Page 108 of Bad Things Come in Threes

He stopped mid sentence and he looked like he wanted to say more but at the end of the day, he just let out a string of words in French and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. I knew I was being unreasonable but I wanted to protect him as stupid as that sounded. I knew my business could take the hit and I knew my reputation could too.

“What do we do now?” he asked after he had calmed down.

“We do nothing,” he opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. “I am going to deal with the fallout from this as well as whatever comes out from me hitting that reporter. In two days, I’ll release a statement and when the documentary comes out, people can see for themselves what actually happened.”

He laughed humorlessly. “That sounds like a great plan and I hope it goes well for you but I’m going to do what I want to do.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I think you seem to have forgotten that I don’t do well with instructions,” he gave me a dry smile. “I’ll see you soon, sunshine.”

Before I could say anything or protest further, he had walked right out of the room. Olivia was standing at the door as he left and she looked between me and him in confusion and with wide eyes. Her eyes took in my stunned expression and she wasted no time in rushing into the room and closing the door behind her.

“What happened?”

I wasted no time in relaying everything that had just happened to her and when I was done she was sporting an impressed look on her face. Her lips were tilted up in a half smile and her eyes held pride and amusement.

“I knew there was a reason I liked him,” she began and when she saw my expression she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re being stubborn about this. If he can fix it then let him.”

“He can’t, no one can. The best thing to do would be to just let it die down. Give it two weeks and someone else will do something crazy enough to grasp the public’s attention and they’ll forget about me until the one year anniversary of this show.”

“I’m with Nathan on this one. You don’t deserve this.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “Just wait to see what he does.”

I ran my hand down my face in frustration and my eyes somehow caught the flowers on the table. I didn’t know what the hell Nathan was up to but I knew I was going to find out sooner or later. If there was one thing I knew about Nathan, it was that he was not going to rest until he found a way to make things right.

CHAPTER 30: 4 DAYS AFTER…. IT

I didn’t see or hear from Nathan once in the past four days. It was like he completely disappeared from the surface of the earth. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that because it meant that I had no idea what he was planning. It worried me at first but I soon realized that I had enough problems of my own.

Thanks to Miles, things weren’t as bad as they could have been. I had to increase the security around my building because it got terrible quickly. When we landed, the front of the airport was swarming with people and I almost didn’t make it to my car. I knew it would be hectic so I made sure I went out alone while my parents and the others went out separately.

Work wasn’t any easier because we almost always had a sea of people in front of the office. I wanted to send everyone home andclose down for a few days but I knew I couldn’t and everyone knew what they signed up for when they agreed to work for me so they had no chance to complain.

So many ‘sources’ had come out with their own stories about how I had always been a fake and always used my skin to get job opportunities. It was amusing but I wasn’t surprised by anything that had happened, annoyed, yes, frustrated, yes but not surprised. I had expected this and a lot more to be honest.

I wasn’t surprised when I was branded violent for hitting that man. No one seemed to focus on the fact that he had grabbed me in a public place without my permission and all I did was react to the situation. What did surprise me was the fact that he didn’t sue me and neither did the company he worked for. In fact, I got an apology in my email from them. I knew Nathan had something to do with it and I planned to ask him about it whenever he decided to appear.

A knock on my door snapped me out of my thoughts and before I could say anything, Marissa rushed into my office. She looked excited and she started speaking but she was talking too fast for me to understand anything she was saying. I was too shocked by the fact that she was in my office to even try to decipher what she was saying. She avoided me like the plague yesterday as if she was scared I was going to snap.

“Marissa,” I called and she instantly fell silent. “If you want me to understand you then you’re going to have to speak slowly. I didn’t hear a word of what you said.”

“I asked if you had checked your email. There’s an article I sent to you an hour ago and I think you should see it.”

“What is it?” I asked because the last thing I wanted to do was to see myself being dragged by the tabloids. If it was as important as she claimed it was then she could simply tell me.

“I think you should see it yourself. I swear it isn’t about you,” she paused as if those weren’t the right words to use and corrected. “Technically it is but it isn’t bad for you is what I mean. I sent you”

I let out a sigh and decided to check it on my laptop since it was already open in front of me. I clicked on the article link and my brows furrowed because it had nothing to do with me. I looked up at her but she urged me with her eyes to read it and I did. The more I read, the higher my brows rose.

Somehow the media had gotten wind that Mark Vasiliev was under scrutiny for tax evasion and I don’t know how but they got a hold of his search history and found that he was very interested in brutal porn starring- you guessed it, women of color. I was more curious at how they got their hands on that piece of information that I was at the information itself.

There was also evidence from a reliable source that he was famous for bribing and harassing a lot of the models he worked with. The story got worse the more I read and by the time I reached the bottom of the article, I felt about ten years older. I wish I could say I was surprised but there isn’t much that can surprise me nowadays.

“What does Mark Vasiliev have to do with me?” I asked Marissa because as enlightening as this article was, it has nothing to do with me.

“I’m so sorry; I sent you the wrong link. Both articles went live around the same time and I must have sent the wrong one,” she explained. “What I meant to send was an article that contained the original recording of what you said to Nathan. Nathan’s team also released a statement saying that the person responsible had been fired.”

I allowed the words to settle in my ears but I couldn’t brush off what she said earlier about both articles going live around the same time. I didn’t know if I was reading too much into it but I couldn’t help but believe that they had something to do with each other.

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