him.

Holy crap.

“Raaaa-chel,” Gina whines. Hard banging at the door. “Open up, Livingston. You need to see this!”

“I don’t want to see anything today. I’m seeing Saint when he gets back from New York and I want some beauty sleep, okay? It’s Saturday,” I grumble, but when she keeps banging, I leap off the bed and whip the door open, then rush back under my warm covers. “What is it?”

Wynn and Gina drop onto my bed.

Wynn is here too?

I’m aware of a strained silence while Wynn goes to open the curtains and comes back. Their stares . . . they look ominous.

A shadow of fear looms before me. “What?”

Their expressions alone set alarm bells ringing throughout my head. Leaping off the bed, I open my laptop and start scouring the Net, and all I can think is no, no no nooooooooo.

Within seconds, dozens of results with the words exposed and undercover and lies and betrayal pop up, tying Sin, my glorious Sin, to me.

“Rachel, you’re all over the gossip sites,” Wynn says.

The results come at me with talons. One after the other.

“Go here.” Gina points at a website.

My hands have never shaken so hard on the track pad. I force the cursor to move and go to the site, and my stomach drops. I see Victoria’s byline and realize they went ahead and released her story in blog form before going to press.

I can’t see through my tears.

“That BITCH!” Gina yells.

As though someone else is speaking for me, numbly, in my own voice and with my own lips, I hear: “She’s doing what she has to. She wants to succeed, like me,” and as I speak, my tears keep gathering in my eyelids.

“She can suck my dick!” Gina yells.

I duck to read.

DECEIVED: Malcolm Saint’s New Girlfriend Really Undercover Press!

If you’ve been waiting for the dish on one of the most unexpected “relationships” to arise with one of our bachelors, prepare to have your mind blown even further when I let it all out of the bag. At least, Malcolm Saint’s girlfriend’s bag. . . .

I can’t continue. Each word is out there for Malcolm to read. Snarky, like the words of a real-life Gossip Girl amusing herself while my world is torn asunder.

My eyes well. “He’s read this by now, ohgod.”

“Rachel, calm down. . . .”

“You don’t understand! Truth and loyalty are important to him! They’re so important to him . . . I can’t.” I cover my head in my hands as I start to hyperventilate. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Rachel.” They try comforting me, both of them slinging their arms around my shoulders, but I’m beyond comfort.

My cell phone is buzzing madly. I suck in deep breaths, and when my phone falls still, the landline starts to ring. Gina lifts the kitchen phone in the air. “It’s Helen, Rachel.”

When nothing happens, she waves the phone at me.

“Helen’s calling.”

“Don’t talk to her,” Wynn whispers.

Gina covers the speaker. “Hello? Wynn? She’s her BOSS.”

I know what she wants, what she will say. I grab the phone while my hand trembles and the rest of me starts to grow numb inside. I have disappointed everyone in my life. “You saw?” she asks.

I can’t answer.

Helen growls, “We’ll ride this if it kills us. Get to work.”

I’ve barely hung up the phone when Gina raises my cell phone before me, eyes wide and apologetic. “It’s your mother.”

With a moan of distress, I shoot Gina a “help me” look. What will I say to her? Well, let’s see. That I lost my heart and my senses with it. That I lost the man I loved before I had the courage to let myself truly have him. That I lost a story to my colleague. That I might, if I can’t find my balls soon, lose my job.

That I’ve lost all sense of direction. Of what’s right and what’s wrong. Of who I am and what I want—

“Heyyyy, adoptive mom!” Gina finally picks up on my behalf. “Yes! GINA! Oh . . . Rachel? She’s super busy writing the article that will leave this other one in the dust. Oh, pfft! It’s just a blog article! Rachel’s will be IN PRINT, and it’s much more important in that format. . . .” She starts to wax poetic to my mom while I go back to the computer and go to Saint’s social media.

I scan a few pictures.

There he is.

I see a picture of him getting out of his Rolls and into M4. A picture of him flipping off a reporter.