I follow her to my kitchen and throw my purse on the counter as she pulls something up on her phone. My stomach has already decided whatever it is must be bad, and it’s gurgling with dread when she turns the screen for me to see the headline in bold:
SNC CONTINUES HISTORY OF NEPOTISM BY GIVING PRIMETIME SHOW TO CEO’S LATEST GIRLFRIEND.
I drop the phone and just make it before throwing up in the kitchen sink.
The headlines are more of the same as I scroll through Shiloh’s phone. I can’t find a single one that doesn’t attach some sort of romantic label to me and Hadrian. Most neglect mentioning I’m married at all, which maybe is better, because the few that do talk about Elvis go so far as to call me an outright adulterer.
The worst quote comes from Hadrian’s cousin Hunter, the one he and André had been worried about. I read it aloud to Shiloh, even though she’s already seen it. “‘When we elected Hadrian to the position of CEO, we never expected that he would hand out serious news positions to whores. The board will definitely be discussing this.’ They call me a whore. A whore!”
“Can people even say that anymore? Someone’s going to cancel him.”
I shake my head as tears collect at the corners of my eyes. “Seymours don’t get canceled.”
“Everyone gets canceled. They canceled the queen before she died.”
“It won’t hurt him, I mean. He won’t feel the impact at all.”
I, on the other hand, have been branded. This is the first imp**ssion most of the nation has of me, and it can never be undone.
The tears start in earnest. And I’m not even a crier.
“Don’t do that, don’t do that.” Shiloh swipes her phone from my hand, as if I might keep looking and find something worse, then rushes to grab a Kleenex box from the living room.
“All of that work, and it’s all pointless.” I snatch several tissues so I can dab at my eyes and blow my nose. “No one will ever take me seriously. This show is a flop before it’s even started. Maybe I’m getting canceled. Literally.”
I bite my l*p so that I don’t succumb to deeper sobs.
I think it hits me so hard because they aren’t wrong. This new show comes with a significant pay increase. Isn’t that what you call someone who exchanges sex for money? A whore?
“It’s Hadrian’s fault.” Shiloh strokes my tear-w*t hair off my face. “He demanded these games and then left you open to criticism. Note that he’s not getting attacked.”
“Uh, I think the threat from his cousin is pretty concerning.” Honestly, I don’t know. Hunter is one voice. I have no idea whether the rest of the board falls more to his opinions or to Hadrian’s.
“Sure, it’s concerning. He’ll probably be demoted to one of the positions that report to the main CEO. What do they call those at SNC? Oh, right. CEO.” She trades a wad of new tissues for my used ones and throws them in the trash. “There’re like fifty CEO spots at this company, and I guarantee you, if there isn’t a place for him already, they’ll make up a new job. His pay won’t change. He’ll still have a private jet and a billion more dollars at his disposal than you have.”
She’s right, but that doesn’t mean it won’t feel like a loss to Hadrian.
She knows me well enough to be able to read my exp**ssion. “Stop feeling sorry for him! He’s a rich white man. He’s f**king fine.”
“I know he’s fine. But to that end, I’m a married white woman with skills and enough in savings. I’ll be fine too. Besides, I knew what I was getting into when I accepted this deal. I put myself in this position.”
Shiloh gives me a hard stare. “Oh, no, girl. We are not yet ready to move on to being okay with this. We have plenty more bitching to do before we get to that point.”
“Thank God, because I’m really, really upset. A whore, Shiloh. Forever, if you Google Brystin Shaw, that’s what’s going to show up. ‘Hadrian’s whore.’”
It’s even more upsetting to realize that if he were saying those words to me directly, I’d have an O right there on the spot. How can something so degrading and terrible be such a turn-on under the right circumstances? “They should go ahead and call me a bad feminist too. I’m a problem for women everywhere.”
I feel another rush of tears when there’s a heavy knock on the door. Bam, bam, bam.
“f**k, who do you think that is?” I look at the clock. It’s not yet ten thirty. Maybe Elvis forgot his key, but he doesn’t like to disrupt our girls’ brunch so he shouldn’t be home until the afternoon. We have a doorman, but it’s not impossible to get by him. “Do you think the p**ss would already be hunting me down?”
I wonder if people are trying to reach me by phone. “I really need to charge my cell.”
The knock comes again. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
“I’ll see who it is and get rid of them.” Shiloh shoes me off the barstool I’m sitting on. “You go plug in your phone.”
Grateful for someone to take care of me and tell me what to do, I let her go handle the door, and I sl*p into my bedroom to find my charger. I consider changing my clothes while I’m here, since I’m still wearing Hadrian’s clothes, but I only get so far as taking off the ball cap when I realize that whoever was at the door is now in my living room, talking to Shiloh.
And his voice is one I’d recognize now in my sleep.
Pausing to check the mirror (and then acknowledging that there is nothing that can fix how terrible I look), I rush out of my bedroom and directly into Hadrian’s arms.
Well, Hadrian’s arm.
One of them is holding a drink holder, but he holds it to the side, making space for my body, and wr*ps his free arm around me tightly.
“He called me a whore,” I cry into his shoulder. “Did you see? It’s everywhere.”
I can’t see with my face buried in Hadrian’s T-shirt, but Shiloh must rescue the drinks because his other arm soon folds around me as well. “No one cares about his opinion.”
“People respect him. He’s a Seymour.”
“He’s an asshole.” He pauses. “AssHunter?”
I chuckle through my blubbering, which I think was his intended goal. “I’m not ready to laugh, you asshole. I’m too upset.”
His grip around me tightens. “I knew you would be. I saw the news just after you left, so I got myself together and came after you.”
Wow.
Even in despair, the b**terflies still like to flutter. I turn my head so that I can breathe, resting my cheek on his shoulder instead. My eyes meet Shiloh’s.
He came after you, she mouths, excitedly.
I glare at her, afraid Hadrian will see her, but I’m glad she’s starting to understand what this is with him.
Not that I understand it myself.
Still, I’m definitely happy he’s here.
Except then something occurs to me, and I push away from his embrace. “Oh my God, what if you were followed? Did you make it worse?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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