Page 9 of RAKEish

Scott stilled. While he wasn’t a fan of Doc, he had no interest in seeing her in a messy legal battle. “A lawsuit may be bad optics,” he said tactfully. “We wouldn’t want social media to spin it that we are Goliath going after Cinderella.”

“That is a lily-livered statement if ever I’ve heard one,” Frankie snapped, slapping her palms on the table. “Should the threat play out in court, I’m certain our publicity department can spin the narrative in a direction that creates sympathy for us. For you.”

Scott remained mute. What had he been thinking insinuating Frankie was wrong? The last thing he wanted was for Dragon Lady to go after his nemesis just to prove she was right.

“If we’re going to threaten lawsuits,” Ziggy said, jumping into the mix, “I would think we’d hold off and see if her prediction about the future viability of his penis pans out.”

Scott cursed under his breath.

“This is the first I’ve heard about this,” Frankie said. “Explain?”

Ziggy grinned like the Cheshire Cat that Scott had had as a child. “Dr. Stone told Scott she’d had a nightmare about him. When he asked her what it was, she told him she couldn’t reveal the content of it because she’d not yet had breakfast. And according to her, there’s a superstition that when one reveals a nightmare before eating breakfast, the nightmare comes true. But our boy Scott insisted she tell him anyway.”

“Dear God, could you be any slower getting to the damn penis point,” Frankie said.

“Her nightmare was that his dick fell off, and he sprinted to her door asking for help to get it reattached.”

“Fuck,” Frankie muttered, giving Scott a look of horror. “Keep me abreast as to the status of your penis, so I can keep legal informed.”

This caused laughter all around.

“Please do, Scott,” Annie said. “We all want to know the minute it happens. There might even be a pool going on the exact date.”

Scott smiled good naturedly at his colleagues, while worried for Doc. The last person he’d want to have on his bad side was Frankie Peterson. “I can assure you my cock is not in danger of falling off, and Doc’s views of me are skewed due to the fact she can’t attract men. No one takes her I-hate-Scott game seriously. There is no need for a lawsuit…of any type.” Animosity aside, he felt bad for the woman who’d been weirdly passed over solely on her looks, which weren’t bad if you liked the earthy girl-next-door type. Not that beauty was everything, but it was a lot. Or at least it was in the beauty industry.

“If social media is anything to go by, and it is,” Isabella said. “Why don’t we lean into the whole fight between Lux and Scott? The last I checked, people are taking sides. There’s Team Doc. And Team Penis—I mean Prince.” She paused and winked at Scott. “While the memes concerning Dr. Stone are not flattering, right before I walked into the meeting, Team Doc was winning by a small margin as being on the right side of their conflict.”

“She’s winning?” Scott had to sit with that for a moment. He wasn’t used to losing. “People believe my column is rubbish?” Was he letting Mum down with his attempt at honoring her love of writing? Would she be ashamed?

“Her students love her,” Isabella told Scott. “They are going all in on her behalf.”

“Interesting,” Scott muttered. “The woman too uptight to smile in her profile picture is loved by her students.”

“She is,” Isabella said. “I’d be happy to dedicate some time on our Naked Runway podcast toward the hate battle between the two of you to help tip the polls in your favor.”

“You want to purposefully fan the flames of a social media dogfight?” The idea made Scott aghast.

“I do love the idea of a good social media war,” Frankie mused. “It could assist in our defamation lawsuit.”

“But that’s not what—”

“Scott,” Frankie said, interrupting Isabella’s rebuttal, “you will do a few posts defending your column and asking Dr. Stone to change her mind about you.”

“How exactly do you suggest I make that miracle happen? Doc’s opinion of me lives in quicksand. If it moves at all, it will be down, never up.”

“That’s what she said,” Ziggy said into his hand, pretending to cough.

“Must I really explain?” Frankie asked.

Scott nodded. “I think you must.”

Frankie rolled her eyes as if to say it was lonely being the only intelligent one among them. “Of course she won’t change her mind. Instead, she’ll stupidly double down, giving legal plenty of evidence with which to sue her for defamation.”

He had to get Frankie off this whole idea of suing Doc. “What if the social media blitz ends up with me as the victor? Will you drop the threat of a lawsuit at that time?”

“You will not win, because our dear Isabella will inevitably fail in her endeavor to fix things.”

A loud scoffing noise erupted from Isabella. “Says who?”

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