I reciprocate the smiles left and right, only greeting everybody in passing as I make my way over to my old desk at the far end of the space. My face sinks when I see the person I was hoping to avoid.
Brandon doesn't smile at me, but he does get up from his seat when I reach my desk. He walks around the table, obnoxiously leaning against my former work space and crossing his arms in front of his chest. He looks at me with a smug smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He looks as if he's getting ready to interrogate me.
"Long time no see," he says. "You pretty much disappeared into thin air. Care to tell me what happened?"
I roll my eyes at him. "No. Not really."
My eyes scan the desk, trying to figure out how much stuff I have to take with me and how much of the piles of notes and magazines I collected from my research can be thrown away. A treacherous grin appears on my face when I see the agency's small booklet on top of one of the piles. It makes sense, since this was the last project I worked on before...
"Are you sure?" Brandon probes, running his fingers through his blond hair. It has gotten significantly longer since I last saw him, making him look even more like a pretty surfer boy, minus the tan.
"Because there are rumors," he adds. "Not sure, but wouldn’t you rather clear those up?"
I sit down on my desk chair and am just about to open one of the drawers when his words make me stop mid-motion. I tried to ignore him and evade eye contact, hoping he'd just leave me alone.
The obnoxious grin tells me enough to know that he couldn't be happier about earning back my attention just now.
"Rumors are always more exciting than the truth," I tell him. "I wouldn't get my hopes up if I was you."
He snorts disparagingly. "So, you don't even want to know what's being said about you?"
He's just trying to intimidate me, I know that. I've been to a few public outings with Jared, so it's unlikely that no one here has seen a picture of me hanging on to Jared's arm as his girlfriend. Our story even included the truth about my career background, so there's no big secret about me working previously as a journalist.
But all anyone could derive from these pictures or the very few words that have been written about me is the fact that I'm Jared's girlfriend. A girlfriend who put a hold on her own career to support her boyfriend. Nothing wrong with that.
I shake my head. "No, I don't. You must be bored out of your mind if rumors about me excite you."
"You're fucking Jared King," he says, spitting the words out of his mouth with disgust. "That handsome business mogul. A sales prodigy, they call him. Getting ready for his next big step. He's trying to run for Congress, isn't he?"
So he has seen the pictures and the reports.
"So that's your juicy rumor? That I'm dating Jared? Everyone with access to the internet or a local newspaper knows that," I say, shrugging as I try to appear unimpressed. "Big deal. And since when is it any of your business who I'm dating?"
My heart is racing, but I sure as hell hope that it's not apparent to him. I don't want him to know how much this conversation unsettles me. I don't want to talk about Jared or being with him, not here, and especially not with him.
Brandon glares at me, pressing his lips together and scanning our surroundings. I noticed there were some eyes on us, people turning their heads, probably trying to eavesdrop on our conversation. Some of the faces are new to me, people who weren’t working here a few months ago.
"Dating, huh?" Brandon hisses, his face grimacing with disgust. "How stupid do you think I am?"
I cast him a quizzical look. What the hell is he trying to insinuate?
"Tell me one thing, Ann. Whatever happened to that last story you were working on before you left all of a sudden?"
My heart almost stops. I feel the color being drained from my face as I turn pale.
Why is he asking about that story? There is nothing to ask about. I finished the article, I sold the interview I conducted with Belinda Barry - and that was it.
"What do you mean 'what happened to it?’ I wrote it, I sold it. It got published in the Daily Liberty a few weeks ago. End of story," I reply, trying to mask the fact that I'm horrified and confused by his question.
Brandon shakes his head.
"Fucking liar," he hisses at me.
"I'm not ly-"
"You're his whore, aren't you?" he barks at me. "Because that's the rumor that's been going around! I heard that you did a little more than just interview that madam at the escort agency. You signed up to sell yourself to him and become his private whore. And that's why you no longer work here. True, or false?!"
He raises his voice to a level that makes it impossible for bystanders to ignore us. The entire room is now looking at us, eyes wide and mouths gaping.
I stare up at Brandon in horrified disgust.
"You're ridiculous!" I yell back at him. "How fucking petty can you be? Are you seriously spreading disgusting rumors like that about me because of your damn hurt ego?"
"True or false, Ann?!"
Fuck. I can't take this. Tears are threatening to run down my face. Again. Since when have I become such a crybaby? How can I allow him to hold such power over me?
Everybody is staring at me, most of all, Brandon, who's fixating on me with an evil grin, feeling superior as he humiliates me in front of the entire office.
I need to get out of here.
"You're a pathetic asshole, you know that?" I hiss at him, before jumping up from my seat and darting away, before I can give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
"You still need to clean out your desk, whore!"
I don't stop. I don't even look back for one second, but I do have a reply for him before heading out the door.
"Fuck you, Brandon!"
Chapter Thirty-One
Jared
Things are going great in every aspect. Of course, I can't trust the current ease with which everything seems to be developing in my favor.
Button looks perfectly chic and smart in her new outfit, a pencil-shaped dress in a vibrant purple that hugs her frame without showing too much skin, looking perfectly tame and conservative, but so fucking hot at the same time.
I wanted to yank it up and bend her over to have my way with her when she came down the stairs, casting me a coy smile and winking seductively. She knows how to carry herself in a way that drives me insane, and she seeks to gain my attention in any way possible lately. She's been deliberately misbehaving, literally asking for punishments. I know there's one thing she seeks the most: my hand clutched around her throat. I've never had a submissive who got off on being choked as much as she does.
But as much as I enjoy it, too, I can't follow either of our desires as much as I'd like. I have to be careful. She bruises too easily and she cannot be seen with any marks on her skin.
It would ruin everything.
The dirt that has been spread about me years ago may have been proven false and dismissed, but even then, a bad rumor always leaves its stain on you. Even the smallest hint could bring me down. I'm not running against any particularly strong or powerful opponent, but even without such opposition, there's always someone out there who wants to hurt a man like me. Journalists, mostly. That sneaky brand of media whose entire profession is focused on snooping around and getting their noses into things they have no business in.