Page 29 of Between the Lines

“My journey isn’t heroic,” I mutter. My hand closes around the paper and napkin still in my hand, bundling it all up into a tight ball.

For years, the only thing I’ve fought for is privacy. For me, my mother, and my little sister. Privacy that my dad didn’t afford us when he blew up our entire lives and left us behind.

And here I am, going against just that so I can expand Titan Media. The painful irony of that isn’t lost on me.

I don’t have time for anything else. No space for anything else. Even if the woman by my side is making me want to rethink that.

“Oh?” Charlotte asks. “I would have thought that’s the narrative you wanted. You know, with… the company’s history.”

Yeah.

That’s the narrative the Board wants. They want me to expose my father’s lies and secrets, tell a sob story of how I rescued a business in dire straits, and cleanse the public image of both the studio and the founding family.

The sun is warm on my face. The sounds of the city are loud, and I wish I could ignore them. That there would be the blessed silence of my childhood instead, or of evenings by the ocean and hikes in the mountains.

Charlotte breaks the silence first. “We don’t have to talk about that right away. If you don’t want to.”

I look at her. “Would you want to talk about the greatest shame of your life?”

Her gaze turns flinty. She swallows hard before replying. “No. I don’t usually talk about mine. Even if I’m not the one writing a memoir about myself. You must have had goals with this, right? Rehabilitating your public image? Focus on that, and we’ll get through the hard parts.”

My goal is to get the Board to approve my billion-dollar purchase. The memoir is a painful means to an end.

I nod down to her half-eaten food instead. “We’re almost out of time. You should finish your taco.”

She glances down at it. “You can be pretty demanding sometimes, you know. And good at evading questions.”

The words slip out of her, a trace of annoyance in her tone. I don’t think these are words she wanted to say. They don’t belongin her normally composed, professional dialogue of interviewee and interviewer.

A smile tugs at my lips. “This isn’t my first interview.”

“I’m onyourside,” she says. “We both want a truly great book out of this.”

“What’s next on our schedule together?”

She blinks. “Next Monday, during your workout. I’ll be in your home gym.”

That makes me smile. “You’ll be watching me work out?”

“I’ll be asking you questions and taking notes,” she answers sharply.

“Work out with me,” I say with a shrug. “There’s space for two.”

“Why does it feel like you’re less interested inactuallyletting me get work done?”

“I don’t know, Charlotte. Why does it?”

She narrows her eyes at me, and damn it, I love getting her annoyed. “We shook on being professional.”

“I’m nothing if not professional,” I say. “I haven’t mentioned Utah once.”

“You just did!”

“Oh, did I?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going to show up with a giant list of questions, and I’m not going to take any diversions or misdirections.”

“Not even if I work out shirtless?” I ask her, grinning. My headache is gone. It might be the Advil, but I think it’s her.

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