Page 32 of Unfolding Kiara

“I wish I had never loved you.”

I stared deadly at the pen stand, my heavy-lidded eyes barely staying up.Fuck. I need to sleep. Then I remembered how I had slept last night and smiled.

“Ethan!”

My skin jumped, my eyes fluttering open and blinking at my agent, Elliot Warner, with wide innocent eyes. I rubbed my eyes and shuffled in my seat.

I drawled, “What now? Am I getting detention again?”

He sighed audibly, a sign that I had fucked up badly this time. Not going to lie, I had been fucking up since last year, so he has been sighing a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the reason behind the white thinning hair on his sides.

“Not detention. But our sponsors are cutting the endorsement deals,” he ran a hand through his hair and sat down behind his massive oak wood desk and lit up a cigar.

The stench of smoke woke me up from the hangover, my skin crawling with the need to put the cigarette in between my lips and inhale—No, we are not going there, Ethan.

I replayed his words twice in my head and drank a glass of water. “Why the endorsement deals? I scored a gold medal, didn’t I?”

I don’t know why I even bothered asking that when I knew the answer.

I had fucked up.Big time.

Elliot smiled at me like a father would at his son. “You punched Richard fucking Jane. Did you forget about that when you spent time with Aretta last night? Seriously, Kane, what the fuck were you thinking?”

I slouched in my seat, looking at the lollipop wrapped in sparkly red paper.Of course, I remember it. How could I forget punching the famous celebrity reporter, Richard Jane. It felt so good doing it that I forgot his cameraman had the footage and leaked it on the internet, so I was on every celebrity news.

Ethan Kane, the twenty-five-year-old swim athlete and a model, punched Richard Jane, fleeing away from the scene to spend the night with the famous pop singer, Aretta.

I remember how it all started. Liam and I were invited to the VS fashion show as we were top swimmers after passing USA Swimming Olympic Trials with A-Level qualification standards. But he bailed on me at the last moment as he had some issues with his family to deal with and couldn’t arrive there.

“How did you sleep last night?” Elliot asked, his voice stern while he watched me with his piercing coal black eyes.

I smiled thinking about last night. About Aretta. I ran my hand through my hair and smirked at him, “I slept like a baby.”

He gave me the briefest smile. “Touché. Hope you had fun last night, Kane, because you need to clean up your act or your sponsors are cutting you out of the endorsement deals.”

I frowned, my head still throbbing slightly from the little alcohol I had last night. “Clean up what act?”

He leaned back in his chair and I knew I was about to get a lecture. “Oh, let me think. Last month you slept with Chris Moore’s wife, and then your dick didn’t have enough so you slept with his twenty-one-year-old daughter a week later, officially removing you from his modelling gig. Not to mention,Julian. You were drunk and flirted with a female cop and slept with her in the back of her cop car. Do you know how hard it was for me to clean that up? And last night, you punched RichardfuckingJane in front of his cameraman, and every news, fashion and fitness magazine is talking about you.”

I flashed him a grin.

He glared at me.

My grin dropped. I sighed, keeping my elbows on his large oak wood desk. “Okay, first of all, Chris Moore’s wife is hot; you have seen her. How could I resist when she wanted me to fuck her on her bed? And the daughter was really sweet. We were both tipsy after a party and it just happened. About Julian,um, long story short. Someone caught her with her handcuffed to the door because we lost the key. Not to mention, Richard deserved it.”

My nerves twitched just thinking about Richard, the oh so fancy reporter who I hated with all my guts. Especially after what he did last night.

Elliot, my agent and a good friend, knew I wouldn’t have resorted to violence without a motive. His jaw ticked when he said, “HR doesn’t care about that shit, Kane. They want you to clean up your act.”

Of course, they wanted me to clean up my act. Ineededto clean up my act. I could imagine my mothers’ faces when they saw the news and called me later to talk to me about it. I closed my eyes and wondered how everything went to shit.

The music was too loud at the after party of the VS show. I took a flute of champagne and downed it in three gulps. My bow tie was itching me, so I took it off, tugged at a few buttons and kept it in my pocket. The air felt too heavy with perfume, alcohol and something female and musky. I could smell the hair products from the striking lady sitting beside me during the dinner.

I jumped when her hand landed on my thigh and gave it a squeeze. I smiled, turning to her when she flashed me a toothy grin, her red lipstick perfect for her lips. But there was something in her gaze, which I didn’t want right then. Especially when her claws painted in the same shade of red trailed upwards.

I held her wrist, leaning closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Slide your hand anymore further and I will make sure that your ass is bruised with my belt marks till next week.”

Pulling away, I flashed her a small smile, watching her gape at me. She clearly didn’t expect that and moved her hand on her lap when I let it go.

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